Page 51 of A Lot to Unpack
I wonder if he knows we have a king now too. Honestly, I’m not even going to go there…
‘No.’
‘I love London. Black cabs, red buses, Big Ben…’
‘Yep.’
‘Man, your culture is so classy,’ he continues. ‘And I love the way you guys say, like, al-yoo-min-ee-um. And choo-na, whenyou have it on baked potatoes with beans from a tin. It looks so gross, but you eat like wartime stuff, right?’
Does this man really think I’m sitting in my manor house, next door to the Queen, where she’s eating tuna and beans in a jacket potato, with Posh Spice, while Big Ben bongs in the background? I’m starting to think he really does.
‘Do you live in a cottage?’ he asks.
‘A flat.’
‘A flat,’ he replies, trying to copy my voice. ‘Do you watchThe Great British Baking Show? You guys call itBake Offthough, don’t you?’
What is this? What’s going on here? He’s turned up, low-key offended me, he’s interrogating me about Britain generally, like it’s all one big London. Is he serious?
‘I dated this girl, Sarah, from Clapham,’ he tells me, although he pronounces it clap-ham. ‘And Donna, I don’t remember where she was from, but she worked for a company that made crumpets.’
Every now and then his accent slips into what I would imagine is supposed to be an ‘English’ one, but he sounds more Bean than he does Bond.
‘We had an intern who was English, but she wasn’t interested…’
‘Do you only date English girls?’ I joke.
‘Basically,’ he replies.
Wait, what? I know this isn’t a date, I don’t even know this man’s name, but I’m going to call it. Here is it. Here comes the ick.
‘Yeah!’ he says proudly. ‘It’s just my type. The accent. The attitude. So posh but feisty, you know? Like classy but could also tell you to sod off if you burn the bangers and mash.’
I have no words.
‘Say something British,’ he prompts me.
I don’t.
‘What are you, one of those Beefeaters?’ he teases. ‘Come on, say something, anything. Tell me about how you make cups of tea or how you guys all love Boris Johnson? He is so funny…’
‘Right, I’m off,’ I tell him, knocking back the last of my drink.
‘I’m off,’ he says to himself. ‘I haven’t heard that one before.’
‘No, I’m actually off – I’m going,’ I tell him.
‘Was it something I said?’ he replies.
‘It was literally everything you said,’ I point out.
I grab my bag to leave. As I’m walking away, I swear I hear him say ‘bloody hell’ in the most exaggerated accent.
Well, that’s a first. I’ve never been interesting just for being English before. Not that I liked it – being treated like a souvenir or something.
Perhaps going out drinking alone isn’t for me. Plus, I’ve got a job to do, and if I don’t get it done soon, Paige will be furious. I’ll be ‘brown bread’. And I really don’t want that.
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