Chapter 9

Coffee

The disabled toilet is cramped but serviceable, and Ellen makes it work. She scrubs storm grime from her skin with watery soap, splashes her face and dries off with paper towels that feel like cardboard. It isn't a shower, but it's enough to feel human again. Her hair is another matter. She squeezes the worst of the water out with paper towels, then bends awkwardly beneath the hand dryer, blasting it into a frizzing halo. After a minute of warm air and very little progress, she gives up. Her fingers catch in the tangles as she tries to comb them through, and eventually she gathers the whole damp mess into a loose bun, securing it with the hair tie around her wrist. A few strands fall free around her face. She leaves them there. It'll have to do.

Clean jeans. Fresh T-shirt. Wet clothes rolled tight and buried in the bottom of her backpack. She looks at herself in the scratched mirror and tries a smile. It barely shows up. A fresh start. Maybe. She unlocks the door and steps back out.

The bar looks unfamiliar in the morning light. Without customers, music competing with conversations or bodies obscuring the furniture, it seems smaller than the place she left a few hours ago. She can see the worn patches beneath the stools, the marks along the skirting and the faint smear on a window somebody missed while cleaning. At night these things disappear beneath the business of keeping everyone served. Now the room has the tired, exposed appearance of a stage after the audience has gone.

Seth moves behind the counter. Glasses clink as he puts them away, and the dishwasher hums beneath the worktop. He looks up when she approaches and slides a mug towards an empty stool. Beside it is a plate of chocolate-chip cookies.

“I made you coffee.”

“Oh.” Ellen stops beside the stool. “You didn’t have to.”

She sits and closes her hands around the mug. The heat reaches her palms with such immediate pleasure that she has to resist pressing it against her face. She wishes he had asked first, although she would almost certainly have said yes. Refusing coffee would have been absurd. That is not the difficulty. The difficulty is that he has provided another thing she needs before she has worked out how to account for the things he has already done.

“Your other bags are in the boiler room,” he says. “I left them where they can dry.”

“You moved them?”

“They were wet.”

“Right. Yes.” He told her he would put them there. She remembers that now, along with the open door and the rubbish bag, but the whole exchange feels oddly distant. “I could have done it. You didn’t need to go to any trouble.”

She makes herself smile. “Thank you.”

Seth picks up a cloth and begins wiping the counter, apparently accepting the thanks as sufficient. Ellen looks into the coffee. He is being kind. She understands the concept perfectly well when it concerns somebody else. People do things for one another. Sometimes they expect nothing beyond the knowledge that the thing needed doing. She has wanted to work in a hospital partly because she believes that matters. Yet being on the receiving end leaves her searching for the obligation she has missed.

She takes a sip.

Christ.

The coffee is weak, bitter and stale in a way she would not have thought possible for a drink just made. She swallows carefully and keeps her face as still as she can.

“Something wrong?” Seth asks.

“No. It’s fine.”

Perhaps he has poisoned her. That would explain the flavour. She has escaped the alley only to accept a drink from a man she knows almost nothing about, which would make an excellent warning story if she survives long enough to tell it. Exhaustion supplies the thought with more force than it deserves, and she pushes it away.

“You don’t like it,” he says.

“Well…” She glances towards the machine. “Did you empty the portafilter first?”

“The what?”

“The handle. With the little basket in it.”

Seth looks at the machine, then at her. His confusion appears complete.

“I’ve never made coffee before,” he says. “I’ve never worked in a bar.”

Ellen looks down at the mug again. That, at least, is an explanation she can use. She raises it in a small, solemn toast.

“Yesterday’s coffee.”

A smile gets past her before she can decide whether she feels like smiling. Seth grins.

“I take it you’re quite the barista.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” She settles the mug on the counter. “I enjoy it, though. There’s something nice about doing the same things in the same order. Knowing what comes next.”

“You make it sound satisfying.”

“It is. If you do it properly, things generally work.” She looks at the machine. “I could show you, if you like.”

The offer comes easily. She can teach him something. He has intervened in the alley, carried her belongings, supplied food and attempted coffee. Here, finally, is a useful thing she can do in return, something that does not require her to invent an explanation for why she deserves his help.

“I’d like that,” Seth says.

