Chapter 22: London Calling

The atmosphere in the car on the drive back was decidedly sombre. At least, it was in my car. I concentrated on driving and tried to keep my mind as devoid of thought as possible. It didn’t work, of course. Images of Del’s face sporting a goofy grin that seemed to say “Ha, I got away with it” played across my field of vision. No matter that he’d actually appeared genuinely contrite about the whole situation. Yes, he’d shown remorse over the accident and yes, he seemed ashamed that a failed justice system had him back on the streets, but the long and short of it was he’d got away with it. And that was what filled my head on the drive back.

That and her voice.

<<Why didn’t you finish him off? You should have finished him off. He deserves it. Go back and finish him off!>>

I knew that both Mark and Emily were aware of the accident and that Del had been at the wheel of the other car, so perhaps they understood my reaction. But I didn’t think poor Vanessa had a clue what she’d just witnessed. I’m pretty sure that as far as she was concerned she just seen a guy she quite liked, who she’d been on a couple of dates with and was actively considering as a potential boyfriend (in all but name), go ape-shit on some guy she didn’t know for, as far as she knew, no reason at all.

I’d gone from reasonably calm and normal over lunch to a complete madman in a split second.

Add that to how I’d handled (or not) the situation with Steve that morning...

I wouldn’t blame her for being terrified and wanting nothing more to do with me.

<<Not to worry—she wasn’t about to give up her pussy anyway. Go back to Mands. She’ll arrange some fresh pussy for us!>>

SHUT UP!

“What?”

I glanced over at Mark in the passenger seat then back at the road. “Sorry? What?”

“You said, shut up. Who were you talking to, ‘cause, like, none of us was talking.”

Glancing at him again I said, “Did I really say that out loud?”

He nodded.

Eyes on the road, I shook my head and said, “Her.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Who?” asked Vanessa.

I didn’t need to turn around and look to know that right then Imogen was doing the non-verbal thing, probably saying to Vanessa something along the lines of, “I’ll tell you later” with nothing more than an eye movement.

Even though it was Friday and the exams were now over, I didn’t feel like a night on the town. Amanda persuaded Emily it was a good idea to go out, but Mark, Imogen and Vanessa opted to stay with me, so after a less than impressive meal in the canteen, we bought a couple of six-packs to share from the shop in The Union building and commandeered the big screen telly in the common room to watch a couple of DVDs.

“Are you still taking us shopping tomorrow?” Vanessa asked as Mark swapped over the discs after the first film had finished.

“You didn’t seriously agree to something like that did you?” Mark said. “Now I know you’re nuts.”

“He promised to take us to that new shopping centre by the Olympic Park,” Vanessa replied.

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” said Imogen. “I’ve never been to London.”

“Nah, me neither,” said Mark, dismissively.

“What?” said Vanessa, sounding genuinely shocked. “Seriously? Like, never?”

“I think I went once when I was really young,” said Mark, “but I don’t really remember it.”

She looked at Imogen who shrugged and shook her head.

“Oh, well, in that case, forget the shopping. We should do the tourist thing.”

“Really?” I said, less than enthused by the idea of traipsing around with a thousand other tourists to see things I’d seen a hundred times before. Well, not a hundred times, but, you know...

“Yes, really,” said Vanessa. She sat up and forward, resting on the edge of her seat. “It’ll be great. We go early and we can do Hyde Park, The Palace and Westminster in the morning, then head out to see St. Paul’s and The Tower after lunch. Shouldn’t think we’ll fit in much more than that in a day, even though there’s loads more, but we can always go again on Sunday if you wanted. See Madame Tussauds or the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum. Things like that. It’ll be so cool.” She looked from Imogen to Mark and then to me. “Oh, come on! It’ll be great. I promise. We can even stay for the evening and see a show in the West End or something. Come on, what do you say?”

I was outvoted—three to one.

I did text Emily and ask if she and any of her friends would like to join our day trip, but they declined so it was just the four of us that boarded the train in Westmouth.

Despite my initial lack of enthusiasm for the trip, I couldn’t help but get caught up in Mark and Imogen’s slowly building excitement at seeing our capital city for the first time. And the fact that Vanessa was full of fervour for the trip helped. It was impossible not to get swept along with the way she eagerly laid out her itinerary for the day.

