Hello! savour members can now listen to the audio narration of these letters, simply scroll down beneath the paywall.
In the days after my friend’s daughter was born, it finally grew hot. The summer had been stubborn, people were moaning about it. But for a brief few days it grew hot, and we went through the increasingly familiar routines of trying to manage. Kept the curtains shut in the daytime and opened the windows overnight. Smeared suncream into the baby’s chubby limbs before we wheeled him out into the day. Left the umbrella aloft in the garden, the grass yellowing beneath its plinth.
I bought that morning’s sweet peas and lemon verbena leaves from the community gardens, and I made a ritual of steeping the latter in the teapot, even though it was too warm for tea. And as I did I heard the words of my friend - the one who had the daughter - whisper in my head: “cooling”, she had said. I’d heard them before, burrowed them away for sunny days, unearthed them when I’d seen dried lemon verbena leaves in fat little packets at the Turkish supermarket and bought them with her in mind.
The boiling water hit the leaves and the sweet, spicy smell rose out through the spout - lid on to keep the goodness in - and I thought of her in this new and tender state, of newness and blood and wanting and release.