by Clare Lydon
“No, just me working up the courage to come out of hiding. Plus it’s so bloody cold here, I was thinking about just doing what tortoises do and asking Mum to wake me up when May arrives.”
“You great berk,” she said, helping herself to the basket of bread and butter on the table and offering it to me.
“You look fab anyhow – even a bit tanned. And I like your hair that length – suitably dykish. You’re coming round for dinner soon so you can see Tom. Plus I have this friend I’m so setting you up with!”
“Can I catch my breath before you start your dating service on me again?”
I’d known Julia since secondary school where we’d become close friends due to our love of music and drinking. When school ended, Julia and I went on to the local sixth-form college to do A levels and had kept in touch through university, pooling our shared experiences over summer and Easter drinking sessions.
Julia had met Tom at uni, had moved in with him six years ago and she was succumbing to marriage in a few months’ time. She had one of the sharpest minds I knew and, to top it off, had those elusive qualities that I failed spectacularly on – drive and ambition. What Julia wanted, Julia got.
I, on the other hand, came out, graduated, hated teaching and then proceeded to drift from job to job, going through a belated adolescence where I actually wanted to sleep with people before I eventually settled down with a blonde named Maria. We’d lived together for three years before drifting apart a year prior to my Sydney jaunt. She’d since married some woman called Abby – I’d been invited but declined from the other side of the world.
“So how are the wedding plans coming along?” I tilted my head to one side like a question mark.
“Nightmare – let’s not talk about it. I’m boring myself so I’m sure it’s thrilling for everyone else around me.”
“That’s what you’re meant to do though, isn’t it – bore the pants off everyone? Two girls in my office in Sydney were getting married last year and it’s all they talked about for 12 whole months. In the end, I had to hand it to them – their persistence was impressive.”
“Let’s just say it’s all done as far as I can tell. Apart from the huge pile of stuff that I keep ignoring. Tom’s parents are still peeved it’s not happening in a church and he keeps wilting, until I remind him that it’s our wedding and not theirs.” She breathed out an exasperated sigh.
“Then there’s my mum and her constant bleating about a theme – what is it with weddings and themes? I told her the theme was us and wasn’t that enough? I think she’d be happier if I announced we’d both be dressing as Elvis, expected the guests to do the same and hired an Elvis tribute artist to perform. I honestly think it’s more trouble than it’s worth but it’s too late to pull out now, as I keep reminding Tom. I’m a hopeless romantic, what can I say? You’ve saved the date, right?”
She tugged on her cufflinks as she asked me, smoothing her shirt on her right arm.
“Logged in my brain. I might even buy a new tie for the occasion.”
“Oh, splashing out!” She paused. “I tell you though, I’m certainly only doing it once – it’s tedious in the extreme and bloody expensive. I’m sure if we’d just called it a party and not a wedding we could have slashed the cost in half. As soon as the W word is mentioned, companies start painting zeros on the end of their bills and they know you’re going to pay for it because that’s what you do.”
“Glad it’s such a time of joy,” I said.
“There’s the honeymoon though – I’m looking forward to that. Three weeks on safari – it’s the only thing that’s keeping me going.”
I leaned back as the waiter brought our starters – butternut squash soup for me and goat’s cheese salad for Julia.
“Fantastic, I’m starving. No breakfast this morning, just a hugely dull meeting,” she said, tucking in with gusto.
“So how is the world of lawyering?” I said. “Have you turned into Ally McBeal yet?”
She shook her head sadly.
“I still feel let down – it was the only reason I became a lawyer. But when I got there nobody wanted to do karaoke and nobody wanted to have sex on a desk or lick my wattle.”
We both laughed, knowing this was half-true – Ally McBeal really was Julia’s inspiration for being a lawyer.
“It’s good to see you – I missed this,” I said. I took a mouthful of soup and winced as it burnt my tongue.
“Me too,” she replied.
“So is this a regular haunt?”
“Yeah, it’s good for lunches – and by the way, this is on me. Or rather, on Hall & Turner.”
I picked up my glass of wine.
“Well here’s to Hall & Turner.”
Julia chinked and we both drank.
Half an hour later we both had our mains of salmon and a refilled glass in front of us, and I’d filled in Julia on my heartbreak. She was stoic about the whole situation, claiming I’d had a lucky escape discovering Karen’s spinelessness so early on.
“It could have happened five years in and then you’d have felt much worse. Better to get it out of the way within the first year if it’s going to happen, right?”
“Is that looking on the bright side?” I said.
“No such thing as a bad experience, just an experience,” she said, a sage look on her face.
“So says the woman who’s never had her heart broken.”
“I’ve read books!” Julia said. She paused to take a swig of wine.
“By the way, have you heard about Maria?”
“Maria Maria?” I said.
“The very same.”
“No. What?”
“Pregnant.”
“What?” I almost shrieked, before recalling where we were. “But she hates kids!”
“Not anymore.”
“I can’t believe it.” I shook my head, disbelief coating my mouth. “I at least thought she’d get the other one to do the dirty work. Still not tempted?”
