Disclaimer: I still don't own Skins, nor will I sadly ever. However spurred on by a few delightful comments from readers, I'll chance another trifle.
This one is more backstory and characterisation. Also setting up the framework for things to come.
Monday morning came in through the window before my alarm went off.
I stirred slowly and groaned as my eyes fluttered open, coming to rest on the clock on my nightstand. Seven twenty four on the dial.
Pushing the covers off my tired limbs, I reached vertical and flicked off the alarm. My hands reached automatically for the hem of my shirt. I smiled to myself when I saw the words 'Every day is Earth Day' upside down emblazoned across my chest. Hearing the clattering of pots and pans downstairs, I quickly grabbed my towel and headed to the shower.
As I stood under the warm jet, I let my mind drift in and out between memories of the day before and thoughts of the mundane work day ahead.
When I got downstairs I found Thomas standing in the middle of the kitchen with a whisk in one hand and an empty eggshell in the other.
"Ah good, I am glad to see you are awake Naomi. I am making 'pain perdu,' would you like some?"
"Love some, I'm starving!" I chirped and set about setting the table for three.
Pandora came padding down the stairs a moment later and sidled up to Thomas with a very large yawn. He kissed the top of her head and wrapped the arm he wasn't using to flip the French toast with a spatula around her waist.
The three of us tucked in to a sizeable breakfast which made up in quantity for the lack of a dinner the night before. After breakfast Thomas told Pandora who had the morning off that she could stay at our place.
"Fantastic! Thanks Thommo. I could do with a shower and a nap before my yoga class this afternoon." She bounced back up the stairs gleefully, leaving Thomas and I to gather his equipment and load it into my car.
I gave Thomas a lift to Brandon Hill Nature Park and dropped him off in the parking lot of the hospital where the other Landscape Gardeners were meeting to head to the day's work site.
"Thank you Naomi. You have a good day now. Do not let Kieran make you stay behind, tell him he is not paying you enough for that."
I smiled at him and slipped the car into reverse. "Yeah I should explain to him again that 'family rates' doesn't mean you can take advantage of your employees. I'll meet you back here at five thirty, ok?"
My friend nodded as I pulled out of the parking spot and drove off in the direction of the paper.
The first half of the day could not have gone any slower. The first two hours were spent reading through letters to the editor in search of salient publishable ones. The tragic paucity of opinion pieces that week left our allocated pages with precious little material to fill them. Whenever this happened, Kieran had his younger staff writers like me write up short columns about the goings on of the week around Bristol. Kieran was kind enough to ask me to cover Eco-Future and gave me a 3pm deadline for my 400 words.
I sent him my first draft by email at 1pm and went down the street to grab some lunch while he read through it. When I got back 40 minutes later there was an email waiting for me in my inbox.
From: Kieran O'Hanlon [mailto:.com]
Sent: Monday, 10 October 2011 1:29 PM
To: Naomi Campbell
Subject: Re. Eco-Future Column Draft 1
Blondie,
Perhaps I did not make my instructions clear when I assigned you this one day festival.
No offense but I will need a little bit more on the stalls and the greenie shit and a little less on 'The Odd Sorts', fantastic as they do seem.
You have an hour for a re-write. Think you can manage?
Best Regards,
The grumpy old bastard from the office down the hall.
I finished reading his email and unfurrowed my brow, fishing my draft out of the recent documents to read through it again. Shit, he was right!
I fired off a quick reply assuring him I'd get it done and set about fixing my blunder.
Fifty minutes later, just as I proof read my last sentence and saved the file before attaching it to a second email, my phone rang.
"Naomi" came Lara's friendly voice through the receiver "It's Effy, she promised she'd be quick."
"Sure, thanks. You can put her through."
Effy's usual monosyllables I had become used to interpreting were replaced by a higher pitched outburst as her words came barrelling down the line.
"Naoms! Are you sitting down?"
"I'm at work Eff, at my desk, it's ok you can talk."
