Stephen slept on the flight. He drooled. Mike scarfed down his snacks in retaliation. They landed with a hefty bump, and the crawl through customs was slow and tedious. They’d managed to book a hotel online at Gatwick, and buy some euros, but it was early enough in Spain that they needn’t have bothered.
Stephen was still groggy by the time they reached the hotel—a simple little three-star job with tiny balconies and a distinct ancient Mediterranean feel to its brown-tiled décor, hiding in a side street just off La Rambla—so Mike left him for a kip in the cool, shadowy hotel room, and nipped out to explore a little. La Rambla was heaving. The beach wasn’t far. The weather was bright and hot, the fierce oppression of summer having just waned, but the miserable wet weather having not yet lan
