One Saturday Afternoon

We
met in the café I go to on Saturday afternoons to write, the one with the loo
right by the kitchen where you can hear if the occupant is doing a number one
or a number two. 

I
felt him watching me as soon as I walked in, swooshing past in my ridiculous coat
that got caught on a chair at his table. 

It was sunny outside for the first
time in ages, and on the short walk around the corner from my house I’d gotten
a bit purple and sweaty. The rest of London had known to switch to Spring
jackets, like there’d been a conference that I’d missed.

He
was wearing a cranberry-coloured shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. I only looked
at his forearms, mentally noting the peek of tattooed script near his elbow,
because I was too embarrassed to look up when I mumbled sorry for causing a ruckus. He had the kind of masculine, nimble hands
that could pin a girl up to the wall and make her pray to Jesus.

I’m
all words until the boy is beautiful, and oh
my Beyoncé this fella was an angel. Finally sneaking a peek at him from the
counter I remember thinking wow. He
was working at his laptop, notebook at his side. Dark, bearded, glasses. He
looked ready for his Instagram, Mr DeMille.

I’d
give him my close-up, I thought,
until he looked up and I had to adjust my gaze to pretend I was actually
looking for somebody out of the window. 

He
wasn’t subtle about looking at me. He knew right from the off that to catch my
attention he’d to play me at my own game, peacock to peacock. When the Russian waitress
said, ‘I got berries, with the water and some ginger. I make for you!’ I simply
said, ‘Okay.’ I’d wanted mint tea, but my cheeks were flushing and I felt
really… exposed. I just wanted to sit down.

I
picked my favourite table by the door, the one where the sun warms my back, and
pulled out my laptop. I caught his eye as I arranged my things. He smiled.

We
left the café together three hours later. All it took was, ‘Hello.’ ‘Hi,’ he’d
said back. And that was that.

I
stood ground with myself when the coffee shop turned into the pub that turned
into a Vietnamese on Kingsland Road and nine hours turned into ten that turned
into, ‘I want to invite you back, but
I won’t.’ I was terrified of him.

He’d
read To Kill a Mockingbird and understood
what I meant about Revolutionary Road and
how the film was brilliant, but totally not a fair representation of the book. He
put on silly voices when he told stories about his family, and told me I was
charming before he told me I was beautiful.

‘You
won’t believe what happened to me today,’ I said to my brother and his fella
when I finally got home at 1 a.m. ‘There was this boy…’

He
kissed me the next morning, when we met for breakfast. He said, ‘I should’ve
done it last night, but I wanted to wait until it was light so I knew you were
real.’ We held hands and than ate eggs (me) and bacon (him) and he told me he’d
tried to be vegetarian once but his dad used to make salted beef sandwiches every
Monday supper and after he passed he liked to continue the tradition.

He
came back to the flat with me, and bellies full we spooned on the sofa and took
a nap. We only woke up when my brother and his fella got home, and it was awkward
and embarrassing but he made easy conversation and we all made a salad. At bedtime
he came upstairs with me, because of course. Of course.

Our
first fight was about how to make proper béchamel
sauce. He told me it was better if I heated the milk before adding it to
the flour and butter, and I said it was a waste of time. He told me I needed to
learn to be more patient, to go slower with the things that mattered, and I
thought he was telling me we were too much too fast and yelled that I’d make
the béchamel how I’d always made the
fucking béchamel because I’d been
making my own goddamn béchamel sauce
for ten years before he came along. Then I threw the pan in the sink and turned
on the tap and he told me he loved me.

Well.
I’m sure that’s how it would’ve played out, anyway, IF I’D HAD BALLS ENOUGH TO
EVEN LOOK HIM IN THE EYE THAT SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I
think I’m going to be single forever.

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