Jake has returned from the bank when Andy gets back to the cafe.
There was a queue, he says. Took ages.
Always does, says Andy. Everybody goes to that one because they closed the other two.
He probably called in somewhere for a drink on the way, didn’t you? says JD. You ever had Spirytus, it’s 95% proof.
Thought that was the name of a leisure centre, says Rosaleen. I finished off doing your scones by the way, Jake.
Did you? Okay.
So her ladyship’s never graced us today, says Rosaleen. Wonder if she’s feeling any better.
They are not busy at lunchtime. The food sits under the gantry lights crisping, drying out. JD goes around with the jug of coffee, asking people if they would like a top-up, a tea towel studiously draped over his arm. He’s having a laugh. Rosaleen’s soup remains mostly still in the pot. Some guys working on the site around the corner come in looking for a fry but they want to leave when they’re told that the cafe doesn’t do fries. There’s soup, Rosaleen says. Would you like a bowl of soup?
They look at each other. Nah, not soup. You’re alright. And off they go.
JD says when he was married that they used to have a roast chicken on a Sunday and then make soup with the carcass. It was always lovely.
You were married, JD? Didn’t know that, says Andy.
Oh yes, he says quietly. A very long time ago.
Today it is Jake who brings in the flower boxes from outside and the tables and chairs which he stacks between the sofas by the window. He asks if it’s alright if he leaves a bit earlier today because he’s got a hospital appointment.
I told you about it last week, he says.
Oh yeah, so you did, Andy remembers. Well, you might as well head on then. We’ll do the clean down.
Andy.
What?
Sorry.
Oh look forget it, Andy says. Doesn’t matter.
Seriously, Andy says, never worry. But anyway, Jake, you know you won’t be working here forever?
Jake shrugs.
Can you not think of something else you might want to do?
Dunno, he says. Can’t really think of anything else right now.
Oh well, says Andy. I’m sure there’s a lot out there.
Like what?
I don’t know.
But anyway, he says, head on or you’ll be late for that appointment.
They turn the sign around. They sanitise the surfaces again. They steep the cups in the tannin solution. Andy rings off the till, Xs it and Zs it, checks the takings with the balance and sets up a new float, puts the money in the safe. The takings, such as they are. He lodges the invoices while JD mops the floor. JD does a soft shoe shuffle with his dance partner mop as he croons some tune. Oh, for God’s sake, shut up would you? says Rosaleen. She’s checking the temperatures of the fridge and freezer, the chill cabinet, noting them down.
They’re doing the final tidy when JD says that he’s got something he wants to show to Andy. Check this, he says, and I don’t think I’m wrong when I say you are not going to like it. Here, come over here, don’t be letting Rosaleen see this. He has set down his phone and on the screen is the Jesters Cafe page. There is a one star review by Malcolm McCourt, who has a profile pic of a woman on a bike in a bikini.
Oh so what, says Andy. People have given us bad reviews before. Doesn’t matter.
No, read it, says JD.
Oh, alright. And Andy takes it.
If u know wats good for u don’t come to this place unless you like your food cooked by a fat lezzer and an alkie. But, more importantly if u do not mind fucking in the bogs no mate I am not joking happened just now and we were there, welcome to da freakzone.
That’ll get removed, says Andy. I’m going to report it.
But it has been shared six times already. Someone has offered the comment, OMG, ha ha.
Andy looks around the cafe, coffee machine still shining.
Well, they should get their facts right, says JD. I haven’t really been an alkie since 2009.
Nobody’ll pay any heed, says Andy. But there is every chance that the church will find out about this. It will be the excuse they need. They’ll see where he signed Aidan’s sheet to say that the girl who had sex in the toilet is a good worker in all respects.
What are you fellas talking about? Rosaleen asks.
Oh nothing, Andy says. I’m just saying, come on and sit down for a minute or two, that’s all.
He gets out the non-alcoholic cava and the Battenberg cake, puts them in the middle of the table.
