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THE COFFEE SHOP

From where I sat near the window of the cafe I could see them coming down the street.  They were half running and half skipping like excited children coming out of school.  She, in a cotton print dress, with her long hair streaming behind her and him, conventionally dressed in jeans and tee shirt.  I concluded that they were each wrapped in attention for the other and oblivious of anything else around them.  They crossed the road hand in hand but without due care for any traffic, causing a delivery van to swerve around them.  They were lovers, it was clear, only lovers and fools behave like that.  It was a bright sunny summer’s day and they were either on holiday or had bunked off work for the day, telephoning in to the office, faining illness.  They approached the cafe and I could see that they were older than I had at first thought.  Probably in their late twenties or early thirties.  They were holding hands and still running, skipping and dancing their way along the street, taking up all the width of the pavement and they seemed to be constantly talking and laughing; turning their heads to look at each other.  There was such abandon in their movements that sitting alone, there by the window, I felt envious.

They turned and tried to enter the cafe together without surrendering physical contact, through a doorway which was more accustomed to the passage of singular personages, shoppers, commercial sales representatives filling time between appointments, that manner of clientele.

It was mid-morning and there were only two other customers patronising the cafe.  One appeared to be a solicitor or solicitor’s clerk or something similar. Dressed in a smart pin-striped navy-blue suit, a large briefcase resting on the floor by the side of his chair, and leafing through documents tied with pink ribbon.  The other was a middle-aged woman, probably returning from a shopping expedition, clad in ruby-coloured felt hat and a three-quarter length pink checked woollen coat.  Both appeared to be rather over-dressed for such a warm summer’s day.

Their noisy entry startled the shopper and the legal gentleman causing them to look up, momentarily wresting the lawyer’s attention from his brief and providing the middle-aged woman longer pause from her magazine.  With the same exuberance as I had observed on their approach the lovers made their way to the counter and ordered coffee for him and a Coke for her and sat at a table in the corner of the room after causing more auditory disturbance to the quiet of the cafe by the scraping of chairs upon the wooden floor as they pushed their way toward the table in the corner.

The young woman took a long draught of the Coke and said, “What shall we do with the rest of the day?  Go on, just say something; I love to hear you talk.  Where shall we go?  I don’t mind, I really don’t, Jimmy.” 

“Don’t call me that.  Don’t call me Jimmy.  My name is James.  My Mother calls me James, and if it’s good enough for her is good enough for anyone else.”

“Well I will call you Jimmy.  It suits you. It suggests risk-taking, no, what do I mean?  Someone with an adventurous spirit.  James is so stuffy! Jimmy, what shall we do?  What shall we do?”

“I don’t care what we do as long as it involves close contact with you, sweetie.  Continuing chances to caress your beautiful body and stroke your....” he paused here, for affect rather than being short of breath, I thought,.... hair,” he exclaimed, and laughed.

The girl had a pretty befreckled face, a small mouth with thinish lips which when parted revealed perfect white teeth.  Her green/grey eyes shone noticeably as if signalling a safe harbour to a lost mariner.  The mass of curly auburn hair had the effect of making her face look small and on the few occasions that a smile faded from her lips she gave the impression of an underlying vulnerability, rather like I have seen Mimi portrayed in La Boeme.

“Please don’t go on calling me sweetie,” she said.  “I’m not an item of confection.”

“You mean you’re not a tart, then, is that what you mean?” he said, laughing at what he evidently thought was a witty response but which in anyone less infatuated, could have been construed as an insult.

“That’s not funny!  It’s not even remotely funny and I object to the notion that I might be.” she responded.

“You look good enough to eat, though, to me.  O.K, Janice darling.  I can call you darling, can’t I?  We’ve known each other for over, let me see,” he said, looking at his watch.  They both laughed.

“No, but you don’t mind, do you. Do you.....”

“Oh do shut up Jimmy. You’re talking nonsense.” 

James had not yet touched his coffee and had both hands underneath the table caressing  Janice’s knees.  She looked shyly round the room and perceived that the middle-aged woman was looking at them with an air of disdain.  She turned to face James and removing his hands she leaned across the table and kissed him.  It was a lingering kiss.  The sort of kiss that new lovers would employ, not that type that you would reserve for when meeting an ancient aunt at the railway station.  As they broke free she bid him drink his coffee.

I got the impression that James felt that the removal of his hands was a slight rebuke but the kiss, compensating as it was, didn’t quite redress the amorous balance.  He thrust his head forwards across the table and pursed his lips in an unmistakable request for a second helping.  Janice put her forefinger against his lips in an equally unmistakable refusal, and they both giggled.  To hide his embarrassment James launched into a suggested programme of events for the rest of the day. “We could go to the park.  Just lounge around all day, not doing very much.  Lie on the grass, kiss and cuddle.  Talk.  Have an ice-cream.  Kiss a little more.  Perhaps get a boat on the lake.  Kiss and cuddle some more.  Get something to eat later on and then go to a cinema tonight, before crawling back to your place to take up where we have just left off.  How does that sound?  Does that sound good, or does that sound good?  It sounds good to me.”

“It would sound good to you Jimmy.  I can see that kissing and cuddling feature fairly strongly.  But I don’t mind that, I had a terrific time yesterday,” she responded.

“And last night, eh!” Jimmy interrupted.

“But why shouldn’t it.  You’re up for it, just as I am, aren’t you? And anyway you look lovely.  We’ve got the whole day to spend together.  Tomorrow I will have to go back to Exeter. We have to grab the moment.  Tomorrow is another day.”

Janice took his hands in hers and looking directly into his eyes, whispered, “I think that I am in love with you.  We can fool around today but when will I see you.........”

Her loving enquiry was interrupted by the sound of a mobile phone ringtone.  James pushed his chair back, making a hideous noise as the legs scraped along the floor.  “Hello, hello!  Oh it’s you, where have you been?  Just hang on a minute”, he took the phone away from his ear, turned to Janice and said, “Can you excuse me for a minute?” and nodded his head toward the door.  As he rose from his chair he upset the table slightly but enough to spill his coffee which ran down the sloping surface and dripped into the lap of Janice’s dress.

“Oh, now look what you’ve done,” cried Janice, in dismay.

“Sorry, I’ll take this outside”, and as he turned toward the door and placed the phone again to his ear I overhead, “Wendy, where the devil have you been, is it an emerge...... “and the rest of the conversation was cut short by the clang of the doorbell and James’s exit onto the pavement.

Janice enquired at the counter if they could give her some kitchen roll and the assistant went over and wiped up the spilt coffee.

Janice resumed her seat and her previously joyous demeanour was replaced by one of dejection as she examined the coffee stain on her dress and waited for the return of James.  I could see James talking rather excitedly, it seemed, into his mobile as he paced up and down on the pavement outside.

I had long since finished my coffee and cake, and taking the newspaper back to the rack, I paid my bill, thanked the assistant and left the cafe.  Outside, before launching myself onto the pavement I halted and looked up and down the street.  I expected to find James still pacing up and down with his mobile clamped to his ear, but he was not there.  I looked again and perceived a young man, it must have been him, legging it up the street, pushing past some pedestrians and then turning a corner.

I looked back over my shoulder, to the corner table where the girl was sitting.  The reflection in the glass window prevented me from getting a clear view, but there she sat examining the stain on her dress and patiently waiting for James to return.

  Ken Howkins.

15-06-09