“To be a lesbian or have kids? I think Tom would say no to both, unless he could watch of course.”
Myself and Julia had always been steadfast in our ambition to avoid having children, if for very different reasons. Julia was a lifelong child-phobe and so had spent her entire adult life pumped full of hormones designed to stop the joining together of her eggs and any errant sperm. Injections, IUDs, pills – you name it, she’d used it.
For me, the story was more one of ‘it’s not likely to happen by accident and I haven’t met anyone who’s changed that view’. Our lives had continued on a path of spare income, dinner parties, nights out and weekends away with no thought given to babysitters or child-friendly venues.
“Anyway, back to you and your single status – I have a woman for you and she’s perfect!”
I thought about Lucy from the pub the other night and wondered if she’d be as perfect as her, but then put her out of my mind and forced myself to concentrate on the here and now. Besides, she’d probably meet the woman of her dreams in Oz and decide to stay there for good. She might even meet Karen. Oh god, don’t let her meet Karen…
“Hello? Earth to Jess?” Julia was snapping her fingers in front of my face.
“Sorry,” I said. I put myself firmly back in the room.
“I was talking about setting you up on a hot date with the perfect woman and you drift off…”
“Didn’t you say that about the last two?” I said.
“This one is for real though. Tom and I both fancy her but we’re leaving her for you.”
“For a supposedly straight woman, you know an awful lot of single dykes.”
“She’s not a dyke, honey – she’s a lesbian.”
“The difference being?”
“About 50 grand a year.”
“I’m a dyke right now then,” I said.
“It’s fine – everyone likes a bit of rough every now and again. As for knowing so many, what can I say? Moths to a flame, I’m like a lesbian pied piper. Per
haps they’re all drawn to something they know they can’t have,” she said.
When it came to lesbians Julia certainly did seem to be some sort of siren, towing along a never-ending conga line of ladies all willing and eager. I wasn’t complaining, though – if she considered them a prospect and the timing was right, she set me up with them instead.
Julia had succeeded twice with me. Once with a mind-blowing three-night-stand with a Kiwi named Helen; and once with a two-month fling with Gwen, who claimed to be a Russian princess. Gwen was so tall she kept banging her head on my doorframe every time she left my bed to go to the loo.
On the plus side, mine and Julia’s taste in women was astoundingly similar so I trusted her judgement – looks-wise at least. Personality-wise, she’d got it wrong on a couple of occasions but her batting average was still fairly healthy. After all, I’d never have shagged a princess if it hadn’t been for Julia.
Later that day after a slightly boozy lunch, I was once again left to my own devices in the big city. Julia hadn’t left before booking me in to meet up with her new matchmaking prospect who was called Angela. I’d baulked at the name but she’d assured me she wasn’t like Angela from our school who used to stutter and pick her nose in class.
“As far away as can be – open-mindedness is the key,” she told me. Easy for her to say. “Plus, Ange is a lawyer,” Julia added. “So if nothing else, think of the money, honey.”
Chapter 9
After a slightly more prolonged time in the family bosom than intended – nearly two months since I landed – I was finally settled into Kate’s flat. Mum had been a little teary at my parting but had sent me on my way with fresh crockery and a cake – everything a girl needs.
So now I had a room of my own – Virginia Woolf would be proud. The next task was to find a job, which wasn’t proving as easy as I’d imagined. Adam’s offer was lurking in the back of my mind and I was close to calling – two months into my London resurgence and I was growing weary. Still, at least the weather conditions had stopped being quite as arctic and spring was showing signs of coming to life, with our next-door neighbour’s window box housing some stunted mini-Daffodils. Not quite a riot of yellow but a gentle hint at what was to come.
Plus, by my reckoning Lucy should be just about home by now. I decided to give her some space to settle back into life but hoped she’d been looking forward to seeing me as much as I’d been thinking about her. She’d sent me a couple of texts from Sydney telling me about her bar and sunshine-filled exploits. However, when you don’t know someone that well, it’s difficult to strike the perfect text-flirt balance, especially when the texts came through when I was just going to bed and vice versa. I hoped that now we were back in the same time zone things might progress.
I was pondering this while heading home after a walk in the park when I saw an ad in a café round the corner from the flat advertising for staff. It was one of those cool, bright and airy cafés that were springing up all over London, even offering flat whites for all our Aussie friends.
There were around eight wooden tables, an abundance of natural light dancing in through enormous windows and local artists exhibiting on the walls. Chalked specials above the counter announced Thai Salmon and Asian Veg, home-made quiche & salad, mushroom & asparagus frittata, as well as baguettes, cakes and pastries displayed on metal and china cake stands under domed plastic casings. Surely working in a café was better than working in an office all day?
Before I knew what I was doing I was pushing the door open. Five minutes later I was sitting down on a comfortable wooden chair with a cup of tea opposite the owner, Matt. It turned out Matt also used to work in an office until it all got too much for him, so he used his redundancy payout last year to open Porter’s.
“There was nowhere round here that I’d want to go for lunch, so I thought I’d open my own place,” he said. He fiddled with the empty sugar packets that he’d just stirred into his tea.
