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I went along with his fiction that
     we had been ‘friends’ and work buddies all along. I even sponsored his moustache for
     Movember – God help me.
    But it’s too pathetic to explain all of that so I say, ‘Oh, I had a thing with him.
     It didn’t end so well.’
    ‘Oh no,’ says Maggie. ‘I’m sorry. When was that?’
    ‘It ended last September.’
    ‘Well, of course we won’t go out with them then,’ says Lily decisively. ‘We shouldn’t
     even have been talking to them.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ I ask, feeling bad. The secret garden party rave did sound interesting.
     Typical Jay; he always found the best places to go out, damn him.
    ‘Of course! Hos before bros,’ Maggie says, which is so unexpected and un-Maggielike
     that we all start laughing.
    ‘Where are we going, girls?’ asks Lily, when we’ve subsided.
    ‘Oh.’ The encounter with Jay has thrown me completely off course and I can’t even
     remember what we were meant to be seeing first today. ‘I’m trying to think – I think
     it made sense for us to see the Forum first, and then the Coliseum. Let me check my
     guidebook.’ I rummage in my bag. ‘Shit! I left it back at the hotel.’
    The girls look at me mutely; I can tell they’re hoping I won’t suggest going back
     for it.
    ‘OK! We’ll wander,’ I say, reluctantly. ‘But tomorrow, can we definitely see the
     Coliseum?’
    ‘Of course!’ says Maggie. ‘I want to see it too.’
    ‘Shuffle me this way,’ Lily says, turning left down a side street. Ever since I told
     her about Carter saying this to me, she’s become very taken with this expression.
    ‘Any particular reason?’ I ask, as we trail after her.
    ‘Because it’s sunny?’
    Following her, I feel dubious. I want some sun too, but I don’t want to spend too
     long wandering aimlessly around these narrow streets, endless ochre and orange and
     pink facades punctuated by wooden shutters and souvenir shops. We could spend all
     day doing this and never see a single sight.
    ‘Oh!’ says Lily.
    We’ve come to the end of the street, which has opened up into a square dominated
     by a huge, round building of ancient reddish stone, with a facade of crumbling columns.
     It’s obviously been there for so many centuries it’s sunk several feet deep into the
     ground. A Latin inscription is set across the pediment. It looks like part of ancient
     Rome, dropped into the middle of a modern square. There are hardly any tourists looking
     at it; in fact nobody seems to be paying it any attention.
    ‘I know this sounds ridiculous,’ says Maggie, ‘but that looks
old
.’
    ‘Let’s have a shufti,’ says Lily.
    We go inside and I see from the holy water font that this is now a church, and bless
     myself automatically. The interior is dark, except for a column of light filtering
     down from a round hole at the top of the dome. We wander around, absorbing the hush
     and awe of the place, with its marble floor and mosaic walls. The silence is only
     broken by the shriek of a toddler breaking free from its parents before being instantly
     snatched up again.
    ‘This is the Pantheon,’ Maggie tells us in a whisper, having got hold of a leaflet.
     ‘It was built as a temple dedicated to all the gods during the reign of the Emperor
     Augustus, about two thousand years ago.’
    The Emperor Augustus. For a second I get a glimpse of what it would have been like:
     lit by candles probably, with softly moving robed figures and strange chants and incense
     rising up towards the domed roof. And two thousand years later it’s still here, with
     people walking past with their iPhones and Prada bags and gluten allergies. After
     a while, we drift back out in unspoken accord towards the exit.
    ‘That was amazing . . . and it wasn’t even on my list,’ I say.
    Lily and Maggie don’t say anything but I know they’re thinking: there she goes again
     with her list.
    ‘I’m not wedded to the list, you know,’ I add, as we turn