The 24-Hour Café

by Libby Page

  Poppy suggested that Lily go back home to her parents for a while. She said she could call her mother and help her pack her things. By that point, Lily was too exhausted to refuse. After her mother had arrived a few days later with her car and the housemates had helped Lily pack her things inside and waved a strange, sad goodbye, Hannah and Mona retreated to Hannah’s room.

  Hannah remembers sitting next to Mona on her bed. They both stared ahead in silence.

  ‘Promise we’ll always look after each other, OK?’ Hannah said eventually. Despite her guilt around Lily, her sense of shame at having let one of them drop off the edge unnoticed, there was one thought that Hannah held on to throughout it all. She knew what food in the fridge was Mona’s. She knew from her complexion and from her body that she was healthy. And they were fierce, close friends; if Mona ever had anything on her mind, Hannah knew she would tell her. There would never be secrets between them.

  Mona didn’t say anything but nodded and reached an arm around Hannah’s shoulder.

  Lily never came back to the house in Bounds Green, but the housemates made a trip to Yorkshire to visit her. It was there that Hannah felt she finally got to know her former housemate, wrapped in a blanket on the sofa of her parents’ house, looking out across the rainy moors and talking honestly for the first time. They stayed for a weekend but after they left, Hannah started writing messages to Lily. They kept in touch that way – words reaching each other across the distance between them. Hannah’s messages to Lily might have started because of guilt and concern for the fragile woman she once shared a house with, but over time it became a real friendship, even if they saw each other rarely. Their messages were often infrequent too, but the flow of them never stopped. A year after moving back to Yorkshire, Lily told Hannah she had reconnected with her first boyfriend, whom she broke up with when she moved to London. Nine months later, they were engaged. Lily said it was partly Tim who finally helped her to get better – they wanted children and her doctor told her she wouldn’t be able to have them until she put on more weight. Although Lily didn’t go into details, Hannah gets the sense it was a struggle; but eventually she reached a healthy weight, and six months ago Mabel was born.

  Hannah feels her eyes growing damp as Lily types another message.

  ‘See you soon,’ she says, and attached to the message is a photo of Mabel, asleep in Lily’s arms.

  ‘See you there,’ Hannah replies.

  For a while she stays very still, staring at the photograph of baby Mabel. Hannah is delighted that Lily has found happiness in the shape of this tiny bundle of pink cheeks and scrunched fists. She deserves it, after the difficult few years she has been through. But Mabel’s approaching christening is another reminder of how different Hannah’s life is to that of so many of her friends. She pictures the flat that is waiting for her at home. She loves living with Mona, but their place is small and not truly theirs, even though they have lived there for four years. There is no living room, no garden and no dishwasher, all things that it was normal not to have at twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-six. Back then most of her friends were living similar lives to hers, chasing dreams and holding down low-paid jobs, living in tatty apartments where damp and mould were common decorations. But as the years have drawn on, things have changed.

  Each year that passes, Hannah wonders if it is time to give up on her dream and to accept that the things she hoped for are never going to come true. And each year something always keeps her holding on a little longer. But as she stares at her phone, her feet already aching and the smell of grease and coffee surrounding her, she wonders what that thing is and whether it’s enough to keep her doing this for much longer.

  5.00 a.m.

  Hannah

  ‘FUCKING BITCH!’

  Hannah barely has time to register the café door opening before the woman is there, shouting so loudly it makes her jump and the other customers turn around quickly in their seats.

  ‘BITCH! FUCKING BITCH!’

  Hannah shoves her phone in her apron pocket as the woman staggers into the middle of the café, jeans half open, a plastic bag in one hand and an empty dog lead in the other, trailing on the floor. Her long hair is matted at the ends and her eyes are open very wide. She is missing a front tooth. Hannah recognises her immediately.

