The Second Chance Café in Carlton Square

by Lilly Bartlett

  Sadly for Doreen, smoke did lead to a roaring bonfire. Auntie Rose was the one who raised the alarm and Doreen appreciated it. Her husband disappeared shortly after. Some say he ran off with his girlfriend. Others think it’s best not to say anything.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Dad asks as I’m struggling to find the arm hole to get my coat on.

  ‘Stupid thing!’ I say. ‘It never goes on right.’

  ‘Or maybe you’re too impatient,’ he says, reaching up to wrestle the coat from me. He rights the garment with a deft flick and holds it out for me. ‘Sometimes we just need a little help, that’s all. That’s what I’m here for, okay?’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  My heart sinks as my eyes start searching the front of the café when we all round the corner. I’m not going insane. Someone is definitely pinching our milk deliveries. Every other day the nice man from the local dairy drives around in his electric truck before anyone is awake and drops off the litres of milk we’ll need. Yet at least once a week, the milk’s not there when I go to open up. It’s possible that our milkman is lying – though it seems like a trustworthy occupation to me – or else we’ve got a neighbourhood teef, as Joseph would say.

  Which means we’ve got to buy replacements and lug them back from the main road. Only the organic shop does the soya milk and almond milk the freelancers want, and organic people must be late sleepers because they don’t open till ten. So far, the dairy has been really understanding and haven’t made us pay for the missing orders, but if it keeps happening, they could blacklist us for deliveries, because how do they know we’re not just cadging free milk? This isn’t how I wanted to start relations with our suppliers.

  More worryingly, these are my neighbours. If they’ll steal the café’s milk, I have to wonder what else they’ll do. That’s the most uncomfortable part.

  As it is, it’s taken a while for me to get used to living on the square. I knew all the neighbours at Mum and Dad’s. I knew who to ask for a biscuit after school and which house to avoid because the slightly strange son who still lived at home had earned a reputation for once exposing himself to Sheila Larkin at the bus stop. Now I’ve got to learn all over again who to say hello to and who to avoid because they’ll talk your ear off for an hour when you’re really in a rush. It’s not nice also to have to consider who might be nicking your milk deliveries.

  The usual jolt of pleasure runs through me when I get inside the café, though. The bunting flutters in the morning breeze that whooshes through the door as I prop it open with the old-fashioned cast-iron doorstop I found at one of the nearby charity shops. Its brightly painted flowerpot shape might be whimsical, but it does its job, and you’ll break a toe if you stub it. We’ll have to wait till Lou gets here with today’s cakes to rewrite the blackboard, but I sponge off yesterday’s treats in preparation. The daily updates are Joseph’s job, not because he has the neatest handwriting, but because he’s appointed himself Head of Communications and the blackboard is his main channel so far. Nobody loves a title like Joseph.

  Doreen’s at the door before we even open, and it’s not hard to see what she wants. She’s got a cribbage board tucked under her arm. ‘When’s Rose’s break?’ she asks. ‘And remember I used to be a union rep.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of going up against the union, Doreen. She can stop whenever she wants to,’ I say. ‘We don’t really have set break times, though we’re not officially open yet.’

  ‘Then she’s on her own time, not yours. You’re not exploiting your workers, I hope. They could have grievances, you know. Remember Grunwick’s, me girl.’

  She might be joking, but she really is a pit bull about workers’ rights. She organised some of the biggest strikes in the area in the seventies. I’ve heard the stories a million times. I hope I get to hear them a million more. Grunwick’s strike started with six people who walked out over the dismissal of a colleague and swelled to two hundred thousand picketers for the next two years. The workers were immigrants from Asia and the Caribbean and nobody had paid much attention to them before. They paid attention after, though.

  All that happened before Doreen’s husband disappeared and he was always going on at her about making him look bad. She couldn’t give a toss how she made him look. Doreen’s always loved an underdog.

  ‘I promise I’m not exploiting my workers, Doreen. Go get Auntie Rose. I assume you want a game of cribbage.’

  ‘And a pot of tea, please. Thanks, love!’ She trots off to tell Auntie Rose to down tools.

