I did not plan a rooftop. Nobody ever plans a rooftop. You just keep saying yes until the stairs run out and someone kicks a fire door and suddenly London is underneath you looking almost polite.
Peckham at that hour is a different city. The chicken shops still open. A bus sighing down the road like it has seen worse. The sky doing that cheap pink thing it does when it wants you to forgive the night. I had mascara on only one eye. The other one had given up around four. I still felt like the main character. I am not proud of that sentence. I am also not taking it back.
How we even got up there
The party had been one of those warehouse ones that starts as a birthday and becomes a census. Too many people who knew one person. A speaker that thought it was bigger than it was. Mia had vanished into a conversation with a boy who makes furniture, or claims to. Sophie had gone home at one like a person with a calendar. I stayed because leaving felt like admitting the night had peaked and I was not ready for the comedown.
This man, the one whose shirt I ended up wearing, was not the original plan. The original plan was a girl from the group chat and two drinks and a sensible Uber. Then the girl from the group chat found someone else and I found the roof door and he found me standing there like I was waiting for a cue.
He said, “you coming or are you decorating the stairwell.”
I said, “depends if there is a view.”
There was a view. There was also a dying speaker playing something that had been a song earlier and was now just a suggestion. Someone had brought a bottle that was already warm. Someone else had brought a personality. I had brought last night’s face and a willingness to sit on concrete.
The shirt situation
My dress had given up first. Not dramatically. Just that slow slide off one shoulder that photographs well and feels sticky in real life. He took his shirt off like it was nothing, which is either confidence or cold. Peckham roofs are not warm at six in the morning, even in September. I put it on. It smelled like smoke and someone else’s deodorant and a decision I was already writing in my head.
Sophie would have called it a souvenir. Mia would have called it inventory. I called it a blanket because my knees were doing that shake you pretend is the breeze.
He asked if I was cold. I said I was fine. I was not fine. I was performing fine, which is different and more useful.
We did not really talk about anything important. That is the trick of a good sunrise. You think you are having a moment and actually you are just too tired to lie properly. He told me he used to live round here. I told him I did not. He asked what I did. I said I write about nights like this and then immediately hated how that sounded, like I had turned up with a clipboard.
He laughed anyway. “So I am content.”
“You are a paragraph,” I said. “Do not get promoted.”
Who else was up there
Four of us by the end. Me. Him. A girl who kept filming the sky and never posting it. A boy who was convinced he could fix the speaker by hitting it, which is how men approach most problems and also speakers.
The girl with the phone said, “this is so film.” I wanted to tell her that everything is film if you are twenty five and vertical. I did not. I just sat there in a stranger’s shirt and let the city do its little performance.
There is a particular quiet that happens when the music dies and nobody has the energy to pretend they are still in the club. You can hear birds that do not care about your outfit. You can hear a train. You can hear yourself thinking about how this will look in a caption and then feeling a bit grim for thinking it. Then you think it again.
I checked my face in the back of my phone. One eye done. One eye a rumour. Lipstick gone. Hair doing a concept. I still took the photo. Not of him. Of the view and a bit of the shirt cuff and the bottle on its side. Soft launch energy even when the launch is just the night itself.
The bit I will not tidy up
We kissed because the sun was coming up and that is what people do when they have run out of better ideas. It was good. Not cinematic. A bit teeth. A bit cold hands. The speaker made one last dying noise like it was judging us. I remember laughing into his mouth, which is either charming or unhinged. I am going with charming.
He asked if I wanted to go back to his. I looked at the stairs. I looked at the time. I thought about Sophie’s face if I walked in at nine in a man’s shirt with one functioning eye. Then I thought about the piece. Then I thought about the fact that I was actually tired in a real way, not the fun way.
I said, “walk me to a bus.”
He did. No speech. No “what are we.” Just the street getting brighter and me holding the shirt closed with one hand because the buttons were doing their own thing. At the stop he asked for my number even though we had already been texting from the party. Men love a fresh start. I gave it to him again. I contain repetitions.
Getting home looking like evidence
The bus was the 37 or it was not. I was past details. A woman with shopping bags looked at me, then at the shirt, then back at her bags. I wanted to tell her I had a degree. I wanted to tell her I also had a good time. I said nothing. I sat by the window and let Peckham turn into Camberwell turn into the kind of streets that make you feel like the night is being slowly put away.
Mia was awake when I got in. Of course she was. She took one look at me and said, “roof?”
I said, “roof.”
She nodded like I had said “Tesco.” Then she put the kettle on. This is why I live with her. Sophie would have asked if I was alright. Mia assumes the plot and moves to tea.
I took the shirt off in my room and hung it on the chair like it might need to be returned. It will not be returned. It is in the maybe folder now, with the wrist photo and the hotel glass and all the other little proofs that I was somewhere.
Why I still felt like the main character
Because the alternative is feeling like an extra in your own night, and I cannot do that. I would rather be ridiculous on a roof than sensible in an Uber at one. I know how that reads. Spoilt. Attention hungry. A bit much. Fine. I have been a bit much since I was nine and stealing champagne at my parents’ parties. The skill is making it look like a choice.
The mascara thing bothers some people. They want the sunrise to come with a full face and a moral. I want the sunrise to come with a story I can actually tell. One eye done is funnier. It is also true. I had been in a bathroom with terrible lighting and a queue and a girl asking if I had a clip. I did the one eye and then the night moved. That is how nights work. They do not wait for symmetry.
Would I do it again? Yes. Next weekend if someone finds another door. I like the version of me that is still standing when the speaker dies. She is messier than the daytime one. She is also better company.
He texted at noon. “You get home.” Not even a question mark. I sent back a photo of the tea and the shirt on the chair. No face. We are consistent, if nothing else.
Sophie saw it on the side table later and said, “another one for the archive.” She was not wrong. I am building a museum of mornings I should have slept through. Entry fee is a hangover and a paragraph.
Peckham looked soft from up there. London does that sometimes. Pretends it is gentle. Then the buses start and the whole thing remembers itself. I washed the remaining mascara off and left the other eye alone for a bit, just to sit with the imbalance. It felt honest.
Anyway. If you are going to stay out, stay out until the city looks new. If you are going to borrow a shirt, borrow one that photographs. If you are going to be the main character, do it with one eye and no apology. The other eye can catch up later.
