I got off the train and walked up Ludgate, towards St Paul's, stopping briefly to look at the Wren church where William Penn was married. Leaving, I held the door for two elderly Americans - presumably from Pennsylvania.
The sun was bright and all was, for once, well with the world. I'd arranged to meet Smack-Head at 1pm in front of the Tate so I still had a while to kill. I strolled.
A group if chefs and waitresses passed me carrying a buffet, with apparent difficulty. I stopped to look in another window before walking on. Moments later I observed a mass of pasta spread through the doorway of a posh office and being spread and smeared further by the automatic door. The effort obviously became too much.
For the third time I walked up the steps to St Paul's and looked in through the door. I still think £12 is too much to look round a cathedral. However beautiful, however influential, however famous. For the third time I walked out again without seeing anymore.
And so I went round the side and looked at the gardens. Fountains splashed, gardeners chased pigeons (surely a futile exercise), drunks dozed on the benches, tourists posed and people enjoyed the midsummer sun.
I glanced up and saw a beautiful woman walking towards me as I headed down the steps. Small, blonde, pretty, very pretty, in a classic Chanel type green silk dress, matching shoes, bare legs, black bag, her small breasts free from underwear. I tried not to stare.
I headed down the steps and headed back towards Ludgate, desperate to look at her again, but too scared. I could hear her heels coming closer. I strolled, attempting casualness.
She passed me.
She slowed.
She matched my pace.
My heart was going crazy, beating fit to leave my chest. Surely she wasn't stopping for me?
But I was on the wrong side of the road, the wrong side of the river.
Surely she can't be looking at me? But she's only turned her head this way in the last hundred yards. no, yeah, maybe, why not, its obvious, but...
At the crossing I slowed and looked at her a step ahead of me, as I stopped to cross, I shot her a glance she had stopped too, no not stopped, but almost. She seems to be waiting to see what I'm going to do. I make a bargain, if she crosses I'll speak to her, however much of a fool I make of myself. I swear I'll say hello at least.
I cross, not looking, I don't want to be too obvious.
I step onto the kerb and she isn't beside me, she's still over the road and shes walking away. I think she glances over towards me, just for a second, or is she looking at the people closer?
I toy with the idea of running back, saying hello, taking her picture, asking her name... but I don't. Five minutes later I almost run back... but the moment is gone.
I spend the rest of the day with Smack-Head, we drink expensive beer in several places and watch the football. We talk and look at art, try to sound like we know about it - but we don't. The we go shopping , but buy nothing. We hug and, after we see a lovely girl in the crowd with her dress hitched right up exposing herself in the crown at Oxford Circus, he head off home. I stroll through Soho, get the eye from the one working girl I see, and get a come-on from a woman in the peepshow doorway. Soho isn't like it was when I was a student. The sleaze has gone. It feels like a theme park of the red light district. Gay men rule the area now. Lots of very sexy men just being nice sets the tone.
I eat Japanese curry in a booth on Shatesbury Avenue, I take a tube and get a train home.
The indiscretions a man regrets most in old age are the ones he did not commit.
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