Begin Again | ongoing - Chapter 3: Chapter 3
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They leave the cosy confines of the coffee shop at ten past one, the night pitch black except for the blink-fizz-blink of a streetlight and the glow of the cafe behind them, and it's so cold that Sunny yells, "Fuck, it's so fucking cold!"
Percolatte is kept toasty warm in the winter, an enticing cocoon that lures people off the streets and away from the ice that blows off the frigid North Sea, so the shock of the February wind is like sandpaper to Sunny's soft cheeks; she and Ravi huddle together as they walk to the end of Main Street, away from the dark, rugged threat of the sea at night and towards the bus that will take them to the street they share. Her flat is at the top of one of the first buildings; Ravi's is at the bottom of one of the last. They didn't plan to live so close to each other but Sunny wouldn't have it any other way.
"Your coat is shit," he says. "You need a new coat, Sunny, I think this thing had seen better days when you bought it."
She wraps the thin flannel thing around herself tighter and vows to invest in something that will last, and she grips Ravi's arm as they walk with their heads bowed towards the stop that services the number 19. It's only a few minutes away but it feels like forever when the wind punches them back and the night sucks up the light, and Sunny is so glad that Ravi came to the cafe tonight, that he comes so many nights under the guise of working when she's fairly certain he's only there to escort her home.
"You're a good friend," she says, internally groaning at how flat her words sound. She has never been good at expressing her thoughts and feelings. Sometimes she wishes she could give people a key to her mind so they can unlock her brain and search through it for themselves. That would be so much easier. "You're the best, really." And then, putting a little Tina into it, she belts off key and too loud, "You're simply the best!"
Someone yells at her to shut up but it isn't Ravi so she doesn't care. Ravi's grinning. Singing random lines of favourite songs at each other has become a form of communication that has leaked into Sunny's day to day life. Ever since Britney Spears' debut album came out last month, which Sunny has spent an inordinate amount of time listening to, she will sometimes find herself singing hit me baby one more time to the ketchup bottle as she smacks it for the last of the sauce.
In a low voice, lower than comes naturally to him, Ravi sings back, "Better than all the rest." His voice cracks on the last word and they laugh, cold cheeks pressed together. He tugs on a pin straight lock of Sunny's mousy hair and curls it around his finger like a pet, until she pats his hand away and tucks the hair behind her ear, now so red from the winter chill that it forms a siren with the blue of her fingertips.
Neither of them have gloves. Both have frozen fingers that they twine together, swinging their hands between them as they strut down the street at a speed that is almost a jog because every moment they're not on a bus is a moment closer to hypothermia. Ravi's right – Sunny's coat really is shit and she can't stop shivering, her teeth chattering so hard it sounds like the enamel could crack.
The bus stop is at the end of the road. Sunny pulls out her purse, digging out a handful of change that makes up today's tips to find the right combination of coins for the bus, as they come up to the strange little house in the middle of a terrace with the wishing well outside the front door – or, as locals call it, The Witching Well. Rumour has it, the elderly couple who lives there are witches. Intellectually, Sunny knows that's rubbish as she has met both Astrid Aarrestad and Celeste Cholmondeley-Parker, and while they both have a sense of style reminiscent of the lovechild of a witch and a hippy, all long flowing clothes and long grey hair, they are perfectly normal women. Well. They're a bit strange. But they're not witches. Just queer elders who keep to themselves.
"Maybe," Ravi says, "we could borrow Delilah's computer and make you a dating profile. If anyone can find you a match, it'll be match dot com."
Sunny huffs, conjuring up that episode of Friends where Chandler did the same. "Dude, how many times do I have to tell you? I don't want to meet some stranger on the internet. That's weird. They could be anyone."
"I'm trying to help." He holds up his hands and pouts and Sunny pinches his cheek, cupping her change in the other hand.
"I know," she says, "but that's not what I want." She sighs. "I don't want to date. I want to wake up with a girlfriend. Like, boom"—she snaps her fingers—"here you go, here's a girl who loves you for who you are and congratulations! You got to skip the dating!"
With that, she trips on a loose paving stone and her handful of change flies right out of her palm. Right into the wishing well.
"Fuck!" She slams into the railing and grips the bricked edge to peer down but it's so dark outside, she can't even see the water level below. "That was, like, five quid's worth of tips!"
"That's the universe telling you to get your head out of fantasy land."
