The 24-Hour Café

by Libby Page

  Mona lets out a deep breath once she has finished talking and places her hands on her hips. Hannah is acutely aware of the physical space between her and Mona – about half a metre – not something she has ever found herself noticing before. Silence swirls between them like a storm.

  ‘And besides,’ adds Mona suddenly, ‘I applied months ago. I didn’t think you’d care if I left.’

  A chill runs through Hannah’s body as she remembers the months she spent with Jaheim, so in love that everything else started to fall away in her mind. But she never stopped caring about Mona, not for one second. She wishes she hadn’t been so careless with her friendship, which she now feels crashing down around her. I’m sorry. I’m proud of you. I love you she thinks. But none of these are the words that come to her, instead her uncontrollable rage overtakes her.

  ‘You think I don’t understand?’ Hannah says, not even really realising what she is saying, ‘You think I don’t know what it feels like to want to finally, finally get a break? Had you even noticed that I’ve had hardly any gigs this year? Because no one is interested in me any more.’

  Saying the words aloud brings fresh tears to Hannah’s eyes. But she is too angry to cry.

  ‘But whose fault is it that you haven’t got any gigs lined up?’ says Mona, ‘You think I don’t know that you lied to me about that audition you said you were going to? If you’d told me the truth I could have been supportive, but you didn’t let me help you. And what about those months with Jaheim where you barely left your room? It’s fine if you’ve given up on your dream, but why don’t you just admit it instead of taking it out on me?’

  Hannah steps back slightly, wounded. She didn’t realise that Mona knew about the skipped audition and hearing her say Jaheim’s name adds an extra sting. She blinks back her tears – she is desperate not to cry. The most painful thing is knowing that Mona is right. Of course she is right, but sometimes you don’t want your friends to be right. You just want them to be on your side.

  ‘So you’ve found somewhere to live already, then?’ she asks, deciding not even to acknowledge the other comments because it’s too hard to even begin to know what to say.

  Mona shifts uncomfortably, any remaining anger in her eyes disappearing quickly.

  ‘I’m moving in with Poppy,’ she says.

  Hannah blinks quickly at Poppy’s name, surprised that she is surprised to hear it. Of course it would make sense for Mona to get in touch with Poppy if she was moving to Paris, but it all seems so sudden, so out of the blue. Her head spins with it all. Mona is watching her carefully now.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Hannah says after a moment, ‘How did you possibly manage to arrange all of this?’

  Mona shifts her weight again from one foot to the other.

  ‘I went there,’ she says eventually.

  ‘You went to Paris? When?’

  ‘Last month,’ says Mona, ‘Just after you and Jaheim broke up.’

  Hannah thinks back to the week following the break-up. She called in sick for the first time ever and mostly stayed in her room, hidden beneath her duvet, staring at her phone and wondering if Jaheim would call. But she had told him not to, and he hadn’t. It didn’t stop her checking it though. That week was a blur, as though she was barely registering what was happening around her. But she does remember something now: Mona going to visit an aunt who was in the UK for a weekend.

  ‘Your aunt,’ Hannah says, ‘You didn’t really go and visit your aunt, did you?’

  Mona shakes her head.

  ‘No, I went to Paris for the first audition. I stayed with Poppy and Antoine. I asked her not to tell you.’

  Mona looks straight at her now, barely blinking. Hannah doesn’t know what to say but doesn’t need to say anything because Mona keeps talking.

  ‘I told you I was visiting my aunt but instead I went to Paris and stayed with Poppy. We talked about what would happen if I got the job, and she said I could stay with them until I found somewhere of my own. And then this week the company have been on tour in London so I had the second audition here. And they offered me a job and I said yes. And I’m moving in two weeks.’

