AS STEVE MACDONALD WALKED EAST ON ST. JOHN ’S HILL, THE sounds from the Clapham Junction station were everywhere but he hardly heard them. The bigger and faster the trains get, he thought, the more they lull you with their silence.

He entered K &M’s café, ordered a pot of tea and sat down by the window. The construction workers in the corner were having a boisterous breakfast, but he didn’t listen to their conversation. Most of the passersby were heading east toward Lavender Hill and the Arding and Hobbs department store. It’s always Christmas there, he thought, a Harrods for the plain and ordinary people who live south of the river.

Cheeks were flushed with cold. You could feel the winter inside the café too, the fresh smell of clothing and the draft when the door opened and closed. The winds from the north swept across south London and everyone was unprepared like always.

We once ruled the world, he mused, but we’re helpless when it comes to wind and rain. We still think that we can wear whatever we like and the elements will do our bidding, and we’re never going to change. We’d rather freeze to death.

He sipped his tea, but it was already too strong. We drink more tea than anyone else but we don’t know how to make it. It’s too weak when we boil it and too strong when we drink it and too hot in between.

“… and so I told him, That will cost you a beer, you S.O.B.,” one of the construction workers said, concluding a story he had been telling.

The café reeked of fat and grease. People left impressions of themselves that lingered in the air as they crossed the room. It’s like Siberia, Macdonald thought. Not quite as cold but the same resistance to movement.