"That's the universe telling me I can't afford the bus," she grumbles, picking up a couple of five pence pieces that landed on the pavement. "Have you got 50p?"
He digs in his pocket and presses a coin into her hand.
"Thanks. Fuck's sake. I bet the witches get rich off all the money people throw in there," she says, and then mentally scolds herself for calling them that. They're not witches, Sunny, she tells herself, they're old lesbians. They are your future.
"Good idea, really. Stick a wishing well in your front garden and reap the rewards." He chuckles as he digs out a couple of coppers and before throwing them in, he says, "I wanna make it to 2000 without the world exploding."
There's a light plip as his coins hit the water and Sunny scowls at him. "You believe in Y2K?"
He shrugs. "I don't have a reason not to. It's unprecedented. Computers are too dumb to cope with a new millennium." He stops and digs out a pencil and a folded notebook. "Oh my god, new song alert."
Sunny rolls her eyes at him and rolls the coins in her hand. They make it to the bus stop just in time, after she has to tug Ravi along – he can write his song on the bus, after all – and she closes her eyes for the ten-minute ride as he scribbles away next to her. When an idea strikes Ravi, he can't rest until he has got it out of his system, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes he's lost to the world for hours.
By the time they've got to their stop and gone their separate ways and Sunny has climbed the three flights to her flat, she's too tired to care about the lost tips anymore. She fumbles for her keys and pours herself through the door at bang on one thirty, so exhausted that she's not sure she can make it to her bedroom, only to find her flatmate getting dolled up as though the night is just beginning.
Like the start of all good friendships, Sunny and Fenfen were thrown together through no choice of their own. Fresh out of university and fresh into a new crisis about her life's direction, Sunny picked up the local newspaper and rang the number on every single advert that listed a flat for rent, or someone in need of a flatmate. She visited no fewer than twelve properties and she tried to close the deal with each and every one she tried, but something always fell through. Until this one. The ad in the paper said that there was one room to let in a cosy sea-view flat. Sunny and Fenfen both applied, and the owner decided to move in with her boyfriend and sublet the entire place to both of them instead.
So Sunny found herself with an outrageous roommate who soon became one of her favourite people (after she spent a good couple of weeks being terrified of Fenfen, who does not allow new people a grace period in which to warm up to her), and she is so glad those other twelve places didn't work out, because she can't imagine living with anyone else.
"Hey there, sweet cheeks," Fenfen says, blowing a kiss halfway through applying bright red lipstick. There's a perfectly good mirror in her room but she's using the shiny yet slightly distorted surface of the toaster to check her make-up.
"Hi, Fen," Sunny says through a yawn that stretches her mouth as wide as a black hole. "You going out?"
Fenfen pouts her painted lips at the toaster. It's time to invest in a kitchen mirror, Sunny reckons, seeing as they spend most of their time there. "Just got in."
"And ... you're putting on your bedtime make-up?"
She barks a laugh. Her laugh always comes as a surprise – she's so elegant and willowy and sexy and yet her laugh is like a dog with a bone in its throat – and it never fails to make Sunny smile.
"I was at Spoons with the girls but it shut, like, half an hour ago," she says, eyes wide as she touches up her mascara, "so we're heading to After Party, go get our boogie on." She wiggles her hips and swings her mane of silky black hair over her shoulder, using her little finger to correct the corners of her lips. "Want to join?"
"God, no," Sunny says, collapsing onto the sofa. "I've been getting my barista boogie on for eight hours, I'm ready to crash."
"Long day, huh?"
"Long life." Her eyes close of their own volition and she sinks into the cushions, appreciating a waft of the pretty scent of Fenfen's perfume, if a scent can be pretty. It makes her think of a wildflower meadow in spring, gentle notes of iris and rhododendron carrying on a breeze. "You smell amazing."
"Cheers, Tenny!"
She's the only person who calls Sunny that, despite it being a more obvious nickname from Tennyson. A few months into their friendship, Sunny had broken down in the middle of one of her bouts of twentiesitis and Fenfen had sat her down for a confidence boost. When she had said Honey, you're a ten, Sunny had cracked a smile and revealed her real name for the first time. Fenfen had sat there enrapt as Sunny had whipped out her party trick and recited Tithonus, her mother's favourite of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poems, and she had joked that at least Sunny hadn't been named after the poem itself, else she'd be Tit for short. Fenfen has refused to ever call her anything but Tenny from then on, because she likes that they sound like a double act – Fenfen and Tenny; Tenny and Fen.