  As usual, Leo’s not far behind us. He greets everyone including Grace and Oscar on his mini commute around the café before settling at his usual table. His tweed suit is blue today, which means it’s Friday. It’s green on Monday and Thursday, blue on Tuesday and Friday and a snazzy mustard yellow on Wednesdays when he meets his friends in the pub after work.

  I suppose one has to be quite regimented to work outside a regular office. Leo is here every weekday, takes breaks at the same time and packs up his electronics at exactly 5 p.m.

  I can see the appeal. It’s comfortable having a rhythm to the days and weeks. I liked that about being at Uni. Even though it was challenging, I always knew what was expected of me. Read the textbooks, go to lectures, revise revise revise, sit exams and chew my fingernails till the results were posted. And I thought those were the stressful days. Now the only thing I know for sure is that I have to open the café in the morning and close it at night. What happens in between is anyone’s guess. Yesterday there was virtually no one in for takeaway, but the day before I had to send Lou into storage for the backup paper cups – the pretty flowered ones we used for our grand opening party. I hate to use them if I don’t have to, though I’m not really sure why I’m saving them either. Maybe in case the Queen comes in for takeaway or something.

  ‘Is the tea all right?’ I ask Leo as he sips his first chai of the day.

  He peers at me through his steamed-up specs. ‘Really good, thanks.’

  ‘That’s the last of the almond milk till the shop opens at ten,’ I warn, in case it’s a two-chai morning. ‘The milk’s been nicked again.’

  ‘Someone stole your milk? And what do you mean again?’ He’s aghast. ‘Who would do that?’

  This is a typical Leo response. For a grown man he’s easily shocked, which is probably because he’s not from London. His father is the only police constable in the tiny village in Wales where he grew up. Leo senior also doubles as the local veterinarian, so they can’t really have a crime wave during lambing season or the whole place would go to rack and ruin.

  ‘You’re the one with law enforcement in your family,’ I tell him. ‘Maybe you can track down the culprit.’

  ‘Nah, I’d be hopeless at it. I’d only spill the evidence or get the wrong guy or something.’

  He downplays himself a lot. He also claims he was a bad student, though he did manage to finish school before moving away from his little village to Cardiff, so he can’t be that thick. That’s when he got work temping for a marketing company. They really just needed a minder for the company head, someone to fetch the old man cups of tea, type up the occasional email and generally let him feel like the good old-fashioned days hadn’t ended. They’d tried a number of women in the job before Leo, but the head had more interest in their bottoms than he did in the bottom line, so they had to change their hiring policy.

  Leo’s bottom was of no interest to the head, so the arrangement worked fine.

  But Leo got bored with his work so, in between cups of tea and emails, he offered help wherever he could. Sometimes that meant more typing or tea, but sometimes he got to be a sounding board, and that’s when everyone realised he had a knack for spin. Eventually his colleagues wondered if he might not be more useful on marketing campaigns than he was drafting emails about dress-down Fridays, and he worked his way up from there.

  ‘Are the baby buggies coming today?’ he asks as he finishes his tea. ‘I only ask because I have to practise fo
r a presentation. I don’t mind chuntering away in a corner, but I don’t want the mothers to think I’m a loony or anything.’

  With those specs and that suit? Nobody could think Leo was anything of the sort. ‘Sorry, I’m afraid you might have an audience. You know they like to come every day.’

  He shrugs. ‘It’s understandable. Coming here probably reminds them that they’re not just mothers. They’re also friends, coffee drinkers and regular people too. It’s important to remember that when you’re doing something as all-consuming as parenting. I imagine.’

  I stop wiping the table beside his. That’s exactly why they come. How does he know that? ‘Deep thinking,’ I quip, though his insight unsettles me for some reason.

  ‘I think, therefore I am,’ he says.

  ‘Descartes.’

  ‘One of my favourites,’ he says. ‘Do you like philosophy?’

  I read a bit of it when I was in school, and some more at Uni, but I haven’t read an entire book in ages. It feels too indulgent when there’s so much that already doesn’t get done at home. ‘Once upon a time,’ I say. ‘A lifetime ago.’

