Another Cup of Coffee (6 page)

Kit hadn't mentioned to Phil that his client could be one of Jack's other exes; she hadn't even asked him what this Amy was like. Kit felt uncomfortable as she negotiated her way through the busy streets, as if she was keeping secrets from her husband, but she wasn't sure why.

‘Coffee's coming,' Peggy called out as Kit pushed open the café door.

Inhaling the comforting aroma of freshly-ground beans and baking cakes, Kit headed towards her table as if it was a place of sanctuary, ‘Thanks, I need it.'

‘What's up? The smut not pouring forth from the pen?' Peggy winked theatrically as she finished checking the till.

‘That's it; tell the world what I do for a living why don't you!' Kit spoke rather more sharply than she had intended.

‘Hey?'

‘Sorry, Peg. Lot on my mind.' She smiled with gratitude as Peggy brought her over a cup of coffee so large that it could have doubled as a soup bowl. ‘You're so good to me, petal.'

‘And am I rewarded? No!' Peggy put her hand to her forehead in mock despair.

‘Actually, you are. Here.' Kit passed her a couple of pages with five hundred words of carefully constructed thrills neatly typed onto it.

‘What's this?'

‘You inspired it, so it seems only right that you own a copy, but for God's sake don't flash it about; my publisher would not appreciate you getting an advanced copy.'

‘Wow,' Peggy scanned the first paragraph, ‘I'm surprised the paper isn't singed around the edges. You wait till Scott reads this!'

‘Yes, well, I'd rather not know.'

‘You're amazing. How can you be so prudish and yet write this stuff?'

‘I've always been complicated, honey. Now, be a good little waitress and go yonder to serve that poor woman by the window, she's been sat waiting for her pot of tea for ages.'

As she watched Peggy zip toward her new customer, her mobile announced the arrival of a text.

What Rob say?

Kit read Jack's message with a mixture of relief and foreboding. She really didn't want to land Rob in the doghouse. On the other hand …

Told me someone called Amy was in town.

Kit pressed
Send
and sat looking at her phone, willing Jack to respond, yet full of apprehension as to what his reply might contain.

When Peggy arrived back at her table an hour later with a fresh top up of coffee, Kit realised that she'd been staring into space and hadn't written a thing. Depeche Mode's words were still whizzing around her head, but she couldn't decide what to do with them. Some sort of bondage and punishment story seemed obvious, and fitted in nicely with the rather vague story request she'd received from
Pearls
early that morning, but where to set it? It was time to call in a second opinion and ignore the lack of activity on her phone.

‘Peggy, help!'

‘You bellowed, your writer-ship.' Peggy put down the cake tongs and moved towards Kit.

‘I'm stuck.'

‘Oh, great. What is it this time?' Peggy pulled out a chair and sat down, rubbing her hands together as her head trotted through a selection of her own highly charged fantasies with which to assist her friend. She spoke with relish, ‘You stuck on a character's name, or can't you think of what unspeakable things they should do to each other?'

‘Sometimes I wonder why it's not you writing and me serving coffee.' Kit lay down her pen. ‘I need a location to work from. I can't picture anywhere suitable in my head.'

‘Where have you used recently?'

‘Here for one. I've got something drafted set in a bookshop, and last week I had a go at the bus station.'

Peggy nodded, running possible situations through her mind, ‘What sort of story?'

‘Bondage, probably with some punishment, but not too heavy. Nothing forced. Lines from “Personal Jesus” keep running through my head.'

‘Cool. I'll have a think.' Returning to the counter to collect some cheese on toast, Peggy delivered it swiftly to another regular, and returned to Kit with a wicked expression across her face. ‘How about the snooker club?'

‘What the hell has snooker got to do with being desperate for someone to touch you?'

‘Think snooker tables, balls and rope. Oh hang on. It's for the US, right? Better make it a pool table.'

Kit's eyebrows rose, ‘Bit clichéd?'

Raising her own eyebrows suggestively, Peggy answered, ‘Don't knock it till you've tried it.'

Not for the first time, Kit looked at her friend with incredulity, ‘Why do I get the feeling I don't want to know?'