Just thought, he says. Might as well, it’s the end of the day sure.
Yes, says Rosaleen. Her hand is up the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Yes, come on and sit down JD. Take yourself a seat.
But I’ll tell you what, do you not think we can do better than this? I think we can, says Rosaleen. She goes through to the back and brings out a tablecloth—only paper but white—and lays it over the long table, smoothes it down.
Do we have wine glasses? she says. I don’t think we do now.
Sure use those other ones, says JD, the ones for the ice-cream sundaes. When we used to do the ice-cream sundaes. Those shrinky dink glasses.
They sit around the table, Rosaleen, JD and Andy.
Andy cuts the cake, reveals the pink and yellow motley of the Battenberg, and they all take a slice.
Bit dry, says JD. If it wasn’t for the marzipan, you’d think you were eating bread.
It’s alright. It’s not that bad, Rosaleen says.
Andy takes a bite. Put it this way, he says, I can see why it was on offer.
See that joke I told you the other day, says JD, I got it wrong. You remember that joke? Yeah? I said the punchline was duct tape. But it should have been why do you wrap— why do you wrap a hamster in duct tape? Answer: so it doesn’t explode when you—
Yes, JD, alright, says Rosaleen. I think we can work it out. Don’t think it’s any funnier that way around.
Outside the light is starting to wane. It was cold this morning but it will be even more pitiless now.
Look, says Andy, still a bit left in this bottle. And he shares the dregs between the three sundae glasses, which they clink.
Arab States: Mind and Narrative
A handful of bills and a takeaway menu on the mat, a solitary black banana in the bowl, but no Jimmy. Paula returned early from her holiday and he wasn’t there. By lunch the next day he still hasn’t appeared. He’s left his phone by the bed so Paula rings Scott.
Dunno, he says. But you think he’ll be back for the 23rd alright? We got that snooker thing happening with my brother-in-law.
Well, I don’t know about that, Scott, because I don’t know where he is, and because I don’t know where he is, that’s why I’m ringing you.
Jimmy broken at the foot of a cliff as the faithful waves keep on rolling, Jimmy face down in a black puddle in an alleyway. The crazy burst of glass as he’s propelled through the windscreen, garage carnations sellotaped around the pole for the roadside memorial. Ellie doesn’t know where he is either.
Mum, Ellie says, you’re heading off sometime soon, aren’t you?
No, I’m not. Because, know what, I’m back.
Oh. Right.
A woman in work called Anne walked into the sea, leaving her good coat and shoes neatly beside her handbag on the sand. On a work night out Paula sat next to her and explained why the new rota for the fortnight was so unfair. She produced a calculator at one point to illustrate the minutiae of the injustice. Anne smiled and seemed to understand. When Dr Donnelly brought them together to tell them the terrible news, Paula thought of the calculator.
Well sure you weren’t to know, Jimmy said.
Well I know that! I know I wasn’t to know. That’s not the issue.
So what is the issue then?
Oh just leave it.
Paula gets a message from Ellie who has found out that Jimmy is at a blues festival in Strabane and will be b
ack on Saturday. He’s still in the land of the living. A blues festival in Strabane: he should have called or sent a message. He should have left a note. But Jimmy didn’t know that she was going to return early, so had he written a note, it would have been a note to nobody. He did ring at the start of the holiday but they had just brought the desserts, which were quite spectacular. Phone you later, she said, but then later he was driving.
When Paula goes back to work the next day they are pleased to see her return early. There is a glitch in the system that she is able to sort out within ten minutes.
Your holiday good then, Paula? Amy asks.
Fine. But we came back early. My friend’s mother wasn’t well. Yeah, death’s door at one point but then, once we’d rearranged to come home, an improvement.
You want your lunch from the sandwich place? I’m texting the order through now.
Sure. That usual thing of mine, the salad, but get me a Diet Coke today would you?
