You Are Here

by David Nicholls

she felt sorry for anyone who was still in bed.

one wanted to taste of the English Channel.

But it seemed unlikely on this holiday.

Noticed, too, that he’d stopped looking at the view.

‘They’re always disappointing when you get them home, don’t you think?’ she said, then, bizarrely, ‘Like men.’ ‘It’s because they dry out,’ said the man. ‘Lose their shine.’ ‘Like men?’ they said together, and smiled.

Hardly anyone called him Mike.

Through gasps, he managed, ‘Quite a coincidence.’

Marnie, and he thought how much he liked her,

If Marnie were here, he could refer back to her salmon story, perhaps that

If Marnie were here,

And so he lost her again,

But as they got nearer,

But as they got nearer

In Reception, she retrieved her rucksack from behind the desk just as the taxi-driver arrived, followed by a woman of about her own age, neat, carefully dressed and visibly pregnant.

And here she smiled, not pleasantly. ‘But, Michael,’ she said, ‘that’s where we are.’

but all the best bits were with you.

I just want to look and look.