by Libby Page
But then time seemed to speed up and suddenly she is leaving next week, and the conversation has become serious and desperate.
‘You know this,’ she says gently, ‘We’ve talked about it so many times. This is what I have to do. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s my dream.’
She can feel the warmth of him next to her although they are not touching – the heat of their bodies reaching out to each other where nothing else can. She looks straight ahead but can see every detail of him without looking.
‘I know,’ he says after a while, the noises of the apartment (cooking in the kitchen, his sisters shouting at each other) filling their pauses, ‘I just wish your dream involved me.’
When the day actually comes, she doesn’t know how she will leave him. Once she has said that final goodbye, she has decided she will just have to walk away and not turn around to look back. If she looks back at him, she might not go. And she has to leave. Even though her heart aches as badly as throbbing toothache at the thought of leaving him, she knows she cannot stay here. She could still dance here, but there is more to it than that: she needs to go out on her own, to do something entirely for herself. She loves Lucas, but if she stays she knows she will live his life, not hers.
‘You’re going to make someone an amazing husband one day,’ she says quietly. Because even though he is only eighteen, still a boy really, she knows him, and she knows the man he is going to become. A quick temper but a soft heart. A tendency to withdraw inside himself when he is truly upset, focusing all his energy on his woodworking, and needing to be coaxed with the offer of affection and home-made food in order to be brought back to himself again. Fiercely protective of his family, with a particular softness for his youngest sister, which he tries to hide but which is obvious to the whole family. This softness will be the same softness he shows for his own children. He will cry at their school performances and cheer louder than any of the other parents. Handmade beds and bookshelves; a garage on the side of the house converted into a carpenter’s workshop. Thoughtful, handcrafted gifts for every anniversary.
‘I wish it could be with you,’ he says.
‘So do I’, she wants to say, but she can’t, because she does and she doesn’t and it is too hard to explain.
Instead silence, and then the sudden crash as one of his sisters slams their bedroom door. Footsteps, and soft attempts at apology and reconciliation against a keyhole. The smell of cooking rice rising from the kitchen. Sunlight catching a curled flake of wood on the floor, making it flash bright white.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ she says, leaning her head against his shoulder. He doesn’t move her away.
She will miss lying with her head on his stomach in the shade of his room as they both read; meeting him after college and riding back to his house on the back of his scooter, her arms wrapped tightly against his stomach; eating dinner with his family, everyone talking over everyone and leaning to reach for the water or the salad and bickering with her as though she is part of the family; sitting in his room exactly like this, side by side but completely tuned to each other, somehow in sync without having to talk.
‘I won’t ever love anyone else like I love you,’ he says quietly.
She says nothing. Because she knows he will. And it breaks her heart. But despite it all, she cannot resist the calling to get away and to build her own life. It is louder than anything, even the sound of his breath catching as he starts to cry, even her own sob as she breaks down and cries too, even the sound of their lips meeting as they kiss, even the crazed beating of her heart that echoes in her ears.
*
Mona steadies herself against the back of the chair, surrounded by boxes and silence. She has never told Hannah, but this is one of the reasons why Hannah’s obsession with Jaheim was so hard for Mona to understand. Because Mona knows what it feels like to be in love, but she also knows that the choice she made back when she was eighteen was the right one, however hard it felt at the time. Perhaps it has made her selfish, she thinks to herself, but her dream is more important than anything else. She has always known that if she wants it to come true, that’s just the way it has to be. When she first met Hannah, she thought that she understood that too. She listened to the way Hannah spoke about singing and thought she heard an echo of her own passion, and it was a relief, meeting someone who she felt understood her. It made her feel less alone.
But when she was with Jaheim, Hannah eventually put him above everything else – above her friendships, her career, above herself. Now, Mona is not so sure that she knows her friend as well as she thought she did. The thought makes her feel suddenly lonely again. She wants to talk to Hannah about the conversation with her father, but she knows she can’t. Mona stands in the cluttered storeroom, feeling overwhelmed by emotions but refusing to let herself cry. Instead, she stands up straight, tucks her hair behind her ears, lifts her chin and steps back out into the café.
‘Did you get through to them?’ Eleanor asks from the counter. Mona spots Sofia at her side; it looks as though they were just deep in conversation and the image makes her think with a sharp pang of her and Hannah.
‘Yes,’ she says calmly, ‘Thanks for letting me make that call. You should get home now, your shift’s over. Hi, Sofia.’
Sofia nods in reply as Mona unwinds her apron. She wonders whether Eleanor has told Sofia about the fight and the fact she will be leaving, but if she has, Sofia has chosen not to mention it. Mona focuses hard on composing herself.
Eleanor says goodbye and leaves, holding the door open for a woman with a buggy as she goes. Mona looks up and the first thing she notices is a pair of small yellow-socked feet poking out the bottom of the buggy, a sheepskin blanket draped over the top. The little boy in the buggy looks about two years old and is fast asleep, one arm wrapped protectively over a soft-toy duck. The woman pushing the buggy is around her age, wearing a black and white polka-dot wrap dress that hugs the shape of her heavily pregnant stomach. As Eleanor holds the door, two other women follow just behind, both with prams. All Mona can see inside are little bundles of blankets, the faces hidden by the hoods of the prams. Eleanor waves briefly and then turns away down the street.