Okay, says Amy. Actually, Paula, that’s not part of the deal. It’s a filter coffee or a tea for, you know, the deal. We get four for three but if you’re not getting coffee or tea then that means we don’t count as the deal. Although, you know, get what you want, it’s up to you. If you want a Coke.
Well it was a Diet Coke.
Diet Coke then.
So basically I need to drink a drink I don’t want so that everybody else is part of the deal? That’s what I have to do?
Oh don’t be getting on like that, says Amy.
Just get me whatever then. Anything’ll do.
There’s a TV in the waiting area of the surgery. At lunchtime when the local news comes on, the final story is about the blues festival in Strabane. A guitarist is being interviewed. How you finding Strabane? he’s asked. Better than Montreal, he says. We were at the Montreal blues festival last August. They didn’t think guys from Warrenpoint could play the blues but when they heard us they woke up and smelt the coffee. There’s footage of people milling around outside a large tent, the sound of a blues shuffle. When later a child is sick into the toy box the debate is whether to clean the individual toys or throw the whole stinking box in the bin. They spray the plastic toys with sanitiser but the pages of the books are translucent with vomit so they get chucked.
Paula sits in Jimmy’s spot that evening, the leather chair with the good view of the screen. She takes one last flick through the channels to see if there is anything worth watching. Some dopey thing for half an hour is all she wants: have a last cup of tea and one of those biscuits. And then a face appears that she recognises, older and more tired looking, a little creased, but it is still him because there is the confirmation of his name at the bottom of the screen. Paula knew him as Ryan Hughes but it’s Ryan Kedrov-Hughes who is now in front of her. He looks frustrated as if it’s difficult to articulate the complexity of what he’s just been asked. He ruffles his thinner hair and begins an answer full of qualification and proviso. Even though Paula doesn’t know much about Beirut, she can tell it’s a nuanced response. But then Ryan Hughes used to answer like that even if the question was, you wanting tea or coffee? His voice is almost but not quite English. You can still hear a slight Belfast stodge. Unlike the others in the studio he isn’t wearing a tie. Style wasn’t really one of Ryan Hughes’s concerns back then because to be overly interested in clothes was really just a bit uncool. Commodity fetishism was uncool. Loads of people at university had been interested in politics, Paula included, but it was mostly local stuff. Ryan Hughes always seemed part of something bigger. When he was a teenager he’d attended a summer camp for the junior wing of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
No longer heading to bed, Paula goes to the computer where she has to close down Johnny Winter Live Copenhagen 1970, Rory Gallagher ‘Bullfrog Blues’ 1972, HotRoxMinx. As she searches for Ryan Kedrov-Hughes, things begin to come back, little details start to accumulate. His mother’s family was Russian, she remembers, which explains the Kedrov. Kedrov-McCrea. Paula Kedrov-McCrea. His trajectory involves Reuters, university in the States, work for Al-Jazeera and some acronym she doesn’t know. Another search: Ryan Kedrov-Hughes and partner.
Clicks images. There are just photos of him in studios, a few TV screenshots. But there’s one with a woman, partially out of the frame. She’s wearing a black coat, tightly belted, dark hair half over her face. Another zoom and the photo fragments.
I didn’t know where you were, Paula says when Jimmy comes through the door the next day. I hadn’t a clue. I thought something had happened to you.
Gimme a kiss, he says.
He produces two T-shirts from his holdall. North-West Blues Festival is printed across them.
But wait till you see this, says Jimmy, rolling up his sleeve to show what he’s had done: a tattoo of a guitar, surrounded by roses. The ribbon running across the guitar bears the legend Born to Die.
What do you think?
What do I think? says Paula.
Yeah, you like it?
States the obvious.
The other T-shirt’s for Ellie, he says.
Paula wonders if it will fit her. She and her girlfriend Meg go to barbecue restaurants, rib shacks, where they consume amounts of food that would keep a family in the dustbowl going for a year.
States an indisputable fact, I suppose, says Paula as Jimmy rolls down his sleeve.
