Excerpt from
his love for me, the summer, something related to childhood
The last time I ever saw Daniel was the first time I properly left home. I was inside the new kitchen, introducing him to Helena. Helena was standing on a chair, packing tins into some cracked-up vinyl cupboards. ‘This is Daniel,’ I said and Daniel said ‘Hi,’ and did a loose and somehow sporty wave and grinned. All three of us were grinning and all three of us were frightened, I could feel it. I could feel something was ending but I couldn’t feel what. Was it his love for me? The summer? Something related to childhood? ‘I should be going,’ Daniel said and so I said ‘Oh no, please stay.’
We went and stood around in my new bedroom. We stood there in the bright light of late August mixed with cold light from the ceiling's one bare bulb. We looked at all my stuff packed up in boxes and in huge deformed IKEA bags. All my stuff just seemed like trash, or like a random stranger's stuff. No, my stuff seemed like a boring and shy teenager's old stuff, mixed in with Shein clothes I bought because I couldn't resist buying them. I bought them in case Daniel found them beautiful, I guess. I saw a swimsuit through the IKEA bag's clear skin: pale pink, covered in cherries and images of bows. But me and Daniel never did go swimming, not once.
‘I love unpacking,’ I said. ‘I love putting the stuff away, like in the drawers and things.’
I was lisping a bit, which was my subconscious trying to make sure people cared for me, I think, via making me seem young or something. I don't think the effect was working at all in that moment. We looked out of the window at somebody else’s roof, a flat grey roof made out of tiny artificial stones compacted into a single giant slab. Was a giant fake stone slab better than plastic or cement or whatever? ‘I should be going,’ Daniel said and so I said ‘Okay, goodbye.’
I watched him walking down the street. He looked beautiful, tall, relaxed and normal. The trees looked beautiful and green. I had the feeling I was going to be sick. ‘That’s him,’ I said to Helena, and went to run a bath. The shower curtain was closed around the bath and it couldn’t be moved because its pathway was blocked off by a lightbulb. So the bath just lay there in the shadow of the curtain. The curtain was decorated with big pink and purple circles, drawn using the ‘chalk’ setting on a computerised image-generator. Everything about the bath was wrong, endless things I saw and didn’t name in words inside my mind, and don’t remember anymore. A problem with the bath tiles? Some kind of problem with the plug. It was the first time I ever lived in a place that hadn’t been created by either a member of my family or a wealthy educational institution. But that wasn’t important. It was the last time I ever saw Daniel.
It was the end of the final summer of coronavirus, or the start of the end of coronavirus. It was the street on which, years later, Banksy would spray paint the green blob behind the tree. A plastic fence would be erected all around the tree to stop the Banksy graffiti being covered up by other graffiti. The fence would be transparent but would still somehow obscure the graffiti completely so that all that you could see would be yourself, the sky and road, reflected in the plastic fence. I don’t know, it wasn’t there at that time, there was just the tree and the small block of flats beside it, then some houses broken into flats, including mine with flatmates.
I lay down on the flat’s low leather sofa. I didn’t know what to write in my diary. I didn’t know what the point of this new life situation was. I was an adult. I had a Bachelor’s degree. I was living in the capital city of England. In four days I would start to be a teaching assistant for children. What was I supposed to do for four days in the capital city? Me and my flatmates went to buy some double duvet sets in TK Maxx. I bought the Green Enchanted Twilight set, rabbits and foxes sat amongst small crescent moons and little strawberry plants and four-leaf clovers. It was infantile but I didn’t care at all, because I had already decided: no one was going see my bed. I wouldn’t sleep with anyone, because it was frightening and humiliating, and bad for the psyche, for the soul, the hidden inner thing that tied me to the universe, to time, even to God, I thought in meaningless and arbitrary language. So no one would see my bed, except for me, flatmates and Daniel, who was on holiday in Cornwall now, playing tennis and sea swimming with beautiful women and some men. I walked down the street and there they were: beautiful women and some men. Everybody in the city was beautiful and young and I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. I lay down on the sofa and read novels that people had written about their own lives, apparently. Everyone’s life seemed so specific, unlike mine, which was devoid of form and content. I don’t know. It was difficult to focus, that’s all I mean.
