The 24-Hour Café

by Libby Page

  ‘We should probably head off soon,’ says Harry, and Martha’s eyes flick to the clock above the counter. Her mind returns to thoughts of their upcoming honeymoon. She pictures the suite that she will happily shut herself in with Harry for several days, but also wonders what shade of blue the sky will be in Morocco and how warm the air will feel draped around her shoulders. She can’t wait to find out and to share these discoveries with Harry. She thinks of the safari in Tanzania and what it would be like to actually see an elephant – to finally have one of her childhood dreams realised after so long. Despite the years of waiting, she is glad that it will be Harry by her side when it finally happens. This has been worth the wait, she thinks, he has been worth the wait.

  Mona

  The couple by the window, Harry and Martha, Mona remembers them calling each other, wave as they head to the café door with their suitcases. As they leave, Mona wonders if they will find their elephant.

  At the counter a man in a well-fitted suit orders a latte; a man in a suit that hangs off him and that looks even shabbier next to his companion’s orders an Americano.

  ‘Any plans for the evening?’

  ‘Oh, just the usual …’

  Behind them a mother links arms with her grown-up daughter, the pair instantly recognisable as family. They hold shopping bags in their free hands. The daughter looks up at the menu, the mother looks at her daughter.

  ‘It’s been so nice to spend the day with you,’ she says. Mona isn’t sure whether the daughter hears.

  ‘A cappuccino please,’ she says, ‘Mum, what do you want? I’ll get this.’

  The bell in the kitchen rings. As she fetches the food (fish and chips for a family in the corner who speak a language Mona doesn’t recognise), she catches Aleksander’s eye. He is looking at her in a strange, intense sort of way.

  ‘Everything OK?’ she says, balancing the plates on her hands and in the crook of her elbow.

  He nods and turns back to the oven, stirring something vigorously on the hob. Mona and Hannah have both tried to coax conversation out of him over the years but he is resolutely quiet, apart from when no one is watching when he mutters to himself in a steady stream of Polish. Mona wonders at his life outside of the café: she doesn’t even know where he lives or who with. At the end of shifts she often tries to ask him his plans but he usually shrugs on his leather jacket and leaves quickly. Perhaps, like her, this is not his dream job and maybe that’s what makes him always in a hurry to leave.

  ‘OK then,’ she says, turning back to the café.

  Mona’s eyes flick to the clock, wondering when Stella will be arriving and how their conversation about her leaving will go. Mona might not be someone who would do anything to avoid conflict like Hannah is (or was, before her sudden, unexpected outburst earlier) but even she has had far too much for one day. She feels exhausted by arguing and by the thoughts fighting inside her head, and by the hours spent on her feet, right after her audition yesterday and the double shift the night before that. She suddenly wants to lie down in a dark room. For a moment she even considers escaping again to the storeroom for a breather, but then she pictures the mess in there. It might be tidier after her flurry of activity there this morning, but it is still too cramped to be truly calming.

  Her phone buzzes. It is another message from Poppy.

  ‘Any word from Hannah?’ the message says, followed by a long series of kisses.

  Mona sighs. At points throughout the day she has wondered if Hannah will send her a message, but she hasn’t. She thinks again to what they will say to each other when she arrives back at their flat tonight. In a flat as small as theirs, it is impossible to avoid each other for long. They will have to talk – they will have to continue the argument they started earlier. Mona wonders what else there is left to say. She thinks about Jaheim’s visit to the café just now and wonders whether she should tell Hannah he was here but decides quickly that she won’t. Mona might be angry with her friend, but she still can’t shake the deeply-rooted instinct to want to keep her from being unnecessarily hurt. Knowing that Jaheim came to try and see her would only confuse and upset her.

  Thinking about Jaheim makes Mona’s body tense again. His visit to the café just now wasn’t their first argument. As she busies herself tidying behind the counter she remembers that other confrontation several months ago.

  *

  When Mona opens the door to the flat she is greeted by the sound of the shower running and Hannah’s voice as she sings snatches of a song. She closes the front door gently and crosses the hallway – it has been a long day and she is in need of a glass of wine. Before she reaches the kitchen, she glances into Hannah’s room. The door is slightly ajar and she sees movement. She spots the back of Jaheim’s body and notices he is leant over something. Mona steps a little closer and nudges the door slightly with her foot. As she does, Jaheim turns his body slightly and Mona sees what he is huddled over. It’s a navy-blue handbag she knows well – she has seen it abandoned on Hannah’s bedroom floor or slung over her arm countless times. In his hand Mona spots a flash of pink. Jaheim flinches and drops what he is holding so quickly that Mona can’t see it clearly, but she doesn’t need to. She knows that Hannah’s wallet is bright pink. Jaheim drops the handbag on the bed and turns fully around to face her.

  ‘Mona!’ he says, a smile fixed on his face. She notices he is dressed smartly and that there is an open bottle of wine and two glasses on Hannah’s dresser.

