By Geo Ong
The approach of Valentine’s Day got me thinking… What would be my perfect Urchin date?
It’d be a first date. I’d meet her at a cafe she frequents on a regular basis to read on her days off working at the Tate Modern. I am particularly thrilled not to have to use my Oyster card, since the cafe is walking distance, exactly halfway between her London flat and mine. On my way there, I find a pound on the ground. It’s tails-up, but my reasoning tells me that finding a pound on the ground regardless of what’s up is good luck. We arrive at the cafe at the same time. She is more attractively-dressed than I am, but not by much. It’s packed except a small table for two by the back window.
We talk about the important people in our lives. She tells me about her mother. I tell her about James Joyce. I realise later that our meandering, tangential conversation would make little sense to any lurking eavesdropper, which makes me feel she’s one of those rare individuals who actually understands me.
We go for a walk and happen upon a used bookshoppe called Reid Books. I propose a game: we each pick a book for the other to read. I hastily pick a charmingly-tattered copy of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, but she stops me and tells me she just read it last week. We get sidetracked talking about Alice and Gertrude and somewhere along the way plan a trip to Paris next weekend. Thirty minutes later, I remember our game and find a copy of Dubliners, priced at a pound. I pay for it with the good luck coin I found earlier. (I read her pick within the week and it quickly becomes one of my favourite books of all time. We spend much of the Chunnel ride to Paris discussing it, interspersed with her semi-successful attempts to teach me French.)
After walking her home, I walk back to my flat thinking, how wonderful I didn’t just imagine all this.
