The 24-Hour Café

by Libby Page

  Hannah doesn’t want to admit to herself or to Mona that she is tired. But she is. Last week there was an audition for a singing role narrating a well-known modern circus show. Hannah knew that it was a great opportunity and that she should go for it. But she also knew she would be joining queues and queues of other hopefuls at the audition, all wonderful singers, most probably several years younger than her. And suddenly, she just couldn’t face it. When the day arrived, Hannah regretted having told Mona about it – she was so enthusiastic and wished her luck as she always did, but Hannah really just wanted to stay in bed. She knew she couldn’t though. Since knowing each other, and particularly since living together, it has been their thing to spur each other on. They are in it together and have always made a point of pushing each other to be the best they can be. Mona would tell her to go to the audition and would be disappointed if she didn’t. So, Hannah dressed and left the flat but at the last minute changed her mind and went to a local café for brunch instead. That night she told Mona she hadn’t got the part and Mona opened a bottle of wine in commiseration. Hannah still hasn’t told her the truth.

  As Hannah watches Mona’s smiling face she thinks back to her last serious gig, several months ago now and held in a theatre in Islington. It was an evening she had to self-fund and after renting the space and paying the other musicians she didn’t manage to break even, despite the fact that the room was packed with friends and family who had bought tickets and come along to support. Despite the lost money, one good thing had come out of the gig. A friend of a friend who had attended the show works at a central London hotel and recommended her to the manager. She has been offered a couple of trial shifts for October, singing in the cocktail bar. Hannah holds tightly onto the thought of those gigs – just three weeks away now – wondering if it could finally mean the start of something bigger, and the chance to give up the café job for good.

  They have both had breaks before – jobs they have both adored – but shows finish and tastes change. And each year a new swathe of eager, bouncy, fame-hungry young performers heads for London and turns up to the same auditions as Hannah and Mona. They can all sing, they can all dance. But most of them are now ten years younger than Hannah and Mona, and some are just that little more, that ‘more’ being impossible to pin down or describe. Hannah thinks of it as ‘sparkle’. Some people just sparkle. They are the ones your eyes are drawn to in a dance chorus on the stage, the voice you single out in a choir – the people who have the ability to become a shining individual in a crowd of sequins and jazz hands.

  ‘When is the second audition then?’ asks Hannah, focusing on keeping her smile firmly on her face.

  ‘It’s tomorrow. Well, technically today. 9.30 a.m.,’ replies Mona.

  ‘Ouch – will you be OK?’

  ‘I’ll have to be. I’m going to sleep as soon as I get home; hopefully I’ll get enough to be at least vaguely co-ordinated. And then there’s coffee.’

  ‘Text me to let me know how it goes, OK?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Mona pauses.

  ‘I really, really want this one, Hannah,’ she says, more quietly this time and looking down at her hands. Mona is usually so composed, keeping any anxieties about her career much more carefully hidden than Hannah. She never usually expresses nerves before an audition; instead she pours her energy into practising, often refusing to talk about her feelings if Hannah presses her.

  ‘I’ve just got to get this bit right,’ she would often reply to a question from Hannah about whether she was nervous, her feet tapping out her anxieties in a perfectly mastered piece of choreography.

  In the café, Hannah watches her friend, her face lined with a frown for once.

  ‘I know you do,’ she replies. And she does. Looking at Mona she feels it – that well-known feeling in her stomach, a yearning that, despite her exhaustion, hasn’t diminished over the years. She takes a deep breath.

  ‘You’ll be great, you’re amazing,’ she says, and instead of wishing Mona luck – they have grown to believe the stage superstition – she adds, ‘Break a leg.’

  Hannah glances at the clock: it is nearly 12.30.

  ‘What are you still doing here?’ she says suddenly, ‘You should have mentioned your audition straight away, I wouldn’t have kept you here so long dancing to stupid songs and making you talk to me.’