Peggy laughed, and with a curtsey said, ‘More cake, madam?'

I suppose his first reaction was to be expected. ‘But it's such a cliché! I mean! A pool table! There isn't a month goes by without some girlie mag having a naked babe spread eagled across a pool table.'

‘Exactly,' I replied, but Karl didn't ask me about my fantasies again, and I felt like maybe I should've made a bit more effort. Perhaps I should have invented something more glamorous, but as I've always been a bit of a tomboy; getting down and dirty with the lads in a grubby, badly-lit pool hall with a few beers has always been more my style. Anyway, there's something about the sound of pool balls clicking against each other ...

Kit had written over two sides of erotic activity by the time Jack's text came through.

Did Rob mention a tape?

Kit re-read the message and muttered, ‘What bloody tape?' into her coffee. All Rob had told her was that Amy was a friend from university, that she had done archaeology with him and his friend Paul, and that she was one of Jack's exes. From what Kit knew of Jack's past, that just made Amy one of dozens, be they male or female.

A tape, though? With Jack that
did
make a difference.

Kit felt a new wave of unease flow over her as she sat cradling her phone. Snooker, pool, ropes and interesting cue positions were all forgotten. She was remembering.

Ten

October 5
^th
2006

Amy awoke with a smile.

The evening before, waiting for her new housemates to come home from work, she'd been a bag of nerves. She'd boiled and re-boiled the kettle countless times before a key had turned in the lock.

Arriving together, James and Sarah had been delighted to walk in and discover freshly-brewed tea and coffee (she wasn't sure which to make, so had settled for both), and a box of Scottish shortbread arranged on the dining-room table. They were neither as young nor as trendy as Amy had feared, and in no time they'd thrown off their professional coats and shoes, discarded their briefcases, and were slobbing out on the sofa.

After asking Amy countless questions about herself, they told her as much about the house and the local area as she wanted to know, plus loads about themselves, including the fact that they'd recently become a couple after years of house-sharing.

Dragging on her faded blue jeans, Amy reflected on how, as with the be-suited man at Heathrow, she hadn't minded answering their queries. Strange; she thought, she'd always been so guarded before. She hadn't mentioned Jack though; that would have been a confidence too far.

Drawing back her curtains, Amy looked through her window properly for the first time. Brick-built terraces, cars, motorbikes, deafening aircraft noise, litter clogging the kerbside drain, and people, masses of people. Richmond; right on London's doorstep. A place simmering with possibilities. All she'd have to do was overcome her natural nervousness and grasp every opportunity. It was all out there for her. Even in its dark, damp, autumnal state, everything appeared inviting. She'd have to wait to hit the sights though; today she was going to be sensible. Today Amy was determined to take the first job she could find, and then tomorrow she'd start writing a CV and hunt down a proper career. Well, OK, maybe the day after tomorrow. Then she was going to call Rob. Jack could wait.

Amy felt a small rush of pride just thinking it.

Now she was here, Jack could wait.

The winter boots had been a mistake. Her feet felt uncomfortably prickly and hot. Amy smiled ruefully; this wasn't Aberdeen. London was wet, true, but not half as cold as Scotland. It was incredible how having unpleasantly over-heated feet could make her feel good about her situation.

Amy passed by the grubby and well-worn
Part-Time Help Required
sign that had been stuck to the window of the small newsagent's nearest the house, promising herself that if she hadn't found anything else by the end of the day, then she'd enquire about it on the way home. Crap money was better than no money at all.

By ten o'clock Amy had already explored employment opportunities at Waitrose, Tesco, and WHSmith, and her need for a caffeine hit had reached epidemic proportions. Caffé Nero seemed to be calling to her, siren-like, from across the street, but it was packed and she couldn't face being penned in with so many strangers. Looking around for an alternative, she spotted a faded sign advertising that Pickwicks Coffee House was lurking down a narrow side street. Amy strode off to discover where it was hiding.

