Chapter 30
It was a one of those sunny but overcast days when I left Cumbria and drove down south to London. The sky jostled with grey clouds that constantly looked on the verge of tipping it down, but never did.
I’d finally reclaimed my little second hand Ford Fiesta for the journey. I’d left the car with my parents when I’d moved to London – the first time – and they’d used it as a spare car, but now it was mine again.
“With train tickets costing what they do these days,” Dad had grumbled, passing me the set of keys, “it’ll be cheaper to drive home than get the train.”
He was very much under the illusion that I would be home every other weekend. Maybe he’d be right.
“Come home whenever you want, baby,” Mum had said as she’d cupped my cheeks.
Her hair had grown down to her ears. It had regrown in pretty curly waves, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen her natural shade quite like this before.
She’d dyed it dark for so long that I’d always kind of had it in my mind that she was as dark-haired as me, but in reality she was several shades lighter. It was strange, but it suited her.
I studied her face, the way you look at a person you know you won’t see again for a while.
“Go on,” she’d said, smile widening even as she dropped her hands to give me a gentle shove towards the car.
“Call us when you get settled,” Dad had said gruffly, taking up his place beside my mum.
“I will,” I’d promised, swallowing down the lump in my throat.
The moment had felt like it should be monumental. Trumpets, fanfare, or at least a few tears. There was none of that. Too much had happened since the day I’d come home a year and a half ago.
So, without any ceremony, I got into my little car, full of all of my worldly possessions, and pulled out of the driveway.
Gravel crunched beneath the tyres, and a thin branch slapped against the roof from an overhanging tree.
A cloud moved over the sun, moving shadows across the road as the heating ticked on in the car.
They waved me off from the front door, and my eyes kept flicking up to my rear-view mirror, keeping them in view until the winding country lane lane blocked them from sight.
When I reached the open roads, I let out a breath that trembled only slightly.
I was doing it.
Finally.
My folks had kept the car in fair better nick than I ever had, and I experienced a little thrill as I powered down the M3 toll road, a clear stretch of road separating me from the hardest 18 months of my life to… whatever came next.
I’d set out very early that morning, stopping only a couple of times to refuel. Petrol and coffee, respectively.
It was mid-afternoon by the time I pulled up outside a house I’d thus far only seen in pictures. A two story, tidy Victorian house-share in Clapham with on-street parking. A bit of a unicorn for the area.
I’d lived not far from here the first time I’d lived in London – before my life changed irrevocably.
I stood on the pavement for a moment, looking up at the house as wind tousled my hair around my face. Taking a deep breath, I walked up the short, tiled pathway to the front door before knocking.
It was opened a few moments later.
“Kaiya?”
The young woman who opened the door had a pretty, unassuming face as she looked me over.
“Hello,” I said, with an awkward wave.
The young woman smiled and pushed her glasses back up her nose.
“Come in. I’m Harinder – Hari. We spoke on the phone.”
Hari opened the door wider, moving aside to let me in, and I stepped over the threshold.
She led me through the house, showing me the communal areas, the bedrooms and finally to the room at the top of the stairs. My room.
It was a four bedroom house and I was renting one of the double rooms. The other rooms were occupied by Hari and two other young women -
“Moni and June,” Hari pointed out the two women sitting in the living room, who’d looked up as we passed.
The other girls had watched me curiously as Hari led me around the house. It reminded me of freshers week at university when we went around the dorms, shyly introducing ourselves, while all I’d wanted to do was get settled in my new room.
Later, to welcome me to the house, we ordered pizza and opened a bottle of wine. I’d been asked my preference for dinner, and I had tried not to notice the weird looks when I’d, too enthusiastically, shot down the idea of fried chicken and beers.
It turned out the house belonged to Hari’s Grandma, but she was too old to manage the big house on her own, so she’d moved in with Hari’s parents, and rented her house to pay for her medical needs.
Hari, June and Moni had met at university, where they were all on the same Bio-Med course. I was taking the room of another friend of theirs, who’d moved out to live with her boyfriend, apparently.
“So you lived in LA?” Moni asked, taking a sip of wine before pulling a face and putting her glass down.
“For just under a year, yeah.”
