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down a pedestrian side
     street lined with shops. ‘It’s just, I want to make sure we see Rome.’
    ‘But we are seeing Rome!’ Lily says, waving her arms around. ‘This is Rome!’
    I laugh, because she’s right. I’m in a lather to get out and see Rome, but we’re
     here. This
is
Rome. I take a moment to look around, absorbing everything; the buildings, the people,
     the special kind of light in the air, the smell of coffee from a nearby bar, the warmth
     of the sun on my face, the man walking past shouting into his mobile phone . . .
    Which reminds me: Oliver still hasn’t texted me back. Of course he’s probably mid-conference,
     or else his battery has died and he forgot to take his charger to Bristol. But couldn’t
     he borrow a charger? This is how it began with Jay; the cancelled plans, the silences,
     the texts I had to feed through an Enigma machine to decode. What if this whole conference
     is a cover story, and Oliver’s actually gone away for a romantic weekend with Laura?
     I tell myself not to be an idiot, but there’s a deep-seated fear there that’s very
     hard to shake. The sight of Jay has obviously rattled me.
    To distract myself, I stop to look in the window of the shop next door, where a very
     fitted raspberry-pink dress has caught my eye – except I don’t know where I would
     wear it. Maggie’s looking in the window of the shoe shop next door. She casts us both
     a hopeful look.
    ‘OK,’ Lily and I say together. We go inside and after a quick wander around, we sit
     down like two boyfriends, while Maggie tries on about twenty pairs of identical looking
     high-heeled ankle boots.
    ‘What happened to those suede boots you got at Christmas? Do you still have those?’
     asks Lily, leaning forward. It’s as if she hopes that reminding Maggie about her other
     pair will end the shopping expedition.
    ‘You sound like my mum,’ says Maggie. ‘Just because I already have a pair doesn’t
     mean I don’t need more. Anyway, they’re already wrecked. I’m never buying suede boots
     again.’
    Lily leans back again, resigned. ‘Are you a shoe person?’ she asks me.
    I shake my head. ‘Not really. I have to be in the mood to go shopping. And I never
     understood the whole Carrie Bradshaw shoe fetish thing. Maybe it’s because I’m tall,
     but I’ve never been into heels. Are you?’
    ‘No,’ says Lily. She pokes out her foot, with its Nike trainer. ‘I wear these all
     the time now. They’re so comfortable. Once you get a taste of trainers, it’s hard
     to go back to normal shoes, let alone high heels.’
    ‘Don’t listen to them. They don’t understand,’ Maggie says to her boots. Ten minutes
     later, we’re walking out of the shop, complete with ankle boots, after many goodbyes
     and ‘Ciaos’ from the shop staff.
    I look at my watch. ‘Guys, if we’re going to see the Coliseum, I think we should
     probably head over there now.’
    They turn around reluctantly. ‘OK,’ says Maggie. ‘Which way is it?’
    ‘I can probably find directions on my phone,’ says Lily unenthusiastically.
    ‘Could we have lunch first, though?’ says Maggie. ‘I’m getting hungry already.’
    They both sound so forlorn, as if I’m making them do homework, that I laugh and shake
     my head. ‘OK, fine. Lunch first.’
    After more wandering, through crowded side streets, past the half-open doors of huge
     palazzos flanked with box trees, we come to another square, where a flower market
     is taking place: not just flowers, but an incredible array of fruit and vegetables.
     Even the leeks and lettuces look bigger, greener and glossier than they do at home.
     We make our way to a restaurant on the edge of the square, which I’ve realised is
     the Campo dei Fiori. So it counts as a sight.
    Maggie and I are happy to sit anywhere outside, but Lily insists on choosing the
     restaurant with the maximum amount of sunshine, and then the table with the same.
     While she roves off to look at