  And that’s when Hannah does start to cry. The tears fall noiselessly and she brushes them away, furious at her body for letting her down. Despite the anger, there’s a part of her that knows that she should maybe be responding differently. She should be happy. Two of her friends living together in Paris. They will have so much fun. But none of this occupies the front of her mind; instead she feels the searing pain of betrayal. She thinks of Mona and Poppy planning all of this behind her back and realises she has been lied to again. First Sam, then Jaheim and now Mona, her closest friend.

  Her mind returns to the trip to Paris she was going to suggest to Mona, but instead of the three of them catching up together, she now pictures Mona and Poppy on their own. Her mind journeys to the café that she marked out, back when she and Mona almost visited the city together. She remembers holding back Mona’s hair while she was sick and the packed suitcases standing in the hall, waiting for the trip they never went on. At the time Hannah didn’t mind; looking after Mona wasn’t even a choice, it’s just what she did. But now she thinks back to that abandoned visit to Paris and instead pictures Poppy and Mona in the café Hannah had earmarked, sharing the famous lemon meringue pie and cups of peppermint tea without her.

  I should be above this, she thinks, I’m thirty years old. Her head aches with it all as she realises she is not above these feelings and they rip through her, anger and jealousy tearing her apart.

  As Hannah cries, Mona’s face suddenly softens again and she reaches out as though to touch her arm or pull her into a hug. But Hannah is already untying her apron and stepping away from her. She drops the apron on the counter and grabs her things.

  ‘Well bonne fucking chance,’ she says as she moves quickly towards the door, tears streaming down her face.

  Eleanor and several customers stare at her as she weaves her way between the tables but Hannah ignores them. As she rushes to get to the door she knocks the edge of a table with her hip and coke sloshes over the rim of a glass.

  The customers – a mum and her teenage son – mop at the table and throw her strange looks.

  ‘Aren’t you going to apologise?’ calls the woman.

  But no, she is not going to apologise. Not to them, and not to Mona. Hannah’s body feels exhausted, not just because of the twelve-hour shift but because of the sadness that hits her like whiplash. Ignoring the stares of the customers she keeps her gaze straight ahead, fixed out the window at the busy street. At the doorway she pauses for a moment. But then she pushes on the door of Stella’s. Stepping onto the street brings an onslaught of sensations. The sunlight glinting off the office blocks, the relentless traffic, the people constantly coming or going, never pausing. It is suddenly too much. She thinks of the cool blue room in Wales where it is dark at night and where her parents will be drinking coffee and reading the papers downstairs. She needs to get out of London. She needs to go home. And suddenly home is not here with Mona.

  Mona

  Mona stands behind the coffee bar, trying to ignore the concerned expressions from Eleanor, who is busy taking orders, and the customers, who glance at her every now and then. She lifts her chin and adopts what she hopes is a calm expression but which probably comes across as a haughty frown. If she were at home and not in the café, she would reach for her weights or practise some particularly difficult dance steps in order to quiet the ringing in her ears and cool the anger pulsing through her body. She notices that her jaw and her hands are clenched and forces herself to relax her muscles, thinking of her new job. She doesn’t need this – she knows well the effects that stress can have on the body and her body is her career, now more than ever. In a smooth motion she lifts her arms above her head and stretches.

  The thought of her new job sends a ripple o
f excitement and fear across her skin. She thinks back to the audition this morning –it was only a few hours ago but it seems much longer. Her life has changed in such a short space of time and she is still reeling from it all, not quite comprehending the reality of what has happened and what is still to come. She thinks back to the audition, remembering standing nervously in front of the dance company panel, chatting for a while and then dancing for them for the second time. She had been so nervous that she’d faltered slightly to begin with, something that never usually happens to her. But then she had found her centre and her rhythm and held it like a lifeline. When she finished, her feet and her heart aching, she could feel herself shaking, ashamed and disappointed at the mistake she had made at the beginning. In the café, Mona winces as she thinks about the rocky start to the audition. It still bothers her, even though they had smiled warmly at her once she had finished and called just over an hour ago to tell her they’d made up their minds and wanted to offer her a place in their company.