  As Hannah backs away slightly behind the counter and the young boy in the hoody stands up, the woman stops swearing and instead opens her mouth and starts suddenly and very loudly to scream. The sound fills the café and the woman at the table by the window puts her hands over her ears. She’s back again, thinks Hannah. Hannah, Mona and the other café staff know this woman well. They refer to her as The Screamer.

  In an instant Pablo is out of the kitchen and at Hannah’s side. He places a hand on her shoulder. Hannah looks back and forth between the young man and the female customer, trying to reassure them with just a glance that everything will be OK. But she is startled herself, the screaming bothering her so much more this time than it has in the past. It pierces her ears and makes her heart rate rise rapidly and she realises suddenly that she has no idea what to do. She notices that the young man is still standing, and after taking a deep breath he turns towards the screaming woman.

  ‘Hey,’ he says in a gentle voice, ‘Where’s your dog? I love dogs.’

  Abruptly, the woman stops screaming. Her head spins quickly to face the young man. She fixes him with a glare.

  ‘Dog? What dog?’

  She takes a step closer to the young man and Hannah flinches, as though the woman is lunging at her. The young man moves backwards too, knocking into the table behind him. He looks at the lead in the woman’s hand and then at Hannah, but he doesn’t say anything further.

  It’s Pablo who eventually steps forward towards the woman. Hannah’s mind was elsewhere and it disturbs her to find that she feels unable to cope, that she needs Pablo and his soft voice as he tries to comfort the woman. She stands behind the counter, feeling suddenly helpless.

  The first time Hannah encountered The Screamer she was so frightened she nearly screamed too. It was at a similar time of night and that time the woman simply came and stood in the middle of the café and screamed non-stop for about five minutes, before turning around and leaving again. When it happened then the few customers were so startled that Hannah gave them all free coffees. Over time, though, Hannah and Mona have both grown used to her.

  There are all sorts of strange customers that come into the café, particularly late at night. Hannah knows they all have their own stories; she has often wondered how The Screamer got to this point in her life. But it doesn’t make it any less distressing, especially if she is the only waitress in the café. Most are completely harmless, like the very old man who comes in some nights and asks again and again to speak to Margaret. Hannah always tries to kindly explain there is no Margaret here, and eventually, he always leaves, but not before asking every customer in the café if they are Margaret. Then there’s the woman who tries to hand out home-made religious flyers to all the customers, and leaves them taped to the bathroom mirror too. Sometimes she recites a passage from the Bible in a loud voice before leaving.

  By now, Hannah knows the soothing voice she has to adopt with The Screamer and not to attempt to get too close, as it only panics the woman. She knows all of this, and yet she watches in silence as in patient but firm tones Pablo is able to calm the woman and steer her in the direction of the door. Hannah feels her shoulders sinking in relief as the woman lets herself be guided out. But at the last minute she stops abruptly. In a swift movement she kicks a chair so hard that it skids across the linoleum and crashes into a table, knocking the cutlery, napkins and sauces onto the floor. Without another word, the woman hugs her plastic bag tightly to her chest and steps out into the street.

  Once she is gone, both the young man and the female customer head to the table and begin to pick up the things from the
floor. They crouch down, collecting cutlery and packets of sauces.

  Hannah finally gathers herself and pounces into action.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, reaching down to the ground and helping collect the disturbed cutlery. As she leans down she catches Pablo’s eye. He gives her a thumbs up and a questioning look. She returns the thumbs up and he nods and heads back into the kitchen.

  Hannah focuses on trying to reassure the customers and right the table.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she continues, ‘She comes here every now and then. She’s harmless really but can get a little … aggravated.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ says the woman in the tracksuit and trench coat, passing Hannah a pile of napkins. The young man collects a handful of cutlery and hands it to Hannah with a shy smile.

  ‘Thanks,’ Hannah says, and the three of them stand up, placing the fallen debris back on the table. She is about to ask them their names and to offer them a coffee on the house when the woman’s phone rings again. This time she pulls it from her pocket and answers it, turning back to her table. The young man returns to his too, opening a new textbook and staring intently at the pages.

