Page 1 of Love and Loathing

ONE

For the first timein weeks, Evelyn Blackton didn’t quite regret coming home. The cloudless sky above London was almost as blue as Spain’s, and the sun-baked streets were almost as shatteringly hot—and she loved being warm. It was a duvet around the shoulders, a cup of tea in the hands, a steaming bath. Even a pair of arms and a chest to lean on. Comfort. All the things she most craved when sad or lonely.

Or maybe it was escaping Zig and Fi’s cramped little flat that put a lift in her heart as she walked down the searing London street. She’d forgotten when she gratefully accepted the offer of their couch how every window of their flat was blocked with a tangle of dying, dusty houseplants and every surface piled with shabby, half-read books and political newspapers covered in coffee rings. Even the familiar conversations were starting to feel suffocating. They’d been having the same ones since university.

“We’ve got to focus,” Zig had said last night. “It’s like we’re…we’re trying to knock down the whole castle, brick by brick, you know?”

“Stone,” Fi had interjected thoughtfully. “I think castles are built from stone?”

Zig had waved an impatient hand. “Whatever. We’re basically, like, attacking things on an atomic level. Trying to save the whole world one grain of sand at a time, and it’s just not possible, we’ve got to admit it.”

He had looked at Fi and Evie, Fi wrinkling her nose, Evie frowning.

“So what are you suggesting?” Evie had asked. “Surely we can’t just give up?”

“We’ve got to focus on the lynchpin!” Zig had exclaimed, sitting forwards, his eyes bright. “On the keystone! High profile targets! Take them down, and the whole arch crumbles, the whole wall starts to fall—”

“I’m not joining FTP,” Evie had interrupted his metaphorical flow. “Half the stuff For The Planet does is illegal.”

“You don’t have to join FTP,” Zig had said. Then, hesitantly, fiddling with the laptop that was permanently on his lap. “You could…make a donation.”

She had looked at him, more betrayed than she wanted to admit by his suggestion. “You know I refuse to touch my father’s money.”

“Yeah, of course, yeah,” he had waved it off, and the conversation had moved on.

At least the community garden was something tangible. She was almost there now, taking a detour on her way to the tube station—she was due at her brother’s place for dinner. She hadn’t seen the garden since February, when it had been mostly bare soil and hope. But after her months volunteering in Spain, she could only imagine what it might look like now, towards the end of summer. Peas and beans running wild, and the scent of fresh tomatoes. Pumpkins ripening on the vine ready for the kids from the council estate to harvest for Halloween. That oldlady, what had she been called? Efia? She’d been determined to grow her own bird peppers in the polytunnel they’d erected, use them in that amazing sauce she made…

But Evie stopped, confused, looking round to check her bearings.

This was definitely the right street. There was the old phone box across from the gate. There was the corner of the tower block, its shadow falling across where she stood. But there was no community garden. Instead, there was boarding all along the front of the empty block where it should be. Six, seven feet high, completely blocking what was behind, plastered with a bright and cheerful construction company logo and the usual warning signs about site-safety. A gate, padlocked, was set into the middle, and dried, muddy wheel tracks crossed the pavement. Evie, throat tight with dread, peered through the small gap where the padlocked chain held the gate shut.

The garden was gone.

Nothing there but flattened, dried earth, scarred with tire tracks, a concrete mixer and digger parked in one corner. No greenery. No tea-room shed. No painted, raised beds. No tomatoes or pumpkins or Efia growing peppers…

Hand shaking, Evie got out her phone.

“Zig? Zig, I’m at the garden. What—?”

“Oh shit.”

She heard muffled voices. Zig talking to Fi: “—I know, but we agreed—”

“Zig,” Evie interrupted. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

He sighed heavily.

“We were waiting to tell you. When you’d cheered up a bit, you know? You came back from Spain so down about the sanctuary, we didn’t have the heart to tell you about this.”

“But what happened? I don’t…” She swallowed. Swiped angrily at a useless tear. “How did this happen?”

“The council sold the land.”

“But they promised!”

“I know, I know. And then budget constraints happened, and a new council leader, and fucking Bluedeen making an offer they couldn’t refuse. You know, Eve. The usual shit we’re up against the whole time.”

“Bluedeen are residential, aren’t they?” She eyed the familiar logo of the construction company. “They’re building homes here?”

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