The guy from Kora is standing outside the building in the sun. I’ve read online that this place used to be a biscuit factory.
“Hey,” the guy calls. He waves.
I feel self-conscious walking these last few meters, since he has seen me now and so is just watching me approach. It feels like a long time passes between the guy’s hey and my eventual arrival in front of him.
“Hey,” I say.
“Lydia?”
“Lyd.”
“Okay, hey Lyd. So, I’m Ben. You’re seeing . . .” He looks down at the paper he’s holding. “A14.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“You know it doesn’t have much light, right?” He looks up. “I mean, if you want I can show you one of the studios with a skylight and everything.”
“No, it’s okay.”
Ben raises an eyebrow. “Photographer?”
“Performance.”
“Really?” He sounds surprised. I get this a lot. I come across shy. “Fair enough.”
Ben opens the door to the building. It’s a large metal door with an iron gate in front of it that he has to open first. There are four keys he uses to get in.
“Pretty secure,” Ben says. “It’s a definite plus for the women who work here. So you can be here late and you’ll probably feel safe.”
I look up. The windows don’t start until the second floor. It’d be difficult to reach them even with a ladder.
“Yeah, so—” Ben follows my line of sight “—there are no windows on the ground and first floors because the biscuits they made here were coated with chocolate.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it?” The door opens with a clang.
“A whole building basically designed around the fact that chocolate melts in sunlight.”
“Mm.” The building goes up very high. The first two floors look like part of the foundations.
There’s an awkward moment as we go inside. We both gesture for the other to go first, and then bump into one another as we try to go through the door at the same time.
“So, where did you come from?” Ben says as we walk down a dark corridor.
I pause. I get this a lot too. “Well, I’m from England. But my dad was Japanese, and my mum is half Malaysian.”
He turns around. “Oh my god, shit, no, sorry—I mean, where did you come from today? Like, are you living in London?”
“Oh, yeah,” I lie. “I live just near here, in Kennington.” I don’t actually live in Kennington. I’ve just seen the stop on the tube map.
“Nice!” Ben says. “It’s pretty nice around there, isn’t it?”
I nod.
Ben opens a door with a nameplate on it that reads “A14.” I step into the room. It’s quite small, but enough. On one side is a sink and a counter with a microwave on top and a small fridge underneath.