  ‘I’m just at the corner shop,’ says the woman into her phone. Hannah listens to one side of the conversation as she continues to straighten the disturbed table and chairs.

  ‘I popped out for some air,’ continues the woman, twisting the belt of her trench coat in her hands and looking at her nails. ‘Yes, I know how late it is. I just needed five minutes, OK?’

  Hannah quietly tucks the chairs back under the table. The woman on the phone is now staring out the window to where a man is urinating against the front of the station on the other side of the road and a group in high visibility jackets are making their way down the street. In a couple of hours this road will be heaving and will stay that way for the rest of the day. But for now it is still quiet, the bin bags still waiting on the pavement and the few people who are here still cause for intrigue.

  ‘I’ve only been gone five minutes. I’m walking back now. Yes, I can hear she’s crying. Just comfort her until I’m home. Yes, I know you don’t have breasts, darling, I’m not insane. Wow, thanks. Yes, I said, I’m walking home now. I’ll be home soon.’

  The woman hangs up her phone and slips it back into her pocket. Hannah straightens the table and tries to look as though she wasn’t listening. Her breathing has returned to normal and her mind is now drawn to the woman in the tracksuit and her story, wondering at the baby waiting for her at home. She knows she has no right to judge her for clearly lying to her husband, but she still feels a question flash through her mind – why is she here?

  The woman doesn’t seem to have noticed the fact Hannah was listening, or the expression on Hannah’s face, which Hannah is sure is concerned without her meaning it to be. Instead she leaves a pile of coins on the table, tightens her coat around her and leaves without glancing back. Hannah watches as the woman steps out onto the street. She stands on the pavement, her shoulders heaving as though she is taking long, deep breaths. She stays that way for a while and then she thrusts her hands in her pockets, tilts her head down and walks quickly away.

  Hannah feels a calm descend on the café now that The Screamer has left and the tables are all empty, apart from the young man in the green hoody who has been here so long that he feels like part of the furniture. She lets herself rest on a chair by the counter. In the quiet, her thoughts return to Lily and her other former housemates.

  Shortly after Lily left, Bemi told the housemates she was leaving too. She was moving in with Anya, into a small flat above a fish and chip shop in Tottenham, the only place they could afford but somewhere that would be theirs. She seemed nervous telling the others, but they were all supportive and Bemi was relieved. All of them apart from Sophie, who surprisingly didn’t take the news well. She stormed out of the room after Bemi had finished telling them and on the day Bemi left, carrying Maud’s tank out to the removal van, Sophie burst into tears.

  It was when Poppy left that Hannah and Mona both decided it was time to move on as well. Poppy called a house meeting one evening. She had bought doughnuts for everyone, a huge box of Krispy Cremes that sat on the coffee table in the middle of the room, sweating sugar in the waxed box.

  ‘I’m moving to Paris,’ she told them all, ‘I’m moving in with Antoine.’

  Hannah remembers turning to Mona, meeting her eye and seeing her own shock reflected on her friend’s face. Poppy had mentioned Antoine before, but she mentioned so many people and was out so often that Hannah had no idea Antoine was her boyfriend. It turned out they had met through a friend at a house party when he was visiting from Paris for the weekend. Since then they’d been seeing each other regularly, Poppy said, Poppy staying with him in the apartment his company rented for him when he was over for business. Hannah remembered several trips Poppy had made to Paris since she had been living in the house – Poppy had said it was to visit her cousins who lived there, but it must have been to see Antoine. For such a sociable person, Poppy’s strong sense of privacy came as a surprise. It seemed that although she surrounded herself with people, when it came to those who were truly close she held them to her tightly like winning cards.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ asked Sophie.

  Poppy shrugged in that light way she had.