  Mona had been in the flat when the head of the company called, practising the steps she faltered over in the audition. She had been repeating them since she arrived home, fast and furiously, and she was sweating, her breathing heavy. When the phone rang she nearly didn’t hear it, she was so focused on what she was doing. But after a few rings the sound shattered her concentration and she reached quickly for her phone, nearly dropping it in her hurry. When they told her they were offering her the job she was silent for a moment, so shocked and exhausted she couldn’t reply. When she found her voice she was brief and calm, trying her best to remain professional. But inside she was an explosion of fireworks.

  The first thing she had done was text Hannah. She sent it on instinct because she needed to tell someone the news – she felt like a bottle that had been shaken and if she didn’t say the words to someone she might explode. After Hannah, Mona called her parents. She tried her mother but received no reply – she was probably at work and Mona knew she always kept her phone on silent when she was lecturing. She thought about calling her father too but knew that it would still be early in Argentina and the family would be rushing through their morning routine, trying to get the teenage Matías out of the house on time for school. She would call him later.

  Mona thinks back to receiving the news, and how it was Hannah she had wanted to tell before anyone else, even her family. For the past five years since they have known each other Hannah has been the person Mona wants to tell all her news, the person who she felt understood her and her life choices more than anyone. Her stomach twists as she thinks about how much has changed over the past year between them, and about the argument that just sent Hannah charging out of the café.

  Hannah’s anger caught Mona off guard. As she rode on the bus to the café for her shift she had felt suddenly nervous, wondering how to break the news that she would be moving. As the city rolled past the window outside, Mona went over and over what she would say, trying to choose the words as carefully as she might practise a dance step. She’d expected surprise, tears perhaps, but not anger. Since Mona has known Hannah, Hannah’s anger has been a rare occurrence. Mona is on familiar terms with her own anger – she blames the fiery natures of both her parents – but Hannah has always been softer and eager to please. Mona knows Hannah is so fearful of conflict that she does anything to avoid it, which often means simply pretending that problems don’t exist, perhaps in the hope that if she doesn’t look at them directly, they might go away on their own. So Mona arrived at the café prepared to apologise about keeping the truth from Hannah, and ready to comfort her if she grew upset. She would have told her that Hannah could visit Paris whenever she liked. But when she saw Hannah’s anger rearing up like a wild animal her own nature responded, ready to fight and defend herself. And as the fight grew more heated, Mona felt her thoughts of an apology slipping further away. Why should she have to apologise? Why couldn’t Hannah just be happy for her, especially after everything that has happened this year?

  It had still been hard to admit going behind Hannah’s back though. When she told Hannah that final part of the truth, Mona had seen her face fall so completely that for a moment everything else had seemed unimportant and all she wanted to do was hug her friend. Despite everything, Mona doesn’t want to hurt Hannah, and when she told her the full truth she saw on her face that she had, deeply. But Hannah had left before she could reach her, pulling away and stumbling out of the café.

  At the counter, Mona takes a steady, controlled breath and looks around the café properly for the first time since arriving. A teenage girl in a coat with a blue badge peers up behind a long fringe, a book held aloft in one hand. The book and the girl’s arm shake very slightly. As if only just noticing this herself, the girl looks at her hand, puts the book down and folds both hands in her lap. There is a small group of men in shirts and ties at a table in the corner, their jackets slung over the back of their chairs, one revealing a polka-dot lining, another a large tear. A debris of lunch is spread on the table between them: crusts of sandwiches, the salad Pablo and Aleksander use as garnish but that most people ignore in favour of fries. The men have returned to their conversation. Next to them Mona spots a group of regular customers; three older women who sit at the same table by the window every week. Unlike the men, these women are all still looking up at her with concerned expressions. She nods slightly in their direction.

  The door opens and a few lunch customers arrive, wanting orders to take away. Mona serves them calmly and quickly, working hard to control her emotions. She prepares coffee orders that she knows so well that she imagines she could make them with her eyes closed. As she does so she replays the argument between her and Hannah over and over in her head, right from the first raised voice to the eventual slam as the door shut behind Hannah and she disappeared.