Tall, fair and almost handsome, Matt was the kind of bloke my mum had had in mind for me since birth. He had a full head of wavy hair which was unusual in men over 30 and I put Matt at around the 35 range.
Rather than being an interview, our chat turned into a counselling session as I poured out my tales of workplace woe and how the thought of going back into an office filled me with dread.
“I got back from Australia two months ago and I’ve been applying for tons of office jobs, but if I actually got one I think I might feel a bit sick,” I said, screwing up my face.
“So don’t get one,” Matt said, leaning back in his chair and smiling at me. “Have you ever worked in a café before?”
“No, but I worked in pubs when I was a student and I really enjoyed that.”
Suddenly, all my doubts about getting a job melted away. Taking this, I wouldn’t have to be a commuter, work in an office or call Adam. Even the thought of telling my mum that her graduate daughter was working in a café didn’t put me off.
“Well you seem sane and I need someone who can start straight away – how about a trial tomorrow?” Matt said, crossing his strong arms across his chest.
“Sounds great.”
Matt beamed.
“Triffic. I should get back.” He flicked his head towards the counter before standing up and we shook hands.
“Glad you came in,” he said. “See you tomorrow – 7 o’clock?”
I gulped down the shock of the early start time.
“See you then.”
Working with Matt turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined – even the early mornings didn’t deter me, plus they were balanced by finishing mid-afternoon. It helped that I only had to get out of bed at 6.45am, being able to walk to the café in two minutes, and also that I could eat breakfast when I was there.
Matt and I clicked from the first day and doing something practical was a welcome change from staring at a computer screen all day long. This was real life and seeing people come in for their morning coffee and gearing themselves up for the day ahead made me glad I wasn’t doing the same.
The only caveat was that I wasn’t making the salary I was used to – in fact, I wasn’t making a salary at all, instead getting paid weekly in a brown envelope in a similar manner to when I was 15. But with some savings still intact this job was perfect for now, and the fact I wasn’t dreading getting up for work more than made up for the shortfall of cash. Well, almost.
On the plus side, my cooking skills were coming on a treat and my customer service was second to none.
Kate was astounded when I told her, but also slightly envious that I’d stepped off the treadmill.
“So I could come in and you could make me a bacon sandwich?” She was leaning on the kitchen doorframe, chewing the inside of her cheek.
“If you paid me £3, absolutely.”
“I might just do that. Do you get to make coffee too?”
“Yep – espresso, Americano, latte, the lot.”
“I’ve always found that strangely alluring – all that banging, refilling, slotting and pouring.” She enacted doing just that with her hands while she stood there. I frowned.
“You’re weird, you know that don’t you?”
“It’s been said before.”
The daily routine involved either serving coffee and breakfasts at the counter or preparing the daily lunch menu. Matt got into work every day at 6am to get the breakfasts cooked and assembled – we didn’t offer a full fry-up but rather fruit, porridge, pastries and bacon or sausage baps with or without eggs. But what people wanted most was a coffee to wake themselves up and kick-start their morning. Suddenly, I was the queen of the kick-start – who would have thought it?
For the first week, Matt had me serving customers, making coffees and heating food – not too taxing. He also employed his cousin Beth throughout the week, who rocked up from 8am-2pm to tend the counter too.
While Matt was tall, Beth was short and round but carried her excess weight well. She had brown hair
that she tied into a ponytail and never sat still – a constant bustler as my mum would say. My mum liked bustlers. Matt also had an army of part-time non-related hired help who wafted in and out on a rota system that was a mystery to me but it seemed to work. Most were mothers who wanted extra money and café hours suited them perfectly.
The height of the rush was from 12.45pm for an hour, where queues often snaked around the side of the whitewashed building, people coming to eat inside or take out in our New York-style brown cardboard food boxes. Matt had not only done a great job with the food but also with the packaging and, after only a little time working there, I must admit to a strange pride at the loyal customer-base he’d built up.
Porter’s also attracted a clutch of Polish workmen from a nearby building site and seeing them eating their quiche and salad or home-made soup amused me no end, bucking my builders stereotyping with some style. They were also always unfailingly polite, which is more than could be said for some of the office workers.
Beth and Matt knew them all by name and Beth had taken a particular shine to Artur the site foreman, who was all muscles and sandy hair with a twinkly smile. Every time he came in she scuttled out the back looking for some important item, which Matt and I teased her endlessly about.
Beth was stern in her defence that she had no idea what we were talking about and that it was a good job somebody round here handled the job with some professionalism and didn’t behave like schoolchildren all the time. We weren’t fooled, though.
Chapter 10
After a week of working at Porter’s I was surprised to find I was getting to know the customers – those who came in before 7.30am, those who rushed in late at 8.45am, those who came for lunch early at 12.20pm or breathless at 2pm. By Friday of the first full week I was also dead on my feet – another thing about working in a café is that it keeps you moving constantly. I had been pondering joining a gym when I could afford it but now it felt like I might not need to.