  She laughs, but the truth is these are some of her favourite moments with her friend. Night turning slowly into day, the café nearly empty, quiet enough to talk and to make themselves milkshakes without anyone noticing. It feels special, secret, and entirely theirs.

  Mona glances at the clock.

  ‘That’s OK. But you’re right, I should probably go.’

  She retrieves her belongings from beneath the counter and swaps her apron for her black coat, giving a wave once she is ready. Hannah lifts the cloth and waves back as Mona heads for the door. And then she is gone, stepping out into the light of the street lamps and away down the road. For a moment Hannah stands in her friend’s absence, filling the space where she was just now, her head full of the things she meant to tell her. Unsaid words rattle inside of her like the wings of moths brushing a bulb.

  After a moment of staring out the window, following Mona long after she has disappeared down the street, Hannah turns her attention back to the café. When her mind wanders and her worries about her career and her future threaten to overwhelm her, she finds it helps to ground herself with this view, on the details of the everyday. She returns to cleaning, this time focusing on the coffee machine, wiping the silver surface, the café looking back at her in the reflection.

  Once the coffee machine is clean she pulls up a chair and sits, waiting to serve whoever wanders in from the city outside.

  1.00 a.m.

  Hannah

  The door opens and a boy who looks in his late teens or early twenties steps into the café. He is wearing a green hooded jumper and pale jeans that look too big for him and he has a large backpack on his shoulders. He nods at her, making eye contact only for a brief moment before looking down at his feet. As he tilts his head, sandy blond hair falls in front of his face and dangles in strands beside his chin. Hannah notices the shadow of a few-days-old beard on his chin.

  ‘Hi!’ she says, looking up from the counter, ‘Sit wherever you like.’

  She watches as the customer eyes up the tables and chooses one on the edge of the café – a table, not a booth. He places his rucksack on the chair next to him and rolls his shoulders, tilting his neck slowly from one side to the other. He sits down and opens the bag, pulling out a pile of books that look like university textbooks. They have a certain academic-sounding thud as they are placed on the table. The boy lays them out neatly and then examines the menu. After a few seconds he puts it back, zipping his hooded jumper all the way up to his chin and sinking slightly lower in his chair. Hannah takes hold of her notepad and pen and stands up.

  ‘What can I get you?’ she asks when she reaches his table. He looks up from a book. Hannah catches a glimpse at the page – lots of diagrams and numbers.

  ‘Can I have a cappuccino, please,’ says the boy, his voice softer than Hannah imagined.

  ‘With chocolate?’

  ‘Does that cost extra?’

  Hannah laughs, but then stops herself when she sees his face.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  The boy’s cheeks turn bright red.

  ‘Yes please,’ he says quietly.

  ‘And anything to eat?’

  The boy glances at the menu again then at the counter where Mona had just laid out a fresh selection of cakes supplied by Aleksander – the last job on his shift.

  ‘I’d recommend the carrot cake,’ says Hannah, following the boy’s eyes, ‘or the pancakes. The pancakes are always good.’

  The boy pauses, then shakes his head and turns back to his
books.

  ‘Just the coffee, thanks,’ he says, flicking his eyes quickly up to meet hers, before turning them back down to the page he is reading.

  ‘No problem.’

  As she leaves the table she notices a sleeping bag poking out the top of the boy’s rucksack. Before bringing him his coffee, she adds a large chocolate biscuit to the saucer at the last minute. He smiles at her, then returns to his books.

  ‘Good morning!’ comes a cheerful voice from the doorway. It’s a voice Hannah recognises immediately, with its Spanish accent and a smile that clings to the words.

  She smiles too and says a ‘good morning’ in reply as Pablo, the other full-time chef, bustles into the café, removing a leather jacket to reveal his chef’s whites beneath. They are slightly off-white, like sheets that have been washed many times. Pablo is a short, stocky man who Hannah has guessed is in his late fifties, with a thick head of curly, dark grey hair and a permanent smile on his rosy-cheeked face. He is a stark contrast to Aleksander, who often talks to himself in Polish but rarely talks to others. And yet the two chefs seem to have a silent understanding with one another – a bond that is perhaps formed by their shared profession, or maybe simply because they support the same football team.

