Cheever’s Cafe

London, SE1

Thursday, 2^nd December, 10am

Jing, Jing!

 

The coffeehouse doorbell jingled twice each time it was opened.

Jing, Jing!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

FIONA…! LARGO-SIZED HOUSE WIV ROOM…?!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

Late mornings on Southwark Street in Borough near the market were always popular at Cheever’s Café—the “tired of work and academics after only a few hours” crowd.

Jing…Jing-Jing…Thump!  Jing…Jing-Jing…Thump! and the sound system wove sitar, tamboura and tabla over and under the tables and chairs, and up above the order counter. The music introduced a variety of hard scents which battled others for nostril point of presence. Like cats struggling with furballs, the frappes and lattes steamed dairy atop espressos and sugary hot chocolates and cappuccinos. A flat screen monitor hung closed-captioned and muted on the far wall like a picture, framing the news anchor—a lopped off talking head atop a crawler befitting a platter of sorts providing even more mind-numbing news, imparting a visual illusion of intelligence upon the trendy crowd, that somehow they were all the smarter for it.

Jing, Jing!

 

CALLISTA…! ONE REGULAR SILKED GREEN CHAI…?!

 

ROBEELA…! ONE LARGO-SIZED HOUSE …?!

 

“S’why’s it you’re leaving London?”

“It’s really complicated…I’ve an opportunity in the states.  It’s a study…about memory. Y’know, I’ve told you a bit about it….It’s all come up quite quickly….I need to leave soon…I’ve this visa, so…” She didn’t want to say. She was thinking about her sinking health, the coldness, the need for more experiences, the mental trauma of an artificial mind. To be shut away for years without anymore memories was an excruciating thought. That, and she needed to improve her health or she would suffer badly, or worse.

Emily hovered, out of concern and an unusual buildup of anxiety, as she blew gently across the surface of her coffee while waiting for her friend to get hers. Echo reached for the steaming paper cup which came wrapped in a corrugated brown paper sleeve and privately thanked the barista.

“I’ll be back,” she managed.

“When? Do you’ve a plan sorted? A timetable?”

EFI…! MIDDIE EARL…?!

 

“Yes…I’ve a plan…not long…maybe six months.” She took her change from the cashier, dropped the coins in the tip jar, and moved off the counter, and then both women, coffees in hand meandered over to the condiment station and waited while a man and a woman finished customizing their drinks. Emily waited wrapt for Echo to say more, “I just need to get out…of this…all this…this weather, d’you know…?  So cold and wet.” Echo’s sentences were irregular, and Emily sensed an uneasiness in her voice, and that she looked unusually sickly and somewhat nauseated such that it almost seemed as though the conversation exhausted her physically as she strained at words without images. Emily looked closely at her friend: her face had lately been pallor, and her eyes had lost their usual blue sparkle, had hints of circles beneath them, and her teeth were clenched behind closed lips not so much from the cold but from some other discomfort—something transcendent. Whatever her thoughts were, whatever it was, it obviously had a tight grip on her.

“You alright, then?”

“I’m fine…I’m fine…just a bit rough.”

She looked into her coffee, then closed her eyes and drew in its homeopathic aroma, anxious for caffeine and still searching for identity.

“I have to ask, Eck, so don’t flame me…you’ve not been feeling well for awhile now—you’re pale, you look like you’re going to retch…so then…are you pregnant?”

“God no.”

“Really…?” Emily wanted to be certain that her question was seriously taken, and it was her skeptical “really” that drew Echo’s undivided attention for the moment and provoked her to fix her eyes with certainty on Emily’s, and like a tennis match where the ball is struck predictably back and forth as the competitive rhythm builds, and then a little deeper and sharper, the ball travels with a distinct dispatch of aggression, till soon, not only have the player’s shots become more assertive, but their frustration toward one other builds as well.

“Of course, really.”

“I mean you’re either pregs, or bulimic.”

