Look I could not tell you whose name was on the tenancy. By five I had stopped pretending that mattered. The kitchen was the only room still pretending to be a room and not a waiting area for people who had missed the last sensible decision three hours ago.
Fairy lights. Of course there were fairy lights. They were taped to a shelf that also held ketchup, a half dead basil plant and someone’s council tax reminder. The chopping board was doing shifts as a tray. Crisps. Limes. A lighter that did not work unless you held it like you meant it. I made toast for a stranger. That is the part I keep coming back to, which is embarrassing, because I have done far worse things in far nicer kitchens and remembered less.
How we even got there
Right so the night did not start as an afters. It started as “one more” which is the most dishonest phrase in London after “I’m leaving in ten.” We had been in Dalston already. Superstore first, then that stretch of Kingsland where everyone you have ever snogged walks past you like a group project you failed. Mia was in a mood that meant she would not go home. Sophie had already gone home, which is how I knew it was going to get messy. Sophie is the smoke alarm of our flat. When she leaves, the building is on fire and we are still dancing.
This man, friend of a friend of someone Mia used to work with, said there was a kitchen. He said it like that. Not a flat. A kitchen. I should have clocked it. People who invite you to a kitchen at 3am are either being honest or they have given up on language. Both are attractive at that hour if I am being disgusting, which I am.
The walk was that East London walk where you think you know the turning and then you do not. Railway, takeaway lights, a fox with no shame. My feet had left the conversation. The dress had opinions. I reapplied gloss in a car window and told myself I looked expensive. I looked like 4am. Same thing if you squint.
The flat that belonged to no one
Inside it was the usual layout of a place that used to be one thing and is now six people and a bike in the hall. Shoes in a pile that had given up being a pile. Music coming from a speaker that was dying with dignity. Someone asleep on a sofa with their mouth open like they were waiting for a dentist. I put my bag down and immediately forgot where I put it. Classic.
No one introduced themselves properly. Names were offered like cigarettes. You take one, you do not finish it, you do not ask where it came from. I got Chels. I always get Chels. Full name is for banks and parents.
The kitchen was where the night had decided to live. Overhead light off, fairy lights on, which is the international sign for we are not ready to be judged by electricity. There was a boy in a football shirt cutting limes with a bread knife. There was a girl in a coat she had not taken off. There was a man who kept saying “this is my mate’s place” with the confidence of someone who had never paid a bill here. I asked whose mate. He laughed. Peak.
I like a kitchen at that hour. Clubs want something from you. Kitchens just let you lean. You can be hot and useless at the same time. You can steal bread and call it hospitality.
Toast, because someone had to be useful
I was hungry in that specific way where your body has remembered it is an animal. Not sexy hungry. Toast hungry. There was a loaf that had seen things. There was butter in a packet that had been used as a coaster. The toaster worked on the second try, which felt like a blessing I had not earned.
He was standing by the fridge when I asked if he wanted some. Not the lime boy. Different one. Tall enough. Tired in the face. Nice mouth, which is a dangerous thing to notice when the sun is considering coming up. He said yes like he had not been offered food in years. I made two slices. Burnt the edge of one. Gave him the better one because I am not a monster, I am just promiscuous and honest, and those are different hobbies.
We ate standing up. Chopping board between us with the crisps and the dead lighter. He said cheers. I said you are welcome as if I lived there. For a minute I did. That is the trick of other people’s kitchens. You move a mug and suddenly you have tenure.
He asked what I did. I said I write about nights like this so they do not disappear. He said that sounded made up. It does. Then he smiled and I thought, oh. There it is. The little click. Not love. Not even like. Just the recognition that if the room emptied we would not go looking for our coats.
What the room was doing
People kept arriving from rooms I had not seen. A bedroom door would open and two more humans would blink into the light like they had been stored in a cupboard. Someone put on a song from 2019 and half the kitchen groaned and no one changed it. A girl cried in a nice way, the way you cry when you are not sad so much as overfull. Mia found me, stole a corner of my toast, said “we can go if you want” and then sat on the counter and did not move. I love her. She is worse than me and she knows it.