On the television behind the bar, a woman in Beirut is holding a plastic water container beneath a hose. Ellen cannot hear the report over the coffee machine, but she watches the woman change hands, rubbing the freed palm against her coat before taking the weight again. Others wait behind her beside a building with its windows blown out. The woman says something to someone outside the picture and almost smiles. Then the studio returns, and a new headline runs beneath the presenter’s face: PATIENT ESCAPES SUNNY MEADOW MENTAL FACILITY.

Sunny Meadow.

Ellen leans forward slightly. The name has reached her before, recently enough that she ought to remember where. Footage replaces the presenter: a large grey building behind carefully maintained gardens. The grounds soften its severity, making it look more like an old country estate than a place designed to prevent people leaving.

A photograph appears. The man in it has a beard, hollow eyes and an expression so vacant that she wonders whether he has deliberately withdrawn from the person holding the camera. Captions identify him as a patient who escaped during the night. He is considered extremely dangerous. The public is advised not to approach him.

Anderson’s radio.

The name returns within the sound of that exchange. Sunny Meadow, an incident on Seventh, a call serious enough to make him abandon what he was doing. Seventh is only two blocks away. She tries to remember whether the dispatcher said anything else, but her attention at the time had been occupied by the possibility that Anderson might choose to stay.

On the screen, the photograph changes to a digitally altered version showing how the man might look without his beard. Ellen moves closer, trying to establish whether anything about the face is familiar.

The picture vanishes.

A music video fills the television with bright colours and people who appear to be having a considerably better morning. Ellen turns. Seth stands behind the counter with the remote in his hand.

“Oh. I was watching that.”

“I thought there’d been enough negativity for one day,” he says. “Music makes things better.”

He puts down the remote and returns to the counter. The cloth moves beneath his hand in slow, even strokes.

Ellen looks at the television again. It is an odd thing to do while somebody is watching, especially when the report concerns a dangerous man who might be nearby. Then again, plenty of people avoid the news. After what Seth saw outside, perhaps he has no appetite for another account of somebody being hurt. She has no wish to object to the first cheerful thing he has provided, even if it has arrived rather abruptly.

“So,” she says, “why here?”

He looks up.

“You’ve got no bar experience. Jack doesn’t usually take people on without it.”

The words sound harsher once they are out. Wonderful. He has helped her through the worst morning of her life, and she has responded by questioning whether he ought to have a job.

“Sorry. That sounded rude.”

“It felt like the right place to be,” he says.

“That isn’t an answer.”

She has not meant to say that either. There is something about the completeness of his replies that makes her want to examine them. He speaks as though the question has been settled, while leaving almost everything she asked untouched.

Seth meets her eyes. “No. It isn’t.”

His expression remains pleasant. It also makes clear that he has finished.

Ellen looks down at the cookies. She does not know him. There may be any number of reasons he does not want to discuss his previous work, and being helped by somebody does not entitle her to an account of his life. She breaks a piece from a cookie and puts it in her mouth, partly because she is hungry and partly because chewing prevents another question for a few seconds.

Seth continues wiping the counter. The silence seems not to trouble him. He does not search for something to say, explain the answer or glance at her to see whether she has taken offence. Ellen envies that ease. Silence has never felt empty to her. Usually it is a space in which she tries to work out what somebody else is thinking.

“What were you doing before this?” she asks.

His attention drifts for a moment, as though the question has directed him towards something farther away than the room. Then he resumes his work without answering.

“You don’t have to tell me your life story,” she adds quickly. “You just don’t seem like a bartender.”

Another silence.

For God’s sake, Ellen.

“Sorry. I’m being nosy.”

He does not appear offended. Somehow that makes it harder to know what to do next. She takes another small piece of cookie and waits, then discovers that she has not finished asking questions after all.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you help me in the alley?”

Seth looks at her. “I didn’t like what I saw.”

“Most people wouldn’t have got involved. Especially with the police.”

“I saw enough to know you didn’t deserve it.”

She falls quiet. He says it without qualification, as though establishing that she did not deserve to be hurt settles the question of whether he should have intervened. She would like the world to work that way. She has spent enough time hoping it might.

“Thank you,” she says. “For what you did.”

“He shouldn’t have touched you.”

