Coffee

It was the cat who picked the café.

Fay marched them straight to a place two streets past the square, sat down on the doorstep and settled in to wait.

“Your cat knows exactly what he wants,” said Axel.

“Always.”

Inside it smelled of coffee and toast. Two builders with their toast, a young couple laughing quietly, an old man reading the paper with his lips moving.

Fay crossed the room without asking anyone and hopped up onto the chair by the window, as if he had it booked.

At the next table there was a woman on her own. Hair done, pearl necklace, back dead straight and not touching the chair. In front of her, a milky coffee and a little cake cut into four equal pieces. She looked at Axel’s muddy rucksack. Then she looked Eva up and down, very slowly, stopping at the bare feet.

Her mouth twisted and she went back to her little cake.

Axel didn’t even clock it. Eva did.

The waiter came over, a young lad with a grubby apron and a decent face.

“What can I get you?”

“Black coffee for me, and toast with tomato and ham,” said Axel. “And you?”

“A glass of water.”

“Water? Get something, go on.”

“It’s just I don’t really fancy a coffee.”

She didn’t sound very sure.

“Go on, a coffee and a bit of toast. My treat.”

“You don’t have to, honestly.”

“Well, if you don’t eat it, I will.” And to the waiter: “Two coffees and two proper rounds of toast, please.”

And then the voice from the next table piped up. A sour voice, the kind that’s had years of practice.

“If you can’t afford a coffee, dear, you just say so. It’s one thing not to have any money and quite another to come in here and get someone else to pay. And barefoot, on top of everything. In a café. Whatever next?”

She said it loud, so the whole café would hear. And the whole café heard. The builders looked at Eva’s feet. The couple stopped laughing. The old man lowered his paper.

Eva’s face turned to stone.

And two things hit Axel together. One was the old woman. The other arrived late and all in one go: why Eva had asked for water.

He had the line all ready. It was a good one. And he felt Eva’s hand on his arm.

“Leave it.”

So he turned to the waiter and raised his voice a little, just enough.

“Oh, and bring us two nice cold orange juices, would you? We’re celebrating being alive today.”

He winked at Eva. Half a smile got out of her.

“You’re off your head.”

“Not off my head. Happy. Which is worse.”

“And the mug pays for the lot,” the woman muttered, to nobody.

And that’s when Axel saw it.

Something small crossing the floor, keeping close to the wall. At first he thought it was a rat.

It wasn’t a rat.

It was a little person the size of a small bottle of beer, in a jumble of coloured rags, with bare feet. It was heading straight for the old woman’s table.

Not again. Not in a café. Not at ten in the morning.

The thing climbed up the leg of the chair where the woman had her handbag hanging, stuck its head inside and came out hauling a leather purse with both hands. It let it drop to the floor with a little thud and dragged it off, walking backwards, keeping close to the counter, between the legs of the stools.

The woman carried on with her coffee, little finger out, terribly pleased with herself.

The purse disappeared behind the counter.

Axel wasn’t breathing. He looked around for anyone looking at the floor. Nobody was looking at the floor.

He turned his head towards Eva.

And Eva wasn’t looking at the floor. She was looking at him.

“Tell me you saw that too.”

Eva took her time.

“I saw something down there. A rat, or something.”

“It wasn’t a rat.”

She didn’t say yes or no. Her eyes went very still.

“Bloody hell,” said Axel, quietly. “It only ever happens to me when I’m on my own. Never with anyone there.”

Eva fiddled with a paper napkin.

“The night I left home there was one.”

“You what?”

“I’d had my rucksack under the bed for three weeks. Every night I’d tell myself tomorrow. And that night I was sitting on my bedroom floor, in the dark, with my trainers on, not daring. An hour and a half like that. And one turned up on the windowsill, on the outside of the window. Barefoot, in his little rags, with the cheekiest face you’ve ever seen. And he said something to me.”

“What did he say?”

Eva looked him straight in the eye.

“‘Now or never. Give your life some welly!’”

Neither of them said anything.

“And I got up and went. Didn’t lock the door, so I wouldn’t have to hear it.” She shrugged. “I did what a brownie told me. And ever since, I’ve wondered if I made it up because I didn’t have the guts. Imagine. ‘I left home because a brownie told me to.’ They’d lock you up.”

“You’re not mad,” said Axel. “And if you are, that makes two of us. And two nutters together is a day trip.”

And at last a laugh got away from Eva.

The juices came. The toast came. And the waiter took the bill over to the next table.

The woman opened her handbag. Put a hand in. Frowned. Put the other one in. And ended up tipping the whole lot out onto the table.

Out came a fan. A wad of old receipts. A sweet stuck to a hairpin. A brown envelope, folded in half, that went clink when it landed and that she picked up first, before anything else, and tucked under her arm without looking at it. And a little plastic box that rolled across the floor, popped open and let out a set of false teeth.

Half the café turned round. And this time they weren’t looking at Eva.

“But I had it right here,” the woman kept saying, quieter and quieter. “It’s not here. I haven’t got a penny on me.”

Axel leaned across the gap between the tables and put some coins in her hand.

“Here. On me.”

The woman looked at the coins. She looked at him. She looked at the barefoot girl she’d just torn into in front of everyone.

Her chin wobbled. And she burst into tears right there, with the coins squeezed in her fist and the envelope under her arm.

“Forgive me. I’m not like this.” She looked for a tissue in the mess on the table and couldn’t find one. “I’ve been coming here every day for four years, same time, same table. And this month, on top of everything, I can’t even stand myself. And today you two walk in with a cat and a heap of rucksacks, and you laugh. And that’s what came out.”

Eva pulled her chair over, sat down next to her and put her own juice in front of her, the one she hadn’t touched.

“Go on, drink this. And eat your cake, you’re halfway through it.”

The woman let out a horrible laugh, the snotty kind. She blew her nose on a paper napkin and lifted her head.

“I live just round the corner,” she said. “I’ve got an enormous house and nobody to show it to. Come on. I’ll give you lunch, a shower, whatever you like. And if you don’t want to, I understand, you know. I’d say no to me too.”

Axel looked at Eva. Eva looked at Axel.

“Have you got hot water?” said Eva.

“Love, I’ve got two bathrooms.”

“Let’s go, then.”