At five past eight the door of Halden’s opened, the bell gave its small cracked note, and Rachel knew before he had taken off his coat that this was Mr Thomas.
Grey overcoat. Newspaper folded under one arm. He did not look at the counter or the board. He walked the way people walk in their own kitchens, straight to the table by the second window, and laid the paper down square to the edge.
Then he turned, saw her, and his eyes went past her, looking for Nicola.
She had expected that too.
At twenty to eight, while the machine was still warming, Nicola had handed her a card the size of her palm. Six names in blue biro. The first read: Mr Thomas. Table four. Eight o’clock, give or take five minutes. Still water, no ice. Americano, cold milk on the side, never warm. Two napkins, he polishes the spoon. Talk about the weather, he likes it. Anna normally has him.
Ten years of a man, on a card the size of her palm. She had read it until she could close her eyes and see the handwriting.
She took the water to his table and poured slowly, the bottle low to the glass so it would not splash.
‘Good morning, Mr Thomas. I hope the morning’s been kind to you. Apart from the weather, obviously.’
He looked up at the sound of his name.
‘Your Americano’s on its way, with the cold milk on the side. I’m Rachel. It’s my first day, a trial shift. Anna’s on annual leave until Monday.’
He considered her for a moment, the way he might consider a headline.
‘Thank you, Rachel,’ he said. He smiled, and opened his newspaper.
She brought the coffee with two napkins folded beneath the saucer and moved on to the next table. She did not watch him. She saw him anyway, in the dark glass of the window. He unfolded the second napkin and polished the spoon, front and back, holding it up to the light. Then he set it on the saucer, exactly parallel to the handle of the cup.
When he had finished, she took the spoon and both napkins away without a word. He did not look up. She understood that this was the highest praise table four had to give.
⁂
By half past nine the rain had found its rhythm. It came along Regent Street in sheets, hissing under the tyres of the buses, and the wind threw it sideways under the awning. Nicola went out with his collar up to crank the canopy down another notch, and Rachel followed with a cloth to wipe the three outside tables that were still occupied.
At the corner table sat a couple in matching waterproofs, both of them holding their cups in two hands.
‘I can move you inside,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve kept a window table for you. You’d still see the street.’
‘Honey, we flew halfway round the planet for this rain,’ the woman said. ‘We’re staying right here.’
‘Where have you come from?’
‘Chicago,’ said the man.
Something lit up in Rachel before she could stop it.
‘Is it true people there keep planes at home? I read that loads of people have a pilot’s licence and park small planes outside their houses. I’m studying to be cabin crew. I read everything about flying.’
The man gave her the smile of someone being handed something too big to hold.
‘Not me, sweetheart. I’m more of a Porsche guy.’
He let that sit for a moment. Then, kindly enough, he added, ‘But you’ll be great up there. I can see you love this. You’ll be even better above the clouds.’
‘Thank you.’ She felt the heat climb her neck. ‘Sorry. I got carried away. Enjoy your coffee. I’ll check on you shortly.’
She went back under the awning with the wet cloth folded small in her hand. Behind her, the couple returned to the buses and the umbrellas and the shop lights coming on early in the dark morning, as if nothing had happened. Nothing had.
⁂
Just before eleven, Nicola was carrying two ladies’ shopping bags inside, four in each hand, and Rachel was following with their teas, half drunk, when Mr Thomas folded his newspaper and stood.
He stopped beside her at the counter, buttoning his coat.
‘Rachel. I’ll see you soon, I hope. I hope you get the job.’
‘I’ll have to ask Nicola, Mr Thomas.’
Nicola passed behind her with a tray and did not slow down. ‘I think you’ll be seeing her here, Mr Thomas.’
That was how she found out. Not across a desk. Over her own shoulder, told to a regular.
‘Good,’ said Mr Thomas, as if some small thing in the world had been put back where it belonged. The bell gave its cracked note, and he was gone.
‘Have a lovely day, Mr Thomas,’ she said to the closing door.
Her hands had started to shake. She put the cups down before she dropped them.
⁂
At two minutes to eleven Matt came in shaking the rain out of his hair, hung his jacket on the radiator behind the piano and sat down. Nicola had brought him in for the dead hours, after the morning rush and before lunch, when the café used to empty like a held breath. Now people booked tables for those hours. Rachel had not known a café could have bookings.
He played without vocals, never loud. Somewhere in the second hour she recognised Englishman in New York, slowed almost to nothing. By the door, the woman from Chicago was on the phone with her bill in her hand. ‘I’m sending you the location,’ she was saying. ‘Next time, you’re coming with me.’
The rain stopped at noon, and Nicola sent Rachel on her break.
She crossed Regent Street between two buses and stood in a shop doorway on the other side. Then she turned and looked back.
From here, it was just a café. Small. Steamed windows. The awning not quite closed at one end. A man playing a piano to people she could not hear. She could see table four by the second window, empty now, the chair pushed in. She could see the place behind the counter where she had stood all morning, and nobody standing in it.
Anyone walking past would see a café. They would not know about the spoon.
She had fifteen minutes. She spent nearly all of them there.
⁂
When she came back, Nicola was drying glasses.
‘Your trial’s officially over,’ he said. ‘Would you stay until four? Paid, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re off tomorrow. I’ll send the rota tonight, this week and next. We always send it a week ahead. So you can have a life.’
She laughed. He did not, quite. He meant it.
By three the room had thinned. The cleaning began behind the counter: the steam wands purged, the milk jugs scalded and stacked, every table wiped twice, once wet and once dry. In the back the dishwasher ran its last loads. The final customers asked for their bills one at a time, and the afternoon wound down the way a song does, without anyone noticing the exact moment it ended.
At four, Nicola told her to go.
⁂
She walked down towards Piccadilly with her collar up, though the rain had gone.
Read them, Nicola had said at twenty to eight, handing her the card. Bring what they want before they ask. Use their names, even if they’ve only been in once. Wouldn’t you want that? Somewhere that knew where you like to sit?
She had nodded, because it was a trial and on a trial you nod. She had not kept the words. She had kept the card. It was in her coat pocket now, soft at the corners already. Six names. By next week there would be more, and she would learn them all.
At the top of the steps at Green Park her phone buzzed.
The rota. Wednesday to Sunday, half past seven until four. The week after, the same. Two weeks of her life in neat rows, every hour accounted for.
She read it twice.
Above the roofs a plane was sliding west through the low cloud, slow and heavy, its lights blinking. People flew halfway round the planet to sit in the rain outside Halden’s. To get up there herself, she would start with six names.
She watched the plane until the cloud took it.
Then she typed back to Nicola: Perfect, thank you. See you Wednesday.