Harriet Armstrong is the author of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies, forthcoming from Les Fugitives in June 2025. She lives and works in London.
his love for me, the summer, something related to childhood
The last time I ever saw Daniel was the first time I properly left home. I was inside the new kitchen, introducing him to Helena. Helena was standing on a chair, packing tins into some cracked-up vinyl cupboards. ‘This is Daniel,’ I said and Daniel said ‘Hi,’ and did a loose and somehow sporty wave and grinned. All three of us were grinning and all three of us were frightened, I could feel it. I could feel something was ending but I couldn’t feel what. Was it his love for me? The summer? Something related to childhood? ‘I should be going,’ Daniel said and so I said ‘Oh no, please stay.’
We went and stood around in my new bedroom. We stood there in the bright light of late August mixed with cold light from the ceiling's one bare bulb. We looked at all my stuff packed up in boxes and in huge deformed IKEA bags. All my stuff just seemed like trash, or like a random stranger's stuff. No, my stuff seemed like a boring and shy teenager's old stuff, mixed in with Shein clothes I bought because I couldn't resist buying them. I bought them in case Daniel found them beautiful, I guess. I saw a swimsuit through the IKEA bag's clear skin: pale pink, covered in cherries and images of bows. But me and Daniel never did go swimming, not once.
‘I love unpacking,’ I said. ‘I love putting the stuff away, like in the drawers and things.’
I was lisping a bit, which was my subconscious trying to make sure people cared for me, I think, via making me seem young or something. I don't think the effect was working at all in that moment. We looked out of the window at somebody else’s roof, a flat grey roof made out of tiny artificial stones compacted into a single giant slab. Was a giant fake stone slab better than plastic or cement or whatever? ‘I should be going,’ Daniel said and so I said ‘Okay, goodbye.’
I watched him walking down the street. He looked beautiful, tall, relaxed and normal. The trees looked beautiful and green. I had the feeling I was going to be sick. ‘That’s him,’ I said to Helena, and went to run a bath. The shower curtain was closed around the bath and it couldn’t be moved because its pathway was blocked off by a lightbulb. So the bath just lay there in the shadow of the curtain. The curtain was decorated with big pink and purple circles, drawn using the ‘chalk’ setting on a computerised image-generator. Everything about the bath was wrong, endless things I saw and didn’t name in words inside my mind, and don’t remember anymore. A problem with the bath tiles? Some kind of problem with the plug. It was the first time I ever lived in a place that hadn’t been created by either a member of my family or a wealthy educational institution. But that wasn’t important. It was the last time I ever saw Daniel.
It was the end of the final summer of coronavirus, or the start of the end of coronavirus. It was the street on which, years later, Banksy would spray paint the green blob behind the tree. A plastic fence would be erected all around the tree to stop the Banksy graffiti being covered up by other graffiti. The fence would be transparent but would still somehow obscure the graffiti completely so that all that you could see would be yourself, the sky and road, reflected in the plastic fence. I don’t know, it wasn’t there at that time, there was just the tree and the small block of flats beside it, then some houses broken into flats, including mine with flatmates.
I lay down on the flat’s low leather sofa. I didn’t know what to write in my diary. I didn’t know what the point of this new life situation was. I was an adult. I had a Bachelor’s degree. I was living in the capital city of England. In four days I would start to be a teaching assistant for children. What was I supposed to do for four days in the capital city? Me and my flatmates went to buy some double duvet sets in TK Maxx. I bought the Green Enchanted Twilight set, rabbits and foxes sat amongst small crescent moons and little strawberry plants and four-leaf clovers. It was infantile but I didn’t care at all, because I had already decided: no one was going see my bed. I wouldn’t sleep with anyone, because it was frightening and humiliating, and bad for the psyche, for the soul, the hidden inner thing that tied me to the universe, to time, even to God, I thought in meaningless and arbitrary language. So no one would see my bed, except for me, flatmates and Daniel, who was on holiday in Cornwall now, playing tennis and sea swimming with beautiful women and some men. I walked down the street and there they were: beautiful women and some men. Everybody in the city was beautiful and young and I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. I lay down on the sofa and read novels that people had written about their own lives, apparently. Everyone’s life seemed so specific, unlike mine, which was devoid of form and content. I don’t know. It was difficult to focus, that’s all I mean.
Harriet Armstrong is the author of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies, forthcoming from Les Fugitives in June 2025. She lives and works in London.