The Bitter Taste of Company

I met her in the little café hidden away down Serle’s Walk. She came in for a coffee and I was sitting there, at the table nearest the door, staring at the menu. I was going to order the apple pie, at least I thought I was, I mean it was a bit pricey maybe, but how could you go past it?

When she opened the door the chill air flushed through and washed over me, stunning me out of my internal monologue; “To apple pie, or not to apple pie? Why is there a question?”

I looked up and, My God, there she was, all five and a half feet of her, her rich brown skin glowing, ridiculously, unfairly beautiful in the fluorescent lighting. Gods, who looks beautiful under fluro?

She ordered black coffee – a doppio. The waitress didn’t know it, so she just said, “Give me a short black and a small jug of cream and I’ll do the rest.” The way her sultry voice rolled the r and the vowels…gods that French accent. “And I’ll do the rest.” It sounded like an invitation to come back to bed first thing in the morning. Especially with a small jug of cream.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

“Why no it’s not, please, feel free to join me,” is what I would have said, if I was Sean Connery, but of course what I actually said was, “meep”. Or as close as makes no difference. Still, she took it as a yes, and that’s a win in my book. I stared at the menu, wondering if apple pie was appropriate at this juncture. She doppioed, with such natural elegance and elan it made Audrey Hepburn look like a three-thumbed adolescent.

“I do so like these little trips. There is such a… vibrancy to the city.” Oh God; such a vibrrranceee to the ceetee. I think I said, “Meep” again, but she smiled, and I managed something a little more coherent.

“Sometimes I guess, I can’t say I really see the same city as you do. But then, I prefer the parks, particularly Vic’s.”

“Ah yes, of course, Victoria’s Park, she is such a beautiful park, even just the parts I can see.”

I blushed a little at my faux pas, but of course she was gracious enough to pretend not to notice. Instead, she focused on sipping her coffee; she clasped the tiny cup in both hands, as if it were some delicate creature. She leaned in and savoured the aroma, before finally taking a sip, which she seemed to balance in her mouth for an age, eyes closed, with a faint smile. I’d never seen such immersion in a simple drink before.

“When drinking coffee, one should use all the senses, no? Too much we focus on just one thing, perhaps the flavour, or for some people the size – just getting more caffeine into their bodies. More, more…so they can scurry about their work, so then they can be buying more of les grand café.”

I shrugged, “I find too many people worry about whether their coffee is black or white; it has to be a flat white, or a long black. A dash of milk seems unfathomable for some reason.”

The door swung open with another slice of chill breeze. A stern looking, older couple entered; the man reminded me of an older Peter Cushing. He frowned slightly at our table, his partner deigned to not notice, and ushered him over to one of the free tables. I pointedly ignored them and leaned forward to my table-mate, “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself, Joseph.”

“Pleased to meet you Yoseph,” inwardly I winced at her pronunciation, it was too close, far too close, “I am Mari.”

In my fluster, I thoughtlessly blurted, “You mean, like Marie Antoinette?”

She laughed joyfully at my comment, a full laugh that seemed to roll across me with a colour of amber honey and a smell of chocolate and autumn leaves. I could feel the eyes in the café turn towards us.

“No, Yoseph, Mari as in short for Marigold. My mother adored the flowers in her local park and named me for them.”

With another slice of cold, three women entered. Judging by their dresses I guessed them to be in their twenties, childless and successful. They looked briefly shocked, then scurried to a table in the corner. I couldn’t help but notice furtive glances from them, pale faces flashing towards us and away. Mari ignored them, almost regally, I thought, as though they were but insects, or perhaps rodents, that had shown up at a picnic; not unexpected, but something to be tolerated as an inevitable but inconsequential nuisance. She took another all-encompassing sip.

“Where did you grow up?”

She raised an eyebrow at me, “Would you believe, France?”

“Yes, I’d believe it. But there are lots of places that speak French. And you don’t look northern European.”

“I could be from the South of France.”

“But you’re not, are you.”

She laughed again, and again it rolled across me and around the room, rich and golden. “No. I am not. I’m originally from Martinique. My parents moved here when I was sixteen, just before the Separations happened…” She fell silent as I saw the first hint of pain and sorrow in her face, and the lines suddenly carved there told of a grief unimaginable to me. She cradled her tiny coffee to herself for a silent moment, then finished her final sip with the same complete immersion in it as she had given the first.

“Excuse me sir.” I’d been as immersed in watching Mari as she had been in her coffee, and I didn’t see the man approach. He was a burly man, a bit older, and going a little to fat, but still imposingly large. He wasn’t a waiter, and he didn’t say ‘sir’ to show deference, merely to get my attention with the minimum of fuss. I had a fair idea what was coming, but damn it, at least I’d make him work for it.

“Yes?”

“Sir, you and the lady…”

“Yes?”

“You’re, er, disturbing the other patrons. We’re going to have to ask her to leave.”

“Oh, right. How exactly are we disturbing the other patrons? Did I slurp my tea too loudly? I’m terribly, really terribly sorry for that.”

From the stony look on his face, I may have pushed it too far, “She needs to leave…sir.”

“It is ok Yoseph, this is why I only ever order un petit café. Thankyou for sharing your table with me – I could only finish my coffee because of that.”

“You know what, the hell with the apple pie, food here’s crap anyway. I feel like a walk, mind if I come?”

“Certainement, please, feel free to join me.” Huh, Sean Connery eat your heart out.

I maneuvered myself into my jacket, then retrieved my cane from against the wall, and eased myself up, keeping the weight off my bad leg. Then I took a deep breath; the cold always stung the facial scar causing my face to crinkle up around it, and I mentally started preparing for the pain.

Every single eyeball in the café was watching our little scene now, a ridiculous pantomime of a scarred war cripple and a small, beautiful woman, being escorted out by the beefy bouncer. Just in case we suddenly turned out to be amazingly competent assassins I suppose, with a penchant for meting out justice to random café patrons.

The cold hit me exactly as expected. Almost immediately my right knee started throbbing and the right side of my face stung around the puckering scar. I closed my eyes and took several slow breaths, easing my mind around the pain, expanding around it and just allowing it to sit there. I started suddenly as I felt Mari’s warm hand gently stroke across my face, I don’t know how I knew it to be hers, but somehow it was unmistakable. The pain didn’t ease, but I could track the feeling of her hand instead, displacing the pain.

“Thankyou, that helps, more than you know.”

“But if this is so painful for you, why did you leave the café? You could have stayed.”

I smiled as I placed the pain in its box, and closed the lid, “Mari, when do you think is the last time a beautiful woman came and asked to sit with me?”

She looked away, “I will not lie…you know anyway, I needed a companion or else I would not have been allowed to stay.”

I shrugged, “That’s fair. You used me to be able to stay. But I used you, too, to help me feel good. And talking with you is, well, wonderful.” I gestured to the livid, ragged scar that contorted my right cheek and pulled my mouth into an ugly sneer, “People don’t stop to talk to this.”

She tilted her head to one side, “I had not thought of it that way. Perhaps… perhaps you would be willing for us to use each other again another day?”

A tight and torsioned knot in my chest, that I hadn’t even relised was there, eased slightly, unwound just one thread of tension. But even that single thread was relief I’d not known in years.

“I’d love to.”