  ‘So, she’s started walking!’ Pablo says as he heads through the café towards the kitchen.

  Hannah is used to this habit of Pablo’s: he never seems to start a conversation, instead he simply continues where he left off the last time he saw you. ‘She’ is Rosa, his granddaughter. She holds a tie with Arsenal football club as the love of Pablo’s life.

  ‘Last week she was just holding on to that little trolley with the bricks, pushing herself around,’ he continues, ‘But yesterday she was up on those little legs all by herself. She’s going to be running before we know it. I’ve already bought her a football, get her into it early I figure. Here, look.’

  He reaches for his phone and scrolls through several photos, holding them up so Hannah can see. He is clearly in no rush to get into the kitchen, but Hannah doesn’t mind. She is always happy to see photos of Rosa. Pablo’s cheeks glow a bright shade of proud as Hannah nods and coos at the photographs.

  Pablo brushes an eye and shakes his head.

  ‘You should’a seen it,’ he says. He lets out a deep, happy sigh then waves at Hannah and heads into the kitchen. She listens to the short conversation as Pablo greets Aleksander, who offers a few ‘hmm’s and ‘yeah’s in reply. And then Aleksander is heading out into the café, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders.

  ‘Are you off?’ asks Hannah. Aleksander nods, looking at his feet.

  ‘Have a good day then,’ she adds. He nods again and heads for the door.

  Once Aleksander has left, Hannah glances over at the young man with the rucksack. His eyes look heavy and he leans his head in his hands as he flicks through the book on the table. Every now and then his head nods and then jolts back up again.

  The door opens again – this time a man in his fifties with grey hair that sticks out in tufts. He runs a hand through it as he enters and it flattens slightly, apart from one spike that seems reluctant to go down. He is carrying a faded bookshop book bag over one shoulder and Hannah notices a couple of pens clipped to the front pocket of his navy shirt. He heads immediately for a seat in the middle of the café, leaving one empty table between him and the other customer. He settles himself and draws a notepad and a crossword book from his bag. His seat is facing the window and Hannah follows his gaze outside.

  A man wearing one shoe staggers past, a can held tightly in his fist. Hannah notices his hands, bright pink until the tips of the fingers, which are tinged blue as though they have been dipped in ink. She knows it is not ink that has left those marks, though, but cold, and she feels suddenly grateful for the warmth of the café and her room that she knows will be waiting for her at the end of her shift. A small queue of people flanked by suitcases has gathered on the other side of the road. Some are in couples or small groups, huddled together, others stand alone and look down at their phones, the screens illuminating their faces in an eerie glow. Above them tower office blocks: some are completely dark, a few are bright, revealing rows and rows of empty desks. Beside them, on the top of the brick tower at the entrance to Liverpool Street station, sit four pigeons, their heads tucked inside the puffed ball of their feathers.

  The view of the city makes Hannah think of Mona – she wonders if she caught the night bus and got home OK and whether the audition will go well for her. Maybe she will be too tired from her long shift to really do her best. Maybe her height will be a problem, like it has been many times in the past. The thoughts enter Hannah’s mind without her control, as quick as a blink. As soon as she notices them there she shakes herself. Mona will be great. She is her closest friend and she deserves a break.

  Pushing the thought from her mind, she picks up her notepad.

  ‘What can I get you?’ she says to the man with the crossword book, the line she will repeat until it loses any sense of meaning and she has become sick of the smell of coffee and chips.

  Dan

  The smell of pancakes wakes him up. At first, he feels groggy and disorientated. But then he remembers where he is – in the 24-hour café with his university books spread around him and his rucksack on the chair. A taxidermy bear in a top hat stares down at him from its mount on the café wall, claws extended, mouth curled in a snarl. If he were a child, that bear would terrify him. Lucky, then, that he is a grown man. A shudder runs through him as he turns away from the staring glass eyes.