I tried to act nonchalant with three people intently staring at me.
“Why did you leave?” She asked.
I shrugged. “I met a boy.”
They all made ‘ooh’ noises and grinned at me as if we were five minutes away from singing karaoke into hairbrushes. Even though I was feeling a little cynical, I smiled.
“What happened then?” Moni prompted, leaning forward to eat her pizza over the box.
“Well, I left LA and moved with him. To Korea.”
I’d considered lying, but it was all over my blog anyway. Hari had admitted she’d Googled me. I’d been more surprised that I could be Googled, than by the fact she had done so.
“Korea?” June wrinkled her nose. “North, or South?”
She let out a snorting sort of hiccup that I took to be a giggle, while I tried not to grind my teeth as I feigned a grin.
“Ha ha, yeah. Good one,” I said, but no one was really paying attention to my reaction, which was probably for the best.
“So, anyway, I was in Seoul for a few months, and then I moved back to the UK just before lockdown.”
“What about your boyfriend?” Hari prompted when I didn’t elaborate.
My silence seemed to stretch, spilling out of me like sand from a shattered hour glass.
“Ah well, never mind,” Hari said quickly to cover up my sudden, awkward silence. “You’re back in London now, baby!” She reached her glass out towards me, and I met hers with my own, the clink doing more to disguise my sudden sobriety than any words could have.
December
Christmas in London was one of those times where the novelty kept coming back every time you went anywhere remotely central but would inevitably wear off after a few hours of being in the thick of it.
I had always maintained that central London was like a theme park for reasons that defy explanation, and that was never more true than at Christmas.
Over night, massive trees bedecked with colourful lights were in every spare bit of pavement, there were pop-up ice rinks, and a playlist of festive music piped out of every store that’s been in rotation for at least the last thirty years.
And I loved it.
And I loved to hate it when I was so overstimulated from bright lights and loud music.
What I loved the very best of all was walking along the river towards Tower Bridge when the lights were strung up, reflecting little halos into the choppy water below.
The bridge was always lit up at night, but amidst the backdrop of the twinkling, white lights swaying in the breeze, it somehow felt like you could feel the history of it.
It felt almost like time was thinnest there, a culmination of generations of Christmases all piled into one moment.
It made me feel… inconsequential, but in a comforting way.
London was a strange combination of modern and ancient, and blending into it, embracing its vivid, eccentric way of life was a sort of surrender to a bigger picture.
In some ways, being here felt like a step into the past. Before Seoul, before LA. But in other ways it felt like coming full circle now that I had bridged the gap between my music making aspirations with my fledgling music journalism career.
It felt like finding a puzzle piece, and I was just now beginning to put the whole picture together.
April 2022
The weather was finally starting to get warmer.
People were always surprised by how pretty London was in the spring. It would be easy to picture the city in a handful of ways: grey skyscrapers and rain, or Big Ben. And rain.
But it was actually so much more nuanced than that.
Yes, the skyscrapers were largely grey, and odd-shaped, and yes Big Ben was, well, big.
But there were trees lining much of the city streets, and nearly half of the city was parkland.
No one believed that one until they looked it up.
Flowering trees, banks of sunny daffodils, and crocuses coloured as much of London as the famous red, double decker buses.
It was almost unseasonably warm as I sat on a bench along the Embankment, phone out, updating my online resume.
Staff Writer
Frequency · Apr 2022 – Present
London / New York (Remote)
Writing and editing longform features on global music, culture, and entertainment. Contributed to high-profile interviews, cultural commentary, and special issues spotlighting emerging talent.
Culture & Music Journalist
The Loop · Jun 2020 – Apr 2022
London
Began as a freelance contributor and later promoted to features writer. Produced in-depth editorial content and digital features focused on contemporary music and pop culture. Developed “Spotlight Sessions,” a recurring artist interview series.
Junior Assistant (Creative Production Dept)
ENT · Jan 2020 – Mar 2020
Seoul, South Korea
Supported the artist management teams. Conducted research, coordinated studio schedules, and assisted during live recording sessions.
Studio Assistant / Intern
Pisces Recording Studio · Feb 2019 – Dec 2019
Los Angeles, CA
Assisted engineers and producers in studio operations. Managed session preparation, artist support, and basic post-production tasks.
