London Sunrise

She felt loose for the first time in years, as though every tiny joint had been rejuvenated, the tendons released like new springs.

She was light, walking light. It was a strange kind of happiness.

In the enduring light of a London summer afternoon, she had absolutely nothing and everything to do.

The schools of strangers passing by on crowded footpaths were fascinating tropical fish.

The art gallery was supposed to be at the end of the street and “joost arcrouz ze main rod” the Eastern European concierge had explained curtly before she set out. Without a hint of a smile, he has listed the local attractions – restaurants, pubs, galleries, museums.

She couldn’t remember if he was Polish or Russian – but meeting his dispassionate blue eyes, she doubted he had a future in hospitality.

Out from the little hotel with its many tiny quaint rooms, she was in no hurry. She was relishing the whole notion of walking, tubing, strolling - all holiday liberation from the driver’s seat.

So, when he spoke, it was though someone had clicked their fingers to bring her around. Like those poor sods who volunteer for stage show hypnosis, she wondered if she had been acting strangely.

Focusing, she took a second to take in the scene.

He was perched on patio furniture outside one of the smallest shops she had ever seen.

He was peeling an orange and smoking a cigarette all at the same time. His jet curls played on his shoulders. His smile was overwhelming.

“When I saw you, I don’t know, I just thought I would like to say hello,” his voice was crisply English, with just a hint of an accent – Spanish, Arabic, Maltese – she couldn’t guess.

“Would you like to have some orange with me...where are you headed?”

“I was just having a look around,” she smiled. “I was thinking about the gallery but it might be closed.”

Slowing her pace, she looked at her watch to break eye contact. Surely she was being spoken to by Apollo himself and she felt a sudden awkwardness under his beneficent gaze.

She had been there a week – time for the jetlag to have settled – but it was 7.30 pm, not early afternoon as she had imagined, and as he packed up his foldaway wooden chairs and placed them inside the door of the shop, Apollo knew the gallery was closed.

“I’m coming with you,” he said.

“Oh, are you?” she laughed nervously.

Quite unexpectedly, she had found herself in the lap of a God.

He quickly wiped the orange juice from his hands with a damp cloth. Folding it neatly and placing it in the sink, he locked the door of the shop, and resting a guiding hand in the small of her back, moved his bow lips close to her ear and whispered, “this way”.

She watched his every move as they walked further down the street. His shy smile transformed his beautiful, somewhat poignant face into something radiant and full of sweetness. She was trying to place him – he was familiar. He was a renaissance portrait – oh yes, he was da Vinci’s John the Baptist, only far less holy. His graceful gestures were tactile, sensuous.

Her sense of buoyancy was moving into overdrive – she felt giddy, excited, completely captivated.

He wound through the crowds and turned into a quieter street. And she followed. It was quickly more suburban terrain. Identical three-storey row houses alternating between red brick and white render, seemed to string on and on, and the blossoms from their flower boxes ran like ribbons along the street.

At the end and down a small lane there was a strange single level shop.

Through the glass front she could see a bizarre array of brick-a-brack.

The walls held unstrung mandolins inlaid with mother of pearl, tiny gypsy fiddles and pan flutes. There were costumed dolls and Carnevale masks and tourist plates from Morocco, Pisa, Paris, and Moscow.

Spanish shawls strung from the ceiling in red and gold, cast spidery shadows over several “tables for two” set with mismatched crockery. On the mantelpiece there was standing room only for a collection of tiny horses in various attractive equine poses.

Amid the lucky-dip décor, there was a bench-top laden with fresh foods – a cornucopia of colour.

"Apollo" opened the door and inhaled the smell of hot, fresh spices, onion, and mint tea.

“I have brought you to a special place, because I know you have a beautiful soul, it will not be wasted on you,” he hummed, ushering her gently inside.

A tall, elegant woman with Asian features but a Russian accent, asked us if we had a booking.

Her “door-bitch” stance relaxed when a gregarious moustached gentleman popped his head above the cabbaged bench-top and beamed.

“Ah, Mesut, long time no see my friend,” he said, clasping my new friend’s hand and kissing his cheek.

“Where else would I bring a new acquaintance than here to your place, Gregor,” Mesut smiled.

“And who have we here? Your lovely companion, is?”

“This is Natalia,” Mesut said, confounding her. “She is from Australia and on holiday.”

How could he know her name, her origin, she never said?

Sensing the sudden tension in her body, he pulled her close.

“Nothing to fear, little Koala, your name is still on your name tag,” he whispered, “did you think I was a wizard or a crazy stalker? Darling, I just saw you and thought, she is a sunrise and I need to see her colours,” he laughed.

She looked at the tag still pinned to her coat. With the heading – Friends in London Tours - it read Natalia from Australia, say G'dday…hokey, but everyone on the tour had worn one. She’d said Howdy to Dean from Texas, and Ciao to Bella from Rome…it was all part of the tour shtick.

A sunrise. Her called her a sunrise…it was enough, enough to carry her away again with a flush of warmth, of abandon, of derring-do.

She would give over to the barrelling randomness of the evening, to his delicious voice, shy curls, and enveloping eyes.

Gregor busied himself with cooking, as other couples, and quartets, arrived for dinner.

His bench was tiled - an intricate cobalt blue mosaic concealed a stove top behind its rise.

Centre stage, like a magician, he chopped, braised, and sizzled solo, while various stiletto-heeled waitresses, as cool as he was warm, ferried heavenly dishes to each table.

They ate Gypsy Lamb, a dish heavy with spice and accompanied by fluffy rice scattered with raisins and roasted almonds, all garnished with fresh, tart oranges.

Dessert was an incredibly light panna cotta with a chocolate sauce, served with a small glass of anisette and followed by fresh figs with trickle of soft caramel toffee and mint tea.

Between courses they talked. As she belonged in Australia; he belonged in Turkey. He had travelled the world as a hairstylist but settled in London because trade was good, but the Bosporus called him like a song on the wind.

She had never travelled much but had longed for it all her life. Now here in London, she tried to describe for him the glorious wonder she was feeling at every turn. Her sense of awakening, the exhilaration of being unknown in a place where there was so much to know.

And mid-sentence, and her sentences were coming thick and fast, he giggled apologetically.

“That,” he said, nudging her shoulder playfully, “is why you are a sunrise.”

He was easy, so easy to spend time with, and when at the end of the evening, Gregor joined them for yet another anisette as the restaurant emptied and the candles dimmed, she felt an incredible sense of belonging to these strangers.

That night, or was it morning, they stayed together, talking, caressing, laughing and when they crept out of her hotel window wrapped in sheets to share a cigarette on the rooftop, he held her close against the cold and sang to her softly in Turkish.

The song, he told her looking into her eyes, was the story of a man and woman separated in time and space. Lovers parted over years, it was their plaintiff dirge of yearning. Faithful to their love deep in their hearts, he explained, they endured separate lives.

And as the glimmer of a London dawn cracked the sky pink and yellow, they crept back inside and said their goodbyes - hands held, eyes locked, no tears.