At this moment in time I should open the door, as it were, and tell you a little bit about myself, for you will no doubt have begun to form an image of a nameless but attractive individual with fountains of charisma sweeping through life charged with the energy of a thousand batteries, and I want to correct you before your imagination runs away with me. I
am much more beautiful than your imagination could ever conceive. The prominent
Greek fabulists of the early centuries wouldn't have been able to conjure up such
poise, such charm and overarching power that I inherently possess. My sartorial sense
of style is elegant yet idiosyncratic; think Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca crossed with
Lawrence Lewellyn-Bowen (with a slight contrast reduction) and you will have an
image not too far from the mark.
Six foot three with a jaw like a horseshoe. Eyes as colourful and tempestuous as the North Sea on a rampant winters' morning, a nose that has been both broken and kissed, and brown hair combed into a side parting which creates a neat juxtaposition to the aforementioned unquestionably rugged features. This is what you would see if you were sat down in the corner of the restaurant and happened to peer over your newspaper towards the entrance. I find this utterly irresistible when I look in the mirror every morning.
Although early, the restaurant is half full as Sunday morning means a late opening (revise). The kitchen staff preach their brunch menu to the crowd and confidently fizz between tables and chairs as effortlessly as a Formula 1 car negotiating bends on a warm up lap. Bacon and eggs and freshly ground coffee hang heavy in the air. I survey the room and notice a restaurant greatly divided. There are several groups of mothers with babies and pushchairs, bright-eyed and wired, fuelled with the effervescence of bouncing early risers. Their tire marks have left snail slime tracks, which can still be seen across the hall floor from where they came gunning in to take the best seats. Mobile phones either flat on the table or being carried in their one free hand whilst the other cradles a child. Their conversation garrulous and loud, filling the room with white noise.
Then there are the readers. Individuals, who sit cross-legged in silence leafing through a newspaper or a book. Their concentration is intense, clearly trying to partition the noise from the restaurant somewhere behind the words of the book. One man holds his book up at eye level to block out sight of the fertile rapture of the mothers. I lock onto my lunch date who is already sat well away from the hubbub, positioned by the window which overlooks Chavasse Park. Above her is a second rate work of art hanging from a wall. A landscape painting of a motionless lake set in front of a broadleaved woodland; minimalist, talentless and lacking in any form of depth but trying very hard to depict Spring. There are bluebells, lots of bluebells. The cheap painting makes me wretch but I sharply turn away, I do not want my mood to deteriorate, especially now that I am a free man for the morning.
