Lunch with a Stranger

I was 23 and alone, in Glasgow.

I had never left North America before, let alone on my own. But a friend had travelled to Scotland, in his third year of university, in an exchange program. And when he left Canada, I promised that I would visit him.

Al was staying in a University of Glasgow student residence building to the northwest of the Botanic Gardens. We would walk up Byres Road, up to Great Western Road, cross to the gardens and cut through, and then take some residential streets to his building. His girlfriend was also in this residence, and he would stay in her room, so I had his cluttered room to myself.

Glasgow Botanic Gardens, 1988.

Glasgow University residence, 1988.

He took me to his student cafeteria, once. The special of the day was lasagna, so that's what I ordered. When the plate was passed to me, I noted the mashed potatoes with ground beef, in a brown gravy under a layer of melted Mozzarella cheese.

"What's this?" I asked the woman behind the counter, who served me this dish.

"Lasagna," she said, a puzzled face looking back at me, "isnae that what yeh asked fer?"

"It is," I said, "it just doesn't look like any lasagna I've ever seen before."

"It's no like any lasagna anybody's seen before," a young man standing behind me in line whispered.

I didn't want to meet Al for lunch at his cafeteria again, so on a day where he had no time to stray from campus, I told him that I was going to head downtown, to wander the core streets to shop and look for a place to eat. I would meet him, later, for dinner, when we would find a pub.

Mall near Argyle St, 1988.

I took the tube, as Glaswegians called the underground, from Hillhead Station to St. Enoch Station, just off Argyle Street. As I remember it in 1988 but cannot confirm today, parts of the surrounding streets were covered by a glass canopy and became pedestrian malls. On Google Maps, the canopies seem to be gone, though some streets still appear closed to vehicles.

As lunchtime approached, I saw a restaurant inside the mall and approached its entrance. On the door, a menu was affixed, and I scanned the lunch offerings.

No lasagna. This place looked promising.

As I continued to read the menu, I noticed a young woman, about my age, stand beside me, also checking out the menu. She was pretty: her copper-red hair was straight and stopped at her shoulders. Her green eyes were glowing and she had a few freckles on her pale cheeks. A stereotypical Scottish lass.

When we finished reading the menu, she looked at me and said, "Well, shall we go in?"

"I think so." I held the door and ushered her ahead of me.

A thirty-something man in a shirt and tie greeted us at the door. Even though I had let the woman go ahead of me and I was a few steps behind her, the greeter looked at me and asked, "For two?"

The woman looked at me, smiled, and asked me, "What do you say?"

"Why not?"

We both turned to the greeter and, in unison, said, "Sure."

Her name was Kate. She worked in an office, nearby, and had planned to meet a friend, but that her friend had cancelled at the last minute.

"Lucky for me," I said.

She had taken me for an American, when she first heard my voice, but I told her I was Canadian. I told her that this was my first overseas trip, the first time that I had left my continent. She hadn't even left the western Lowlands, let alone her country.

"You've never even been to Edinburgh?" I asked.

"No," she said, sadly.

"My friend and I are heading there, tomorrow," I said. I explained that I wrote short stories and that I had created a Scottish character, and that I thought I needed to see the Scottish countryside to better-understand where he came from. Later in the week, I would make my way to my character's home town, North Berwick.

"Isn't that beyond Edinburgh?" Kate asked. "Wouldn't it make sense to see both places tomorrow?"

"I want to make a day of each town," I said. "My friend will show me Edinburgh, as he's been there before, and I'll go to North Berwick on my own."

"Someday, I'll get to Canada."

"If you do, and you find yourself in Ottawa, look me up." I gave her one of my business cards, from the camera shop where I was the assistant manager. From my camera bag, I retrieved a pen and wrote my home phone number and address on the back.

I never heard from her.

When the bill came, I insisted on covering all of it. We finished, wished each other a good day, and went our separate ways. It was one hour out of the week that I spent in Glasgow but it was one of the most memorable days of my whole trip.