Virgin(26)

“Oh, I’m fine, thanks, I just ordered a cappuccino.” I indicated my cup. It was empty, apart from a bit of cold coffee at the bottom. He looked at it and then looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

“Are you sure?”

“Okay, erm, maybe a tea, please. Earl Grey.”

He walked over to the barista and I suddenly panicked—should I offer to pay him for the tea? If it was a date, he should probably pay, right? I forced myself to think calmly and take out my wallet. If Lara had gone up to get my drink, I would give her the money for it, so why should this be any different? I reasoned.

By the time he came back with the drinks, I was waiting for him with my wallet in my hand. “Thanks, Jack, how much was it?” I asked.

“One ninety,” he said, without missing a beat.

“Right, cool, okay, here’s two pounds,” I said, as I handed him a two-pound coin and thanked God I had offered to pay, as he had clearly expected it. He took the coin and reached into his pocket for a ten-pence piece. I took it wordlessly and wondered if this was normal. He sat down and I smiled at him, taking in the fact that he was wearing the exact same outfit from five days ago.

“So, how have you been?” he asked, and I hurriedly moved my eyes away from his clothes and focused on his face.

“Not bad, thanks. I’ve just moved back home for the holidays, so I’ve spent the last five days acting like a moody teenager while my mum yells at me.”

“Oh, really? What is she yelling at you about?”

“Um, everything? Just typical Greek parent stuff,” I said, trying to avoid telling him how my mum thought I was doomed to a life of singledom and weight gain. “Anyway, how have you been?”

“Yeah, pretty good, thanks,” he said. “Work is pretty average, but I’m doing a lot of writing in my spare time and hoping to get some of it published. I actually already write for an online magazine, so that’s going pretty well.”

“Oh really? I just applied to write a column for my student magazine!”

“No way, that’s pretty impressive. What kind of stuff would you write?”

“Well, the theme was anarchy so I wrote something about what anarchy means nowadays and how it’s pretty much gone. I compared it to stealing pains au chocolat.”

He laughed. “Okay, that’s not what I was expecting, but I’d love to read it. You should email it to me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’d really want to read it?”

“Yes, definitely. It sounds really interesting. I think it’s very cool you write.”

I blushed. “Thanks. I’ll send it to you. Anyway, what kind of stuff are you writing?”

“Mine is more of a political satire. It’s about the futility of our existence and the fragility of our man-made political systems.”

“So, pretty much the same sort of thing as me then?” I quipped.

He laughed again. “Yeah, not quite. I’m trying to illustrate how all the political parties are essentially as distorted as each other, and it doesn’t matter if you vote Labour or Conservative—they all want the same things.”

I blinked slowly at him, trying to absorb what he had just said. “So, you’re basically saying all politicians are idiots and nothing is going to change.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” he said. “But obviously there are a lot of layers and I’m trying to show how one politician is the same as any other.”

“Yeah, that sounds pretty, um, sensible,” I said, feeling totally out of my depth and praying he would stop discussing politics any second.

“To be honest, I’m a Socialist. A working-class Socialist,” he continued, staring straight into my eyes, as I returned his gaze wordlessly. What the hell was I meant to say to that?

“You’re . . . working class? But you do graphic design. And didn’t you say you have an art degree?” I asked him.

“Yeah, but my parents were northern miners. It’s my background and my roots,” he explained, moving his arms around passionately.

I was confused. “Okay, but surely that doesn’t make you working class too? Like, you’ve had a decent education and now you have a profession that isn’t really working class.” He looked at me as though I was an idiot. I needed to prove I had a brain or he would get bored of me. I sat up in my seat and tried to force myself to be clever. “I feel like these class distinctions are just really outdated, you know?” I said.

“No, I really don’t agree,” he said vehemently. “I think the class system prevails as a sub-layer in society. In the United Kingdom, and pretty much all Western countries, it’s the underlying foundation of civilization.”