"Sure you don't want to come?" Fenfen asks as she spritzes more perfume on her wrists and dabs it on her neck, rubbing a little behind her ears. Sunny wishes she was the kind of person to wear perfume but it's a habit she has never formed, and when it comes to curating new habits, she is hopeless. She'd have to set an alarm to remind herself to put it on, and she can't be bothered with that.
She's horizontal now, her face pressed into a cushion that smells like the vinegar she spilt last night, when she grabbed a last-minute fish and chips on the way home. It's gross, but she's too tired to move. "I'm asleep."
"Liar."
"Can't hear you. Sleeping."
"One of these days, I'll get you out." Her heels click on the wooden floorboards until she's standing over Sunny, and she bends over to press her crimson lips to her forehead. Sunny smiles and opens her eyes.
"In your dreams." She yawns again and struggles to sit up, because otherwise she's going to fall asleep here and wake up in a few hours with a cricked neck and a pounding head. It's so easy to fall asleep on a sofa. If only it was so easy in bed. "Get back to me when Black Sands has a queer bar and maybe I'll come with you then."
"I'll keep my eyes peeled." One last sweep of her hair, which brushes the dimple at the small of her back – which is exposed, even though it feels like five degrees out there – and she's ready to go. "See you later!"
"Have fun. No loud sex before at least seven. Mama needs her beauty sleep."
"Ha! We'll see." Fenfen blows another kiss and heads off.
The door clicks shut. Down the hallway is the swish of the door to the stairs and the thud of Fenfen's heels on carpeted steps. A couple of minutes later, squeals of delight and peels of laughter drift through the inexplicably open window as she finds her friends and they link arms to find a way to the club.
Sunny can't think of anything worse than going out at this hour. She doesn't like clubs and she hates being up after two a.m. or before seven, which seem to be Fenfen's witching hours. With a long sigh, she propels herself from the sofa to the bathroom to the bedroom, where she barely manages to get under the covers after making sure all the windows are shut. The sheets are cold. That's one of the worst parts of winter: getting into a cold bed at night, and having to get out of a warm one in the morning.
But Sunny's exhausted and she doesn't care, and tonight it isn't long before she's out cold, snoring into her pillow and dreaming of tomorrow.
Percolatte is kept toasty warm in the winter, an enticing cocoon that lures people off the streets and away from the ice that blows off the frigid North Sea, so the shock of the February wind is like sandpaper to Sunny's soft cheeks; she and Ravi huddle together as they walk to the end of Main Street, away from the dark, rugged threat of the sea at night and towards the bus that will take them to the street they share. Her flat is at the top of one of the first buildings; Ravi's is at the bottom of one of the last. They didn't plan to live so close to each other but Sunny wouldn't have it any other way.
"Your coat is shit," he says. "You need a new coat, Sunny, I think this thing had seen better days when you bought it."
She wraps the thin flannel thing around herself tighter and vows to invest in something that will last, and she grips Ravi's arm as they walk with their heads bowed towards the stop that services the number 19. It's only a few minutes away but it feels like forever when the wind punches them back and the night sucks up the light, and Sunny is so glad that Ravi came to the cafe tonight, that he comes so many nights under the guise of working when she's fairly certain he's only there to escort her home.
"You're a good friend," she says, internally groaning at how flat her words sound. She has never been good at expressing her thoughts and feelings. Sometimes she wishes she could give people a key to her mind so they can unlock her brain and search through it for themselves. That would be so much easier. "You're the best, really." And then, putting a little Tina into it, she belts off key and too loud, "You're simply the best!"
Someone yells at her to shut up but it isn't Ravi so she doesn't care. Ravi's grinning. Singing random lines of favourite songs at each other has become a form of communication that has leaked into Sunny's day to day life. Ever since Britney Spears' debut album came out last month, which Sunny has spent an inordinate amount of time listening to, she will sometimes find herself singing hit me baby one more time to the ketchup bottle as she smacks it for the last of the sauce.
In a low voice, lower than comes naturally to him, Ravi sings back, "Better than all the rest." His voice cracks on the last word and they laugh, cold cheeks pressed together. He tugs on a pin straight lock of Sunny's mousy hair and curls it around his finger like a pet, until she pats his hand away and tucks the hair behind her ear, now so red from the winter chill that it forms a siren with the blue of her fingertips.
