Spray Painted Bananas

Chapter 16

In the pub, we choose a table by a window which looks out onto The British Museum. It also looks out onto a bunch of lime green bananas that I’ve perched on the window sill. I’ve got one more blue bunch left in my bag and then I’m going to have to go home for more supplies.

A random pub doesn’t have the same clout as Big Ben or Buckingham Palace, but it’s better than keeping all the bananas in my bag where they were getting bruised and losing their colour. The front of the pub is picturesque with its abundance of flower baskets and hanging ivy and with so much busy colour my little organic installation is likely to be overlooked.

Farrell rests our pints on the table and beer dribbles down the side of the glasses and adds a ring of history to the wood. He slides along the bench on the other side of me and turns to check on the bananas as he sips his beer.

‘We need a list of places where we’re going to put them,’ he says.

‘Agreed.’

I pull a serviette from under the cutlery on the table and he provides the pen. Unfortunately it’s a blue serviette and a blue pen so my writing doesn’t show up very well. I write down the first place that occurs to me.

No.1 Downing Street.

‘It’s number 10,’ Farrell says.

‘I’m making a list.’

‘Then you should put number 1, 10 Downing Street.’

I glare at him. He grins, enjoying himself, ‘If you’re going to involve me in your crazy projects then I need some say.’

‘Fine.’

I add a 0 to the 1.

‘Next?’

No. 2 Buckingham Palace

‘I don’t know Amber, isn’t that treason?’

‘Why should you care? You’re Irish.’

‘Fair enough.’

No.3 Houses of Parliament

‘Are we trying to make a political statement?’

‘Yes. Just don’t ask me what it is.’

He laughs and takes a sip of his beer.

No.4 Big Ben

‘We could swap the clock hands for two bananas!’ Farrell splutters.

The image makes me giggle. I savour it along with the fictional aftermath. It would be on the front cover of every single newspaper. The sceptics would swear it had been Photoshopped. How would you fix bananas onto a smooth clock face? Duct tape? They’d be too small though, we’d have to make bigger bananas. What about using plantain?

‘You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?’ he says.

‘Of course I am... don’t we know someone who works in Big Ben?’

Farrell pulls out his mobile phone. ‘Yeah of course, my man Stevie, I’ll just give him a buzz to see if we can pop over now.’

I reach for the phone, laughing, and grab it off him. ‘It was a fair question! How am I supposed to know what contacts you do or don’t have?’