I went to the loo and did the whole ritual. Mirror. Hair. Gloss. The face check that is not vanity so much as quality control. I looked like I had been out. Good. I would have been furious if I had looked fresh. What is the point of a night if your face does not file a report?
On the way back I passed a couple arguing in a whisper about an Uber split. Romantic. In the living room someone had found a guitar and been told no, thank God. The sleeping sofa person had not moved. I envied them in a theoretical way. I was not done yet. Being done is a talent I have not developed.
The bit I will get asked about
Yes we kissed. In the kitchen. Against the fridge that had photos of people who were probably at their parents’ that weekend. It was not cinematic. His mouth tasted of toast and something cheaper than the wine on the side. My back hit a magnet shaped like a strawberry. I laughed into it, which ruined the mystique and improved the kiss.
I am not going to dress it up as a spiritual event. It was 5am in Dalston in a flat with no clear owner and I wanted a hand on my waist that was not trying to network. He was good enough. Warm. A bit too grateful, which I can work with. We did not go to a bedroom. Bedrooms in those flats are politics. Kitchens are public enough to be safe and private enough to be stupid.
Someone walked in for water, said sorry without meaning it, filled a glass from the tap, left. I did not stop. He did, for a second, like a schoolboy. I said it is fine. It was. London kitchens have seen worse than two people forgetting themselves next to a chopping board.
We did not have sex there. I know that will disappoint some of you and relieve Sophie, who will read this and send a voice note that starts with my name said like a warning. We went as far as the hallway, which is the official border between anecdote and landlord problem. Then a door opened and a girl asked if anyone had seen her bag. Mood gone. Bag not found. Classic again.
Morning is a vicious little thing
Light came in mean. That grey Dalston light that makes last night’s eyeliner look like a hobby you should quit. The fairy lights looked embarrassed. The chopping board looked like a crime scene for snacks. I found my bag under a jacket that was not mine. Phone at 7 percent. Sixteen messages. Sophie: are you alive. Sophie: answer. Mia: still here where are you. A man from earlier in the night whose name I had filed under maybe.
Toast boy asked if I wanted to split an Uber. I said I would get the Overground. Pride. Also I wanted the walk to finish the story properly. He put his number in my phone as Tom. I have three Toms. This one is Dalston Toast. Filing system of a woman who will not be nobody.
Outside smelled like rain that had thought about it and changed its mind. Kingsland was already doing the next shift. People with tote bags. People with last night still on them. I bought a coffee that tasted of revenge and drank it like medicine. In the window of the cafe I fixed my mouth again. Maintenance. Always.
On the train I wrote the first line of this in my notes. No one knew whose flat it was by 5am. I added the fairy lights. I added the chopping board. I added the toast because that is the bit that makes it mine. Anyone can pull in a hallway. Not everyone stands there buttering bread for a man they will probably never text first.
What I told the flat
Sophie was on the sofa with tea and a face that said I have been awake since you last lied about coming home. I told her I made toast for a stranger. She said that is the most you sentence she has ever heard. Mia crawled in an hour later with one earring and said the afters were mid except the kitchen. We agreed. Mid nights still count if you leave with a paragraph.
I showered. I put last night’s dress on the chair like it might confess. I looked in the mirror longer than I needed to. Not because I hated what I saw. Because I wanted to clock the version of me that stays out until kitchens become breakfast clubs. She looked smug. She looked knackered. She looked like she would do it again next Saturday, which is the closest thing I have to a five year plan.
Tom has not texted. I have not texted Tom. The bread in our flat is better. The chopping board is only a chopping board. Still. Sometimes I think about that strawberry magnet in the small of my back and the way a room full of leftover people can feel like the centre of the city if the lights are cheap enough.
Anyway. If it was your kitchen, thanks for the loaf. If it was your mate’s, tell him the basil is dead. And if you were the one who ate the good slice, you are welcome. I kept the burnt one. It photographed worse. It tasted like the truth.