On the next stall a woman sat with a baby on her lap. I could not imagine that this was a good place for a baby to be.
We wandered the corridors of this strange place for an hour. We bought bacon rolls and very strong tea from a weird café on the top floor and watched people. Phin bought himself a black and white printed scarf of the type worn by men in the Sahara, and some seven-inch singles of music I’d never heard of. He tried to persuade me to let him buy me a black T-shirt with illustrations of snakes and swords on it. I declined, although part of me rather liked it. He tried on a pair of blue suede shoes with crêpey soles which he referred to as brothel creepers. He looked at himself in a full-length mirror, pulled his curtained hair away from his face and turned it into a quiff, rendering him suddenly into a beautiful 1950s heartthrob, Montgomery Clift crossed with James Dean.
I bought myself a bootlace tie with a silver ram’s head. It was two pounds. It was slid into a paper bag by a man who looked like a punk cowboy.
We emerged an hour later into the normality of a Saturday morning, of families shopping, people getting on and off buses.
We walked for a mile into Hyde Park where we sat on a bench.
‘Look,’ said Phin, unfurling the fingers of his right hand.
I looked down at a small crumpled clear bag. Inside the small bag were two tiny squares of paper.
‘What is that?’ I asked.
‘It’s acid,’ he replied.
I didn’t understand.
‘LSD,’ he said.
I had heard of LSD. It was a drug, something to do with hippies and hallucinating.
My eyes widened. ‘What. But how …？ Why?’
‘The guy in the record shop. He just sort of told me he had it. I didn’t ask. I think he thought I was older than I am.’
I stared at the tiny squares of paper in the tiny bag. My mind swam with the implications. ‘You’re not going to …？’
‘No. At least, not today. But some other time, maybe? When we’re at home? You up for it?’
I nodded. I was up for anything that meant I could spend time with him.
Phin bought us sandwiches in a posh hotel overlooking the park. They came on plates with silver rims, and a knife and fork. We sat by a tall window and I wondered how we appeared: the tall, handsome man-boy, his tiny baby-faced friend in a scruffy jersey jacket.
‘What do you think the grown-ups are doing now?’ I asked.
‘I couldn’t give a shit,’ said Phin.
‘They might have called the police.’
‘I left a note.’
‘Oh,’ I said, surprised by this act of conformity. ‘What did it say?’
‘It said me and Henry are going out, we’ll be back later.’
Me and Henry. My heart leapt.
‘Tell me what happened in Brittany?’ I asked. ‘Why did you all leave?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know.’
‘No, I do want to know. What happened?’
He sighed. ‘It was my dad. He took something that wasn’t his. Then he said, oh, you know, I thought we were all supposed to be sharing everything, but this was like a family heirloom. It was worth about a thousand pounds. He just took it into town, sold it, then pretended he’d seen “someone” break into the house and steal it. Kept the money hidden away. The father found out through the grapevine. All hell let loose. We were turfed out the next day.’ He shrugged. ‘And other stuff too. But that was the main thing.’