‘Yeah, no, I can’t do puns,’ I say after a bit.
‘Me neither. Although I doadmirea pun.’
‘Same. Okay, so we’re going to find somewhere without the bridge in the view and say a few words and then sing?’
‘Perfect.’
We start walking again, and are soon weaving our way through the crowds at the bottom of the Eye.
‘Hmm,’ I say.
‘Is your video director instinct telling you that it’s too busy here?’
‘Yep.’
We begin to walk east from the Eye, along the South Bank.
‘I do love it here.’ I do a big sweep with my arm. ‘I travel in and out of Waterloo all the time, but I don’t come down here very often and just enjoy the atmosphere; I’m always in a rush to go somewhere. When Iamhere, I always wonder why I don’t come more often.’
‘Yeah, same.’
I love the buzz, the variety of people, the way anything goes. There are elderly people, people on their own, people in groups, people dashing straight through, people sitting and enjoying the moment, other couples just strolling together like we are.
Except. We are very much not a couple.
I need to remember that.
14
TOM
‘Why don’t we grab some dinner?’ I say on impulse. ‘Take advantage of being here. I still owe you big for the blisters and frilly pants. Let me treat you. After we’ve done the video.’
‘Oh, I…’ Nadia hesitates and then says, ‘Dinner would be fab. But only if we go halves. I choose; we both pay. That was the deal.’
‘We did the deal before either of us realised the terrible sartorial and blister lengths you’d have to go to at my mother’s hands.’
She laughs but shakes her head. ‘I insist on going halves.’
‘Fine,’ I concede. ‘But you are absolutely choosing where we eat.’
‘Done.’
‘Okay, so shall we get the video done? It’s actually fairly quiet here? And we can get Big Ben in, in the distance.’
Nadia nods, before checking, ‘So we’re going to do it as a selfie video and I’m going to say something and then we’re going to sing?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
We stand together with our backs to the river at an angle, with Big Ben in the distance.
‘Maybe before we start recording we should take a couple of photos so we can see how we look?’ Nadia suggests.
We kind of both just stand there and then I take a couple of photos and we check the screen.
‘If you don’t mind,’ I say, ‘I think we should put our heads closer together.’