Neither of them have gloves. Both have frozen fingers that they twine together, swinging their hands between them as they strut down the street at a speed that is almost a jog because every moment they're not on a bus is a moment closer to hypothermia. Ravi's right – Sunny's coat really is shit and she can't stop shivering, her teeth chattering so hard it sounds like the enamel could crack.
The bus stop is at the end of the road. Sunny pulls out her purse, digging out a handful of change that makes up today's tips to find the right combination of coins for the bus, as they come up to the strange little house in the middle of a terrace with the wishing well outside the front door – or, as locals call it, The Witching Well. Rumour has it, the elderly couple who lives there are witches. Intellectually, Sunny knows that's rubbish as she has met both Astrid Aarrestad and Celeste Cholmondeley-Parker, and while they both have a sense of style reminiscent of the lovechild of a witch and a hippy, all long flowing clothes and long grey hair, they are perfectly normal women. Well. They're a bit strange. But they're not witches. Just queer elders who keep to themselves.
"Maybe," Ravi says, "we could borrow Delilah's computer and make you a dating profile. If anyone can find you a match, it'll be match dot com."
Sunny huffs, conjuring up that episode of Friends where Chandler did the same. "Dude, how many times do I have to tell you? I don't want to meet some stranger on the internet. That's weird. They could be anyone."
"I'm trying to help." He holds up his hands and pouts and Sunny pinches his cheek, cupping her change in the other hand.
"I know," she says, "but that's not what I want." She sighs. "I don't want to date. I want to wake up with a girlfriend. Like, boom"—she snaps her fingers—"here you go, here's a girl who loves you for who you are and congratulations! You got to skip the dating!"
With that, she trips on a loose paving stone and her handful of change flies right out of her palm. Right into the wishing well.
"Fuck!" She slams into the railing and grips the bricked edge to peer down but it's so dark outside, she can't even see the water level below. "That was, like, five quid's worth of tips!"
"That's the universe telling you to get your head out of fantasy land."
"That's the universe telling me I can't afford the bus," she grumbles, picking up a couple of five pence pieces that landed on the pavement. "Have you got 50p?"
He digs in his pocket and presses a coin into her hand.
"Thanks. Fuck's sake. I bet the witches get rich off all the money people throw in there," she says, and then mentally scolds herself for calling them that. They're not witches, Sunny, she tells herself, they're old lesbians. They are your future.
"Good idea, really. Stick a wishing well in your front garden and reap the rewards." He chuckles as he digs out a couple of coppers and before throwing them in, he says, "I wanna make it to 2000 without the world exploding."
There's a light plip as his coins hit the water and Sunny scowls at him. "You believe in Y2K?"
He shrugs. "I don't have a reason not to. It's unprecedented. Computers are too dumb to cope with a new millennium." He stops and digs out a pencil and a folded notebook. "Oh my god, new song alert."
Sunny rolls her eyes at him and rolls the coins in her hand. They make it to the bus stop just in time, after she has to tug Ravi along – he can write his song on the bus, after all – and she closes her eyes for the ten-minute ride as he scribbles away next to her. When an idea strikes Ravi, he can't rest until he has got it out of his system, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes he's lost to the world for hours.
By the time they've got to their stop and gone their separate ways and Sunny has climbed the three flights to her flat, she's too tired to care about the lost tips anymore. She fumbles for her keys and pours herself through the door at bang on one thirty, so exhausted that she's not sure she can make it to her bedroom, only to find her flatmate getting dolled up as though the night is just beginning.
Like the start of all good friendships, Sunny and Fenfen were thrown together through no choice of their own. Fresh out of university and fresh into a new crisis about her life's direction, Sunny picked up the local newspaper and rang the number on every single advert that listed a flat for rent, or someone in need of a flatmate. She visited no fewer than twelve properties and she tried to close the deal with each and every one she tried, but something always fell through. Until this one. The ad in the paper said that there was one room to let in a cosy sea-view flat. Sunny and Fenfen both applied, and the owner decided to move in with her boyfriend and sublet the entire place to both of them instead.
So Sunny found herself with an outrageous roommate who soon became one of her favourite people (after she spent a good couple of weeks being terrified of Fenfen, who does not allow new people a grace period in which to warm up to her), and she is so glad those other twelve places didn't work out, because she can't imagine living with anyone else.
