There is a new café in our main street, Stephanie’s, a year old now, and always full.

Last summer of
1989, when one hot blue day followed another, made pavement life as intense as in Paris or Rome, and
our café had tables outside, crammed against the aromatic offerings of a greengrocer. There everyone
prefers to sit, but you are lucky to find a seat.

There is a new café in our main street, Stephanie’s, a year old now, and always full. At once it
acquired its regulars, of whom I am one. Last summer, the miraculous summer of 1989, when
one hot blue day followed another, made pavement life as intense as in Paris or Rome, and our
café had tables outside, crammed against the aromatic offerings of a greengrocer. There
everyone prefers to sit, but you are lucky to find a seat. He sometimes dropped in for a coffee
and was off at once. “I like that one,” you could imagine one girl saying to the other. He was a
little like a young hawk that hasn’t got the hang of it, with a fluffy apprentice fierceness. For a
few days the three of them were together, usually in the early afternoon. One afternoon he
came in with a dark composed girl who had a sisterly and faintly satiric air. He brought her
coffee and cakes and seemed apologetic about something. He worked at the builders’ supply
shop down the road. Sitting close to him in the strong light I could see he was older than he
seemed. Then they were not coming to the café, and he was back at work. One day I was
standing outside the Underground station, waiting to meet someone. She laughed again and
pretended to thrust the baby at him for him to hold. It was she who recovered herself and
pushed the pram away down the pavement. Never has there been a corner of a street as empty
as that one. Slowly he walked on, slower and stopped. He wasn’t seeing anybody or anything, he
was inside himself. On the face of the charmed man chased emotions. What was he thinking?
“What was all that? What? But what happened… what did happen, I don’t understand what
happened… I don’t understand….”.