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Minnie’s phone started ringing from her bag. She picked it up and showed Leila the screen – Quinn was calling her.
‘Do you want to answer it?’ Leila asked.
‘No.’ Minnie shook her head, ‘I’m going to try to be more Leila,’ she said, hanging up the call.
They chatted all afternoon, catching up on all they had missed in each other’s lives. Leila loved her new job at the fashion start-up, but had a new nemesis – a colleague who kept trying to outdo her in the fashion stakes. Minnie told Leila all about working at the catering firm, about living back at home with the endless soundtrack of clocks, and how Lucky kept trying to murder her in her sleep.
The afternoon evaporated and when Ian came home, they were still on the sofa eating Pringles with salsa, cradling large glasses of Pinot Grigio.
‘Ah,’ he said in a deep drawling voice, ‘the prodigal Player One returns. How you getting on out there, Han Solo?’
‘It’s lonely,’ Minnie sighed, getting up to give Ian a hug, ‘but I’m learning all sorts of things about myself.’ She turned to Leila with bulging eyes and a taut grin.
‘Right, I have to pee, bladder the size of a harvest mouse,’ said Leila, jumping up and walking in a comedy cross-legged waddle towards the bathroom.
Minnie took the opportunity to quiz Ian.
‘You haven’t asked her yet?’ she hissed.
‘I was waiting for you. I need you to sort out all the weird shit you said she wanted,’ Ian mumbled, hands plunged into his tracksuit bottom pockets.
‘I’m on it, I promise. I’m sorry, things have been—’
‘I get it, you were off doing a bonus level.’
13 June 2020
‘Is she going to know it’s me?’ said Ian from beneath a heavy domed metal helmet. Fleur’s prop contact had come up trumps.
‘Who else would it be, you goon,’ said Minnie, as she made the final adjustments to his body armour. The plates were specially layered so the wearer could ride a horse. The prop guy said it had been used inGame of Thronesby the Lannister army.
The sky over Hyde Park was cornflower blue. Buttercups and daisies peppered the lawn and regal swans preened themselves around the edge of the reservoir. It looked like an idyllic children’s book illustration – the perfect place for a proposal. The whole No Hard Fillings gang had come back together to put Minnie’s plan into action. Minnie was dressed as a mermaid with a long sparkling green tail and a huge wig of tumbling red curls weaved through with glittery silver seaweed. She wore a sheer body suit on her top half with a coconut bra that clonked when she moved. She hadn’t planned on being a mermaid, but when she’d seen the choice of costumes, she’d decided this was her best bet. At least Leila would recognise her in this outfit.
Surprisingly, Fleur had come good on all her contacts. An animatronics specialist had brought them an array of singing animals from the last movie he had worked on,The Singing Sheep of Pontyre Creek. It was a bit sheep heavy for Minnie’sliking; Leila had not specifically mentioned sheep in her fantasy. She’d imagined singing woodland animals like they had in Disney cartoons, but no doubt Disney had sheep in there somewhere and Minnie wasn’t going to complain, especially when she saw the generator that had been brought down especially to power the singing sheep.
The costume contact of Fleur’s at the RSC had roped in half a dozen actors who loved the sound of the plan and the promise of a free picnic. A further thirty people had been rounded up through a crowd-sourcing campaign Fleur had set up online. Minnie wasn’t sure Fleur had been specific enough with the crowd-sourcing brief, because people were dressed as leprechauns, a pineapple and there was even a Tinky Winky and a Po lurking somewhere near the back.
Bev and Minnie had spent all of yesterday preparing the picnic to end all picnics. It had taken longer than Minnie planned because Bev wouldn’t let them buy any food that came in plastic packaging. She’d finally gone along to some rallies and was now evangelical in her quest for a plastic-free world.
Today, Bev was dressed in a fancy-dress costume she had made herself. The outfit comprised of a strange, short green dress that had been ripped around the bottom, some kind of pillow tied around her shoulders, a very unflattering wig that looked to be made from the fur of an old teddy bear (there was a suspiciously bear-like nose above one ear) and make-up that had been done in the dark with too much eyebrow pencil. Minnie couldn’t bring herself to ask whichDisney character Bev was supposed to be, but she was assuming it was some kind of Hungry Caterpillar.
‘Great outfit by the way,’ she said, giving Bev a nod as she arrived with another hamper of food.
‘Thanks, I made it myself. I figure the world has enough fancy dress going straight to landfill. Oh Minnie, did I show you a picture of the T-shirt my daughter made Betty for the march next week?’ Bev said, pulling out her phone. Minnie leant in to see a photo of a toothy three year old with long brown plaits wearing a green T-Shirt that said: ‘MY GRAN’S FANTASTIC, SHE SAYS NO TO SINGLE-USE PLASTIC’.
‘Oh Bev, look how cute she is. I’m so glad you’re getting into all this campaigning.’
Minnie put an arm around Bev to give her a hug, but found herself hugging the pillow Bev had secured around her shoulders.
‘Oh, you’re the hunchback of Notre-Dame!’ she said, finally clicking.
‘Who else would I be?’ said Bev.
Bev set about adding the final hamper to the scene. They had laid out a giant red and white checked picnic blanket with hampers full of pork pies, ham, cheese boards and fruit. It looked like a feast fit for Henry the Eighth (if Henry the Eighth had been friends with a mermaid, the cast of the RSC, Quasimodo, some freaky animatronic sheep and half the Teletubbies).
‘Wow,’ said Bev as they stood next to each other surveying the scene. ‘Not bad, hey?’
Fleur had taken on the role of event coordinator and was ushering people into position, while a sweaty Ian was being manhandled onto a horse dressed as a unicorn by the sturdy horse handler. There were actors dressed as mer-people, elves, a snowman and a dancing hedgehog in a tutu. Minnie frowned: where had the dancing hedgehog come from?