Every day, I walked the same route to the office that I now worked at since leaving The Loop and joining the team at Frequency magazine.
It was an easy twenty minute stroll that just so happened to take me past my favourite coffee shop, and a K-Mart.
The first time I’d walked past this K-Mart, I’d screeched to a halt so violently that I’d spilled coffee onto my shoes.
What had stopped me was a two-meter tall, slightly faded poster of…
him. It was an old ad from a sunscreen promotion he’d done before I’d moved to Seoul.
The first couple of times I’d walked past that poster, I had considered switching routes.
But then I weighed the outcome of losing my coffee stop against my momentary discomfort, and I chose coffee.
It was a conscious decision not to be cowed from a poster.
Or of the knowledge that the picture – and I’d really had to choose peace with this knowledge – had been taken during the time we’d been together.
The man in that poster… he’d been my boyfriend.
Now he was just a faded advert in a shop window.
May 2022
“Knock, knock.”
The voice at the office door startled me awake from where I had, admittedly been dozing at my desk.
Earlier today, I’d been tagged in a post about Ji–him.
Someone had commented on one of his old posts – a photo he’d taken while sat out on his balcony in the apartment he’d shared - still shared?
I didn’t know – with the Seoul skyline behind him.
A fairly innocuous post, but it apparently looked so similar to a picture I’d shared of that same skyline from our balcony of the apartment.
No surprise, really, seeing as the apartment had been on the same side of the same building, just a few floors down.
Still, it was mind-blowing to me that anyone might pick up on that.
The person who had tagged me had asked if I’d lived in the same building. I hadn’t replied. Obviously.
But it had put me in a funk for hours, having the knock on effect of putting me behind on what I was actually getting paid to do.
The little, neon clock on my computer displayed 19:22. Bugger. I really hadn’t meant to stay late.
I raised my eyes to the door and smiled at the man who’d knocked.
“Patrick, hey. What’s up?”
“Maybe I should ask you. You actually have a bed, Thompson?”
I pretended to think about it, leaning back in my chair. This was a familiar refrain for us. I had a bad habit of staying late.
“I think so.” I tapped a finger on my chin. “Although I can’t remember what it looks like.”
He laughed, a gruff sort of sound that always made me feel a bit giddy. Like he was the popular boy at school, and I’d gotten his attention, though I internally hated the comparison. I was a proper, grown up professional journalist.
He was a colleague. A very nice, good looking colleague who remembered my coffee order and sometimes walked me to the tube station with an umbrella when it rained.
Patrick shoved his hands into his pockets, shuffling his feet in an uncharacteristic display of discomfort.
“So, I was wondering if you wanted to get something to eat. I mean, you look hungry, so…”
“I look hungry?”
“No, I mean, you look great, you always look great, I just thought…”
“You thought I looked hungry.” I pretended to look stern as I leaned forward, steepling my hands in front of me.
“Bloody hell, Thompson, has anyone ever told you you’re hard work?”
“A time or two.” I shrugged.
“I’m trying to say, do you want to get something to eat. With me, in case that wasn’t clear enough.” He raised his chin like he expected me to rebuke me.
I surprised myself when I didn’t immediately do so. I’d turned down dates in the past couple of years. The thought of it gave me a kind of anxiety I hadn’t wanted to examine too closely, but, when Patrick asked, I didn’t want to say no immediately.
That was new.
He was nice. He was kind, and he’d never made me feel like I needed to prove my right to even be in the building, like so many others in our team had. They thought I didn’t know how they secretly called me ‘the intern’. Patrick went out of his way to include me.
So why did I hesitate? I could do it.
I paused so long, that my phone rang in the time it took for me to make up my mind, buzzing angrily along the desk like an overstimulated wasp.
“Sorry,” I stammered in the now awkward silence between us, “I should get that. Another time?” It came out as a question, but I wasn’t sure if I was asking him, or if I was asking if he would ask me again.
“Another time.” He smiled at me and left.
I looked at my phone screen. Becka – probably on her lunch break.
“Another time,” I said quietly, watching him walk back down the corridor.