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He leans forward, dropping his chin onto his fist, and the movement pushes his bottom lip into a pout. ‘Do I feature in this plan at any point?’
‘I would rather shit in my hands and clap than be around people for much longer this afternoon.’
‘Is that code for “it’s not you, it’s me”?’
‘Oh no, it’s definitely you.’
He grins. ‘I have somewhere in mind and I think you’ll like ittoo. It’ll be quiet. Serene.I’llbe quiet.’ When I don’t reply, he takes it as an invitation to continue, echoing the question I asked him a couple of weeks ago. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘Not even a little.’
All this to say, of course, I find myself stepping into the Barbican Conservatory with Finn less than an hour later. When we got lost trying to find the entrance, it occurred to me that if I were alone I would’ve just left at that point. It took Finn asking multiple members of staff for help, but we made it. It’s not as air-conditioned as I’d like, but it’s temperature controlled, so it’ll have to do.
‘Welcome,’ he says, ‘to London’ssecond-biggest botanical garden.’
The Barbican complex itself is all grey concrete slabs and hard edges, but here in the Conservatory, we’ve stepped into another world. A greenhouse seemingly dropped onto this building at random, it’s packed with dense foliage across multiple levels. I imagine this is what the city would look like after a major catastrophe; nature reclaiming her home with frond curtains and grass carpeting, blankets of greenery draped over the back of a concrete sofa.
Tiny plants line the walkways, and endless multi-storey palm trees fill the space between the floor and the steel-beamed glass ceiling. There’s something triumphant about how blatantly green has won the battle against grey in this space.
We follow the gentle sound of trickling water to a pond filled with koi fish. It is, annoyingly, as serene as Finn promised it would be. And, for his part, he peruses a leaflet he picked up and stays quiet as we meander along the pathways, letting the stress of the day lift from my body and float away.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch his lips parting to say something, before he pushes them together like he’s holding something hostage in his mouth. After a while, I put him out of his misery. ‘Come on, hit me with a fact. I know you have one.’
He adjusts his glasses, no further instruction required. ‘Okay. Did you know the Barbican has won the Ugliest Building in London award?’
‘I did not.’ I think of the stark lines, blocky shapes and dreary tones. ‘But I can see why it would. Feels a bit, you know… Communist.’
‘Well, I think it’s misunderstood. It’s kind of intimidating, but then you get to know it and there’s something special beneath all the harshness.’ His eyes flick over to me and then straight ahead as he continues, ‘Regardless, in an attempt to make it seem less bleak, they started planting stuff here. Then a couple of plants became ten plants, which became a hundred plants, and now there are thousands of species from all over the world. Right here, in this tiny pocket of London. A mini rainforest.’
‘I think I like the mini rainforest. So thanks for bringing me.’ The corners of his eyes wrinkle behind his glasses at my admission. ‘Yet another thing I can experience without having to leave London.’
We walk to a bridge crossing another pond, this one filled with terrapins. A not-insignificant part of me wishes I were a terrapin lazily floating around a pond right about now.
‘Do you not like to travel?’ Finn asks, as both of us lean over the railing to get a better view of the animals.
‘Not really.’ I have some money saved that most twenty-somethings would spend on a flight or two, but I can’t bring myself to use it. I don’t want to be thousands of miles away if someone needs me. ‘I like it here. I know what to expect. It’s easy.’
He turns to face me, head tilted. ‘You should try it. It’s fun to see new things.’
‘You sound like my brother. And Josie. But I’m seeing new things today, aren’t I?’ I watch a terrapin climb out of the pond. ‘It’s easy for you to say, anyway. You probably came out of the womb a frequent flyer.’
‘I was almost born on a plane.’
My head snaps around. ‘What?’
He lets out a low chuckle. ‘Honestly. My mum flew a bit later than she should’ve and I ended up arriving way earlier than my due date. I was born nine hours after she stepped on solid ground.’
I consider this information. ‘You showed up a few weeks early because you were just so excited to be here. I came out hungry and dragging my feet.’
‘Start as you mean to go on, I guess.’
I let out a laugh and he bites down a smile. As we make our way across the bridge, Finn touches the plants we cross like he’s in a clothes shop feeling every item on the rails. We pass through an archway into a secluded area of the garden, beneath a trailing plant that sheds tiny white flowers I have to brush from my shoulders. Taller plants encircle us and the sunlight filters through palm leaves, light and shadows trapped here with us. It is, by all accounts, the perfect spot for a date, which is probably why the only two other people in the vicinity look so sickeningly in love, whispering to each other and giggling, much closer to each other than I’d ever like to be on a hot day like this.
‘What’s that expression?’ Finn asks, apparently noticing my wrinkled nose and grimace as we sit on a bench. ‘You look nauseous.’
‘I think that’s just my face.’
‘Hm, no. Your face is usually sullen. Disdainful, maybe. Not nauseous.’ I smooth my features as the couple wanders closer to us, though they’re so caught up in each other they hardly notice we’re there. He barely holds back his smirk. ‘You don’t like PDA.’
