24th

“Thanks” said a lady with an airy smile.

Darren snapped back into it. His eyes had been staring through 6 inches of solid concrete for however long he’d been thinking about whatever he’d been thinking about. He had hastily replied with a quiet “yes”, before he had time to understand what the woman had said. Darren was simply thankful that she was already more than halfway out the door and unable to hear him properly. He raised his hands to clasp them together and fiddle with his fingers, but he had yet again made the mistake of planting them on the counter. No matter how hard he scrubbed, nor for how long, it was always sticky. He peeled his skin carefully from the surface with the delicate care a surgeon would dedicate to a lengthy operation.

The rest of the café was equally grimy. Stained cream walls with wonky pictures in slim, black frames, which acted like dream-catchers for dust, surrounded the customers on all sides. The tables were all the same; metal, uneven and too small for more than three people to be seated comfortably. Spillages were commonplace when a person on one side applied too much weight to the unreliable table-top. The tables outside were recoloured with rust and the chairs made an ungodly shriek when people stood up.

Darren turned around and washed his hands and splashed his torso by mistake. The taps were stiff, but one still had to be careful when using them. Just an ounce of too much pressure and the water would erupt from the nozzle like a dragon sprinkling a garden. He picked up the hand-towel, which was just as wet as his wrists. Both his middle and index finger got caught in the hole and stretched the unusable surface area of the towel that little bit further. Darren wedged it back in its peg and turned his back to the sink. There was nothing to be done.

There were only two customers in the café. One was an old man. His eyelids rested sleepily half-closed and his jacket had lost the bulk of its vibrancy to sun-burn. Darren had smelled him when he entered over an hour ago. He could still smell him all the way from the corner. Maybe he’s a drunk, Darren thought. Darren didn’t mind dealing with daytime drunks. They were quiet and easily avoided. Most of their drunken hooliganism will have taken place through the night, so when the sun was up, they sought rest and shelter. They’re like socially irresponsible nocturnal creatures. Alcoholic owls, rent-badgers, bat-junkies, the list went on in Darren’s head.

The other was a much younger woman. She had her laptop out in front of her and had actually ordered food with her tea. She looked somewhere between 16 and 26. When he was a child, Darren felt he could guess a person’s age with some accuracy, but not anymore. 19, 20, 21-year-olds all seemed so grown up when he was younger. Darren was much older than that now, but didn’t at all feel like an adult yet. The girl at the table looked stressed and was concentrating sternly on her computer screen. Darren could recall when that was him. The laser focused first-year student, flocking to local cafes for somewhere to do his coursework. It was an aesthetic more than anything productive though. Buying a hot drink from a shop close to his flat had somehow failed to elevate the quality of his essay-writing. Darren found that his best work eventually came when he had dropped the façade and hauled his sorry arse into his university library. He even saved a few quid.

The girl sighed and seemed to strike at the backspace button on her keyboard like it was giving someone orgasms. Darren smirked, but the grin was soon slapped from his face. Having glanced outside, Darren had recognised the unmistakable visage of a young man named Christopher passing the café. Darren promptly obscured himself from sight. Christopher and Darren had attended the same university and knew each other well enough to be forced to chat if they locked eyes in public. Darren had turned his back to the door, but heard it swing open. With dread, Darren turned to face the customer. It wasn’t Christopher. Just another drunk, thank God.

The day passed by slowly. The fact that Darren was eager to get home made time pass even slower. With one hour to go, he had decided that he would treat himself to a birthday gift on the way home. A game of some sort. He didn’t have any clue which one. Perhaps a takeaway instead. Or the cinema. Darren had been trying to decide when a customer interrupted his most intense day-dreaming session of the shift. A round, grey and thoroughly unimpressive woman had asked him a question in a raised voice.

“Pardon?” Darren asked, curious but not really caring.

“Unbelievable.” She answered.

The woman had placed her coffee down on his counter in a hurry, spilling some over the side. She made for the exit. Darren didn’t have enough information to know what to say next, so he simply stared at her with his eyebrows furrowed. The woman looked back at Darren with one hand on the door. She stopped. The woman must have regarded his confused demeanour as en-garde and she had now accepted the duel.

“I’m not paying for that.” She said shifting her weight onto her other foot.

Her face rested into an unhappy smile. There must have been a problem with the coffee. In her defence, it was shit. Darren wanted her to leave. He didn’t care if she hadn’t paid. His manager probably didn’t care. The other customers didn’t care. Nobody cared. But technically, it was Darren’s job to care, so he had to at least pretend.

“What was the problem, ma'am?” Darren asked, taking a closer look at the half-spilled, shit coffee.

“I’ve told you twice, but you don’t care. What kind of service is that? How did you even get this job?” She retorted.

Clearly, she had grown in confidence and had now moved on to the personal abuse section of her complaint. Darren felt the mug in front of him. It was warm enough only to keep his hand from cooling. So that made it a half-spilled, shit, cold coffee.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am.” Darren started. “I could make you another if you like?”

The woman raised her eyebrows and placed a hand on her hip. She had won.

“Useless.” She sighed, opening the door and taking her leave.

On the one hand, Darren didn’t care. It was just a coffee. But on the other, Darren wanted to chase her down the street, force the coffee down her throat and steal the £2.99 from her purse. No doubt she was a regular at getting her way. A complaint specialist - a walking cliché, blissfully unaware of her cumulative status with others of her breed, taking her spherical mound of mediocrity on a tour of the UK’s most exploitable eateries.