She loved it instantly. An eclectic huddle of flower-filled vases and jars vied with each other for space on the crowded windowsill. Cream and blue Victorian tiles were embedded here and there in the plastered walls, and dark beams made the ceiling feel deceptively low. A higgledy-piggledy mixture of dark wooden furniture, a stripped pine floor, mismatched china, and a dominant aroma of coffee and sugar-coated pastries created a cocooned atmosphere of warmth and safety. Caffé Nero could keep its crowded convenience. In here, Amy thought, she could hide from the world.

‘Can I get you anything, love?'

The waitress, her incredibly long dark hair drawn back into a thick ponytail that almost reached the waistband of her black trousers, stood beaming at Amy as if she was the most important person she'd seen all day.

‘I would love a really huge black coffee please.'

‘Well, you're in luck; we deal in really huge cups of coffee.' She pointed across the room to a lady sat in the far corner scribbling away at something, a soup dish-sized mug of hot liquid caffeine in front of her. ‘That cup about the right size for you?'

‘That would be perfect, thanks! Oh, and a Belgian bun if you have one?'

‘Coming right up.' The waitress shimmied away, returning almost instantly with Amy's order.

Amy stared into her drink. It was so fresh that it steamed as if smoke was rising from its opaque surface. The cup's welcoming presence gave out that special kind of comfort that you only get from coffee when it's black. If she could find a job locally she'd be able to come in here for lunch every now and again. Maybe she'd meet Rob here sometimes. They'd always made time for plenty of coffee stops back then, so why not now?

‘And if you press this then you'll get a nice steady stream of hot milk frothing on top of the coffee.'

Amy had been in Pickwicks for almost two hours, and her head was so full of new information that she thought it might burst. Anyone who considered being a waitress an easy option was under a serious misconception. Her booted feet had almost reached tropical temperatures, and were beginning to distract her as she struggled to concentrate on everything Peggy said.

‘So, do you fancy it?' Peggy was bouncing around behind the counter like an exuberant puppy – how could she say no? Anyway, she did feel comfortable in here. Perhaps it was fate. Amy nodded, unable to believe her luck in finding employment so fast.

‘Thanks, yes! Although I think you'll probably have to show me how to work the cappuccino machine a few more times before I get the hang of it.'

‘Not a problem. I'm just so glad to get help.'

‘Were you advertising then? I didn't notice a sign in the window.'

‘Not really.' Peggy tossed her ponytail from off her shoulder, ‘I keep an eye out every now and then, and pounce on anyone remotely suitable. The last girl who worked with me was a regular customer I lampooned. She ended up working here so she could afford to eat here. Nuts!'

‘I'm really grateful. Like I said, I've only lived here a day and I need something to tide me over. Something to work at, while I find something to work at. If that makes sense.'

‘No one makes much sense here, honey. You'll fit in fine.' Peggy ripped a piece of paper off her order pad and began to write. ‘Now, these will be your hours for this week, starting with a sort of training day tomorrow. The hours will vary each week, depending on the season and how lazy I'm feeling, but it will include most weekends until after Christmas. After that we'll see if you want to stay, or if you're off to become a captain of industry, OK?'

‘More than OK. It'll give me a bit of free time too. Catch up with friends, develop a career, marry a millionaire, that sort of thing.'

Peggy laughed again, ‘Let me know if you find one, I'm still looking.'

‘For a millionaire or a career?'

Shrugging her shoulders, her new boss replied, ‘Both! I've been here five years and have been far too busy to actually look!'

‘Oh?' The number of tables crammed into the room illustrated just how busy Peggy could be, especially if she didn't always have waiting staff to help her.

‘And being married to the owner sort of helps the time fly.'

Now it was Amy's turn to laugh, ‘I'll see you tomorrow. I'd better pull myself together and go home. My removal van should turn up quite soon.'

‘Sure. Take care honey.' Peggy beamed at Amy's retreating back, feeling very pleased with herself for securing someone to help her without having to go through all the hassle of advertising.

Kit looked up. Peggy was free at last. The girl she'd been showing round must have gone. She waved in her friend's direction. Peggy picked up the percolator jug from behind the counter and crossed the room to refill Kit's cup. ‘How's the snooker – sorry,
pool
 – tale going? You've hardly raised your head since you put pen to paper this morning.'