The Little Time We Have

At 1pm, their apartment was cocooned in darkness. The curtains were drawn, letting only the thinnest stands of sunlight through the cracks. All was calm. All was still.

One of Olivia’s arms was flung over the duvet, the other around Katie.

Katie listened to her own heartbeat, wondering if the pigeons had huddled on the pavement outside again. Olivia’s arm was cold against her chest; Olivia’s arm was always cold.

Slowly, slowly, Katie extracted herself, shuffled to the edge of the bed, and stood, stifling first a yawn, then a shiver. Olivia had turned the heating on last night, but the air remained sharp with a subterranean chill.

†

Katie often thought it was the little quirks in a relationship that stood out. Olivia’s apartment, for a start: the basement floor of a Victorian townhouse, hemmed on all sides by high converted warehouses and office blocks. Almost no natural light, almost no natural anything, and always an abundance of rats.

Olivia was fond of rats.

†

Katie fumbled her way to the kitchen, retracing yesterday’s path through the maze of furniture and old books. Their clothes lay scattered on Olivia’s antique rug; Olivia’s underwear hung carelessly off the dresser in the corner, entwined with Katie’s tights.

With care, Katie could almost—almost—find her way around the flat without turning on the lights. Olivia had laughed when Katie tried to demonstrate this one night, and asked why on earth she’d try.

Katie suspected the lights in the flat were maintained purely for her sake—that Olivia spent her free time ambling around in the pitch black, and had adopted bulbs purely as a relationship compromise.

†

Then there was the kitchen.

Olivia kept a kitchen in the same way other people kept exercise equipment: with the vague notion of maybe using it some day, on a whim, if she was bored. Everything in here with a practical purpose was Katie's. The kettle. The mugs (the cracked pink kitten mug she’d placed proudly in the cupboard after their fifth date; the Dracula mug that had sent Olivia into hysterics on Valentine’s day.) The large jar of instant coffee on the top shelf, hers.

Katie reached up on her tiptoes and took down the jar, spooning it into two mugs. While she waited for the kettle to boil, she eased herself up onto the counter and sat, legs dangling, trying to rub some life back into her arms.

Upstairs, she could hear the gentle thuds of the retired schoolteacher in the first floor flat. Mrs. Cabler referred to Katie as “Sweetheart” and Olivia as “That Dear Old Thing.” Katie had glanced through  Mrs. Cabler’s door once, and seen a living room furnished in glistening monochrome photographs and knitted furniture covers. She wondered how long Olivia and Mrs Cabler had known one another. Sometimes Katie wondered—in those long, deep afternoons while Olivia slept—if Olivia would still know her when she too was old and grey. Perhaps she would also one day live alone above Olivia’s flat, watching the tides of lovers pass through the basement door, while Olivia remained as she always had: eternally herself.

How much time did they have left until then? Had Olivia done this all before? How much time would be enough to make their relationship…real?

†

The sunflowers were Olivia’s, sitting in their vase on the kitchen table, bought fresh from the florist on the corner. Olivia had smiles through the stems, watching as Katie ate her takeaway pizza, then made tea for herself in the glowing sunset.

Food was an aesthetic experience for Olivia: she liked steaming cups of coffee and neatly arranged charcuterie boards, crisp red apples and pungent cheeses. She loved tiny cafes with vintage cutlery, and the joy of letting a croissant go cold in front of her.

Beauty, she’d called it once. Normal beauty. Tiny moments stretched into long ones.  Life made to last.

“Take me for afternoon tea,” she’d insisted on their second date. “Invite me to barbecues. Let me meet your parents. It’s been two hundred years of bloody atmosphere, this time around I want something nice.”

†

That was Katie’s compromise, at least as far as Oivia was concerned. No midnight meetings on rain drenched rooftops; no stolen kisses in shadowy nightclubs. No mystique, no menace. And absolutely no Gothic churches.

Just niceness. Just normality. The era of flashing fangs and lacy corsets was over and done with.

†

...barring the occasional bit of roleplay, of course.

†

Katie wound through the darkness  back to the bedroom, coffee mugs balanced in both hands. Olivia had propped herself up amongst the pillows, watching the world through half-slitted eyes.

“Nobody, my love,” she said, as Katie eased herself carefully back into bed. “makes a cup of coffee quite as loudly as you.”

Olivia rested her ear against Katie’s chest, her hair fanning across Katie’s nightclothes , blonder than blonde. Tousled from sleep.

“What are you doing?” Katie exclaimed. “You’ll spill the coffee, look!”

“I like to listen,” mumbled Olivia. “It sounds nice.”

Katie batted her away with a laugh. “Yeah, well, your ear’s bloody cold!”

Olivia took a coffee mug from Katie and pressed it to her ear. The steam twisted up towards the ceiling, ghostlike in the warm dark of the bedroom. Olivia pulled the mug away, then leaned in with a grin.

“Better?” she asked.

†

Kissing Olivia was strange; colder and sharper than any kiss she’d ever experienced. She’d cut Katie’s lip, that first tentative date so many months ago, and in the December chill had cradled Katie’s chin in her hands, whispering soft apologies.  Katie hadn’t minded. Katie never minded.

†

Olivia settled back down amongst the pillows on her side of the bed, winding her fingers through Katie’s hair. Her fingers were just as cold as her arm, just as cold as her kiss.

“I want to stay like this,” she mumbled. “Just you and me, here beneath the world. Tucked in bed forever. It’s so perfect. So utterly perfect.”

Slowly, slowly, Olivia stilled. She wouldn’t move again until evening.

†

Katie lay in the gloom, thinking about tonight, when they could finally open the curtains and step outside. They’d walk the streets, or go to a 24 hour cafe. She thought about the night after that, and the night after that: all the nights they would spend together, all of them finite. All of them theirs. She thought of right now: a halfway point between living and waiting.

She thought of every lover before her; every lover Olivia would take after she was gone. Every spark of adoration. She thought of the flowers in the kitchen, the giggling afternoon teas, the walks in the rain,

Every second a glittering soap bubble, fractured and fragile.  Olivia cradled each one, stretched them into infinity. Stamped them across the world like pinned butterflies. Like tiny jewels.

Love held gently, no matter how fleeting.

Love made to last.

© 2021 Georgia Cook

About the Author

Georgia Cook is an illustrator and writer from London. She is the winner of the LISP 2020 Flash Fiction Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and Reflex Fiction Award, among others. She has also written for numerous podcasts, webcomics and anthologies. She can be found on twitter at @georgiacooked and on her website at georgiacookwriter.com.