Are You American?

"Are you American or Canadian?"

Lost in contemplation of the gaudy magazine cover photo of a woman with huge breasts and no arse cavorting on a beach in some mythical sunny Celebrityland, I didn't hear the question. "She must be famous here," I thought. And, "I wonder who she is and why she didn't stop at a C-cup? Double-D was clearly a letter too far..."

"Are you American or Canadian?"

The question was asked in precisely the same tone and volume the second time, but it was expertly more insistent. The woman behind the cash register was smiling apologetically. She wore a sparkly sari over a tiny white t-shirt, and her long dark hair was lustrous.

Everybody's always apologising in England. They apologise and apologise, with smiles and vocal tones, shrugs, facial tics and tiny little head-ducks, but they always do it anyway, whatever it is they're apologising for. They're the politest rude people in the world.

After three weeks living in London, I already knew the drill. My face gave nothing away - I neither smiled nor frowned. Inside my head I heaved a huge sigh.

"I'm American," I said politely, urging my eyes to look friendly. But not too friendly. That, I had already learned, scared them.

"Oh, American!" the woman said, looking surprisingly delighted. "I've always wanted to go there. My brother-in-law frequently goes to New Jersey on business. Are you from New Jersey?"

"No. I'm from Seattle."

She looked completely blank, as if someone had switched her off. Disappointment bordering on resentment shown unfettered in her almond-shaped eyes. I knew what she was thinking ("Why couldn't she be from New Jersey? How difficult would that have been?") but she clearly wanted to be helpful - to make me feel better - so she was definitely going to say it, wasn't she? She was going to say...

"Seattle - is that near New Jersey?"

The time was going to come, I suspected, when I would say yes to that question. Some day, a few years down the road, out of sheer self-indulgent weariness I will start saying yes. Or I will say something equally despicable like, "No, but do you know where Florida is? It's right next to Florida."

Someday, but not today.

"No. Seattle is far away from New Jersey. As far away as New Jersey is from London."

"Oh," the woman said, unable to hide a kind of childlike wonder in her eyes.

Amazing. It had happened several times already - that look on people's faces when I talked about home. I found it astonishing. It was as if, for some, America still held some power. I couldn't believe that it could after everything, but it seemed a little magic dust still clung to its fingers. It could still make some people dream.

"That's £1.95," the woman said.

Nearly $4. Good God.

The newspaper and bottle of water I was buying rested precipitously on the edge of the over-crowded counter between huge trays of chocolate bars, atop stacks of unfamiliar magazines, so there was no place to rest my purse as I wrestled with the still-unfamiliar currency. The woman, used to seeing foreigners puzzle over money, smiled with her own brand of weary politeness as she poured seven one pound coins and then a handful of change in myriad sizes and colours into my cupped hands.

"Sorry. No five-pound notes," she said apologetically.

The coins would never fit in my little American change purse, made for little American money.

"That's Ok," I said, determined to make the woman stop apologising. Or to not feel bad for apologising.

Stepping out of the newsagent's shop onto the busy sidewalk near Piccadilly, I dumped the change into the bottom of my shoulder bag and shoved the newspaper in after it while dodging the oncoming battalion of humanity, all of whom managed not to look at me while aiming psychotically straight for me.

I was lost.

The stop in at the newsagent's had been designed to get both water and directions, but the directions hadn't really helped. I never knew where I was anymore, and now was no exception. Maps were useless. London streets seem to undulate and twist into sailors' knots. I had concocted an elaborate fantasy that, as I walked, they un-tied and re-arranged themselves behind me, like something out of a children's book.

I was always lost.

Stepping back from the maniacal street hordes, I leaned against the stone wall and opened the bottle of water. Looking down, I saw that my feet, neatly clad in new brown boots, were primly parallel next to a pile of dog shit.

I moved to London because it seemed exciting. I was 32 and editing children's books in Seattle, because that was the only job in publishing I could get in Seattle, and the only job in publishing I was likely ever to get in Seattle, which is not known for its publishing industry. I'd moved to Seattle from a small town in northern California five years before, seeking, if I recalled correctly, excitement.

Stepping away from the dog shit, I turned left down a Georgian street that arched gracefully like the curve of an artful woman's back away from the buses belching pollution, the impatient taxis and the huge neon billboards.

I was going to be late again meeting my friend James - my only friend in London. He had started a few weeks ago as little more than an acquaintance but was rapidly being elevated to the position of lifeline as I grew increasingly panicked. What if I didn't like London? What if it didn't grow on me? What would everybody say if I just reappeared in Seattle? They'd thrown me a goodbye party, for God's sake. They'd given me an electricity converter so complex I couldn't use it. I couldn't just go back.

But I was so sick of being lost.

It's the strangest feeling to live in a country out of context. The celebrities are not famous to me - I don't know who I'm supposed to admire, envy, fear or desire. I don't understand the news, or get an image in my head when I read a name in the newspaper. A blank canvas can be frightening.

I allowed myself to be carried along by the crowds that threatened to wash over me like waves, diluting me until I became nothing more than part of them, and I looked for someone who might know where I was going.

I was filled with self-pity. Why do there have to be so many people? Why are they all in such a hurry?

When I saw the tall man in the perfect grey suit who didn't look like the rest of them, something made me choose him. He didn't seem to be in such a hurry, he had a kind face.

'Excuse me,' I said, touching his sleeve, and he recoiled. (They hate being touched, I thought meanly.) But he looked at my face and stopped, seemingly against his will.

I said, 'Can you help me? I'm lost. I've been trying to find Shaftsbury Avenue but I just keep walking in circles. I know it's right here... somewhere.'

I was near tears. Too lonely and at sea to feel stupid. Take care of me! I pleaded with him silently.

Pointing to the left, he said, 'It's actually just around the corner...' Then he paused, studying my damp eyes. He sighed as if he couldn't believe he was about to say what he was about to say. 'Listen, it's not far. I'll walk you there.'

My entire body sighed with relief. I don't know why it was so important to me that somebody should help - I would have found it eventually on my own, but that wasn't the point.

I said, 'I know it's idiotic, but I just can't seem to get where I'm going.'

'I know the feeling,' he said wryly, taking my arm and steering me smoothly through the crowd.

'So,' he said after a moment, 'are you American or Canadian?'