"The rep..." she said "from the Arnolfini..." she paused for a second, getting her thoughts in order. "At Eco-Future yesterday, after you left and I went to help Freddie load the van. She was talking to Emily the singer about their set. It turns out she knows their drummer, Sid. Anyway, she recognised me from the poetry slam in the creative tent that afternoon and she asked if I had any written work because she's organising a reading with all young local artists and she needed to fill a spot. So I sent her some stuff this morning and she just called back. I'm in Naoms, I'm in!"
It took me a few moments to make sense of her tirade "Wow! Eff, that's great! When is it?"
The direct and to the point Effy I had known since college was back in a flash "Oh... right... this Thursday 8pm. See you then." and she hung up the phone.
I hung up my end and hit send on the email I had waiting, satisfied with my proof-read. I don't think I could have focussed that much longer on the re-write anyway. The only coherent thought running through my mind in that moment was the incidental information contained in Effy's news: Her name is Emily.
I busied myself clearing my desk and making a little space on my pin-board for the infamous badge and before long I got a new email from Kieran.
From: Kieran O'Hanlon [mailto:.com]
Sent: Monday, 10 October 2011 3:14 PM
To: Naomi Campbell
Subject: Re. Eco-Future Column Draft 2
Much better! You're a great writer when you're on topic.
Now get your arse down to print and help the boys put this together and make sure they don't fuck it up.
By the way, your mother called me earlier and confirmed dinner at her place tonight at seven.
Tell that lovely chocolate Frenchman and his girlfriend they're invited too.
Best Regards,
Slightly less grumpy old bastard from the office down the hall.
The last two hours of the day were spent helping the guys down at print with the layout and typesetting. This was usually the most tedious part of the day. Today though, I felt like I could deal with this like I did any of my mum's dinner table lectures. It was something that needed to be sat through. I put myself to the task on auto-pilot. After Kieran's crash course when I had started working for him and the graphic design elective mum had wisely suggested I take to diversify my skills at uni, I could practically do this stuff in my sleep. The cognitive side of my brain was way too occupied with other matters anyway.
Once 5pm finally rolled around I was in my car in a flash and off to pick up Thomas from the Nature Park. "Hey Thommo, you hungry?"
Thomas climbed into the passenger seat with a large bag of gardening tools on his lap. "Yes, very much. We spent most of today digging the holes for new London plane trees. They are very big, and I am very tired."
"Well I promise it won't be a late one then, but you're invited over to mum's for one of her extended family vegan feasts. I have to warn you though; it's likely to be tofu scramble or something vomitous like that."
"I do not mind. Your mother is very nice. And besides, it might not taste as bad as some of your cooking." He replied, nudging me softly with his elbow as we took off.
Instead of rising to the bait, I figured whatever my mother's cuisine had in store for us tonight would serve aptly as his punishment and sheathed my tongue. Besides, I couldn't really fight him on that one. Much as I like to eat, the only thing I can really make with any degree of success is eggs.
In my years spent at university I survived mostly on cafeteria food and two minute noodles, like many students worthy of the name. And mum was not exactly the Stepford wife homemaker type, likely to set time aside to teach her daughter to cook in between rallies for same sex marriage and protests against live animal export. She had been too busy raising me as a single parent after my dad had fucked off. Taking on the duties of two parents on top of her neurotic activist schedule, I'd say she didn't do too badly.
We got to mum's place twenty minutes late because we had to swing by Pandora's to pick up the right barrettes to match her carefully chosen scrunchie for the occasion. It seems when we had come home and announced that she was invited to my mother's for a vegan dinner, she had decided this was a momentous occasion which warranted a concerted effort in attire. I suppose, with Thomas having become like a brother to me after 3 years of cohabitation and his family being back in Congo, Gina was the closest thing to an adopted mother figure he had in Bristol. Somewhere in Pandora's mind, this meant she had to impress.
As usual, we had obliged her kooky naiveté because that was what made her so charming. Although I did stop to wonder if anyone but Thomas could handle her in such large quantities as he did, almost 24/7, the boy truly had the patience of a saint.
When we walked across the threshold, we were greeted by a flustered Kieran and the smell of something burning. He opened the door for us and ushered us inside before bolting back to the kitchen. "Make yourselves at home kids!" he threw over his shoulder "won't be a minute."