Anderson returns briefly through the words: his breath, the cold metal, the knowledge that Rodriguez understood and would not move. She looks at the mug until the memory recedes. She has washed. She is indoors. Her clothes cover her, and nobody here has asked her to remove them. Those are facts she can hold on to.

“A man should look after a woman,” Seth says.

She raises her eyes. “Should he?”

“Yes. Because she deserves care and patience. It has nothing to do with whether she can look after herself.” He folds the cloth in his hands. “A man should want her to feel safe with him. He should protect her, not frighten her.”

It is an old-fashioned way of expressing something she is not inclined to argue with. What unsettles her is his certainty. He speaks as though kindness is a decision a person can make and then continue making, without all the explanations people offer for the occasions when they choose otherwise.

“That’s a nice way to see it,” she says.

“Isn’t that how it should be?”

She thinks of Tod. Of ordinary assurances made in bed or across the kitchen, promises she believed partly because she needed the future they described. A promise could be sincere when somebody made it. That did not always prevent them behaving later as though it had belonged to another man.

“I suppose.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I am. It’s just…” She turns a crumb beneath her fingertip. “Not everybody sees things that way.”

“Perhaps they should.”

She almost smiles. He makes it sound so simple.

“Maybe they should.”

The front door opens, bringing in cool air and the sharp rhythm of heels. Tracy crosses the room with the assurance of somebody arriving where she expects to be noticed. Floral perfume follows her, heavy enough to announce itself before she reaches the counter. She wears a leopard-print blouse, red lipstick and eyeliner applied with a commitment Ellen has never managed even when she is going somewhere important. Tracy always appears dressed for a more exciting destination than the bar. Ellen has never established where that destination might be.

Her attention goes straight to Seth.

“Good morning, sweetie.”

“Good morning, Tracy.”

“Sorry I’m a little late. One of those mornings.” She laughs, setting down her bag. “You opened up all right on your own?”

Before he can answer, she notices Ellen. The smile changes without disappearing.

“Ellen?”

“Morning.”

“What are you doing here? You’re not on until tonight, sweetie.”

“I know. Just killing time.”

“Why not do that at home?” Tracy tilts her head. “You and—what’s his name? Tim? You haven’t had a row?”

“Tod,” Ellen says.

Tracy knows his name. Ellen is certain she does. She appears capable of remembering the name of every man who has ever bought a drink here, especially if he has bought one for her too. Getting this one wrong is a small thing, but it makes Ellen feel she has been asked to correct something deliberately broken.

Tracy looks at Seth.

“She’s locked out,” he says. “Waiting for the locks to be changed. Thought she’d teach me to make coffee while she’s here.”

Ellen keeps her face still. The explanation has appeared so smoothly that for a moment she almost accepts it as the actual reason she is sitting there.

“Teaching you.” Tracy’s smile tightens. “Well, I hope you’re not expecting to get paid, Ellen. You’re working tonight. You’ll be exhausted and no use to anybody by then.”

Her stomach contracts.

She did not expect money for sitting on a stool eating cookies. She hoped to ask for a few hours behind the bar, enough to begin collecting tips before the evening. It was the only part of the plan that made the long stretch of work seem capable of producing what she needed. Now the request feels dangerous before she has made it.

“Oh, no. I was helping.”

Please leave it there. Please do not decide she looks too tired for tonight as well.

“She’s lending a hand while she waits,” Seth says.

“How generous.” Tracy gives a small shrug. “You really don’t need to hang around, sweetie. Days are dead. Nobody comes in until the evening.”

No customers. No tips.

Ellen looks across the empty room. She can clean, restock the fridges, check the shelves. There are always things to do. If she stays useful and does not ask for anything, perhaps she can remain until her shift. Losing even the possibility of tonight’s money makes her feel sick.

“Quiet seems like a good time to learn,” Seth says. “Right, Ellen?”

She nods. “By tonight he’ll be a pro.”

“Sure he will.”

Tracy gives him a playful slap on the shoulder and heads towards the office. Her heels continue down the corridor after she is out of sight. The perfume stays behind.

Ellen waits until the office door closes before allowing her shoulders to lower. Tracy has not told her to leave. That is something. The calculations will need revising, but she can do that later, when she has enough strength to watch the answer become worse.

“Thanks,” she says.

“I heard you in the alley. About your boyfriend.”

“Oh.”

