Page 84 of Make You Mine This Christmas

‘Anyway, it was just a duck pond. It’s not the grossest thing I’ve waded into.’

‘Really?’ Kit eyes her with surprise. ‘What other foul places have you waded into?’

‘Well, my degree is in ecology, which to be honest meant a lot of standing around in very cold places doing surveys on what animals and plants are there,’ Haf explains, taking another sip of wine. ‘On one trip, we all had to collect a cube of anoxic mud – so like, no oxygen in it at all – and see what animals were inside it. And honestly, the poopy duck pond had nothing on that.’

Pondering this for a moment, Kit says, ‘So you just counted a lot of animals?’

‘Yep. I’m really good at it, look.’ She points to Stella, then Luna. ‘One, two. And two humans, if you want to be technical about it.’

Kit laughs throatily. ‘And are you still counting animals for work?’

‘God, I wish. And it’s more complicated than that, Miss Makes-Buildings.’

‘I’m sure it is!’

‘Anyway, no. I hoped I’d be able to go out and do a bit, even just so I could write about it, but it’s all like writing stuff to convince various people to give us money so we can do more stuff. Like, “Hey assuage your guilt and give us some cash, yeah?”’

‘Wow, I never thought I’d hear you be cynical about anything,’ Kit says, a little shocked.

‘Really? Why’s that?’

‘You’re just so . . . earnest.’

‘Wow. Thanks?’

‘It’s a nice thing, really. I don’t mean it in a bad way.’

‘Well, now you’ve absolutely convinced me. Do you not get a lot of that in architecture? I’d have thought you’d all be jizzing yourself over bricks, or something.’

Kit snorts with laughter. ‘Jizzing ourselves?!’

‘Yeah, you know. “Ooh, that’s a lovely bit of wall. Look at that light.”’

From her blanket pile comes even more giggles, and Kit must take a moment to calm down before she can speak again.

‘To answer your original question—’

‘Not about the jizzing?’

‘No, no more jizzing talk please. Anyway...’ She blows out her cheeks as if to reset herself. ‘No, there’s not a lot of earnestness in private architecture. There’s a lot of overworked people making expensive apartments for people in London that are bought for investment and barely occupied, which ultimately just function to drive up the price of everything else around them.’

‘Wow. Are we playing cynicism Top Trumps now?’

‘Is it cynicism when it’s just so obviously happening? I think it’s fine to be realistic about the limitations of what we do for work.’ Kit sighs. She pushes herself up to sitting and wiggles round so that she’s leaning against the couch, as though being serious demanded that she be a bit more upright. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love it, or some of it. I love designing a permanent place for someone to live, or a really beautiful workplace that anyone can use and enjoy. But there’s bits of it I don’t love, and even am a bit morally conflicted on. That’s before you even add inworking full-time as a disabled woman.’ Kit drains the last of the glass of wine. ‘Sorry, you probably don’t want to hear about that.’

‘Sure I do,’ Haf says, shifting round to face her.

Kit taps her fingers against the glass, a strand of hair behind her ear.

‘Look, I’ll put on my very best listening face,’ Haf says, pressing her fists against her cheeks and widening her eyes and smile into the most enthusiastic face she can make.

‘Please, stop,’ Kit laughs. ‘Whatever you’re trying to do is horrible!’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘That face!’

Haf raises her eyebrows and makes her eyes even wider.