‘Have you decided where you want to go, then, young Marcus?’

‘Planet Hollywood.’

‘Oh, God. Really?’

‘Yeah. Supposed to be brilliant.’

‘Is it? We obviously don’t read the same restaurant reviews.’

‘It wasn’t a restaurant reviewer. It was Sam Lovell from my old school.’

‘Oh, well, in that case… Shall we go?’

Will opened the door and waved at Fiona to go through. Marcus wasn’t sure what to look for, but he had a feeling that this was going to work.

They didn’t take the car, because Will said Planet Hollywood was in Leicester Square and they wouldn’t be able to park, so they caught the bus. On the way to the bus stop Will showed them his car.

‘This is mine. The one with the car seat in the back. Look at it. What a mess.’

‘Gosh,’ said Fiona.

‘Right,’ said Marcus.

They couldn’t think of much else to say about it, so they walked on.

There were loads of people outside Planet Hollywood waiting to get in, and it was raining. They were the only people that spoke English in the whole queue.

‘Are you sure this is where you want to go, Marcus?’ his mum asked him.

‘Yeah. Where else is there, anyway?’ If someone came up with an even half-decent suggestion, he’d take it. He didn’t want to stand around with a load of French and Italian people. It wasn’t right.

‘There’s a Pizza Express round the corner,’ said Will.

‘No thanks.’

‘You’re always on about wanting to go out for a pizza,’ said his mum.

‘No, I’m not.’ He was, but pizza was too cheap, he reckoned.

They went back to queuing in silence. Nobody was going to get married to anybody at this rate. It was too wet and too horrible.

‘Tell me why you want to go to Planet Hollywood and I’ll see if I can think of anywhere like it,’ said Will.

‘I don’t know. Because it’s famous. And it’s got the sort of food I like. Fries and things.’

‘So if I can think of somewhere famous that serves fries, we can go there?’

‘Yeah. But it’s got to be my sort of famous, not your sort of famous.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s got to be the sort of famous that kids know about. You can’t just tell me it’s famous, because if I’ve never heard of it then it’s not.’

‘So if I said to you, how about Twenty-Eight, you wouldn’t want to go.’

‘No. Not famous. Never heard of it.’

‘But famous people go there.’

‘Like who?’

‘Actors and so on.’

‘Which actors?’

‘I should think they’ve all been there at some time or another. But they don’t tell you in advance. I’ll be straight with you, Marcus. We could go there now and we might bump into Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Or we might see nobody at all. But they do good fries. The thing is, we’ll be standing here for an hour, and then when we get in there’ll be nobody there worth seeing anyway.’

‘OK then.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good man.’

No famous people ever went to this Twenty-Eight place. You could tell. It was nice, and the fries were good, but it was just normal; it didn’t have anything on the walls, like Clint Eastwood’s jacket, or the mask Michael Keaton wore in Batman. It didn’t even have any signed photos. The Indian restaurant near their flat that delivered their takeaways wasn’t famous at all, but even that had a signed picture of someone who used to play for Arsenal ages ago. He didn’t mind though. The main thing was that they were sat down and dry, and Will and his mother could begin to talk.

They needed some help at first; nobody said anything until the waiter came to take their order.

‘Mushroom omelette and fries, please. And a Coke,’ said Marcus.

‘I’ll have the swordfish steak,’ said Will. ‘No vegetables, just a side salad.’

Fiona was having difficulty deciding.

‘Why don’t you have the swordfish steak?’ said Marcus.

‘Ummm…’

He tried to get his mother’s attention across the table without Will noticing. He nodded hard, once, and then he coughed.

‘Are you all right, sweetie?’

He just felt it would help if his mum ordered the same food as Will. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like you could talk for ages about swordfish steak or anything, but maybe it would show them that they had something in common, that sometimes they thought the same way about things. Even if they didn’t.

‘We’re vegetarian,’ said Marcus. ‘But we eat fish.’

‘So we’re not really vegetarian.’

‘We don’t eat fish very often though. Fish and chips sometimes. We never cook fish at home, do we?’

‘Not often, no.’

‘Never.’

‘Oh, don’t show me up.’

He didn’t know how saying she never cooked fish was showing her up—did men like women who cooked fish? Why?—but that was the last thing he wanted to do.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Not never. Sometimes.’

‘Shall I come back in a couple of minutes?’ said the waiter. Marcus had forgotten he was still there.

‘Ummm…’

‘Have the swordfish,’ said Marcus.

‘I’ll have the penne pesto,’ said his mother. ‘With a mixed salad.’

Will ordered a beer, and his mum ordered a glass of white wine. Nobody said anything again.

Marcus didn’t have a girlfriend, nor had he ever come close to having one, unless you counted Holly Garrett, which he didn’t. But he knew this: if a girl and a boy met, and they didn’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and they both looked all right, and they didn’t mind each other, then they might as well go out together. What was the point in not? Will didn’t have a girlfriend, unless you counted Suzie, which he didn’t, and his mum didn’t have a boyfriend, so… It would be good for all of them. The more he thought about it, the more obvious it seemed.

It wasn’t that he needed someone to replace his dad. He’d talked about that with his mum ages ago. They’d been watching a programme on TV about the family, and some silly fat Tory woman said that everyone should have a mother and a father, and his mum got angry and later depressed. Then, before the hospital thing, he’d thought the Tory woman was stupid, and he’d told his mum as much, but at the time he hadn’t worked out that two was a dangerous number. Now he had worked that out, he wasn’t sure it made much difference to what he thought about the fat Tory woman’s idea; he didn’t care whether the family he wanted were all men, or all women, or all children. He simply wanted people.

‘Don’t just sit there,’ he said suddenly.

Will and his mother looked at him.

‘You heard me. Don’t just sit there. Talk to each other.’

‘I’m sure we will in a moment,’ said his mother.

‘Lunch will be over before you two’ve thought of anything to say,’ Marcus grumbled.

‘What do you want us to talk about?’ Will asked.

‘Anything. Politics. Films. Murders. I don’t care.’

‘I’m not sure that’s how conversation happens,’ said his mother.

‘Maybe you should have worked it out by now. You’re old enough.’

‘Marcus!’

Will was laughing, though.

‘He’s right. We have, I don’t know how old you are, Fiona, but we have at least sixty years of conversational experience between us here, and maybe we ought to be able to get something going.’

‘OK then.’

‘So.’

‘After you.’

They both laughed, but neither of them said anything.

‘Will,’ said Marcus.

‘Yes, Marcus,’ said Will.

‘What do you think of John Major?’

‘Not much.’

‘What about you, Mum?’

‘You know what I think of him.’

‘Tell Will.’

‘Not much.’

This was useless.

‘Why?’

‘Oh, Marcus, leave us alone. You’re making it more difficult, not easier. You’re making us self-conscious. We’ll start talking soon.’

‘When?’

‘Stop it.’

‘Have you ever been married, Will?’

‘Marcus, I’m going to get cross with you in a minute.’

‘It’s OK, Fiona. No, I haven’t. Have you?’

‘No, course not. I’m not old enough.’