Of course. She said it to Anderson. Seth must have heard, although she does not know when he came outside or how long he watched before speaking. Enough of her private life has been made available to him that she cannot work out which questions remain hers to answer.

Perhaps that explains what he said about men and women. Perhaps he thinks Tod has hurt her in ways she has not described. She has no wish to clarify the details.

“You said you’d teach me,” Seth says, gesturing towards the machine.

“Right.”

She comes behind the counter and puts the backpack somewhere out of the way. Then she waves him closer. The familiar space helps: the grinder, the knock box, the folded cloths, the cups warming above the machine. She knows where things are. She knows which small faults can be corrected before they become an unpleasant drink.

“This is the grinder. We’ll start with the coffee, then I’ll show you the milk.”

Her voice steadies as she explains the dose. She removes the portafilter, knocks the old grounds into the box and cleans the basket. There is something satisfying about disposing of the cause of the coffee in her mug. At least that problem has a clear solution.

“The grind affects how quickly the water gets through,” she tells him. “Too fine, and it can run slowly and taste bitter. Too coarse, and it can rush through without taking enough flavour. You want a balance. Then you keep the amount of coffee and the timing consistent, so you know what to change if it tastes wrong.”

Seth watches closely.

She fills the basket with fresh grounds, levels them and presses the tamper down evenly. The sequence restores a small measure of confidence. Coffee does not require her to prove that she has worked hard enough to deserve a result. It requires particular things to happen in a particular order. If she gets them right, the result is generally decent, and if it is not, she has somewhere to begin looking.

She holds out the portafilter. As Seth takes it, his fingers brush hers.

Something passes through the contact. It is too slight and too peculiar to call a shock. For an instant she has the impression of recognising him, not his face or his hand, but something she cannot locate within a memory. Familiarity arrives without the experience that ought to support it.

She withdraws her hand too quickly.

Seth takes the handle without comment and looks towards the machine, apparently unaware of anything unusual. Ellen watches him fit it into place. She is exhausted. Her nerves have spent the morning responding to things she would prefer never to encounter again. A touch making her jump is hardly remarkable. The other sensation is more difficult to dismiss, but she has no useful explanation for it.

“Now the button,” she says.

The pump begins. Coffee enters the cup in dark streams, and the smell of fresh grounds rises between them.

“I like this,” Seth says.

“Making coffee?”

“Learning something new.”

Ellen smiles. He seems genuinely pleased. It has been a long time since she has watched somebody enjoy acquiring an ordinary skill without immediately apologising for not already possessing it.

He studies the cup, then looks at her.

“There’s a spare room in the apartment I rent. The landlord wants another lodger. If you need somewhere.”

She remains still.

A room.

The idea forms in uncomfortable detail: a bed, a place to put the suitcase, a door that belongs between her and everybody else. She could wash her clothes and know where they would be while they dried. She could lie down without calculating how long she was allowed to occupy the space.

“That’s kind,” she says carefully.

There is also Seth.

He has helped her. He appears considerate. He is strange in ways she cannot yet arrange into either reassurance or warning. The television, the missing answers, the moments when his attention seems to go elsewhere. His view of the world is so certain that she does not know how much of the world he has actually had to negotiate.

She has seen films built upon offers like this. A woman caught in bad weather accepts a room in a house where everybody is much too welcoming. There is always a bedroom she should not enter, or somebody who stands beside her while she sleeps.

At least she would get some sleep. Even if she did not wake up afterwards.

The thought nearly makes her smile. She is being ridiculous, perhaps. Seth has given her reasons to trust him, not reasons to imagine him appearing silently at the foot of a bed. Then again, she did not expect a policeman to do what Anderson did. Respectable categories have not served her particularly well this morning.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” he says.

Nothing follows. No reassurance designed to defeat her hesitation, no suggestion that she ought to be grateful, no question about what there is to think about. He simply accepts the answer.

She studies him for a moment. His lack of pressure should make him easier to understand. Instead it leaves her without one of the familiar things she uses to judge what somebody wants.

Ellen turns back to the coffee. She will finish teaching him. She will stay useful, keep out of Tracy’s way and get through tonight’s shift. There may still be enough tips for a room, even if the figures no longer settle as comfortably as they did on the walk here.

The spare room remains in her mind, waiting. She does not have to decide yet.