  1.00 p.m.

  Mona

  ‘Mona! Mona!’

  It is only after hearing her name for a third time that Mona’s brain switches back to the room. She has been busy taking orders but realises she was working entirely on autopilot. Her senses return to her and she smells oil frying and hears a customer somewhere in the café talking loudly into a phone. There is a brief lull at the counter as customers take seats, and Mona sees Pablo standing in front of her, wearing his leather jacket.

  ‘I’m off now,’ he says. Mona’s eyes flick to the clock and she realises Pablo has worked an hour longer than his shift – not wanting to leave Aleksander on his own mid-lunchtime rush, she imagines. His voice is cheery despite the fact he has been working for over twelve hours.

  ‘Where’s Aleksander?’ asks Mona, looking around her, suddenly realising she doesn’t remember the other chef arriving.

  ‘He arrived ages ago,’ says Pablo, ‘He tried to say hello but you were busy serving customers.’

  Mona pictures Aleksander slipping silently into the kitchen and feels bad but not surprised – after all their time working together (he started at the café three years ago) she has never got to know him well. He is desperately quiet and impossible to read. Unlike Pablo, whose eyes Mona suddenly notices are filling with tears.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re leaving,’ he says to her.

  Mona feels her cheeks growing warm as she thinks with embarrassment and pain to the fight with Hannah.

  ‘So you overheard that then …’ she says, ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean for things to get so heated. I don’t know what happened. And I really shouldn’t have said all those things here – I haven’t even told Stella yet …’

  She trails off, thinking for the first time about how she will tell the café’s owner that she is leaving. Since Mona started working here Stella has been as flexible and supportive of Mona’s other life as she can possibly be, and Mona feels a surge of guilt at leaving with such short notice. Although she doesn’t officially leave for Paris for another two weeks, she could do with some time to pack and organise things, but t
hat would give Stella hardly any time to find a new member of staff. Perhaps she should have mentioned the audition to Stella so this job doesn’t come as a total surprise, but she’d been so focused on doing well in it that she hadn’t thought of anything else. Her mind races, thinking about Stella’s reaction. Perhaps, like Hannah, she will be angry and Mona suddenly realises that Stella would have every right to be. Stella doesn’t work set hours at the café, but Mona imagines she will be in later that afternoon – she will tell her then. Better to do it in person, she thinks.

  ‘I won’t say anything!’ says Pablo, gesturing as though fastening a zip over his mouth, ‘Of course I won’t. It won’t be the same without you, but I’m also happy.’

  He is suddenly behind the counter and pulling her into a hug before she really knows what is happening. At first she resists, taken off guard, but then she sinks into his firm arms and feels a lump forming in her throat. Mona expects him to say something to her about the fight that he obviously overheard, but he doesn’t, and she is grateful for his tact. Pablo has always been so good to her and Hannah, and it has made working here all this time easier somehow. She thinks of her own parents, whom she isn’t particularly close to, sees perhaps once a year and hasn’t had a chance to speak to yet, and realises that for the past five years it’s often been Pablo who has heard her news before her mum and dad, as they chat during shared shifts or early morning breakfasts before the café fills with people. Since leaving for London all those years ago Mona has had to find a new sort of family in the city. At times she has felt envious of Hannah and her relationship with her parents. They get on well and it is easy for her to get on a train and see both her parents, and both at the same time. She sometimes thinks that Hannah takes their closeness, and the fact that her parents still live together, for granted. But she doesn’t blame her for it – she would do the same if she were in her position. Over the years Mona has learnt to need her real family less and less, partly because they are so far away that she has had to, and partly because during that time she has grown up and made her own life, her own network. Her London family has shifted over the years and is a mismatched, unusual sort of group made up of friends and colleagues. For the past five years Pablo has been part of that family.