The 24-Hour Café

by Libby Page

  He glances around the café, checking to see if anyone needs anything but everyone seems content, and no one is looking up for his attention. Carefully, he wipes the glass of the Cadbury’s counter. Then he turns to the machine, making an espresso and carrying it through into the kitchen.

  ‘I thought you might want this,’ he says to Aleksander, who is preparing to leave, his coat half on. Pablo is making pancakes, and also stirring a pot on the hob, having arrived for his shift not long after Dan. The kitchen is filled with the quiet sound of the pancakes bubbling and the music coming from the radio.

  ‘You’re off to see Erika then?’ Dan says, passing the espresso to Aleksander, who takes it and nods his thanks. He drinks it in one go, placing the empty cup on the counter. Since he started dating Erika, Aleksander hasn’t been able to stop talking. He seems to like to talk to Pablo and Dan about her: about her small, slightly pointed nose, about the bar she works at nearby, about the fact her favourite food is macaroni cheese, about the flat they will live in together one day.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, doing up the buttons on his coat, ‘She finishes work now too. Thought about going out, but no. Takeaway and film at home. Best thing about this city – always someone to make your food for you!’

  With a flourish he hangs up his apron. Dan laughs and then remembers the other reason he came into the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, I think your old colleague is here,’ says Dan, ‘The red-headed waitress. The pancakes are for her.’

  Aleksander and Pablo look at each other.

  ‘Hannah!’ they say at the same time.

  Pablo plates up the pancakes, scattering them with berries, and hands Dan the spatula he was using to stir the other pot, still on the hob.

  ‘Do you mind taking over for a minute?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course,’ replies Dan, ‘You go and say hello.’

  As he stirs the pan he listens to the sound of laughter and voices as the two chefs greet the former waitress who sits alone in the corner of the café. It makes Dan smile. This is one of his favourite parts of his job: listening to old friends meeting each other. He likes to watch them from the coffee bar, unnoticed but sharing in the happiness of their moment.

  After the day with the envelope, he had headed back to the café many times in the evening, hoping to bump into the insomniac writer to thank him. But he never saw him again. Instead, he spotted a notice saying the café was in need of waiting staff. He had read it carefully, imagining how working in the 24-hour café could fit well alongside his studies, and how the cash would help to top up his student loan. And now that he had a fixed address – a room that the students’ union had helped him to find, he could apply. So he did.

  He likes his job here. He likes the order of it, how in control he feels when he makes a complicated coffee order and gets it right. He likes the quiet but friendly chat with Aleksander and hearing about Rosa, Pablo’s granddaughter. Over time he has come to recognise regular customers and to know the Big Issue seller, John, and the scruffy dog who a few months ago started to sit at his feet. The dog is called Lucky and on warm days Dan brings her a bowl of water. When he does so, John beams at him as though the bowl is filled with gold and calls him a ‘true gent’.

  ‘OK, give me back my pan,’ says Pablo, returning to the kitchen and rubbing his hands on his trousers before taking the spatula from Dan.

  ‘Thanks,’ Pablo says as they swap places, ‘That was a blast from the past.’

  Dan nods, thinking how much there is about his past that his workmates don’t know, and wondering if the same can be said for them. Although he is friendly with his colleagues he also holds something of himself back. He sometimes worries that his reluctance to talk about his mum makes it seem as though he is ashamed of her. But he guards his memories of her protectively, as though holding them tightly against his chest will keep them fresh and alive for longer. He cannot bear to think about the day when the sound of her voice and the smell of the pancakes she cooked for him are gone completely.

  He blinks quickly, nods and heads for the doorway, returning to his domain and leaving Pablo in his.

  Mona

  She has only been back in London for two hours, but already she feels home again. The black taxis, the red buses, the sounds and smells of the city. As she heads out of Liverpool Street station she feels it again – that rush of familiarity.

  Mona has lived in Paris for nearly a year. After a month of sleeping on Poppy and Antoine’s sofa bed she found a tiny rented apartment for herself, on the outskirts of Paris. It is so small that there is only room for a mini-fridge: last winter she kept most of her food in a box on the tiny balcony. During the summer she mainly ate out, happy to escape the sweltering heat of the one-room flat. The size and lack of decent cooking facilities don’t bother her too much though, as she is rarely in the flat. The dance company keeps her busy; she has never worked so hard in her life and yet she feels a new sense of calm, too. In her limited time off she hangs out with Poppy and Antoine and a few new friends from the dance company, and she walks. She has walked so far across the city that a map of its streets is now imprinted in her mind. This is one of the things she loves most about Paris – it is smaller than London, which means it is much easier to get about on foot. She has learnt the streets as well as the names of her favourite pastries in her local boulangerie and the name of the shopkeeper at her local fruit and vegetable store. She has come to notice and love certain unique touches in the city, like the queues of grandparents and grandchildren at the bakeries just after school closing time and the rich Parisian women with their tiny dogs who seem to her just as much a part of the fabric of the city as the ornate Metro signs and the brasseries on every street.