  ‘I didn’t know if it was going to become anything serious,’ she said, ‘I didn’t want to jinx it. But when he asked me to move it just suddenly seemed to make sense. Why not? I’ve always wanted to live in Paris, and there are loads of cabaret shows there that I’m going to audition for once I’ve moved. Sometimes you have to make a leap of faith.’

  Hannah, Mona and Sophie congratulated Poppy and together they shared Krispy Cremes and whatever they could find in the kitchen to drink (a quarter of a bottle of gin and a few cans of beer). But there was an unspoken sense that with Poppy leaving, things had changed too much. Hannah couldn’t imagine living there without Poppy to bind them together – the ringmaster who assembled the house of misfits. And with Lily’s room still empty, they would need to find not one but two new housemates. The dynamic of the house would change completely. Once the doughnuts were eaten and the drinks were just sticky dregs at the bottom of glasses, Poppy mentioned that the lease was due for renewal in a month’s time. Did the others want to take it on and renew it for another year?

  Hannah, Mona and Sophie looked at each other. Without needing to say anything else, it was decided. Sophie said she had friends who had a spare room going, so she would get in touch with them. Hannah and Mona started looking for flats that evening. They moved three weeks later.

  The new flat with just Mona felt so much more like home that she didn’t miss the Bounds Green house, but she did find herself missing Poppy in particular. Taking her phone from her pocket again, Hannah clicks on Poppy’s Instagram page and scrolls through the images. She pauses on a photo of Poppy and Antoine in a bar in Paris. They are both holding wine glasses and Antoine is smiling at the camera but Poppy is smiling at Antoine. Hannah wonders who took the photograph and where the bar is. Perhaps it is their local favourite. Hannah looks again at Poppy, thinking how happy she seems. Her hair is shorter but other than that she looks the same. Four years have passed, and despite the warmth that Hannah feels whenever she thinks of Poppy, they have drifted apart. They have seen each other a few times when Poppy has been in London visiting friends and family, but Hannah has never been to see her in Paris, or to watch the cabaret show she has been dancing in for the past three years. Each year she says she will, but somehow it has never happened.

  Hannah and Mona planned a trip together once. It was January and they were both between theatre jobs – Mona had finished a Christmas job tap dancing in nursing homes around London and Hannah had come to the end of a small singing role in a musical at a community theatre in Tooting. She was exhausted: she had continued working at the caf
é during the day throughout the three-week run, and the theatre was more than an hour away from their flat. But the thought of Paris had kept her going. She pictured drinking espressos outside busy bistros with Mona and Poppy, people-watching. And she just desperately wanted a few days away from it all: away from the café but more importantly away from the auditions and the yearning to make something of her music, and the growing fear that she wasn’t a star but rather a dull lump of rock. But in the end Mona caught a stomach bug the week before their trip. They never made it to Paris.

  *

  ‘Go without me,’ says Mona from the nest of duvets and blankets on her bed, her face clammy and pale, ‘I’m sure someone else will want to go with you – or just go on your own.’

  It is the day before their planned departure date and their full suitcases stand in the hallway. Hannah packed for them both just in case Mona felt better and wanted to go. Her rucksack holds a guide to Paris she bought for the trip, pages folded down to mark the places she particularly wanted to visit or thought Mona might like. The Musée Rodin, the Musée Picasso, the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and a café she read about that apparently serves the world’s best lemon meringue pie – Mona’s favourite.

  ‘I’m staying here with you,’ Hannah replies, placing a mug of hot water and crushed ginger on Mona’s bedside table. She places a hand on Mona’s forehead – it is hot, and Hannah gently eases back the duvet. At that moment, Mona starts to tremble. Her face turns a shade of grey and she leans forward – as she does so, Hannah reaches for the washing-up bowl on the floor and lifts it towards Mona just in time.

  ‘It’s OK,’ says Hannah, holding the bowl with one hand and pulling strands of Mona’s hair away from her face with the other. Mona starts to cry and Hannah reaches for the tissues and a damp flannel that she has left beside the bed.