"Hey there, sweet cheeks," Fenfen says, blowing a kiss halfway through applying bright red lipstick. There's a perfectly good mirror in her room but she's using the shiny yet slightly distorted surface of the toaster to check her make-up.
"Hi, Fen," Sunny says through a yawn that stretches her mouth as wide as a black hole. "You going out?"
Fenfen pouts her painted lips at the toaster. It's time to invest in a kitchen mirror, Sunny reckons, seeing as they spend most of their time there. "Just got in."
"And ... you're putting on your bedtime make-up?"
She barks a laugh. Her laugh always comes as a surprise – she's so elegant and willowy and sexy and yet her laugh is like a dog with a bone in its throat – and it never fails to make Sunny smile.
"I was at Spoons with the girls but it shut, like, half an hour ago," she says, eyes wide as she touches up her mascara, "so we're heading to After Party, go get our boogie on." She wiggles her hips and swings her mane of silky black hair over her shoulder, using her little finger to correct the corners of her lips. "Want to join?"
"God, no," Sunny says, collapsing onto the sofa. "I've been getting my barista boogie on for eight hours, I'm ready to crash."
"Long day, huh?"
"Long life." Her eyes close of their own volition and she sinks into the cushions, appreciating a waft of the pretty scent of Fenfen's perfume, if a scent can be pretty. It makes her think of a wildflower meadow in spring, gentle notes of iris and rhododendron carrying on a breeze. "You smell amazing."
"Cheers, Tenny!"
She's the only person who calls Sunny that, despite it being a more obvious nickname from Tennyson. A few months into their friendship, Sunny had broken down in the middle of one of her bouts of twentiesitis and Fenfen had sat her down for a confidence boost. When she had said Honey, you're a ten, Sunny had cracked a smile and revealed her real name for the first time. Fenfen had sat there enrapt as Sunny had whipped out her party trick and recited Tithonus, her mother's favourite of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poems, and she had joked that at least Sunny hadn't been named after the poem itself, else she'd be Tit for short. Fenfen has refused to ever call her anything but Tenny from then on, because she likes that they sound like a double act – Fenfen and Tenny; Tenny and Fen.
"Sure you don't want to come?" Fenfen asks as she spritzes more perfume on her wrists and dabs it on her neck, rubbing a little behind her ears. Sunny wishes she was the kind of person to wear perfume but it's a habit she has never formed, and when it comes to curating new habits, she is hopeless. She'd have to set an alarm to remind herself to put it on, and she can't be bothered with that.
She's horizontal now, her face pressed into a cushion that smells like the vinegar she spilt last night, when she grabbed a last-minute fish and chips on the way home. It's gross, but she's too tired to move. "I'm asleep."
"Liar."
"Can't hear you. Sleeping."
"One of these days, I'll get you out." Her heels click on the wooden floorboards until she's standing over Sunny, and she bends over to press her crimson lips to her forehead. Sunny smiles and opens her eyes.
"In your dreams." She yawns again and struggles to sit up, because otherwise she's going to fall asleep here and wake up in a few hours with a cricked neck and a pounding head. It's so easy to fall asleep on a sofa. If only it was so easy in bed. "Get back to me when Black Sands has a queer bar and maybe I'll come with you then."
"I'll keep my eyes peeled." One last sweep of her hair, which brushes the dimple at the small of her back – which is exposed, even though it feels like five degrees out there – and she's ready to go. "See you later!"
"Have fun. No loud sex before at least seven. Mama needs her beauty sleep."
"Ha! We'll see." Fenfen blows another kiss and heads off.
The door clicks shut. Down the hallway is the swish of the door to the stairs and the thud of Fenfen's heels on carpeted steps. A couple of minutes later, squeals of delight and peels of laughter drift through the inexplicably open window as she finds her friends and they link arms to find a way to the club.
Sunny can't think of anything worse than going out at this hour. She doesn't like clubs and she hates being up after two a.m. or before seven, which seem to be Fenfen's witching hours. With a long sigh, she propels herself from the sofa to the bathroom to the bedroom, where she barely manages to get under the covers after making sure all the windows are shut. The sheets are cold. That's one of the worst parts of winter: getting into a cold bed at night, and having to get out of a warm one in the morning.
But Sunny's exhausted and she doesn't care, and tonight it isn't long before she's out cold, snoring into her pillow and dreaming of tomorrow.
End of Begin Again | ongoing Chapter 3. Continue reading Chapter 4 or return to Begin Again | ongoing book page.