‘Yeah, Albie told me you’ve checked him in to some kinky knocking-shop. Sounds hysterical.’
‘It’s not kinky,’ I said patiently, ‘it’s boutique.’
‘So what have you done, where have you been, what are you going to do? Tell me everything!’
‘The flower market, cycling around the canals. We’re going to the Van Gogh Museum tomorrow, and a canal cruise if we have time.’
‘That’s all the pretty-pretty tourist stuff — you need to see the
I felt, instinctively, that my itinerary was under threat. ‘Actually, we’re going to the Anne Frank House, then the Rembrandt House Museum.’
‘Well, we don’t
‘Why don’t you guys go without us?’ said Albie, hopefully. Clearly the idea of the four of us ‘hanging out’ was as unlikely and awkward to Albie as it was to me. ‘Me and Cat want to go and explore.’
‘I really want to take you to the Anne Frank House, Albie. I think you should see it.’
‘I’m too tired to do much more, Douglas,’ said Connie treacherously. ‘Perhaps we should go tomorrow morning?’
‘No! No, it’s the Van Gogh Museum tomorrow. We’re leaving in the afternoon.’
‘Wouldn’t you rather see the
No, Cat, dammit, no! I had no desire to see the real Amsterdam. We had reality back in Berkshire, that’s not why we were here; we had no interest in the way things really were. A perfectly co-ordinated schedule of sightseeing was unravelling before my eyes. ‘If we don’t go to the Anne Frank House today, the whole plan falls apart.’ I felt myself getting shrill.
‘Let us at least grab some lunch and chill out though, yeah? I’ve got a bike, and I know this amazing vegetarian buffet in De Pijp …’
Chickpeas like little balls of limestone. Some kind of bland, spongy curd cheese. Spinach like the algae on a Chinese beach, cold okra like a bucket of slugs. Necrotic avocado, sandy couscous, flaccid courgettes in a green-grey water sauce made from water. Kidney beans! Just plain cold kidney beans, exquisitely emptied from the can.
‘Isn’t it incredible? Who needs meat!’ said Cat who, the last time I saw her, had been stuffing her rucksack with bacon like some crazed taxidermist.
‘We ate a lot of meat in Paris. A lot,’ said Connie, shifting allegiance in the most audacious way.
‘I hope you didn’t eat foie gras,’ warned Cat, one finger pointed in my face.
‘No, just duck, steak, duck, pâté, duck, steak …’
‘And it was all delicious, I thought.’
‘Dad won’t eat anything
‘I don’t think I heard anyone complain at the time.’
‘It’s very hard to get top-notch veggies in Paris. Kind of bungs you up after a while, though, doesn’t it?’ said Cat, puffing out her cheeks. ‘Especially with all those baguettes. At least this bread has got some goodness in it.’ The bread was rubbery and dense like window putty, and sprinkled with the contents of the baker’s dustpan. ‘I’m going in again! Who’s coming for more delicious veggies?’ and off Cat and Albie hopped to the buffet bar, where the tea-lights beneath silver hoppers kept the food pleasingly tepid.
I returned to my plate with a sigh. ‘There is nothing here that, if you threw it against a wall, wouldn’t stick and slide down very slowly.’
‘Except the bread,’ laughed Connie.
‘The bread would ricochet off and take out an eye.’
‘Well, you did say you wanted to try new things.’
‘I only want to try new things that I know I’m going to like,’ I said, and Connie laughed. ‘Does she only ever eat from buffets, I wonder?’
‘Leave her alone. I like her.’
‘Really? You’ve changed your tune.’
‘She’s fine when she calms down. And look at them. It’s sweet.’ Over at the buffet, they stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to choose between norovirus and listeria. ‘Young love. Were we once like that, Douglas, I wonder?’
‘It’s three fifteen. If we’re going to get to the Anne Frank House we need to go now.’
‘Douglas, can we leave it be? Even the Gestapo didn’t want to get there this much.’
‘Connie!’
‘We’re spending time with Albie, doing what he wants to do. Isn’t that what you wanted?’
And so we polished off our watery curd, paid and mounted our bikes and spent the afternoon touring the outer rings of Amsterdam, Cat pointing out the amazing little bars, the squats where she’d stayed, the skateboard parks and huge estates and street markets. In truth much of it was perfectly nice and it was interesting, I suppose, to see where the Moroccan population lived, the Surinamese and the Turks. But as we looped back towards the centre, another destination became clear.
‘And this,’ said Cat, ‘is my favourite coffee shop!’
It was inevitable, I suppose. Ever since we’d arrived in Amsterdam, Albie had been glancing sideways at these places in the same way that he once regarded toy shops. Now, standing outside the Nice Café, he was looking at the ground, grinning.
‘It’s a really blissful, vibey little place, dead friendly,’ reassured Cat. ‘I know the bud-tender, he’ll look after us.’
