The 24-Hour Café

by Libby Page

  But halfway through he stops. His voice cracks and he takes a breath as though to continue speaking, but the only sound that comes out is a soft moan close to a howl, and then his face crumples and the tears start to fall. His shoulders shake as he cries, watched by the black-clad congregation. He looks completely lost, this large, weeping man who is her father.

  For a brief moment, Hannah feels a flood of embarrassment. She thinks of Jaheim sitting at the back of the church and wishes suddenly that he had met her father sooner, on a better day. She turns to her mother, who looks too surprised to move. And then in the next moment Hannah is on her feet. What was she thinking? She pushes away her initial embarrassment as she walks forward to stand by her father’s side. Gently, she eases the piece of paper out of his trembling hands and links her arm through his. She squeezes his arm. And then she looks down at the sheet of paper and reads the end of his speech for him as he stands and cries, mostly silently but with the occasional sob shuddering through his body and echoing in the cold church. She feels his arm squeeze hers back and it requires all her strength to keep her voice clear and loud. As she speaks she thinks of her grandmother, but mostly she does it for her father.

  *

  Hannah breathes deeply as she thinks of her father and remembers her grandmother’s funeral. She approaches Paul’s table slowly. Tears drip onto his keyboard and his face – previously serious-looking and lined with middle-age – twists into an expression of pain that makes him look ageless.

  ‘Can I sit here for a minute?’ Hannah asks gently, although she is already sitting down. She spots Eleanor throwing her a glance from the counter, where there is still a queue of customers, but she ignores her. The customers will just have to wait.

  Paul looks up and wipes at his face suddenly, as though actually looking at another person has snapped something inside him and made him remember who he is: a middle-aged husband and father who doesn’t cry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, using one of the red paper napkins on the table to wipe his face, ‘I don’t know what’s come over me, I never cry.’

  The paper shreds slightly in his hands and there is something about it that makes Hannah very sad.

  ‘Neither does my father,’ she says gently, ‘Apart from at really sad films, funerals, children’s charity adverts and when his football team loses.’

  She smiles, and Paul sniffs and smiles too.

  ‘Does it embarrass you when your dad cries?’ he asks, scrunching up the soggy paper napkin and stuffing it in the bottom of his empty juice glass.

  Hannah winces as she thinks about that initial flash of embarrassment at the funeral. She hates herself for it. Perhaps it had partly been because his tears came as such a shock. They unsettled her, as though some fundamental fact in her life had suddenly been disproven. Father Christmas does not exist, and men do cry. But afterwards something had shifted in their relationship. Recently when she has phoned, he has chatted for a little longer if it is him who picks up the phone. It seems to Hannah as though the crying and the new, more approachable man wearing her father’s shoes have something to do with each other. She misses him and thinks again of her parents’ house and the bedroom where the bed is always made, just in case she were to come and visit. She wonders if they are ever lonely, just the two of them, and realises that although she has seen them in London several times since, the last time she visited them in Wales was for the funeral.

  ‘Not at all,’ she says to Paul, ‘I sort of like it. It makes me feel better when I get sad. We all do it, whether it’s behind a bedroom door or in a café.’

  Her thoughts return to her earlier outburst in the storeroom. She thinks she did a good job at redoing her make-up and hiding any sign of her tears – surely no one could tell that earlier she was weeping in a small room surrounded by boxes. Part of her wants to tell this customer about her earlier tears so he knows he is not alone. But she knows she won’t.

  ‘I never thought that would be me,’ the man says eventually, ‘My father would turn in his grave if he could see me right now. I look like a fool.’

  Hannah shakes her head.

  ‘Not at all. I’m sure no one noticed. Besides, even if they did you’ll probably never see them again.’

  He winces.

  ‘I used to work with a lot of them,’ he says, gesturing towards the queue, ‘This is their local café. It used to be mine, too. God, I bet word will get back to the office that I’m sat here at nine-thirty on a Thursday, crying like a lunatic. They’ll feel even more sorry for me than they already do.’

  Hannah doesn’t know what to say to that so she says nothing, she just smiles, hoping it is enough.

  By now the man’s breathing has returned to normal, and his face, while still slightly blotchy, is returning to its former composed state.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says quickly, then, ‘Can I get the bill please?’

  And with those words he goes back to being a customer and she goes back to being a waitress.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. She returns with the bill and the card machine. He pays without saying anything else, piles a large tip in coins on the table and leaves.

  10.00 a.m.

  Hannah

  The café is quieter again now – there is no longer a queue. The rain has subsided and Hannah watches John out the window as he closes the flamingo umbrella, shakes it and props it next to him on the pavement. He takes his magazines out of their protective cover and tries to talk to a woman who walks close past him, a phone held up to her face. She shakes her head vigorously and walks off. John shrugs his shoulders.

  The door swings and two men step inside, one holding the door while the other drags a huge red suitcase into the café. They both look tired or sad, Hannah can’t tell which.

