Every morning before class I’d pop into Andy’s Cafe and have tea and a bacon and egg.
Andy’s didn’t look much from the outside, just a great big plate glass window in a bright blue badly painted frame and a door with a cheap plastic Open/Closed sign. There were metal mesh covers for the window and door at night. In the morning they were clattered back so you could see right inside.
Andy’s is still there and it’s still got the lino-tiled floor, stark painted white walls, Formica-topped tables and black plastic chairs. You order at the counter which is just a closed bench topped with grey metal, a water boiler on one side, the till underneath. Behind the counter there’s a big grill and fryer against one wall, while from out back you can hear the regular thump-clunk of the opened and closed industrial refrigerator where they keep the bacon and the eggs. You could also order beefburger and chips or pie and chips out of the fridge too. You could have just about anything at Andy’s, as long as it was with chips.
At eight in the morning I’d push through the door of Andy’s Café, the open/closed sign clattering against the glass, and Andy would look up and see me and grab a clean white mug for my tea and chuck it and I’d watch it spinning ceramically in the air and then he’d catch it and before it touched the counter he’d be pouring strong tea.
Everyone would be reading their newspapers, some of them would nod to me, some would just look, some just wouldn’t.
There’d be the men from BT, often as not talking about football or some girl with massive breasts they’d passed in their van yesterday, wondering aloud if they’d see a bigger pair out somewhere today; I think they had some kind of sweepstakes going on it. There was the local postman who’d have all the post cards out on the table, leafing through them, laughing at some, snorting at others, sometimes shaking his head at something written on the back from Corfu or Malaga. He’d read the choice ones out loud and we’d all laugh or groan at those words from afar. I had this idea of sending a fictitious one about a postman who reads everyone else’s postcards, just so he’d come in one day and read it out, but I never got around to it. There were early rising hang-dog students smoking roll-ups or Silk Cuts, their heads often resting on their folded arms on the table, cigarette smoke curling from their fists, and near the back, almost hidden in the fug, there’d be some dodgy geezers, because in London there’s always something dodgy going on in the corner at the back of the room. Oh, and there was always a man with a dog. And not necessarily the same man, or the same dog, as it happens, but always at least one man and his dog.
And when I sat down with that mug of strong, steaming tea in front of me and stuck my hands around it to warm them and heard the sizzle of the fryer and pushed the mug to one side, took my Guardian and unfolded it, smelling the ink, feeling the humming traffic go by windows opaque with steamy condensation, the bacon and eggs came and the plate slapped down on the Formica, well I always smiled because it was the best place to be.
On one bitterly cold but sunny day as I sat by the window reading the paper, some colour caught my eye and I saw her across the Wandsworth Road, a crowded highway of traffic, milling people on the pavement. Now I’ve been with Jade I’ve got used to people looking at her. Staring, actually. Sometimes it’s mad, they just can’t look away and then they walk into things. Kids do it, girls do it, women do it, and so do men. The men you can understand but I think the rest of them look at her simply because she’s exotic.
On that day she had her long black hair braided and beaded and the multi-coloured beads danced and flickered in the winter sun and the traffic just seemed to stop.
Of course I’d seen her in the classes because she was one of my students but I hadn’t really talked to her much. Some days she wasn’t in class and when she was she pretty much kept to herself.
She came in the café, colourful beads tapping against one another, nodded to Andy and sat opposite me, framed by the window, the traffic buzzing outside.
“What’s the business with the chauffeur?” she asked as her coffee arrived. She fished in a breast pocket of her cream blouse and brought out a bent Silk Cut and laid it on the Formica top.
I looked at her as she spooned sugar into her tea and stirred it.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
She seemed to consider this, then took the mug in both hands, blew the steam off, took a sip, swallowed, put the mug back down, picked up the Silk Cut, straightened its crumple by running her long red nails along its length, slipped her hand inside the blouse pocket again, came out with a small silver Zippo, flicked the lid, spun the wheel, lit it. She took a deep breath which made the end momentarily red as her nails, held the smoke for a second or two and then blew it out in a stream through pink lips that made a shape like a big heart. She turned her head and spat the rest of the smoke away then turned back to me with her big brown eyes and said quietly, “Neither of us have a class ‘til nine. That’s almost an hour. Tell me everything.”
And so I did.