Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! (16 page)

Nevertheless, the time had come. I had finally put myself in contact with the other me. From now until the plane took off the following morning I was in a position to change things. To kill him. To stop him getting on the plane.

The door opened and a man entered on his own. He was wearing a worn, light-coloured suit, buttoned all the way up to the neck. There was a familiarity about his face, although I wasn't sure what it was. Unshaven, something of a moustache. Of course, six months previously I had served him coffee, and that moment came back to me as he stood at the counter.

Beth was about to walk past him, carrying two empty cups; he would let her pass, then he would ask me for an espresso macchiato. A woman was about to enter the café with an older lady who was probably her mother. The younger woman would be pushing a pram, and the baby would be howling. Shortly before the women were served, and before the man left, the child would suddenly stop crying.

Behind the counter it had been a scene like any other. A guy comes in for coffee. A family of three, three generations, the kid crying. Sitting over here, however, able to observe them rather than serve them, there were a couple of notable things as the family entered and the cries of the child filled the café.

The man had a presence about him, and his suit was a curious outfit, the colour of which was hard to determine. It might once have been pale green, yet strangely, there was something about him that made you not want to look at him. Something slightly disturbing, as though he oughtn't to have been there.

After the other me had taken his money, handed back the change, made the coffee and was just about to pass it over the counter, the child abruptly stopped crying. The mother and grandmother had been arguing about it, whether or not to placate the kid with a muffin, then suddenly he wasn't crying anymore.

Sitting where I was now, however, I could see what happened. The guy in the faded light green suit turned and looked down at the child, facing my way as he did so. He caught the child's eyes, and then without moving his lips, or making any sound whatsoever, he said, 'Hey, kid! Zip it, will ya?'

I don't know how he did that, yet I heard him. I don't think anyone else did, as no one glanced over. The women looked down at the child to see what had happened. I couldn't see the kid from where I was sitting, but they seemed happy that he'd stopped crying. Nothing seemed amiss. Except the guy in the suit had just spoken without saying anything, and had somehow got the child to stop crying in an instant.

He looked up at me. The same eyes that had just silenced the child. The same dead eyes. I wondered if he was going to say something to me without speaking. 'Hey, pal! Stop staring!'

Nothing.

He held my gaze for a few seconds. Nothing more. A look that was dark, and so knowing. That was the thing. I had gone through life anonymously for six months. I'd been invisible. No one had seen me unless I'd been standing directly before them; and then, no one had seen through me.

Now this guy in a light, worn suit and ragged moustache was seeing everything. He knew I was a guy who had been living a nothing life for six months, and was about to come to the fulcrum of that six months. What had it all been for?

I remembered then that when I'd turned to give him his coffee, he'd been staring off across the café, seemingly preoccupied. I hadn't followed his gaze.

'That's your espresso macchiato, sir,' I said. I heard myself.

He was breaking the stare even before I spoke to him, as though he could sense the coffee at his back. He turned, said, 'Thanks,' lifted the coffee and walked out the café. As he was leaving he held the door for a group of four teenagers in the uniform of the local private school, then suddenly there was noise and laughter, and the child started crying again and the other me was standing at the counter waiting for the next order.

I had to follow him. I knew I had to follow him. That guy, whoever he was, had walked out the door and had taken something with him. I could feel it in a way that I couldn't explain. When he was in the room there was some hint of an explanation about what had gone on, but that explanation had walked out there with him.

I sat still and did not move.

*

T
wenty-four hours later I was back in the same place. My Starbucks. I had gone back to the hotel, and prevaricated long into the night. I could not make myself take any one of the positive actions open to me.

I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wall of the hotel, thoughts running in directions beyond counting. And I thought of the man who had entered the café and spoken to the crying child without saying a word. Not just that he had spoken to the kid, but the kid had listened. There is a long way between telling a child to stop crying and it actually happening.