  He looks around him quickly, checking to see if anyone had noticed him sleeping. The café is nearly empty apart from a middle-aged man on a table just across from him who is writing in a crossword puzzle book, and the waitress who stands at the counter and looks absent-mindedly out the window. She is pretty: her skin so pale it’s almost translucent, and a shock of red, wavy hair framing her round face and falling over her shoulders. She wears a lot of make-up (a flick of black eyeliner and coral lipstick that clashes with her hair) and he guesses she is in her late twenties or early thirties. He hopes she didn’t see him sleeping. He particularly hopes he didn’t snore.

  Sitting straighter in his chair he reaches for the textbook in front of him and opens it near the middle. He picks up the pen that he must have dropped on the table when he fell asleep, and the notebook resting by his now cold cup of coffee. Then he tries to read but the smell of pancakes and an ache in his stomach and somewhere closer to his ribs distracts him.

  He looks at his watch, counting the hours until the university library opens (eight) and until his first lecture (ten).

  The door opens and the sound of laughter and voices invades the café. Dan looks up as a group walks in. There are three girls and two boys of around his age. The girls wear brightly coloured dresses that are wrapped around their bodies like bandages and stop just below their thighs. Despite summer being over, their legs are bare. The boys are in jeans and checked shirts that are buttoned to the neck. He can immediately tell they are all drunk – they walk with hesitant, wobbly steps like toddlers. The girls have their arms linked together and are giggling, holding each other for support as they teeter on their platform heels.

  Carefully he reaches for his rucksack, takes it off the chair next to him and tucks it under the table.

  The waitress takes their orders and they sit down, girls on one side of a booth, their bodies close to each other and their arms still linked, and the boys piled on the other side, leaning back heavily against the fake leather seats. Dan tries to focus back on his work, pushing out the sound of carefree laughter and conversation coming from the other side of the café.

  But then the sound of shouting draws him out from his books.

  ‘Shots! Shots! Shots!’ shouts one of the guys. Dan looks up again and sees him pulling sachets of ketchup, mayonnaise and brown sauce from the tin in the mi
ddle of the table and lining them up in front of his friend. The girls are shrieking now and one has her phone out, holding it up as though she is filming – maybe she is.

  Dan notices the man with the crossword looking across at the group and then turning back to his puzzle, shaking his head.

  ‘No, mate, no way!’ says one of the guys, waving his arms across his body.

  ‘Shots! Shots! Shots!’ continues his friend, the girls joining in now too. They thump their hands on the table and Dan catches the waitress looking over at them too. She opens her mouth, perhaps as though about to shout at them, but then stops and returns to preparing the drinks orders. Dan can hear noises from the kitchen, and they reignite his hunger.

  After a moment, the guy stops his protesting and stands up. He rolls up his sleeves and mock flexes his muscles. Then he picks up the packets, ripping them open with his teeth and spitting the plastic onto the table. One by one he squeezes them into his mouth, ketchup, mayonnaise, then brown sauce.

  Watching them, Dan’s stomach turns, imagining the taste of ketchup and brown sauce in his mouth. But despite the revulsion the laughter of the student’s friends hits him hard in his gut, piercing him with its casualness, its ease.

  Their food arrives and the group tuck in greedily. Dan half reads and half watches as the girls laugh and take their shoes off under the table, their bare feet making them look younger despite the dresses. They sip their milkshakes and rub their tired feet, occasionally nudging each other affectionately or resting a head on each other’s shoulders. He thinks about where they might live; perhaps in one of the nicer student halls, and what their parents do, whether they have any siblings. Watching them he suddenly hopes that they never have to learn what he has learnt: that life is a bitch and that one day you’ll find yourself entirely on your own. He wishes they could stay in the café all night drinking milkshakes and laughing at nothing, even finding the gross inanity of the boys hilarious. That time could pause and keep them right here with no worries other than the hangover and blisters that await them tomorrow.