“I wouldn’t be drinking alcohol, or all this caffeine for starters…I am not pregnant, and I’m not bulimic either…I’m just under the weather is all.”

She looked at Echo still more seriously, she’s sick, yes she looks sick. If she’s not pregnant then she’s had whateva it is she has for months…maybe she’s got depression…she hasn’t been all that close wiv anyone…a ghost…really hard to talk with…surprised she still wanted to meet up today.

 

With her calculations and intuitions completed, Emily backed off, “perhaps I’ll visit?”

“Yes,” said Echo manufacturing some vigor, “that would be great!” and then again, she looked into her coffee, smelled it—wondered if she’d remember. “I’m not running away…I have this opportunity…I’d like to go on holiday for a bit, some place warm.”

Emily grinned and gave a faint nod. She’s not making sense. She’s repeating herself.

VARIN…! REGULAR EARL…?!

 

The man and the woman finished, and so Emily and Echo stepped forward and dressed their drinks side by side. The condiment bar was messy and sticky from heavy use, with spilt sugar granules stuck like glitter to splatters of dried cream atop the black granite surface. Emily casually added milk and honey to hers, then blended it with a wooden stir stick, and glanced sideways at her friend to catch a glimpse, to detect something of Echo’s candid motions that might explain what was really going on. Then she saw it, as subtle yet as necessary as saffron: While Echo stirred milk and sugar into her coffee, half a tear filled each lower lid to the brim, and before they spilled over and down her cheeks, she quickly blinked them away with a few bats of her eyelids. The vessels in her eyes reddened and her lashes gathered into clumps which with two quick blots from the back of her hand were gone. More than anything that she had said, this telling gesture shifted Emily’s focus from common self-centeredness to empathy. She motioned to a vacated orange loveseat in the centre of the café, “let’s take the sofa,” as she led the way. Two weeks ago she was looking at a new flat in Chelsea.  Now she’s going to the States? They dropped their bags and sat down making themselves comfortable on the slightly stained velvet upholstery. Emily removed her toque and scarf and unzipped her jacket while Echo remained bundled.

ZILLA…! ONE LARGO-SIZED CARAMEL FRAPPE WIV CHOCO AND ONE MIDDIE CARAMAL CAP AND TWO APPLE JUICE…?!

 

What was there to say? For the moment, anything further would have been forced, so the two women just sat quietly together taking in their surroundings—taking separate mental journeys. Emily looked awkwardly around as if searching for someone in particular, something or someone to shove into her mind to suppress her anxiousness. Echo noticed her disquiet demeanor and wondered who she was looking for, what it was that she was trying to escape into or out of. Emily began to feel xenophobic, anxious, not one much for crowds of people. She recklessly reimagined the voyeuristic humanity filling the confines of her space, the chaotic denizens who were acting perfectly within themselves, yet to her were an all-out invasion.  She didn’t transition well from her online world into the real world.  In one she had control like a voodoo doctor supplanting emotions and relationships, she even had that in the museum, where the members and the staff were very predictable in that the former were ironic patrons and generally pseudo-evolved, and the latter were the exact opposite. It was the Internet that skewed her view of the planet, and spending an awkward moment in a place like Cheever’s didn’t help as she telemarked into paranoia, and studied the strangers in the café, the sea of supernumerary bodies that were engaged in their own anonymous activities, their own conversations, some all by themselves immersed in a computer or a portable music player, or a multimedia phone, or even an actual book. The faces were foreign, and though she had been coming here for years, suddenly it was as if it were haunted. And unhitched from Echo, how could she see herself coming here again?

