London opens up to you, depending on when you arrive. A Friday evening glimmers a little, a hint of nerves, remembering the taste of wine. Cigarette smoke, first time in ages. Come on a Monday morning and yeah, you’re with the Most Productive People in the whole world. You grab a latte — early 2000s boss aesthetic — and your day is yet to unfurl, the possibility absolutely thrilling.
Saturday mornings are different. The jagged dregs of last night are scattered and sprayed on the pavements. People walk past in sunglasses and last night’s clothes. The only conversations you hear are about the train people took to get here for their London Day Out. The Geordies are here for football, you figure, by their accents and the scarves.
What are you here for? You drop in to the city to escape the provincial, right? Yeah actually I am still interesting. I can walk along a street in London and remember how to get back to the station. I can, in an unfriendly way, order a croissant from the bitchy coffee shop girl, sitting in the corner with a book. I can suspend any vast thread of existential questioning as to how my life ended up as it did.
A mother-daughter pair across from you in matching New Balances take matching pictures of their pastries. The guy who clearly hates his job sits out the front and smokes. Girls in black leggings and calf length white socks stride past outside, betraying their generation.
You wonder where to go next, a closet tourist in London. Maybe they should make a guide.