  His look of concern is unmistakeable. I don’t need him feeling sorry for me when I’m perfectly able to do that myself. ‘Just flag me down when you’re ready for more chai, okay?’

  ‘Miss? Miss! I’m ready for some chai,’ Kell says from behind me. ‘But I think it’s pronounced “chee”. I ’aven’t got all day, so snap to it or you’re not getting any tip.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ Leo protests. ‘There’s no reason to be rude.’

  ‘Who the fack are you?’

  ‘Kell, this is my customer, Leo. Be nice to my customers. Leo, my best friend Kell. What are you doing here?’ She starts work before I leave the house and usually goes straight through till two or three.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Leo says with a grimace. ‘I thought you were just being rude.’

  Kell ignores him. ‘Can’t a girl take a tea break?’ she says to me instead. ‘Dad’s at the van.’

  ‘What’s with that guy?’ Kell asks me quietly as she follows me back to the counter. ‘How come he thinks he’s your knight in shining armour?’

  ‘He doesn’t think anything. He’s just a customer.’ I busy myself with the teabags and hot water.

  As soon as Kelly leaves, one of Mrs Ishtiaque’s friends sidles up to the counter. She’s older than the others, with a centre parting and long black hair swept into a loose plait down her back. ‘May I help you?’ I ask with what I hope is an encouraging smile.

  ‘Is that chocolate gake?’ she carefully enunciates.

  ‘It is chocolate k-ake. Would you like a slice?’

  ‘No, thank you. Is that strawberry?’ she asks, trilling her Rs. Now I know this is an English lesson, not an order. ‘It is strawberry.’ I prefer her pronunciation. Mine sounds so boring. ‘What is your favourite kind of cake?’

  I try to speak as clearly as I can, but she just smiles and hurries back to her table.

  I’ve gone off script and now I’ve spooked her. But she’ll be back to try again. Mrs Ishtiaque makes everyone practise. And they’ve borrowed some of the books from the play area to read aloud to each other. I could curl up with my head on Mrs Ishtiaque’s lap and listen to them all afternoon.

  It’s just after lunchtime when Lou notices the furtive woman in the pink coat. ‘Who’s that?’ she asks me, pointing with her chin as she plops a teabag into a pot. ‘Haven’t seen her before, have you?’

  I consider the woman, who’s just come down from upstairs. That’s weird because the only person up there is Leo, practising his presentation so he doesn’t look like a crazy person mumbling to himself in public. It’s also weird because there’s nothing up there but stacks of tables and chairs. It’s more of a storeroom than a café.

  She’s around my mum’s age, with neat wavy blonde hair and just enough make-up to show she’s made an effort. She’s on her own, but lots of people come in by themselves. She’s looking around in the same way the kids down the market do just before they’re about to snatch something and run. But there’s nothing to nick here. The money is all in the till behind the counter and she won’t get far with a table or chair.

  Suddenly my heart stops. ‘The twins.’ I’m around the side of the bar and leaping over the barrier into the play area in what seems like a split second. ‘Whoah,’ Dad says. ‘Since when did you become so athletic?’

  But the woman doesn’t even look up from the table. So she’s probably not a child-snatcher either.

  ‘Oh, I just wanted to say hello,’ I tell Dad, willing my heartbeat to stop throbbing in my neck. ‘How’s everything going over here? They’re probably nearly ready for a nap if you want to try your luck.’ The children usually sleep for an hour or so back at the house. We got the ramp fitted on the front when we first moved in so Dad can easily get in and out.

  Keeping my eye on the woman as I exit the play area, I notice that she keeps looking at the cake board and scribbling furiously in her notebook. Taking notes on our cakes?

  ‘Yo, wassup?’ Joseph comes over to where Lou and I huddle behind the Gaggia to observe the woman.

  ‘Ssshh!’ we both hiss.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Check out that woman,’ Lou says just as our mystery guest takes her phone out and quite clearly starts taking photos.

  ‘Thanks, but she’s a little old for me,’ he says.

  ‘Not like that, you prat. Watch what she’s doing.’