I don't think I slept. Couldn't be sure, but it never felt like it. I sat there until the morning. At around about the time that the plane would be taking off, I returned to my café. I felt sure this man would be in again, and this time I would follow him out. The fact was that the point of no return had passed. The plane was gone, my other self would be on that plane. I had no idea whether or not he'd be able to think himself away from the crash, in the manner in which I'd done.

I had done nothing to save him, nor any of the others who were to take that flight.

The guy was back at almost exactly the same time as the previous day, although this time his suit looked a little darker. He asked for an espresso macchiato to go, gave a quick survey of the café as he waited, and then handed over the cash and turned to leave. At the door he stopped, and looked back over his shoulder.

He stared right at me. Not right through me.

'It's time to come in,' he said. The same voice as the day before, although not with the same censure he'd used on the child. Again, however, his lips did not move. His voice was inside my head.

He walked out and closed the door. I looked at the back of his head until he disappeared.

So this was it. Six months came down to this. The other me was on the plane to nowhere, and I had to make my mind up shortly in any case. I was going to have to do something, even if it was walk away and never see Baggins again, something that was not going to happen.

I looked at the clock on the wall opposite the counter. My plane would be in the air, but was still some hours short of crashing. The time when I would need to start checking the news was still several hours away.

I took a last sip of coffee then stood quickly and followed the guy in the suit out of the café. Door closed behind me, and turned to my right. The day was again mild, grey. I couldn't immediately see him, even though the street was not too crowded. I headed off quickly, my eyes searching for the suit amongst the pedestrians. Suddenly spotted him on the other side of the road, turning off into a side street, a street that I could see would immediately be a much quieter thoroughfare off the main road. A small street with no shops.

Despite the look the guy had given me, the stare that had burrowed right inside me, I didn't fear being led down a dark alleyway. Finally, after six months of drifting, I had something to cling on to. I maybe didn't have an answer, but I had an avenue to walk down. It seemed better to be led, as there was a purpose implicit in it that I did not have when making my own decisions.

I crossed the road and quickly turned the corner into the side street without bothering to check it out first. It felt right. Suddenly, and recklessly, I didn't care what I was walking into.

The street was quiet and dark, the buildings high-sided on either side. There were a few parked cars, no sign of a shop entrance or even a door for the first sixty or seventy yards. It was a no through road, bollards at the far end blocking the entrance to the street that ran perpendicular at its far end.

There was no sign of the man in the suit. Yet, although there was a way for pedestrians to get through, there was still something about the street that said it was closed off. City life ended here. Nothing beyond. Choosing to walk down here was making a decision about the nature of your future. Walking down here meant you were walking away. Giving up.

What an absurd thought! It was just a street. I stopped and looked over my shoulder at the main street, not more than fifteen yards behind me. Life went on. My café was just across the road. Funny that in all the years I'd worked there, I'd hardly paid any attention to this side street. I knew it was there, but I'd barely even looked down it. It was just a small street going nowhere. Now I wondered if it had made me not look down it. Had the street itself repelled me?

I kept walking. It seemed strange that the man with the suit had managed to get to the end of the street and turn away so quickly. Perhaps he'd already got to a door, or he was sitting in one of the cars.

I waited for an engine to start, then I noticed that there was a black BMW with people sitting inside. Three of them, facing away from me. Two in the front, one in the back. I knew straight away that the man in the back was the one I'd followed. I approached the car quickly, not knowing what I was going to do, but confident that something was going to happen and that, whatever it was, it was going to solve the problem I had avoided thinking about for the previous six months.

And so it was that I walked into the trap with my eyes wide open.

As I came alongside the car, the nearside rear window was lowered. I looked in. The man was sitting on the far side of the car, the coffee in his hands. The couple in front, a man and a woman, were wearing suits. The man with the coffee caught my eye, but the look did not have the same apocalyptic depth with which he had regarded me earlier.

I held his gaze for a few moments, then I reached out, opened the car door and got in. As I settled into the seat and closed the door, I noticed that he gave a small nod to one of those in the front. A look that said he had completed his part of the bargain, and that the rest was up to them.