Inside, the woman in the polka-dot dress guides her buggy expertly into the centre of the room. The two women behind seem a little more hesitant than their friend, bumping their prams into tables as they manoeuvre inside the café.
‘Can we sit wherever?’ says the first woman, looking around the café.
‘Yes, of course,’ replies Mona.
‘Girls, shall we go over there?’ says the woman, gesturing to a table in the corner, ‘There’s space for the prams and we won’t be in anyone’s way.’
‘Good idea,’ says one of the other women, in exercise gear and a padded jacket with a fluffy hood, and the three of them push their babies to the corner and settle in, taking off coats, checking on the sleeping bodies in the prams and consulting the menus.
One of the prams makes a noise and the third woman, in glasses and with a colourful headband pushed up against the thick curls of her short afro, reaches quickly inside, pulling out a small bundle.
‘It’s OK, pickle,’ she says as she rocks the baby, rearranging him so he is resting against her chest, his small head peering over her shoulder beneath an indigo blue hat. The baby makes a final small cry and then settles quietly against his mother’s chest, wide black eyes facing out into the café. The woman’s friends lean forward, one resting a finger against the baby’s cheek, the other gently patting his back.
Mona is about to head over to the table but Sofia is there first; Mona knows she loves babies so she will always jump at a chance to serve a table of mothers, or the occasional father who comes in with a pram and a laptop and sets up in a corner of the café. Before long, Sofia is cooing over the prams, asking questions as she hands out menus.
As she watches the group,
Mona feels a buzz in her apron pocket. She has two new messages. The first is from her mother.
‘Got your message but can’t talk,’ it reads. ‘Is it urgent?’
Mona thinks about it. Her news feels monumental to her – she has just secured her dream job, will be leaving the city she has lived in for over a decade and has fallen out with her closest friend in the process. She is leaving everything she knows and is embarking on a new chapter in her life, doing something she loves and has worked for tirelessly for years. But is it urgent that her mother knows that? No. Right now there are things that Mona cares about far more than telling her mother about the job, like thinking how to break the news to Stella that she is quitting and how to untangle the mess that she and Hannah have found themselves in. What will Mona say to Hannah when she returns to their flat tonight? What will the atmosphere be like in their small apartment, and will they be able to find a way through their problems?
‘No,’ Mona types to her mother, ‘It’s not urgent. Talk soon, have a good day.’
The other message is from Stella, and as Mona reads, her heart starts to race, thinking again about what she will say to her boss and how she will react.
‘Hope all’s well in the café,’ reads Stella’s message, ‘I’ll be popping in this evening, see you then.’
Mona wonders if she should say something to prepare her but knows that quitting via text message is not at all professional, and not something she would like to do to Stella, someone she has come to admire over the years.
‘No problem,’ she replies instead, ‘See you later.’
Mona looks up, her head spinning, and spots a couple in their sixties pausing outside the café door, two suitcases on the pavement behind them. Sofia is still serving the customers with the babies and she can hear Aleksander moving around in the kitchen. Outside the city buzzes with the sounds and movements of millions of strangers living alongside one another. But at the coffee counter in Stella’s Mona feels isolated, the weight of her worries, thoughts and anxieties hers and hers alone to carry. She thinks suddenly that this is probably why we need friends – because however self-reliant and composed we may seem, none of us are quite strong enough to get through life shouldering these weights on our own.
4.00 p.m.
Martha and Harry
Harry holds the door open for Martha, placing a hand on the small of her back as she steps inside the café. He lifts their suitcases up the step and closes the door behind them.
‘Where shall we sit, darling?’ he asks, looking around the café and taking in the unusual decor.
Martha smiles. She likes that he asks her opinion on even simple things like this, and that he cares about her response. She looks around the café too, making her decision more carefully than she would if she were on her own. In one corner sit three women with prams and at a table nearby them a couple a similar age to Martha and Harry, who are just folding up their newspapers and standing to leave. A very elderly man sits in another corner, wearing a shirt and braces and eating fish and chips alone.
A waitress with dark hair leans against the coffee bar. Behind her is a large stuffed bear wearing a top hat that makes Martha jump for a second but then smile. Outside, the Big Issue seller calls cheerily at passers-by who walk to and from Liverpool Street station. Martha watches them for a moment, wondering where they are all going, where they live and what they do when they are not here on this street.
‘How about a table by the window?’ she says in a considered voice.
‘Good idea!’ replies Harry, leading her towards a table for two and pulling a chair out for her. He tucks their suitcases under the table and sits down opposite, giving her the chair with the view.