  ‘Lou, go over and see if she wants anything to drink,’ I say. We have had some odd people in here since opening. A few of the local drunks have stumbled in thinking it’s a pub again. When I said I wanted it to be just like Uncle Colin’s, I wasn’t thinking of the alcohol fumes wafting off the customers. And one lady keeps turning up with kittens that she tries to sell table-to-table. Every time I gently steer her out, I’m reminded of Philippa’s café cat idea.

  Before I know what’s happening, Lou is standing over the woman’s table. ‘What are you doing?’ she barks. Even I’d be intimidated if she did that to me. And I know her.

  ‘I’m… nothing!’ The woman shrinks into her chair, holding the notebook to her chest. That’s when I see she’s got a handful of the photos we’ve been using for leaflets.

  ‘No? You’re not doing anything? Then what’s with the photos? Why the notebook?’ When she grabs for the woman’s book, a little tussle ensues.

  Uh-oh. That’s not exactly good customer service.

  Wresting the notebook from Lou’s fingers, the woman draws herself up to glare. ‘Waddayou mean what’s with the photos?! What’s with the fackin’ assault? There’s no sign saying I can’t take pictures, is there? It’s a public place.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ I call, rushing over.

  ‘No problem,’ says Lou.

  ‘There ain’t no problem. This girl is harassing me for just sitting here.’ She’s bristling with indignation as she gathers up her bag. ‘If this is how you welcome customers, then you’re not gonna last very long. You can be sure this’ll go on Twitter.’

  ‘Hashtag Second Chance Café!’ Joseph shouts as the woman storms out. ‘What? All publicity is good publicity, yeah?’

  I round on Lou as soon as the woman leaves. ‘What were you thinking, Lou? I asked you to go see what she wanted, not to bully her into leaving. Honestly, you need to work on your people skills. We have to deal with customers professionally.’

  ‘But she was–’

  ‘I don’t care what she was, Lou. You know the rule. The customer is…?’

  ‘An arsehole,’ she says.

  I close my eyes and count slowly. ‘Always right, Lou. The customer is always right. I don’t want you scaring the customers away. Do you understand?’

  She nods. ‘Sorry. Just one thing. What do you think she was doing here?’

  I sigh. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s taking notes for something she’s writing. Maybe she collects photos of cafés. Maybe she just wanted a cup
of tea. The point is that we don’t know, so confronting her like that was wrong.’

  Lou nods. ‘Did you see what she was writing in her notebook?’

  A thought suddenly occurs to me. ‘Oh god, it was a review, wasn’t it? She’s a reviewer and now we’re going to get an awful write-up. That’s perfect, thanks.’ Just when we’re starting to get some regular customers, we’ll be slammed with a one-star review for harassment. Auntie Rose will read about us in the Daily Mail.

  Lou shakes her head. ‘It was every item off our menu. Every kind of tea and coffee, with the prices, and all the cake flavours. Every single thing. I saw it before I asked her what she was doing. She’s no reviewer.’

  This takes a minute to sink in. ‘Was she a spy?’

  ‘Yeah, she was a spy. I didn’t want her to get what she came for. Sorry for defending your business.’

  I really have to learn to stop jumping to conclusions with Lou. ‘No, I’m sorry, Lou. I misjudged you. Again. She was really writing everything down?’

  Lou nods. ‘You’ve got a problem.’

  I don’t know if she means the spy or my attitude. Either way, her words ring in my ears all afternoon.

  So I’m probably a little tetchy when I get home to Daniel later. At least, that’s what I tell myself later as we’re lying with our backs to each other in bed. Not that we’ve got a serious problem, because I don’t know if I can handle another one right now.

  Unusually, he was home by the time I got in with the children. Closing the café seems to take longer every day. All the administration slips further down my to-do list as more customers turn up looking for their half-caff no-foam fixes. Besides, all work and no play makes Emma a dull girl. I love finally having all-day access to people who can speak in full sentences and don’t need nappy changing. Between the mums and the freelancers, I might even be getting something close to a social life, even if I have to serve them coffee to do it.