I am outside Picadilly Circus tube station and I send a text to BestFriend.
Let me know when you get here. I’m going to browse in some shops X.
It was in Accessorize that my phone died.
I waited by the tube station for twenty minutes. Nothing. Lots of people who looked like her, though.
I went to a Starbucks we had talked about going to. Nope.
I went back to the tube station and sat on the steps and huffed.
I stood by a monument and got asked to take a load of photos for tourists. Honestly, what did we do before mobile phones?
I had taken an American couple’s photograph when the idea hit me. MadFather had BestFriend’s number. And I knew MadFather’s number.
“I know this is presumptuous,” I said, handing the camera back to them, complete with blurry picture courtesy of my photo-taking skills. “But I’m supposed to be meeting my friend, and my battery’s died, could I just ring her…”
“Of course,” the blonde American with the very nice teeth said. She handed me her mobile.
There is no need, I thought, to tell her the ins and outs of calling MadFather to call BestFriend.
MadFather doesn’t answer. Fuck, fuck, I think, and hand her back her phone. “No worries,” I said. “It’ll be fine.”
The cold wind stirred my coat and I folded my arms, pondering what to do.
A few moments later she was back. “Um, it’s for you,” she said.
Oh bollocks, I thought. MadFather had one of those services that calls you back randomly. “Hello?” I said into the phone, only it was ringing out. I hung up, baffled.
“Do you want me to pass on a message, if she rings back?” the American said.
Oh God, I thought. “Just say – um, just say Billygean’s by the statue!” I said.
Eventually I rang MindReader from a phonebox and cried. He happened to have BestFriend’s number randomly and saved the day.
When I got back MadFather asked me why an American woman had told him I was by a statue.
I didn’t quite know what to say.
