The Cafe

Audio for this story will follow next week I hope.
A little social commentary and maybe a view of a favourite character from a different angle.




Chris Evans babbled away on the radio sounding earnest but talking nonsense, ‘entertaining’ the breakfast guests in the cafe whether they wanted him to or not. The tables were filled with lone diners enjoying a bacon roll or scrambled egg on toast and family members wishing they'd left a little later so they didn't have time to kill bickering over a cup of tea while waiting to wave their goodbyes at the nearby bus station. Kids played noisily at one table - squabbling over an electronic game, drowning out the bacon sizzling gently on the hot plate and the occasional hiss and whoosh of the steamer.

Bob had run this cafe for 20 years. Back then this was the place to be for breakfast or afternoon tea, it was packed every morning and did a steady trade all day. Even 10 years ago the turn over was double what it was now. Bob looked at the straggled collection of diners it now attracted; basically they were the lowest common dominators, those who couldn't afford the inflated prices of Starbucks or Costa, those who didn't need Wi-Fi connections or plug sockets, those who let the march of time pass them by. The rest had slowly deserted him walking the extra 50 metres to the American coffee giant to get exactly the same drinks at double the price, why? How? How had Starbucks created a market for themselves? How had a skinny latte even become a thing? When Bob took over the café people used to drink 3 hot drinks, maybe 4, tea, coffee, frothy coffee and at a push hot chocolate. But now they all wanted flat whites and double chocspressos, decaf tea, decaf coffee decaf water. Even some of the bus drivers who used to be his best customers now walked passed the cafe looking straight ahead, avoiding eye-contact ashamed by their desertion. Bob sighed and served another cup of milky tea to an old woman with no teeth who counted out her change to pay for it and always miscounted by 5p. Bob always looked the other way, they wouldn’t do that in Costa, this was the human touch, real service by real people, not the plastic have a nice day service of the big chains. 
Bob had never seen the man in the suit before but he watched him now as he wiped his mouth with his napkin rubbing away the remnants of a bacon sandwich that he had devoured with enthusiasm, he then used the same napkin to wipe away the brown sauce and grease from his sticky fingers. Despite his middle age the newcomer looked like a kid in a sweet shop, Bob wondered if he was about to lick the plate. He didn’t, he just smiled and stood up and approached the counter.
'Another cup of tea please boss,' he said to Bob in a sing song voice.
Bob smiled and busied himself with topping up the tea pot.
‘Thank heavens for places like these,' the stranger said as he took his steaming mug and handed over the money for the tea. ‘I don’t know how I’d survive if there were only the soulless coffee shops.’ Only a few words but words that had Bob smiling all day. 
Until that is he saw the stranger again, obviously back from wherever the bus at the bus station had taken him. But this time he walked straight over to the green enemy and went in. Bob did know why but he felt betrayed, stabbed in the back, only a few hours ago the stranger been his ally but now he was a turncoat. Bob went back to cleaning the grill in the now nearly deserted café grumbling about betrayal and hypocrisy as he did so.
‘Cup of tea please.’ Bob looked around to see the man standing there counting out the £1.50.
‘I thought you'd gone to Starbucks.’ said Bob an accusing tone in his voice.
‘I did, I'll use their toilets and their Wi-Fi but I'm not drinking their muck when there's a real cup of tea here.’
Bob was an avowed heterosexual, he'd never kissed a man, never wanted to, never even kissed his son or grandson but right now he could kiss this stranger full on the lips.