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Six Years Before I Do
Audrey clasped Fred’s hand in hers as they ran across the park. After jumping off the Ferris wheel, Audrey and Fred managed to outrun the fastest of the security guards. They made it to the busy intersection at Marble Arch, where they were safe amongst the bustle of people all queuing to cross the road. They looked at each other and laughed. Every inch of Audrey’s body fired with adrenaline.
‘You’re insane,’ she said, still trying to catch her breath from running and laughing at the same time.
‘Maybe,’ he said, the whites of his eyes luminous and wide. ‘I’m impressed you jumped.’
‘Shouldn’t I have?’ she asked.
‘No, we could have broken our legs.’ He grinned, and his face was so full of energy, Audrey felt fuelled just by looking at him.
‘I take it we’re not going back for your umbrella?’
‘No, let’s hope it never rains again,’ he laughed.
They crossed the road and turned right, down Oxford Street.
‘What’s next on this date of near-death experiences then?’ Audrey asked.
‘Food, I think. I’m hungry. You?’ Fred darted into a Tesco Express, and she followed.
He strolled down the aisle, picking things up and putting them down. Audrey’s eyes were drawn back to his hips, he had this swagger, this confidence in his gait. There was something highly sexual about him, even the way he moved through a supermarket. She watched a teenage girl pause in the aisle to look at him. So she wasn’t the only one who noticed.
‘What meal is this you’re buying?’ she asked.
Fred had put a bottle of prosecco, her favourite salt and vinegar crisps, and two tins of peaches into his basket.
‘Bus snacks,’ he said, then, as though remembering he hadn’t filled her in on this plan, added, ‘Have you been on the open-top tourist bus before? They drive you around and tell you the history of the city.’ Audrey shook her head. ‘Want to ride around and learn something new?’
‘Sounds fun. I’m in.’
Outside the store, Fred took her hand again as they walked to the bus stop. On board, they took a seat in the back row of the almost empty top deck. Fred pulled the lid from the peach can, speared a peach with a disposable fork and handed it to her. ‘I bet you don’t remember how good canned peaches taste.’
He watched her, waiting for her reaction as she took a bite. The peach was soft and juicy and bursting with sweet flavour.
‘Oh wow, you’re right, they’re phenomenal. Why do I never eat these?’
‘Canned fruit is criminally underrated.’
Fred popped open the bottle of fizz. No one objected to their drinking on the bus. They didn’t have glasses so took turns taking swigs. The sweet peaches went perfectly with the bubbles, and Audrey felt a strange intimacy in sharing the bottle with him, his lips pressed against the glass rim moments before hers. There was a slightly manic energy to Fred, he buzzed with an enthusiasm that it was impossible not to get caught up in.
They ate and drank and listened to the bus guide, talked and laughed about everything and nothing. Audrey looked out at the city, at all the people going on with their lives, oblivious to the fact that she was spending the day with Photo Booth Guy, and he was wonderful.
‘This city has been inhabited for millennia,’ the buoyant voice of the guide crackled over the PA system. ‘New versions built on top of the old. Beneath us sits Roman London, Shakespeare’s London, medieval London, it’s all there, beneath our feet.’
‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? Think of all the people who have lived in this city before us. How different their lives would have been from ours,’ Audrey mused.
‘In all the past versions of London, do you think there’s ever been an Audrey the Astronomer and a Fred the Photographer who sat on a bus together eating peaches?’ Fred asked, his cheek creasing into a dimpled grin.
‘Definitely not. We’re entirely unique.’
As they talked, flirted, drank each other in, they flitted from topic to topic with seamless ease. To anyone listening, it might have sounded like a disjointed stream of consciousness, but to Audrey, it felt like talking to a new, exciting version of herself. She felt this strange sense of recognition, as though nothing she said would surprise him because he already knew it, because he was her. They were like two versions of London. In one sense they were completely different cities, but in essence, they were the same place.
At one point, Fred pulled out his notebook and showed Audrey his notes for The Insomniac’s Almanac. She paused on a list of countries.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘Places that look better at night than they do in the day. I’m going to visit them all when I’ve saved up enough money. All these adventures are waiting, and I feel like I’m wasting time staying in the same place.’