By the time Darren had closed up he was tired. If there was anything more exhausting than doing nothing Darren didn’t know what it was. He had spent so much of his day thinking about what he’d do when he was done at work that he’d already done it all in his head and just wanted to climb into bed. But no, today was his birthday, and Darren was determined to drag himself to a nice time kicking and screaming. He first went to a second-hand DVD shop, which had closed at the same time as the café. He next went to Game, which was still open, but full of people half his age. Darren felt too humiliated to browse for too long and decided to give up. Takeaway it is.

He left the shopping centre through the same door he entered. Suddenly, something caught his eye that made him pause. A window into a shop displayed mannequins in various positions, each showcasing wildly differing clothing. All of them had the exact same BMI and had been positioned to look as human as possible, which had only succeeded in making them look like an alien’s imitation of humanity. They were a cast of actors from an unconvincing B-movie at best. But behind the dummies was something else. Something even more strange. A boy, tall but no older than 12 was stood with his hands in his pockets. The woman to his left looking at school clothes Darren assumed to be the boy’s mother. But the man stood with them was definitely not the boy’s father. It was Darren’s father. It was Steph.

Darren felt a fuse blow and the resulting shock sent aching waves through his body. His stomach contracted and Darren found that his breath had been sucked from his lungs. He couldn’t explain it, but he was livid. He stood at the window, staring at the three of them. They didn’t look particularly happy. The mother seemed frustrated as she flicked through different sizes of school trousers. Steph was gazing around the shop yawning. And the boy, he especially didn’t want to be there. But they were there. All of them. Together. Darren clenched his hands into fists to the extent that his fingernails began to dig into his skin. For a third time, he used the entrance door of the shopping centre.

The boy noticed Darren first, unnerved by the stranger swiftly approaching. He nudged his mother. She glanced up at Darren, who had now stopped behind them. Darren scanned the three of them. They had blocked the aisle and his father hadn’t noticed him yet. The mother gave Steph a poke and said “move”. Steph hopped to one side and muttered “sorry” under his breath. He still hadn’t looked. There was a clear space for Darren to walk through and the mother and son were starting to think something was up when nobody moved. A few moments passed. When Steph had realised no one yet had walked past him, he finally looked at Darren.

His face dropped. He looked sheepishly at the young boy and the woman by his side, making all the same calculations Darren had just made in his head. Steph rubbed his neck as his eyes searched upwards for which words to use. He looked like a man who’d been caught by his wife in bed with another woman. His skin looked better. He had more colour in his face and his beard was trimmed to be consistent with the length of his moustache. In the morning, Darren had had to rush straight to the café without shaving and now Steph's stubble looked more presentable than his. He was dressed in a shirt and jeans – an outfit Darren hadn’t seen his father sport since he was a child.

Darren knew that his father had met someone. He found out years ago, but he hadn’t paid it much attention. He had heard something about them living together. Maybe they were renting? Or had they bought a house? Maybe she’d sold hers or something? Darren had imagined his same screw up father managing to destroy the lives of another vulnerable, half-family. He’d simply pitied whoever Steph had met and tried not to give it much thought. Besides, halfway through university Darren had decided enough was enough. If Steph wasn’t going to make the effort, then why should he? And from that day onwards, Darren hadn’t bothered to his waste time thinking about his father. But now that he could actually see him, he felt angry. Here he was, out with his new family, finally making the effort.

Darren chose to speak first. He turned to the woman, who had placed a hand on Steph’s arm as he squirmed.

“So, you must be?” Darren asked softly.

“Paige.” Steph said on behalf of the confused woman. “This is Paige and that’s Eric.”

Silence resumed. Steph picked up on the fact that he hadn’t said nearly enough and spoke again, turning to Paige.

“This is Darren.” He told her giving her a slow nod.

Her eyes darted from Steph, to Darren, then back to Steph. The seconds that passed felt like an eternity. Please let her know who I am, Darren pleaded as his eyes scoured for the heavens. Her mouth contorted into the shape of a giant zero. Silently, all of the pieces of the puzzle had seemingly fallen into place.

“Of course, Darren.” She said extending her arm out to him. “Pleased to finally meet you.”

She had spoken in an overly kind tone. The one you’d use at a school reunion for all the 30-year-olds you could have sworn never sat at your table in Maths. Darren shook her hand nonetheless and gave Eric a very sharp smile. Darren was still furious, but he wondered what the point would be of unleashing it. His name clearly wasn’t being used often around the house and ruining Eric’s childhood to claim vengeance for his own would have been the epitome of stabbing the postman for bringing you your credit card bill.

“What have you been up to?” Steph asked, in an attempt to keep things casual.

“Not much.” Darren answered. “Was just on my way to pick up a pizza.”

“Still like your pizza then, eh?” Steph said, as if it deserved points on the board and a round of applause from the studio audience.

“More of a birthday treat.” Said Darren.

Steph’s face went red. He had only glanced down at the floor for less than a second, but Darren had taken his opportunity to leave. That would do him for now, Darren thought. He could have made a scene, pushed over rails of clothes, shouted at Steph, called him a coward, called him a bad father, but Darren didn’t want him to think he cared enough to show it. The walk home was tough. The wind struck his tears and made streaks of his face icy cold. He didn’t want to see Steph enjoying his new life ever again, and for that to happen, Darren decided he would have to move away.

When he arrived home, he ate his pizza in his bed and didn’t watch anything on the tv. He called his mother for the second time that day. He told her he appreciated her, thought the L word rushed to the tip of his tongue but didn't quite come toppling out. She was worried that something had happened, that something was wrong. But he assured her he was fine. “Just got another present” he told her, then he hung up the phone.