By the end of the week there’s a stack of newspapers for Jimmy to use to light the fire. She’s still shaky on areas like economics but is starting to feel more confident about Middle Eastern politics. She watches all the useful TV programmes, but because there is so much happening in
Ukraine at present, Ryan Kedrov-Hughes doesn’t make another appearance.
Jesus, this stuff is so depressing, Jimmy says. This news never seems to be off the telly.
Yes, Jimmy. It’s on every day. That’s how news works. Things just keep on happening, day after day.
Killing, blowing people up, terrible, but not a lot you can do about it, just the way it is.
There was one time when a crowd of them had gone to an old man’s bar after a lecture but over the course of the afternoon everyone drifted off, leaving the two of them together at the table. Paula could still remember that earlier Ryan had been talking about how the lecturer had made several errors regarding the Soviet Union’s economy in the 1960s. Nobody cared much, but they listened anyway because it was Ryan Hughes. Ryan asked her if she would like to meet later on. He might have asked if she was free for dinner. Back then, however, did anyone actually go for dinner? They didn’t. She had said yes, but then remembered that she was meant to meet Jimmy that night. She’d only been going with Jimmy a few weeks. So she had said maybe some other time but not that night. Alright some other time then, he said, and what followed was a short silence. But then there was also that other time when during a tutorial he said, Good point. I think that Paula is spot on there. And also, not to be omitted, there was the occasion when he had been behind her in the queue when she was getting money out of the cash machine. It was raining and they had exchanged a few words under her umbrella. That’s what she remembers right now, but that’s not to say there weren’t other times too.
Paula sends off for lots of books and they sit on the kitchen table.
What’s all this about? asks Jimmy.
Paula shrugs. Just interested, she says.
Oh yeah? Well rather you than me. Look at that one. Must weigh a ton.
Nobody’s asking you to read them, Jimmy.
You thinking of doing a course in all that?
Nope.
She lifts the books to take them through to the other room.
Maybe do a course in how to be slightly pleasant, Paula, he says. That on offer anywhere, do you know?
She’s reading the book section of the Sunday paper when she sees that a crime writer’s appearing at a book festival in Newcastle upon Tyne. In smaller letters, much smaller letters underneath, are those also appearing: this person, that perso
n, never heard of him, never heard of him, never heard of her, and Ryan Kedrov-Hughes. He would be talking about his forthcoming book, Arab States: Mind and Narrative. There isn’t a photo, just one of the crime guy sitting in front of a bookcase. Paula goes on the computer to order the book. While she’s there, she has a quick look at flights to Newcastle, which are surprisingly reasonable.
By the way, Paula says one day when she and Jimmy are having their tea, I don’t suppose you ever remember me talking about Ryan Hughes? We’re going way back here, you know, university? We’re going back years.
No.
You don’t remember me ever mentioning him at all?
No. Never heard of the fella.
Are you sure? You sure you can’t remember him?
No.
Well he’s not called that anymore anyway, says Paula. He’s called Ryan Kedrov-Hughes. Just thought you might remember him. He’s on the TV these days. Politics shows.
Oh well now you’ve told me that he’s on the politics shows I know exactly who you’re talking about.
You do?
No.
Actually, hold on, he says, that fella, I think I do actually know who you mean.
Yeah?
Yeah. He was always at Mick’s Christmas parties. Mick was the only person from your course that was normal. Mick was dead on. That guy you’re on about was always there. Always in the kitchen crapping on about something or other. You know, turn the music down so that I can talk because people really need to hear what I have to say. Think I actually mighta had a run-in with him once. Sorta Lord Snooty type. Lord Snooty type of fella.
Might not be the same person, says Paula. He wasn’t like that at all. Ryan Hughes was actually incredibly left wing.
Well this guy I’m thinking of was a bit of a dick, says Jimmy.
Well the guy I’m thinking of wasn’t a dick, says Paula.
Sweet Home Page 12