  ‘We’re just getting ready to go out. Hannah’s running late of course – you know what she’s like. She asked me to bring her lipstick from her bag but it’s like a teenager’s bedroom in there. Which isn’t surprising of course.’

  He gestures around the room as though inviting her to comment on the mess. He is still smiling.

  Mona stares at him. Her heart beats fast and she feels her hands clenching into fists without her realising. Jaheim doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Do you want some wine?’ he says, walking towards the dresser and picking up the bottle, ‘I can go get you a glass?’

  ‘The money,’ Mona says.

  ‘What money?’ Jaheim replies quickly, pouring himself a glass of wine, his hand steady.

  From the bathroom Mona can hear Hannah singing ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’, one of the regulars at the café that they both often get stuck in their heads after a shift.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she says, trying hard to keep her voice low, ‘I just saw you.’

  He takes a sip of wine. Mona wants to slap the glass out of his hand, or to pick it up and pour it down the front of his pale blue shirt. Her body starts to shake, her anger betraying her. As much as she would like to, she has already decided that she mustn’t shout – not yet.

  ‘You didn’t see anything,’ he says, ‘You saw me trying to find Hannah’s lipstick, and failing, I might add.’

  He even laughs, a short laugh that doesn’t go anywhere but instead hangs and then fizzes out like air let out of a balloon. But it is still a laugh. His calmness is infuriating and it takes all of Mona’s strength not to scream. The only thing stopping her is Hannah. She thinks about the way her face softens when she gets a text and glances down and Mona immediately knows it’s from Jaheim. She pictures Hannah sitting next to Jaheim at their tiny dinner table propped up in her room, looking at him with wide eyes and a hand placed over his as he tells a story about his day at work that is very similar to a story he has told before. If she were to tell her what she just saw – or more what she thought she saw (although she is convinced of it now, convinced in a way that is like coming up from a darkened cellar into a brightly-lit room) she wouldn’t believe her. She wouldn’t want to believe her. Mona is certain of this, because there are only two people who have such easy access to Hannah’s purse and whom she would trust enough not to suspect anything, or at least not for a while. And of those two people she chose to co
nfront the person she had lived with for four years – her closest friend.

  ‘She’s noticed it missing,’ she says, ‘She says it’s been happening for a while.’

  At this Jaheim’s smile dips very slightly. He puts the wine down on the dresser. At his hesitation Mona continues before he can say anything else.

  ‘She even asked me if I’d taken it. I told her she was mad to think I would, of course, but if she’s asked me it’s only so long until she asks you too.’

  Jaheim watches her carefully, his arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the dresser. Despite his relaxed stance, he is very, very still, reminding Mona of a cat watching a bird. The sound of the shower running and Hannah singing to herself fills the silence between them until Mona continues.

  ‘God, it’s so obvious now. She’s never lost money before and she suddenly finds herself “misplacing” a load of cash over the past few months – the same amount of time that she’s been with you.’

  ‘Are you going to tell her?’ Jaheim says suddenly. He is not smiling now. ‘Are you going to tell her what you saw – what you thought you saw?’

  He is still leaning against the dresser but he has straightened slightly. He looks at her closely.

  ‘No,’ she says, sighing quietly, forcing herself to uncurl the fists that are still clenched by her side, ‘Right now she’s too loved up to see what’s right in front of her. To admit to herself that it could be you. I could try and tell her the truth, but she isn’t ready to hear it. I honestly don’t think she’d believe me.’

  They stare at each other: two players at a stalemate. It’s Mona who makes the next move.

  ‘But one day she’s going to open her eyes and confront you about this,’ she says, louder now, forcefully, ‘And when she does, you are going to tell her the truth. And if you don’t pay her back every penny I swear to god I will do whatever I can to fuck your life up. I will come to your office and tell them exactly what you are like. I’ll tell your friends. I’ll phone your mum – I know Hannah has her number on her phone. I’ll do whatever I can. Understand?’

  Hannah changes song: suddenly she is singing in the rain. Her sweet, gentle voice is muffled slightly by the bathroom door but is still clear enough to fill the space between Jaheim and Mona. And perhaps it’s her voice and the glorious feeling she is singing about, or maybe Jaheim has simply found himself at a dead end. But his head droops and his shoulders slump forward, his whole body crumpling. He looks at Mona with wide, boyish eyes.

  ‘Mona,’ he says quietly, ‘I honestly didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It just got out of control. I love her, I really do.’

  His voice trembles slightly – something she is not used to. Usually, he is all laughter and confidence and affection. And after his composure earlier she wasn’t expecting this. Somehow this attempt at honesty angers her even more than his indifference. How dare he feel sorry for himself.

  ‘I don’t fucking care,’ she says, ‘I just want you out of our lives. You know, I never trusted you.’

  The water stops, and a moment later Hannah is in the doorway, a pink towel wrapped around her body and tucked in at the front, her slippers on her feet and another towel crowning her head. Her long legs poke out beneath the towel, her tattoo stark against her pale skin.