  And yet it is still not home, and she isn’t sure if it ever will be. Since she has been away her concept of home has become hazy: if she doesn’t feel it where she lives does it even exist? But standing on the pavement of Liverpool Street she remembers suddenly what it means. She has walked these pavements hundreds of times, so frequently that she still knows where to sidestep the loose paving stone. The people who mill around her are different but also the same. The street at night has the same sound and smell, as groups head to bars and clubs in the area and buses kick up dust and litter in the street. And there among it all is the glowing sign for Stella’s. When she worked there she thought of it as a necessity – the job that facilitated what felt to her as her ‘true’ life as a dancer. She never would have imagined that seeing the café again could feel so much like coming home.

  Monique

  Without meaning to, she finds herself touching the ends of her hair, curling strands around her finger. Every now and then she catches her reflection in the glass and hardly recognises herself. It makes her blush to admit to herself that it looks good – she looks good. The red lipstick she put on to match her red dress has faded slightly, from the dinner they ate earlier, from the coffee cup, and from kissing her husband.

  He watches her closely, a smile tickling the corners of his mouth. He has made an effort tonight too, his face cleanly shaven, his clothes neat and ironed – free from any signs of Ella and the mess that follows her like a shadow. Tonight and tomorrow Ella is staying with Monique’s parents, the first weekend she and her husband have had truly to themselves since Ella was born. She had been anxious leaving her, they both had, but they knew it was a step they needed to take. As Monique leant down to kiss her baby goodbye she had felt overwhelmed by love, a love that to her felt even stronger for being something she had been forced to learn. She knows that others might not understand this – that despite having been diagnosed with post-natal depression and been told time and time again by her doctor that it was an illness, not a personality trait, that some people might still see her as a bad mother for having had to learn how to love her baby. But she knows they are wrong. Finally, after a lot of support from her doctor, her husband and her family, she knows
that while she is not perfect, she is not a bad mother.

  She tugs at her red dress – it feels tight after dinner, and after so long opting for comfortable, practical clothes over anything smarter. Her husband notices and reaches a hand out for hers.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he says.

  She looks up, caught off guard. As she looks at him she feels her love for him overwhelming her too. Over the past year it has been tested; she thinks with a sudden sharp pain of the months after Ella was born when things were at their worst. She knows that her depression has challenged them both. In her darkest moments she doubted that they would make it through. She still isn’t sure what lies ahead for them, or how their life and their love will change as Ella grows older and new obstacles are thrown in their way. But they are here.

  ‘Shall we go home now?’ her husband says, squeezing her hand.

  ‘Yes,’ she replies with a smile, ‘Yes please.’

  As they leave she glances back at the café, remembering sitting there alone in the middle of the night. She thinks about how lost and lonely she felt then, how terrified she felt about her own feelings and about the future. She still feels frightened, she thinks as they step outside, but she also knows that’s OK. Being frightened, she has learnt, is just part of being a parent. Together, they shut the door on Stella’s and walk hand in hand towards the bus stop, towards home.

  Hannah

  As the door opens she looks up. But the face she sees is that of a stranger: a middle-aged man with a bottle of vodka poking out of the pocket of his large coat, who orders a takeaway bacon sandwich from the counter. Hannah looks down again, trying to calm her heartbeat that raced at the sound of the opening door.

  She doesn’t know what she will do when she sees Mona’s face. It has been a long time but she can still picture it clearly, trying to forget the look of anger there when they fought in the café a year ago and instead remembering it painted with a warm smile.

  When Mona left, something inside Hannah broke. It was as though her friend leaving was the final thing after several years of gradually building and unaddressed stresses and anxieties that pushed her until she toppled over. She felt as though she couldn’t keep going any more – not with her career but also with the simplest of tasks. She went home because London suddenly felt too big for her, everything felt too much to manage.

  She arrived in Wales with a small suitcase, intending only to stay a couple of weeks. She stayed for six months. For the first few days she stayed in bed, finding herself unable to move. She felt exhausted and yet she couldn’t sleep. Instead she lay under the covers in a half-awake state, darkness surrounding her and thoughts rising like tentacles from the deep to pull her under. I’m a failure. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I’ve messed everything up. I can’t do this any more. I’m useless, I’m worthless, I’m nothing.

  Her parents drove to London after a few weeks and packed up the rest of her things, helping her deal with the landlord who, in the end, was understanding and let both Hannah and Mona end their contract early. It was Hannah’s parents who passed on the details to Mona. So many times, Hannah wanted to call Mona but guilt and hurt and sheer raging-hot embarrassment held her back. She knew she had treated Mona badly when she was with Jaheim and afterwards too, but she felt too ashamed to admit it and too overwhelmed to make it right. Everything suddenly felt too much, and although she hated herself for it, she just didn’t have the energy to fix things with Mona, not back then. Part of her still wanted to get on a train though and head back to London, catching Mona before she left and telling her all the things she felt deeply inside her – that she was proud of her and that she cared about her. But in her half-awake, half-asleep state the thought of getting on a train made her sweat. She had never felt that way before, but suddenly even the thought of leaving the house made her panic. And most of all, she felt convinced that Mona wouldn’t want to see her. She hated the thought of being turned away by her friend so it felt safer to stay in bed, missing her silently and fiercely but not picking up the phone. Thinking back to that time, now nearly a year ago, Hannah realises she now understands what people mean when they describe someone having a ‘breakdown’. That’s what it had felt like to her – as though she had been travelling along a road for a long time, gradually running out of fuel but keeping going, spluttering along as much as she could until eventually she came to a grinding halt.

