‘Do you feel like you got lots of good material forFunny Pack?’ Jill asked her.
Alice nodded, chewing on the cake, her mind whizzing with memories. She worked as a freelance cartoonist focusing mainly on political, satirical or positivity and aspirational art. But mostly she was in-house for an online magazine calledFunny Pack, run by a collective of individuals motivated by finding the humour, or if not the humour then the optimism, in current affairs. Alice was a big believer in making people feel good in dark times, she was proud of her work, and she wanted to create some great depictions of the Women’s March for the magazine.
‘I’m going to head back to the flat after this and try and sketch everything out tonight while it’s fresh in my mind.’
‘That’s dedication,’ said Jill. ‘I’m going to go and lie in one of my marble baths.’
They laughed. It was an ongoing joke that Jill lived in a mansion compared to the rest of them. It wasn’t true, but due to the passing of Jill’s grandmother the year before, Jill had been gifted her three-bed semi in Forest Hill, complete with driveway and enclosed, spacious garden. Alice’s flat in Islington was the size of a box in comparison; Kemi and Theresa were both in house shares, and Bahira’s home was a gorgeous, cosy townhouse in St Albans that she and her husband (and their dog) had fallen in love with when she was pregnant with her daughter Zara a couple of years back.
They rested in the companionable silence that came with knowing each other for over ten years, or in the case of Alice and Jill, their whole lives. Inseparable since childhood, they had gone to university together and met the other three there.
‘What do you want out of this year?’ Alice asked the group from behind closed eyelids.
Bahira piped up first, a woman who always knew what she wanted. ‘A big family trip outside school holidays so I don’t have to hang out with anyone else’s kids.’
‘I want to spend more time outdoors,’ Kemi answered. ‘I’m always at work or the gym so I might try running this year, maybe along the Thames.’
‘I want to see you lot more,’ Theresa said. ‘Because you don’t laugh at me when I get messy drunk like my other friends do.’
‘We laugh at you a little bit,’ Jill said.
‘What about you, Jill?’ asked Alice.
‘A pet,’ said Jill. ‘A cat or dog, I’m not sure which yet.’
‘You want a pet?’ Alice asked, cracking open her eyes and looking at her friend. ‘What’s wrong with the orchid I got you?’
Jill laughed. ‘It’ll be nice to have some company in my mansion, and you won’t move in with me, so . . . ’
‘I like my servants’ quarters, thanks.’ Alice smiled, closing her eyes again.
‘And I want to travel more,’ Jill continued. ‘I want to be one of the Instagram goddesses that goes camping in the wilderness with their big dog and speaks in motivational quotes.’
‘That’s quite a lifestyle change, unless you were going to camp out in Hyde Park,’ said Kemi.
Jill nodded. ‘So what about you, Alice? What do you want this year to bring?’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘A long, warm summer. And to travel more, too. And Michelle Obama to be president. And a Turner Prize for one of my cartoons. And the wholeFunny Packoffice to be given Women of the Year awards.’
Kemi drained her hot chocolate. ‘Keeping the dreams small this year then, Ali?’
‘I think every one of those things is going to happen for you.’
‘Thank you, Jill, and I think you will get a cat-or-dog and be very happy out in the wild.’
That evening, Alice closed the blue door of her Islington flat and all was quiet again. Her home was how she’d left it, with the mug beside the kettle, the glue and scissors and paint and brushes spread over the small round table in her kitchen/living room area. Her washing was still damp on the clothes horse. If she switched on the TV, Netflix would still be waiting for her, ready with the next episode ofGrace and Frankie. It was almost as if her spending the day marching through the streets of London with 100,000 like-minded souls had never happened.
So Alice sat down to work, humming the latest powerful track from Little Mix, mug of tea beside her, and looked up at the frame above her desk, like she did before every new drawing session. Inside it was her career highlight – so far: a cartoon that had been published the previous year in theNew Yorker.
She yawned and rubbed her eyes while she swept her pen over numerous pages, rough-sketching ideas for cartoons before they ran out of her head, or she ran right out of energy.
Alice’s mind kept bringing her back to the conversation with her friends, and what they wanted these next twelve months to bring. Maybe it was the Women’s March, maybe it was the hope that comes with a brand new year beginning, or maybe it was just inside her, but Alice felt like she could take on the world.