Martha and Harry are both sixty-five, although they feel much younger. It’s something they have discussed before, in bed with a glass of red wine on each of their bedside tables. Harry says he stopped getting older on the inside at thirty; for Martha she feels no older than twenty-five. Strange for them both then, when they catch glimpses of themselves and realise that time has sped ahead, leaving its mark on their bodies but not on their interior worlds.
Martha wears a pale green summer dress over white leggings, a white jumper over the top and white trainers with green laces on her feet. She has folded her raincoat neatly over the back of her chair. Dressing earlier that morning she thought about layers: it is still cool and rainy in London and she remembered her last journey on a plane and how cold she had been, the vents stirring stale air around the cabin. But she imagined stepping out at the other side and being hit by a wall of heat. It made her feel warmer just thinking about it.
Harry is dressed in what looks like a linen suit but is actually a special non-crease fabric from Marks and Spencer. Worn with navy boat shoes and a straw hat with a navy trim, which he removes now and hangs on the handle of his suitcase.
‘The start of our adventure,’ he says as he reaches across the table for her hand, their matching gold bands catching in the morning light.
Mona
‘Have you decided what you’d like?’ she asks the couple by the window. They talk softly to each other and could be alone in the café for the way they appear so self-contained, so focused on each other. They break their gaze only to look out the window every now and then, the woman pointing and the man turning around in his chair to follow her gaze. The woman laughs suddenly, a loud, teenage sort of laugh. She covers her mouth with her hand as Mona approaches the table, controlling her laughter to a small giggle.
‘Yes, we have,’ replies the man, who then gestures to the woman who Mona assumes is his wife. She collects herself and looks briefly at the menu, nods to herself as though confirming her decision, then looks up at Mona.
‘May I have a slice of red velvet cake and a pot of Earl Grey,’ she says. She closes the menu and places it carefully on the table.
‘And a brownie and an Americano for me,’ says the man.
Mona nods and takes the menus from them. She is about to turn back to the bar but notices the man is smiling up at her as though he is about to say something. She pauses.
‘We’re waiting for the Stansted Express,’ he says, ‘We got here early and thought we’d have some cake first. Any excuse for cake.’
He turns to his wife and the pair smile at each other.
‘It’s our honeymoon,’ he adds.
‘Congratulations!’ says Mona, trying to hide the surprise in her voice. By their ease with each other and, she admits to herself, their age, she assumed they were long-married. There’s something about them that makes her stay a little longer at their table. She realises they remind her of Hannah’s parents, whom she has stayed with several times at their home in Wales and who have always been incredibly welcoming towards her. The thought brings a pain to her chest.
‘Where are you going?’ she asks to distract herself.
‘Morocco,’ says the woman, her cheeks slightly flushed.
‘And then we’re flying down to Tanzania via Dubai – we’re going on a safari,’ says her husband, ‘We’ve always wanted to go on one, haven’t we, sweetheart?’
His wife nods.
‘Oh, I’ve always wanted to go on a safari,’ she says, ‘Since I was a little girl it’s been a dream of mine to see an elephant in the wild. But my first husband didn’t want to go. He was more of a Costa del Sol kind of man if you know what I mean. He knew what he liked.’
Mona glances quickly around the café. Sofia is making a takeaway order for an elderly woman who holds the lead of an incredibly fluffy labradoodle. The dog sits, looking adoringly up at the woman, who reaches into her pocket and drops the dog a treat in a swift, nearly unnoticeable movement. There are no other customers waiting, so Mona lingers a little longer.
‘Oh really?’ she says, ‘Well I hope you find your elephant.’
‘Do you know, we’ve known each other for ten year
s?’ says the man, ‘Ten years! And we only married two weeks ago! Martha worked with my ex-wife and we had dinners together sometimes. I also became friendly with Martha’s ex-husband Chris when I started going to his gym. Of course, I only ever saw Martha at dinner parties where all four of us were there. No funny business, I assure you, I was married! But I did think she had the most beautiful eyes.’
He turns to his wife again and smiles. For a moment it’s as though Mona is no longer there, and she turns as if to leave but the woman looks up at her now and continues talking.
‘When Chris and I separated, Harry here,’ and she places a hand on her husband’s as she says this, ‘was so wonderful. I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get a second chance at love, but here we are!’
‘Here we are,’ says her husband.
‘Well, congratulations,’ Mona says, ‘Your orders will be with you soon.’
They don’t seem to hear her this time.
‘Here we are,’ the man says again as Mona turns away, still thinking about Hannah’s parents. She realises that Hannah will probably have told her parents about the argument by now and will no doubt have only told her one side of the story. It pains Mona more than she could have imagined to think of Hannah’s parents thinking badly of her. She thinks in particular of Hannah’s mother, who stayed up late talking with her on one visit that Mona joined Hannah for. Mona couldn’t sleep, not being used to the pitch darkness and the quiet. She missed the sound of traffic and the constant glow of street lamps. Hannah’s mother, who Mona knew from Hannah struggled with sleep, made them both decaf tea and asked her endless intelligent questions about dancing and her career, questions that neither of her own parents had ever thought to ask.