  ‘You’re here!’ she says to Jaheim, tiptoeing over and kissing him.

  ‘Hope he hasn’t been boring you, Mona,’ she says affectionately, holding her towel with one arm and wrapping the other around his waist. He pulls her towards him and Mona watches as she snuggles into his armpit. Mona doesn’t take her eyes off Jaheim, who is suddenly avoiding making eye contact.

  ‘Not at all,’ says Mona, ‘We’ve been just fine.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad!’ says Hannah, her voice breezy as she turns back to Jaheim, ‘I’ll just get dressed and then shall we go?’

  She kisses Jaheim again and Mona turns and leaves the room. The sound of Hannah’s giggles follow her into her own room, where she shuts the door and sits on the edge of her bed for a long time, staring at nothing.

  *

  Mona has never told Hannah about what she saw, or about that conversation with Jaheim. There were many times over the weeks that followed that she very nearly did.

  When she caught Hannah rummaging through her handbag on the way out of the flat, looking flustered. When she heard her speaking on the phone to Jaheim in her room and wanted to grab it and shout at her that she was dating a liar and a thief. Thinking of it now, she wonders if it was wrong to lie to her friend like that – there was a time when she could never have imagined keeping anything from her, let alone something this big. But even now that it has all come out and Hannah and Jaheim have broken up, Mona is certain that Hannah wouldn’t have believed her. She had to come to the realisation on her own.

  Over the past year, that’s the hardest lesson Mona has had to learn. That however close you think you are to someone, you are still ultimately on your own. You might have been walking comfortably down the same path together, but at any point that path can diverge. You won’t know who will veer off in what direction, or whether it will be possible to follow. And for Mona the biggest question of all is whether their two paths will come back together further down the road.

  The café door suddenly shuts firmly and Mona looks up. A petite woman stands just inside the café, her hair blonde at the tips but dark at the roots and sticking out from her head in a mess of curls. She wears a trench coat and jeans and looks around the café for a moment before deciding on a table at the back, far from the window.

  The woman flicks through the menu and Mona looks across at Sofia, but she is busy serving another customer on the other side of the café. So Mona picks up her pad and crosses the room, pushing thoughts of Hannah and Jaheim from her mind.

  ‘What can I get you?’ she asks the woman, noticing grey circles around her eyes and a pale stain on the collar of her coat. The woman orders a cappuccino and returns to staring at her phone, which is placed in front of her next to a pair of keys and her wallet. When Mona brings her the drink she doesn’t look up, instead she looks down at her mug as though searching for something there. Mona pauses for a moment before stepping away, leaving the woman alone with her thoughts.

  As she moves back to the counter she suddenly spots a flash of yellow on the floor next to a table in the corner – she wanders over and picks up a soft toy duck, its fur plush.

  She hasn’t noticed it before and thinks back through the day, trying to picture which small child might have dropped it. She places it in the lost property box, next to the keys, the business card holder, the lonely glove and the large brown envelope intended for the young man in the green hoody who hasn’t appeared. She picks it up for a moment, holding the envelope and considering tearing it open just to find out what is inside. But instead she remembers the coffee order she has to make and places it back in the box among the pile of forgotten things.

  7.00 p.m.

  Monique

  The chocolate flakes on her cappuccino sink slowly into the froth. Monique watches them closely, each brown spot melting and then disappearing into the white like snow thawing in the morning sun. She lifts the spoon from the table and stirs, carefully making patterns in the foam before destroying them. A star, a heart, a cloud – all created and then stirred back into nothing.

  The froth is disappearing now, the bubbles popping and leaving the liquid flat. She tries to draw another shape in the surface but nothing sticks.

  Monique turns to look around her. Until last night (or this morning: when she looked up at the clock on the wall it had shown just after 4 a.m.), she had never visited this café before. Coming here hadn’t been her plan when she dressed in the early hours of the morning, taking her husband’s jumper and a pair of her tracksuit bottoms from the chair next to their bed to save opening and closing the drawers.

  It
had surprised her how easy it had been to leave her husband’s sleeping body in their bed. It used to be when she felt most flooded with love for him: watching his face plump with sleep, all worry fallen away, him looking almost like a child. He tucked one hand under his face when he slept, squashing one cheek into his sleeping eye. Sometimes she used to try and stay awake longer than him just so she could watch him for a while before she too fell asleep.

  But not even his face can reach her now.

  Padding through the quiet flat she had found her coat and shoes by the front door and put them on. Her keys rested in a bowl on the table and she put them in her pocket. Before heading out she turned back, crossing the landing to a door at the end. She opened it gently and peered inside. The room was dark apart from the green glow of the light on a baby monitor. As she edged further into the room it cast just enough light for her to make out the shape of the small baby in the cot. She crouched down until her face was level with the sleeping body, its chest rising and falling gently with its breaths. Tiny arms were flung out to each side as the baby lay on its back in a pose of complete trust, its face tilted slightly to one side and its small cheeks glowing pink.