“Oh my God,” I mutter. What is wrong with me? Of course Davey’s not going to be here. Here is the absolute last place Davey would ever be. He’s probably hooked up to drugs, lying in a hospital bed in Texas. But this doesn’t stop me thinking I see him. In the queue in Tesco the other day I did the same thing to a tall blond guy stacking the shelves. I’m only serving to hurt myself, imagining him here. I must be losing my mind, always wrong about seeing Davey.
I am right about the gift shop, though. Itisall James Bond items for sale. And books. A lot of books. About James Bond.
“What were you expecting?” George laughs.
“Homewares, soaps—the usual gift-shop finds,” I confess.
“I’ll take you shopping after. We’ll get you something girly, if you like. My treat.”
I incline my head and kiss him. And then George spies ahardback book—a signed limited edition that costs about £100—and my eyes nearly fall out of my head.
“You can’t spend a hundred pounds on a book,” I say, horrified.
“Why not? My money,” he says as he finishes looking through the book and goes to stand in line to pay.
“It’s a hundred pounds,” I say again, as if he’s misread the tag.
“I know. It’s signed. Limited edition. And I want it.”
“OK,” I say, unsure where I thought mentioning it was going to get me. “Will you even read it more than once?”
“Yeah, it’s got good pictures—look.”
“OK,” I say again.
Why am I fighting with George about this? It’s his cash. When we’re outside the shop we head for a late lunch. We’ve not booked anywhere, and I love that aimlessness of wandering around, looking for somewhere that ticks all the boxes. George and I both agree that we love a mix of achingly cool, somewhere that avoids tourists and is not too pricey. That triumvirate is hard to find and so we grab a bus, head over the river toward the South Bank, to the food stands that often litter the patch of ground spanning the Royal Festival Hall and past Tate Modern. We start walking the line of food vendors, discussing the array of cuisines and cultures on offer.
We go slowly, hand in hand. “George?” I ask.
“Mmm,” he says, craning his neck to look over the heads of tourists and Londoners to see the prices. He frowns and I think: I’ll buy him lunch. He’s just spent all his money on that book. “Where did you grow up? Where are you from?”
“Dagenham,” he says after a while. “Why?”
I shrug. “We spent ten blissful days together in Thailand and I know practically nothing about you. Did you grow up there?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“A sister. You?”
“No.” I shake my head as we keep walking alongside the river. “What’s her name?” I ask.
“Amanda.”
The conversation stills, so I continue. “How old is she?”
“What is this, Gallagher: Twenty Questions?”
I laugh. “No, just making conversation.”
I drop it and then something else dawns on me. “George? Where do you live?”
He laughs. “What?”
“Where do you live?” I repeat.
“Not far from you,” he says. “About ten minutes away.”
