The London I used to know was a small city. It mostly consisted of the tube stops on the Jubilee and Northern lines and, on very special occasions, a glimpse of heaven, otherwise known as the Oxford Circus branch of Topshop.
In my early 20s I got to know the city intimately, but only in an underground fashion. I could tell you the difference between the aroma of Camden Town station (Boho scent with pungent top notes of madness) and St John's Wood station (eau de Beatles, baby) but ask me about Big Ben, the Oxo tower or the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and you might as well have been asking me to describe the moon.
Overground London was a different planet. I suspected it was peopled by monied folk who didn't have jobs that required them to work long hours serving endless coffees and all-you-can-eat salads to the good denizens of Golders Green. All the money went on rent and bills and meals from Kwik Save. Sometimes you might gather enough funds for an all-day tube ticket and venture above ground to Hampstead Heath or Covent Garden, but most of the time it was a small London world for me and my man.
Us against the world. We was poor, guv'nor, but by 'eck we were richer than some people you'd meet flashing their bees and honey up and dahn the Strand. Speaking of the Strand, we once ventured "up west", as they say in EastEnders, to bring my visiting mother to the very posh Simpson's-in-the-Strand for her birthday. We couldn't afford it, but I wanted her to think we were making something of ourselves in her home town.
The maitre d' was awfully polite when he told us we couldn't go in because my guy wasn't wearing a jacket and tie for dinner. I was crushed. My mother laughed and said not to mind them, we'd have just as nice a time at the Pizza Hut down the road. Mortified, I refused to move, insisting tearfully to the man on the door that they hadn't told me when I booked about the dress code, and anyway it wasn't fair, and . . .
Luckily, the manager was Irish. Quick as anything, he found an ill-fitting jacket and a tie and we walked into the diningroom with our heads held high. After dinner the waiters gathered round the table and sang happy birthday to my mother. We felt like royalty in our small London domain.
It's a big city for me now. I go there with a different man and with money in my purse. I go there with plans, lists of things to see and things to do. On our last visit we did the Tower of London and Jamie Oliver's Fifteen and we took the Orient Express to Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. I like this new London. I like it a lot.
And then this latest time we are invited to Fruitstock, a free festival in Regent's Park. I've never been to Regent's Park before. And I've never been to a festival like this before. Some people are lounging on deckchairs in the sunshine, browsing through classic novels in a reading area. Others are flirting outrageously in a flirting tent. Dozens of blissed-out festival-goers are doing a relaxation exercise after a gentle, open-air yoga class or shopping in the farmers' market. The Puppini Sisters are on stage doing a bossa nova interpretation of The Smiths song Panic. In the "Very Nice People's Tent" - no VIPs, only VNPs, at Fruitstock, which has been organised by the Innocent smoothie company - there are champagne and strawberries and a woman ministering massages. "Please bring something like this to Dublin," I entreat one of the Innocent boys. And, you know, he says they might.
I like this new London. We go to see Mary Poppins, and people laugh when we tell them, but I don't care, because it's one of the best theatrical occasions of my life. We have lovely Italian dinners, we shop for Ireland in the sales and we make the most of three summer days in the big city.
Then it's our final day, and we're on the stuffy Northern Line, waving goodbye to Mornington Crescent, crawling towards Camden Town, where, in the market, we will buy a black Babygro for my friend's baby James, because you wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to track down black baby gear in Dublin. The familiar hot-metal smell of the underground is intoxicating, and I surprise myself by daydreaming about carrying on up the line to Golders Green alone, starting the evening shift in the restaurant, refilling the salad bar with soggy beetroot and bitter artichoke.
For a second it feels as though, if I wished hard enough, if I stayed on the tube, I'd be able to travel back in time. To a place where I had only the tiniest slice of London life. And it was enough.