I could hear mum fussing about and telling Kieran he wasn't helping and eventually he re-emerged into the living room with a large bottle of whisky and four glasses. "Too many cooks, eh?" he sighed, pouring a generous serving into each glass and tossing back his first without waiting. He filled that one up again and lifted it to us for a toast. We mirrored his actions and relaxed into casual chatter until mum came in from the kitchen in a hemp apron. "Dinner is served" she chimed.
Thomas leaped up and gave her the pot of crocuses we had stopped for at his boss' nursery.
"Oh bless you Thomas, you're so thoughtful. And you know how I feel about cut flowers don't you dear."
"Yes mum we all know." I interrupted, giving her a kiss "but we should go eat now before dinner is both burnt and cold."
Dinner was a nice distraction. It turned out mum had made nut loaf and, once the burnt edges had been trimmed off, it didn't taste too bad. Thomas and Pandora were their usual affectionate selves. Mum and Kieran had long since relaxed into a comfortable and well choreographed routine, when there wasn't an impending nut-loaf-emergency at hand that is.
"So Naomi Darling, what did you think of yesterday?" asked mum after sufficient banter about work and the weather.
"It was great!" I caught myself as the words came out of my mouth and she grinned "It was though. I'm proud of you mum."
"Effy told me today you went to watch her boyfriend's band after you left us. They must have been good; you seemed quite chirpy when you got back."
Kieran jumped in before I could diffuse that one "Oh yeah, she was right keen on them. Bit too keen even maybe. Asked her to give me a column on Eco-Future and she goes and hands me a puff piece for 'The Odd Sorts' doesn't she! I think missy 'ere might have a thing for someone in the band."
"Of course I don't! Freddie's with Effy and their drummer is taken too. Besides they're not my type." And can we please change the topic of conversation now... I thought to myself.
"'S'all right love, I was just being a twat. Shame I'm not running the Arts and Entertainment section though, was a good band review. Anyway, who's up for dessert? I've slaved long minutes over the biscuit shelf at Tesco's. " He reached for the cupboard next to the fridge "Naomi, Garibaldis."
He tossed me the packet. "Now Pandora, something tells me you're more of a chocolate fiend, am I right?" a packet of Oreos landed on the table between her and Thomas.
Panda's eyes widened with glee and she tore into the packet, pushing two full biscuits into her mouth at once.
When we had finished eating, Pandora – still keen to make a good impression – offered to help mum with the dishes while Kieran and I went outside for a smoke. Thomas joined us and sat on the stoop, pulling weeds and dead leaves from the shrubs absentmindedly. I could hear the sound of Pandora's laughs drifting over to us and a look at my friend's face told me he was glad things were going so smoothly.
"So Naomi, you mentioned Effy has a poetry reading coming up this week?" Kieran queried, pushing out a plume of smoke that I saw backlit against the yellow door in the late evening darkness.
"Yeah Thursday... why is that? Did you want to come?"
"Oh Jesus no! I wouldn't want to intrude. Besides I'm more of a prose man meself. But it just so happens that maybe I had a word with Angie in Arts and Entertainment this evening, while you were at print, and I may have shot her your first draft."
Thomas giggled audibly when he worked out where this conversation was headed.
"So she and I were wondering if you might be able to put together a short article on this 'Poet's society' thingy. Only 1200 words, due Friday by 3 for Saturday's issue, but it's more than our impromptu columns and with the advanced notice I think you might manage to stay on topic this time." I choked back the last puff of smoke and threw my cigarette to the ground, unsure of how to respond.
To be honest I wasn't sure I was up to it. The short columns were a safe refuge from getting too invested in the subject. Economy of words was my bastion of defense against a propensity to fly into opinionated rants like my mother's. Although I seemed to have thrown objectivity to the wind anyway with my first draft of today's column and Kieran didn't seem to think the result was so bad. And I was sure even 'who gives a fuck what the world thinks' Effy wouldn't mind the reading being covered by someone she knew and trusted.
I was called out of my internal deliberations by Thomas' shoe kicking against mine to prompt me to respond. He smiled encouragingly up at me and I returned my gaze to Kieran.
"Ok I'll do it." I resolved out loud.