An experiment part 2

Inspired by The Mobius Book by Catherine Lacey

I’m Hanna Thomas Uose, a writer and a strategist for the progressive movement. Here I share what I’ve been thinking about (mainly how to make a new world and how we are with each other while we do it). Every quarter, I also send a list of things I’ve enjoyed. Take what you like and leave the rest.

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Yesterday, I published an excerpt from my debut novel, Who Wants to Live Forever, inspired by Catherine Lacey’s newest book. The Mobius Book is one of two halves – half uncanny novella, half break-up memoir. Reading it is to meditate on how writers hold the reality of their lives alongside the art they create. Today, in a somewhat crude experiment, I am publishing a piece of memoir taken from the time when I was writing Who Wants to Live Forever. Please bear in mind it has not been edited in the same way my novel was! My hope is that you might enjoy connecting a few dots. Let me know what you think.

I held a crappy black umbrella that was on the verge of breaking and in the other hand a clutch of soggy leaflets – VOTE LABOUR TODAY. My walking boots rubbed. I took pictures of the Christmas wreaths that adorned closed doors: silver-sprayed pinecones, glistening red berries, green checkered ribbons tied in luxuriant bows and a plastic robin perched upon golden twigs. A little optimism in the midst of the grey day.

On each of the previous seven days, on the advice of Momentum, I had made a video to post on my Insta stories, complete with a filter that caused glittering pink hearts to bleed from my eyes. Every day, I gave a different reason as to why I was voting Labour. The NHS. Arts funding. Tuition fees. The climate. Because Boris was a racist. Forgive my extremely dry wintery lips I wrote across my first story. In the second video, I apologised for the state of my hair. But there was energy building in the circles I was in. We knew not to take it for granted but still – surely – we’d already had nine years of austerity. Who could take more?

Canvassing in the rain brought home a different reality – we were only calling on those whose vote we thought we could count on, but not many opened their doors. Summarily dismissed by some, the others who pledged their support did not seem enthusiastic. Dread set in.

Perhaps…

…perhaps…

…we would not win this one.

But who were we to say? Uxbridge, Harrow East, Hendon, Enfield, Chingford, Milton Keynes – none of them were representative of the entire country. My WhatsApp filled with updates from comrades and pictures of soaking trainers perched on radiators. The depth and warmth of hope surging through me is only matched by the dampness of my socks.

That night, Dan and Jacqui hosted an election night party in Quilter Street. I walked up the stairs and emerged into the living room, stacks of cardboard pizza boxes on every kitchen surface. The election coverage was projected onto a screen, complete with subtitles so people could talk over it. I didn’t know everyone, Labour was not my usual scene – before this I had voted a mix of green, red and yellow. I chatted a little though, drank from a red cup and chewed on a doughy margarita crust. Then the polls came out. A landslide. Unequivocal. Boris Johnson’s peroxide hair and fleshy pout appeared on the screen, his thumb pointed at the camera in a parody of Tony Blair. So, the stickers on every lamppost telling him to fuck off back to Eton, the chants of Ohhhhh Jeremy Corbyn had not worked, after all.

Everyone was too drunk, too anxious and glib. An Uber arrived to take me the fifteen-minute drive home, it must have been 11pm by then. In the dark, I sat in my one-bed flat, thinking of the years stretched out ahead. More austerity, more Brexit, more Boris.

Rather than peaceful solitude, I discovered it did not feel so good to stew there alone. Two weeks before, a man I worked with had flown to London from the States on the pretext of a holiday, but it transpired that the purpose of the trip was to declare his feelings for me. In the following days I had tried my best to conjure the requisite response on my side – he must have spent so much money, perhaps I had given him the wrong impression – but failed. When I told him I didn’t feel the same way, his reaction was to push away his teacup, declare that I had to pay for it and storm out of the café. The whole episode scared me and I blocked him on all platforms, knowing that the next week I would see him on Slack anyway.

One week before, after a day of door-knocking and an evening spent at the theatre, I was attacked on the walk home from my bus stop, only four minutes’ from my house. The man strode towards me, so I moved out of his way. Instead of going past, he stepped sideways to block my path, his face set in a mask of – I still don’t know what it was – contempt? Hate? A drugged vacancy? Like a horror film, his arms shot straight out and grabbed my head. As he lurched towards me, time did that thing of slowing down and I remember thinking that I was not prepared to die this way.

On cue, my brain delivered the most useful memory, stored away for such a catastrophe. At drama school, many years ago, my voice teacher had told a story about the time two burglars had broken into her house while she was sleeping. Woken, she had run towards them, waving her arms and emitting a deep, guttural, well-supported scream. The thieves freaked out and ran.

As the man in the black puffa jacket came at me, instead of wrestling or grappling or trying to escape, I filled my lungs and leaned in. Putting my mouth against his ear, I screamed as loud as I could. Startled and suddenly more human than monster, he legged it down the road. I turned and let out one more primal howl before running down the street, breathlessly calling 999 as I did so. The woman on the phone said that multiple people on my road were calling in that moment. But no one had come outside. People must have watched me run from their windows.

On election night, nervous system already on high alert, I found I could not sit alone in my flat – too afraid on too many levels. It was the flat I had bought after my ex called me from the airport and said he wanted to be free. Left in our home, surrounded by his things, I had to pack up and start over. Some of his things I liked, so they surrounded me still. I ordered another Uber straight back to Dan and Jacqui’s and was with my friends again by midnight. After that I can’t remember much. Just that being together felt important. With people who believed what I did: for the many, not the few.

Thanks for following along on this experiment! I’d like to do more things like this in the future. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for the next Quarterly Review which should be coming some time next week.

And do pick up a copy of Who Wants to Live Forever if you haven’t already. If you have – thank you! If you enjoyed it, even better – please consider leaving me a review on Amazon, Goodreads and the like. I got a lovely one in this week’s TLS!

With much love and solidarity,

Hanna