  And then her mum had got sick. She found a lump in her left breast that she thought was nothing but wanted to get checked out anyway. But it wasn’t nothing. Everything happened very quickly after that: operations, chemotherapy. Hannah quickly forgot about her own problems because this was so much more important – she suddenly managed to hold things together because she had to, for her mum.

  Back then, she thought about calling Mona. She knew how much Mona cared about her mum and Hannah also desperately needed a friend. But everything was suddenly so urgent and all Hannah’s attention was devoted to the only thing that suddenly mattered – keeping her mother alive. She drove her and her father to hospital appointments, her mother too unwell to drive, her father too upset. She cooked for them and cleaned the house and kept her parents’ friends informed. Her guitar lay untouched in the spare room that she had been sleeping in, along with all the other thoughts she had chosen to push aside in order to focus on her family.

  Slowly, gradually, things started to improve. In the end, her mother lost her breasts but kept her life. Hannah knows that her mother will always have to have regular check-ups, and that there is a chance that the cancer might come back. But for now, things are OK. She still has her mum.

  Hannah moved back to London six months ago, when her mother was starting to get better and her father said he could manage on his own again. She still goes back to visit regularly but has tried to rebuild her life here after her time away.

  The waiter hands the customer on the other side of the room a bacon sandwich and Hannah suddenly realises she has seen him before. He is the young man whose money she nearly stole from the inside pages of a crossword book. She blushes at the memory: it is one of many of which she is not proud. Although she fixed it in the end, like so many other times her first instinct was not the right one, she knows that now. She wishes she could go back and change things, undoing the decisions she made back then as though she is unpicking tight knots.

  She smoothes her dress: green silk that slips snugly over her slim hips. She has come here straight from work – a new steady gig at a hotel, a different one this time, one where her traditional style works for them. She only sings there two nights a week and the money isn’t great but it feels like something to finally feel proud of. It is a nice hotel and the guests sometimes come up and speak to her at the end of a set, often older couples who tell her these jazz songs remind them of their youth. She always smiles at this, wondering what specific memory her singing must have sparked in these grey-haired men and women. The rest of the time she now spends giving singing lessons to children and sometimes their parents – adults who crave the feeling of letting their inhibitions go and surrounding themselves with music. Hannah knows that feeling well; in fact it’s teaching that has brought her back to it, reminding her when she sees the joy on the faces of her pupils just how freeing music can be. She never imagined she would enjoy teaching so much but has found that at thirty-one, she has discovered a new passion.

  She looks up at the clock: Mona’s train would have arrived at St Pancras a couple of hours ago, but she said she wanted to head to her hotel first to drop her bags and change. They would meet at midnight, that time between night and day that they used to share so often in this café, gossiping quietly about the customers amid the sound of The Breakfast Club playlist and the smell of coffee and fried food. To others it might seem an unusual meeting time, but to them it felt just right.

  Hannah had been nervous about contacting Mona after so long, but when she hear
d from Bemi that Mona would also be attending her and Anya’s wedding at Islington Town Hall that weekend, she sent her a message before she could change her mind, asking if she wanted to meet before the ceremony. She hated the thought of their first meeting in a year being among a crowd of people, canapés and glasses of prosecco thrust between them and no quiet moment to talk, to finally say the things that have stayed unsaid this past year. Because as she waits in the café for her old friend, Hannah realises that is what she wants. She needs to apologise and to try to put into words her breakdown and everything that happened afterwards with her mum. Not as an excuse for her behaviour, but just to say it, to fill the space between them with the words she knows she should have said months ago.

  Over the past year she has felt the absence of Mona as a physical pain akin to grief. Their stories used to be so closely woven together: tearing that apart left Hannah’s life gaping, loose threads hanging, frayed around the edges. When she broke down and then when her mother was sick, she missed her friend fiercely.

  She knows she should have got in touch sooner but her emotions, and then her life got in the way. Then, when she got back to London she realised how long it had been and it suddenly seemed hard to pick up the phone. The longer it went on, the harder it felt.

  She worried Mona wouldn’t want to talk to her and she didn’t know what to say, how to pick up their friendship. Instead, she focused on getting herself back together and starting a life of her own, without her friend. Back in London, she threw herself into her singing again – practising, writing songs and sending her CD out to hotels and restaurants. She tried not to think about Mona, but there were moments when she was hit so suddenly and forcefully by thoughts of her friend that she found it hard to breathe. A song playing on the radio, a dark-haired woman walking across the road and the day she heard back from the hotel saying they wanted to hire her, and her first thought was how much she wanted to tell Mona.