  Before she has time to head to the table to ask them what they want, one of the men is standing at the bar ordering two lattes. Tired and sad, she thinks as she takes his order – his hands rubbing the back of his neck and his face drained. His eyes look slightly above Hannah, not at the bear – as is normal with customers – but somewhere else entirely. Somewhere, she guesses, that is not inside this 24-hour café opposite Liverpool Street station. She watches him as he returns to where the other man waits for him, staring down at the table. A few moments later she carries the drinks over to the pair, setting them down between them.

  ‘Here we go,’ she says.

  They don’t say anything; instead they simply nod, their eyes turning down again.

  The mood of the café has changed from morning rush to subdued lull. Eleanor has taken a break and the only sign of Pablo is the sound of the radio coming from the kitchen. In the middle of the café, looking out on the street that heaves with people, traffic and fumes, Hannah suddenly feels very alone.

  Nearby, the couple with the red suitcase sit in silence.

  Joe and Haziq

  ‘How long have we got?’ says Joe after a while, reaching for his coffee and taking a long sip. They sit at a table with three chairs. On the third chair sits the large red suitcase.

  Haziq looks at his watch.

  ‘We’ve got about an hour until the coach arrives.’

  Joe sighs and reaches for his coffee again. The café is quiet apart from the background music and the soft buzz of conversation. Joe shuffles uncomfortably on his seat, feeling exposed.

  He nods and looks down at his coffee cup again. The café door opens and a group of men in high visibility jackets and overalls jostle inside, carrying hard hats under their arms. Joe doesn’t think he’s ever been relieved to see a group of builders before, but as the room suddenly fills with noise – overlapping conversations and the shuffle of work boots on the checked linoleum – he feels himself relaxing slightly. It makes the silence between him and Haziq less deafening.

  The men order bacon and egg rolls from the counter and head to one corner of the café
, where they pull tables and chairs together in a messy group. Some of them laugh, others sit quietly, resting their feet on spare chairs. Joe wonders if they are taking a late morning break, or whether they have been working since the early hours, making this their lunch time. Either way they seem relieved as they sit down, clicking knuckles and rolling shoulders.

  Under the table their legs are close together. They can feel the warmth from each other’s bodies but they don’t quite let themselves touch. Too much physical contact right now would be too much to bear.

  Haziq shifts in his seat. He can feel the bulk of his passport in his pocket. It seems heavy, as though it is weighing down that side of his body. He looks out the window: a bus stops outside the café and a ramp extends, those who want to get on the bus standing aside to let a wheelchair user off. A man and a woman in running gear jog along the pavement, talking to each other as they run. Above, glass and metal buildings tower into the grey sky where a soft blue is starting to break slowly through the clouds like a pale ink stain.

  ‘We should have got married,’ says Joe suddenly, looking up and meeting Haziq’s eyes.

  Haziq flinches at Joe’s words. They are the words that they both know they have been skirting around for weeks but hearing them finally said out loud still sends a shock of pain to his heart.

  ‘But we haven’t even lived together yet,’ Haziq replies, turning away from the window. His voice is gentle but tired.

  ‘But we were about to.’

  ‘I know,’ says Haziq, glancing quickly and instinctively to the group on the other side of the café before reaching for Joe’s hand. Once he is holding it he has to use all his strength not to pull away, however calming it is to feel the warmth of Joe’s skin against his. The fear doesn’t go away easily, however hard he wishes it would.

  They had even booked the removal company to move Haziq’s things into Joe’s flat. They had chosen new bedding: simple grey pinstripes to replace the old sheets they’d both had since before they met each other. They both agreed that it was important to have new bedding for their new life together. Neither of them had ever lived with a partner before and they were excited. Joe had bought some interiors magazines and had taken to turning down the pages to mark things he liked: whisky tumblers, a cactus plant, a mustard yellow beanbag. They were both ready for the next stage in their lives. And then Haziq got the letter.

  ‘Nearly living together is not quite the same thing,’ continues Haziq, ‘What if you couldn’t stand me once you’d had hundreds of mornings of me being grumpy and leaving my cereal bowl in the sink? Maybe you’d be not so happy to be married to me then.’

  He laughs softly, trying to keep his tone light but knowing it seems forced. Joe looks down at the table and up again.

  ‘I really would have married you, you know,’ Joe says.

  Haziq’s smile slips away and he sighs. He looks at Joe, the dark hair he is used to running his hands through falling slightly over his face, his eyes wide and dark.

  ‘I know,’ Haziq says, ‘And I would marry you too – one day. But I just hate being forced into it like this. I don’t want to do it like that – out of necessity, I want it to be when we’re both ready, not because of immigration laws.’

  The letter came out of the blue. After finishing his studies Haziq found a dream job in a publishing house and they had sponsored him to stay in the country. He was doing well in his job – he’d just had a promotion. But then the rules changed about how much he had to earn to be here, and even with his promotion it wasn’t enough. The company was apologetic – they wanted to keep him but just couldn’t justify that leap up in salary. They told him he would have got there eventually, in the next few years, but as a recent graduate they just couldn’t stretch to it. It wouldn’t be fair to the other employees.