The woman turned and looked at me for a few moments, as if studying my face, making sure she had the right person. Perhaps she hadn't been expecting me to have a beard.

No one spoke. Then there was a gun. I had time for one thought. A gun? Why was there a gun? This was no place for a gun. I had never seen a gun in my life, not for real, not in someone's hand, and certainly not pointing at me.

Why was there a gun? That was my last thought, and then there was nothing more. Not from that small street just across the road from the café where I'd worked for the previous five years.

And the next time I was really aware of anything, I was sitting at a desk in a small, square room, and the two people from the front of the car were sitting opposite me asking why I hadn't died in the plane crash.

––––––––

T
he common language of coffee is changing. In the old days, before the marketing world had got hold of it, coffee was mellow or strong or smooth. Now it has understated spice aromas, or an elusive syrupy texture, it erupts on the palate and explodes on your tongue, it's citrusy and vibrant, sometimes lemon, more often grapefruit, it's nutty and velvety, chocolaty on the nose, with a smooth, dry finish hinting of almonds. Beans from Africa and the Middle East produce a surprising and exciting coffee, floral, with citrus and berry flavours; the South and Central American beans produce a familiar, unadulterated coffee, oozing nuttiness and cocoa; the Asian coffees are audacious and insistent, earthy and herbal. Flowers/nuts/herbs.

It's throwing words around, tossing them up in the air and picking some of them out at random. People can't just drink something and say, yep, that's good, or, a little too strong for me, or, hmm, could do with a touch more milk. Everything has to be caked in obfuscation, and just like the finest confectionary is enrobed in the very best Belgian chocolate, coffee itself is now enrobed in words.

It conflicts me. I enjoy that side of it, enjoy the swagger and the metaphor and the microscopic shades of insinuation, yet the conceit of it all is like fingernails drawn down a blackboard. Maybe it's because I'm from the west of Scotland. At even the slightest suggestion of artifice and pretention, you would be shot down and told to pull your neck in. There are two types of cups of coffee in the world. Good and bad. With slight variations. That's how I was brought up.

Even that will likely be changing now. I'm from the last generation of people who looked askance at posturing and affectation. Now it's taken for granted.

Then there's the other thing, something which I rarely admit to anyone. I don't have the nose or the palate for it. I try, I've done endless company tasting sessions, coffee cupping, but I struggle to separate one cup from the next. I've listened to the experts, who have extolled the virtues of one bean over another, who have pointed out the difference of applying forty pounds of pressure when tamping (levelling the coffee in the filter head) over more or less pressure, water at precisely 93°C, espresso machine pressure set at 9 atmospheres, the precise size of the coffee grounds, exactly 10g of coffee for 180ml of water for filter coffee, endless variables that can make a million, billion different cups of coffee from the same beans. Or, if you're me, just the one cup.

It's fun though, and I like it, and when you get someone who takes it too seriously, with the conceit of the coffee connoisseur, commenting affectedly on the notes and the palate and the finish, it's easy enough to glance over their shoulder at the next non-connoisseur in the room and share an amused eyebrow, although my amusement would be covering my envy.

Despite my upbringing, maybe I could have drifted into being one of those people, disguising my own lack of palate with hubris and a few rehearsed phrases, but now I have Brin and Baggins to shoot me back down.

In my café, we serve coffee. People drink the coffee. Then they leave.

*

T
here was never much decoration on the walls of the Stand Alone. An old Klimt print in a battered frame – I assumed it was a print, but then liked to think that it was an original; a map of the world, a map that seemed more out of date every day we went to the café in the early '90s, as eastern Europe fragmented; and the
Sgt. Pepper
album sleeve. It wasn't a large poster of the most famous album cover of all time, the Beatles in fancy dress surrounded by cardboard cut-outs, but the actual vinyl sleeve, bent at the edges round the shape of the disc where it had once been thrust into a bag.