“It’ll best be best to get the tube to Marble Arch,” she began. “That way, we can take photos of us standing under it and see if anyone is talking at Speaker’s Corner, then walk through Hyde Park to see the Princess Diana Memorial before walking through Green Park to The Palace and up The Mall to Trafalgar Square where—”

“Hang on,” I said. “That’s all wrong. Completely wrong.”

“Why?”

“Well, for a start, you’ve got to change trains to get to Marble Arch from St. Pancras. The quickest way is to take the Victoria Line to Oxford Circus, I think, then the Central Line to Marble Arch.”

“So?”

“And secondly,” I said, ignoring the question, “You’ll be going the wrong way on The Mall. You don’t walk up it, away from Buckingham Palace, you have to walk down it, towards The Palace.”

Vanessa huffed—which I took as a sign that I was right, but she didn’t want to admit she was wrong.

“Plus,” I added, “we don’t have to change trains that way. Get on the Piccadilly Line to either Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus. We can walk to Trafalgar from there, it’s not even five minutes. Then down The Mall to Buck House. It’s the best way.”

Vanessa shrugged. “Whatever. But then we’ll have to come back on ourselves to see Big Ben and Parliament.” She gave me a look that spoke volumes.

“Not a problem. We walk back through St. James’ Park to Horse Guard’s Parade. That takes us across to Whitehall, and we walk down that, past Downing Street and The Cenotaph, to get to Parliament.”

She huffed again. But at least she didn’t argue any further.

A little under an hour after boarding, we alighted at St Pancras station in London. That was thanks to the new High-Speed service which used the track laid for the Eurostar to Paris. I jokingly suggested that Paris should be our next day trip destination since we could also get there by train in a little over an hour and a half, but to my horror, Vanessa took the suggestion seriously.

As I’d suggested, we took the tube to Leicester Square then walked the short distance to Trafalgar Square, where we took photos of the four of us in every combination possible sitting in front of or climbing on top of one of the lions at the foot of Nelson’s Column. It had to be done, I think it’s a law or something. You have to have your photo taken with the lions.

On the walk down The Mall towards The Palace, it was quite clear that we were two couples rather than a foursome. Well, two potential couples. Imogen and Mark walked a few paces behind me and Vanessa, taking in the sights and sounds and very clearly (even to me and I’m normally ignorant when it comes to these things) both wanting to hold the other’s hand but neither of them bold enough to make the first move to do so.

“Hey,” Mark called as we approached the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace. “Is the Queen home, do you think?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” I replied, “but I’ll tell you for sure in a bit.”

“Yeah, right, how will you know? Can you see her in one of the windows or something?”

I looked at Vanessa, who was grinning.

“If she’s in residence,” I said, without taking my eyes off Vanessa, “then the Royal Standard will be flying. If not, it’ll be a Union Jack.”

“Oh. Right.” He paused then said, “Isn’t that, like, a security risk or something?”

I turned and said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, terrorists can look at the flag and know if the Queen’s there, so they’ll know if it’s worth attacking or not, won’t they?”

I didn’t answer.

“Where will she be if she’s not here? I thought this was her home?” asked Imogen.

“She’s got more than one home,” said Vanessa. “She might be at Balmoral or something.”

“Actually, she’s got three official homes and three or four private ones,” I said. “This time of year, she might still be at Sandringham, where they spend Christmas, or she could be at Windsor Castle, which is her official weekend residence. I think. I know it’s something like that.”

As it turned out, it was a moot point, because the Royal Standard was indeed flying high above Buckingham Palace. We took more photos—too many probably but that’s digital photography for you—before walking back through St James’ Park and onwards as I’d suggested on the train. All the time filling up our phone’s memory cards with more and more photos and videos.

We had lunch at a chain restaurant back at Leicester Square, then headed east to see some of the sights in and around The City of London. We climbed the many, many, many steps to the Stone Gallery of St. Paul’s Cathedral so we could look out over the London skyline and even took a tour of the Tower of London and went to see the Crown Jewels.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. Tiring, yes, but a relaxing end to what had been an incredibly stressful few weeks since I’d returned to Westmouth after the Christmas break.