  Haziq understood – it wasn’t their fault. But it meant his fate was sealed. He had to leave voluntarily or face deportation. He booked the flights himself but it didn’t make a difference – right now it feels just the same to him as if he was being led to the airport in handcuffs.

  ‘But I love you,’ says Joe, his eyes damp, droplets resting on his long lashes.

  ‘And I love you too. God, do I love you.’

  Haziq turns away so he doesn’t have to look at Joe’s face. Those big brown eyes are breaking his fucking heart.

  He pictures what is waiting for him back in Indonesia. He will be happy to see his parents at first – it’s been a long time since he’s been able to go home. They are both getting older and at times over the past few years he has woken suddenly in the night, having dreamt that they had both died. If he was at Joe’s when it happened Joe would reach across on hearing him wake up and pull him over to his side of the bed, his arms held tightly around Haziq’s shaking body. He held him until he settled again and fell back to sleep. When they woke in the morning they would usually still be curled up like that.

  But beyond seeing his parents, Haziq doesn’t know what else to be hopeful about. None of his extended family knows he is gay. At high school he had dated a sweet, bookish girl called Dhia. He always thought she knew, but she said nothing, holding his hand at lunchtime break but never asking for anything more. He lost touch with her after high school and wonders what she is doing now and wishes he had expressed his thanks to her. At the time he felt too bitter to acknowledge her with much more than the most basic conversation – just enough to convince people and not arouse suspicion.

  For the past four years in London he has lived the life he had always dreamt of but never quite believed would be possible. As a student at LSE he had taken a while to come out of his shell – it was hard to let go of the fear that followed him. But once he realised that not everyone was judging him – that actually in huge, anonymous London most people weren’t even interested – he let himself loosen up and be himself. He made a tight group of friends and went to G-A-Y in Soho most Saturdays and went on Pride marches and cried each and every time. He loved his job at the publishing house and shortly after starting there he met Joe at a book launch. Joe was a friend of the author’s but revealed that he was a writer too. They talked about books, and London, and their childhoods, and left together without even having to ask the other where they were going next. It felt the most natural thing in the world to go home together. For the past nine months their lives have grown more and more entwined.

  As he sits in the café Haziq pictures a Saturday from several months ago, before it was all taken away from them. It was a normal Saturday, typical of their life together, and he doesn’t know why it enters his mind now – perhaps because its ease, its casual warmth is what he will miss the most. They stayed in bed late, nestled in the sheets and each other’s smells and body heat. After waking slowly, showering together and dressing they went for brunch, meeting friends at their favourite local restaurant. It turned into a boozy brunch and they laughed loudly and he and Joe returned later to Joe’s flat, a bit pissed, and rolled back into bed for the afternoon. In the evening they got up again and went out to an art exhibition one of their friends was holding in Dalston. They didn’t stay next to each other all night – instead they milled around speaking to friends. But at some point in the night they caught each other’s eye across the room and Haziq’s heart pounded as he thought, I’m going home with him.

  In the café he looks again at Joe. Despite his height he looks small, hunched over in the old-fashioned school chair. The construction workers are laughing and he throws them a nervous glance, but they haven’t even noticed Haziq and Joe – they are completely oblivious to them and their pain.

  ‘It will be OK,’ Haziq says, ‘We’ll work something out.’

  Haziq is going to apply again for a visa when he gets back home, and they have both agreed to book a holiday somewhere part-way between the two of them. Haziq pictures a sunny villa somewhere and the two of them sitting on the terrace drinking wine. He imagines lying si
de by side by a pool, each of them reading but holding hands, binding them to one another even though in their heads they are in different times, different places, different worlds. Because that’s how Joe makes him feel.

  But it is time to leave, time to let go.

  ‘I should probably go and wait outside now, the coach will be here soon.’ Haziq goes to stand up but Joe reaches for his hand.

  ‘Just a few more minutes,’ Joe says, his voice rising with panic, ‘Please, please.’

  The look on Joe’s face makes Haziq sit back down. They hold hands across the table, squeezing tightly. Their fingers entwine and warmth flows between them back and forth like a conversation, saying everything they can’t put into words. Haziq dares himself to look, to properly look, across into Joe’s eyes. And that’s when he feels himself breaking. He had tried to stay calm and strong, for Joe but for himself too. But inside he splinters. In Joe’s eyes he sees his best friend. He sees all the goodness and all the love he has ever wanted. He sees a life that he was only just starting to believe was really possible when it was taken away from him.

  The construction workers finish their breakfast and head out into the street. As they open the door the sound of traffic mingles with the quiet music in the café. The rain clouds are melting away and the sky is brightening, sunshine reflecting on the wet pavements and the puddles that have formed near the gutters. The sun rises over London, but at the small table in Stella’s it sets on Joe and Haziq.

  Hannah

  When the group of builders have left, and with Eleanor on her break, Hannah feels inside her apron pocket, checking that the crossword book and the money are still there. Without pulling the book out she feels inside its pages, her fingers meeting the crisp, waxy feel of the fifty-pound notes. She is almost surprised to find it there, still waiting for her to decide what to do with it.