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days, aye,' he replied. 'But I really don't feel like it. Not that I have much of a choice...'
     
    'Why don't you feel like it?' I asked him, surprised. He always seemed to have so much fun in the US...
     
    He sighed, turning around to rest his forearms on the parapet instead.
     
    'Ach, I don't know...' he grumbled heavily. 'I just feel a bit more... watched there, sometimes. I get followed around by those clatty scunners with their cameras whenever I'm out and about, and there're so many promotional events I have to attend to...But here...' He looked around himself. 'I've not seen a single camera during the whole of the four days I've been around. Well, I have, but that was at my photoshoot, so it doesn't count. But on the street, I can just feel... normal again. It's great.'
     
    'But you've got everything!' I said in surprise. 'Why would you want to be just an ordinary nobody? You're talented, everybody loves you, famous people want to be friends with you, you've probably got one hell of a lovely house...you're just as nice in real life as on the screen...and I'm sure you have your pick of the girls, too...' I was glad that the semi-darkness hid my fiery blush. Connor gave a mirthless laugh.
     
    'You make it sound so brilliant,' he replied. 'It is fun most of the time, but sometimes I really do wonder who my friends truly are. You know, I wasnae always this well-known...in fact, I used to be a depressed, futureless nobody living in Glasgow...'
     
    Of course I knew this, I thought to myself. I had read his very vague biography so many times...
     
    'Most of the lads I went round with in those days weren't exactly part of the right crowd...but I made some other friends at college who I'm still in contact with,' he went on. 'Of course, I dinnae call them as often as I should, but they're still the ones who I know are my real friends - the ones who really know me .'
     
    I nodded understandingly, then Connor paused.
     
    'God, I haven't vented all my problems to someone like that in ages,' he said, giving a little laugh. I smiled at him.
     
    'It's good to have a proper moan sometimes,' I told him. 'I came here for a bit of a think, too.' He returned my smile. It was a different smile, one I hadn't really seen much...a very spontaneous, very friendly one that completely reached his eyes. So this is the non-public side of Connor MacGowan, then , I thought in surprise.
     
    'Why don't you have a rant, too?' he said. 'You listened to mine, so I'm all ears to yours.'
     
    I smiled uncertainly, twiddling distractedly with a lock of my hair. How would I tell him this? I couldn't just say that I had been obsessively pining over our last meeting...
     
    'Oh, it's just the usual crap...' I murmured vaguely. 'I came here because my friends and I used to come here often, but they've all got themselves boyfriends, fiancés and promotions, so they don't have time any more...It's just everyday blues, I suppose.'
     
    Connor nodded sympathetically. It was very odd to have this world-famous movie star listening so attentively to my petty little problems.
     
    'I take it you're the one left single and promotionless, then?' he asked me.
     
    'Yep,' I replied heavily with a humourless smile, letting my hands drop onto my lap. Connor sighed and crossed his arms casually, leaning his back against the wall. He didn't even seem aware of the fact that doing this made him look heart-stoppingly attractive, with his sharp profile illuminated by the lamplight like that. Nice straight nose , I found myself thinking.
     
    'Aye, I've been there , all right,' he told me grimly. 'In Glasgow I was really a complete failure. Hanging out with the wrong lads, getting fired from all the odd jobs I took to keep my head above the water...' He sighed. 'I have some pretty bleak memories of those days...not that I don't get a bit down from time to time now .'
     
    We sat together in the most oddly companionable silence imagineable. I felt pleasantly surprised; I