I REMEMBER my first time very clearly. We were both 16 and it was called Parma Café. ‘It’s the best greasy spoon I’ve been to,’ she said, as we walked there from her house behind Oval Tube. Twelve years later, Constance and I live together in Walworth, a little further south, and she still talks about the Parma often, although it was turned into a Japanese restaurant two years ago.
Outside Café House (189, Walworth Road, SE17), a man in a dirty grey suit drags a mattress down the pavement. When my food comes, they’ve added chips as well. ‘A mistake,’ I suggest to the waiter. ‘Yes, but is it a problem?’ In the doorway, two
