Page 157 of Oleander

“You should go to the British Library, I think you’d like it,” he said. “It’s in St. Pancras, and Bloomsbury isn’t too far from there: there’s a string of bookshops. And perhaps the V&A. It’s been a few years since I’ve been there, but it’s a good way to spend the day – they have a nice café and gift shop. I don’t know if you love the theatre, but The Globe isdefinitelyworth seeing in the summer too, no one wants to watch King Lear in the rain. But avoid the Tower at this time of year, it’s like Piccadilly Circus, which I would also avoid. Unless being in the centre of a litter of pigs is your thing.”

I wanted to do all of those things, I decided. Even Piccadilly Circus.

I’d probably regret it, but what was one more regret in the catalogue of Caspien related regrets?

“What are your plans? Want to come tourist-ing with me?” I stuffed a bit of chicken in my mouth just to have something to do with my hands. “Stop me falling prey to any embarrassingly obvious traps.”

He looked at me a long time as he considered this, an unreadable expression on his face.

“If you like,” he said at last.

The following day we went to the Globe: they were showing a matinee of Henry IV Part One. I’d looked it up the night before and suggested it to him as we each lay sprawled on one of the sofas in the living room. The Olympic swimming coverage was on TV, but we were only half-watching it - me on my phone and him with a book open on his thigh that he hadn’t picked up since I’d come into the room.

We were a little late arriving and so had to squeeze into the open-air theatre quietly. I’d wanted to take the Tube, but Cas had given me a look as though I’d suggested we go swimming in the Thames instead and asked Ken to call us a car.

The place felt ancient and I spent a lot of time not watching the play, instead looking up and around at the old wooden structure and imagining people hundreds of years ago doing the same. Tiers of covered oak seating circled the almost gladiatorial-style ground floor, the place was steeped in history.Finally, I forced myself to watch the play, as Cas was doing intently beside me.

Shakespeare wasn’t my favourite; I knew this was basically blasphemy as an English Literature student, but I found him dense and waffling, and it took too much effort to concentrate while reading him. That performance to this day was the best I’d ever seen his work performed. Something about the location and the actors, maybe they too delivered their best work given the stage they were on. Their inflections caused soft ripples of laughter from the audience where they were supposed to, the delivery with the sharp edge of wit it was written with. It felt like I got it, finally. It was only that day that I realised Caspien’s horse had been named after a central character in the play. I’d looked at him when the character had staggered on drunk, during an early scene.

“Where is he?” I asked as we wandered north across Southwark Bridge after. “Falstaff.”

“Boston,” he said. “He’s at a ranch outside the city. I try and ride him on the weekend but it’s not always possible.”

“Oh, so what, he went on a plane?”

“Yes, they have an equine section between first class and business. There’s hay and sugar cubes, and the cabin crew brush them down every two hours.”

It took me longer than it should have.

He laughed. “Christ, your face.”

“You’re a dick.”

“And you’re just as gullible as you always were.”

I stopped walking and stared at him.

Cas stopped and turned to look at me.

He sighed. “It was just a joke.”

“Which part?”

“About the horses. They put them in their box stalls and onto smaller planes. Sometimes they tranquilise them.”

But he knew. I knew he did.You’re just as gullible as you always were.

“I still shouldn’t trust you, though. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“I wasn’t trying to tell you anything; it was a stupid joke, Jude.” Then, very seriously, he said, “Your eyes are different, you know.”

I said, “I don’t know what that means.”

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking as easily as I used to.”

Good,I thought initially; it was good that how I felt about him was no longer ringed in neon, flashing loud and obvious. People were trying to get past us on the bridge as we stood there, staring at each other, but I hardly noticed them.

“I’m not the same person I was when you left.”When you left me, was what I meant.