Last Words Read Free Page B

vegan at home, and yet there he was tucking into a meaty burger.
    “I have this once a year in memory of my brother.”
    I guess everyone needs rules to be flexible now and then or else you’ll just go insane.
    Afterwards Rachel brought me to a churros hotspot. I never had them before. It was like eating a sugarless doughnut which you dip in liquid chocolate. It was quite nice. It’s a twenty-four hour place and is supposed to be packed in the early hours of the morning as people wait for the first train of the day after a night of clubbing.
    Rachel and I chatted a lot, reminisced, it was all good. I gave her the brief story of Alana and I, how I had tried to surprise her with flowers at the front of the gym, waiting for her to come out and she never did, and I waited until the gym was locked up for the night. Rachel asked how I found out. Believe it or not, it came from her dad. He was hesitating the whole afternoon, which was probably made harder because Alana was always in a bubbly mood. If she had been a bitch it would have been easy to knock her down a peg or two, but no. Her dad leaned over and whispered, “The next time you hear her talk about what she’s looking forward to in the future, have a listen and compare it to yours.”
    Yeah, that confused me for a while. Then it happened. “I can’t wait to have a house, renovate the kitchen and push it out into the garden, turn the loft into something useful, have breakfast in bed every Sunday, and wake up to someone who loves me.”
    Honey, you already wake up to someone who loves you, so why is it still on your list of dreams for the future?
    Oh.
    Annoyingly, this occurred during a lunch time restaurant date when Lauren and Matt announced that they were pregnant. On the walk back to the Tube Alana asked if I was okay. I went home single. The next day she started dating Assface.
    There are statues in this place called Sol and one is a bear eating a strawberry tree (I didn’t think strawberries grew on trees …). Then we went to Plaza Mayor to see a big statue of a guy on a horse. That was the plan, but when we got there the whole area had been converted to house a free classical concert.
    Rachel piqued up and said, “They’re playing the Planets.” It sounded like the Star Wars theme. “That’s what it’s based on.” Huh.
    So we waited and listened. And waited. It was a long piece. The sound wasn’t great either because it was live, echoing off the surrounding buildings and hitting us all at the wrong time. Afterwards they played the Valkerie song from Apocalypse Now.
    We got back to Rachel’s place at eleven thirty and I checked my emails. Still nothing exciting happening in the world. After a few days of limited access, it’s disappointing to see that no one has missed me yet. Rachel is checking her emails now. There’s giggling coming from the room next door. As far as I can tell the French girl is all alone in there.
    Despite being dead on my feet I don’t feel like going to bed just yet. Maybe because it’s 34 degrees and there’s no air-con.
     
     
    13 July
     
    Weird, weird day. First of all, the funny things:
    Between Gran Vía and Sol are lots of walkways weaving around giant department stores. By the looks of things it’s just one single company that operates all the stores across several buildings. One building sells clothes, the other building sells electronics. I’m still having to translate euros to pounds. Under the pathways are the metro lines with large air vents that blast air up as the train goes by. Rachel was wearing a full length casual dress and got blasted, à la Marilyn Monroe, and her dress really did shoot up over her face.
    “At least I was wearing clean underwear,” she said, laughing it off.
    That wasn’t the only time it happened. Two American girls were caught out while I was walking along a little while later. The locals seem to have figured out not to walk on the vents but there was always cheering and clapping