RANI…! ONE LARGO-SIZED ENERGY AND ONE CARROT JUICE…?!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

Anyone who knew her could tell you that Emily wasn’t prone to fluster. She was as composed a person, as unflappable as they come. Once she attended two funerals on the same day, and even attended the potlucks for the families. Four years ago, she happened by the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street when in broad daylight a pale and sweaty business man in his middle thirties came running toward her—he had a frenzied forlorn look like a flushed stag, when suddenly part of the man’s neck exploded in a fountain of cochineal, and his eyes emptied as he fell to the sidewalk just ten yards in front of her. He was a bank analyst and was taken out by his lover’s husband. She looked down at the fallen man and then up at the shooter standing beyond, then rushed over to the victim’s side while everyone else scattered. With no further bones to pick, the assassin put the pistol into his pocket and walked right past the horrific scene, varying his gait to avoid the river of blood.  She caught his eye, and what she saw in his face was that the plot had turned on him—that at that instant he had transformed himself into the flushed stag, and so he departed with a sharp rhythmic tap which accelerated and diminished in syncopated intervals. The victim lay drowning, his voice box gurgling some broken language as if he had important instructions to give her, as if he were the one helping her. His white shirt vanished into the dark fabric of his suit as she loosed his tie and wrapped it round the amateur wound, then rolled him on his side in hopes of clearing an airway. She held his left hand—there was a ring, two victims, she thought, perhaps more. She wondered if they had any children.

MARILENA…! ONE MIDDIE HOUSE WIV ROOM…?!

 

For a moment, she had forgotten where she was and swiveled and jerked her head like a nervous starling tracking the many strangers’ movements.

BEATRICE…! ONE MIDDIE HOUSE WIV ROOM?!

 

ALICE…! ONE LARGO-SIZED HOUSE AND TWO APPLE…?!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

A hip hop hopeful sat in a tufted paisley wingback playing games and listening to music simultaneously on his mobile. He was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, large enough to cover the tips of his ears. He retained the manufacturer’s sticker, a silver hologram logo stuck to the top of the visor, the bottom of which was a light grey and had a dark circular stain worn in from repeated gripping, and repositioning.

Jing, Jing!

 

SUSAN…! ONE MIDDIE HOUSE WIV ROOM…?!

 

An older man dressed in a navy peacoat with thick hair and a swarthy complexion made laps round the cafe, showing anyone who would give attention a small photograph that he had taken of the new Prime Minister. The man was blessed with a bombastic vexing baritone that he wielded as he approached complete strangers… “Do you know who this man is? Is he a publican…? Ah, you recognize him! Yes, that’s right, I took this photo and do you know what…? The Mirror has offered me ten thousand Pounds for it. They want to use it for a magazine cover.”  Up close, his hair had a buildup of oil so much so that it most certainly waterproofed his scalp. “I told them…” and at this point the man would lean in as what he was about to say was meant to be the real proof of the legitimacy of his claim, “…I told them, I will send you the original after I receive a certified draft for ten thousand Pounds.” And then focusing his audience once more on the picture print, “Isn’t that a great smile? I said to him, ‘Sir, how about a smile for the commoners?’ And look! He did! What a great smile…and when I showed it to one of his staff last week, do you know what they told me? They said that if they could use this picture, the Prime Minister would make me the Ambassador of Chile. Did you hear that? I have been offered the Ambassadorship to Chile!”

The story was repeated verbatim, in two or three person intervals throughout the café, and Emily and Echo politely sat through the story as well.

Jing, Jing!

 

ARCHER…! ONE LARGO-SIZED JAVA AND NUTMEG LATTE…?!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

An attractive slender woman—tall—walked into the sudden silence left behind by a group of three men who instantaneously let go of their heated conversation in their best attempt at horn-dog subtlety. Like a trio of synchronized puppies eyeing a bone, the men stared single-mindedly and completely unabashed and fully disconnected from one another.

Jing! Jing!

 

Jing! Jing!

 

KAJORI…! ONE MIDDIE HOUSE DECAFF WIV ROOM, AND ONE MIDDIE BENGAL BLEND…?!

 

There was a stocky young man—somewhat athletic, short, cocky, balding, expensive nonprescription glasses on his forehead. He was the type whose workout regimen consisted only of bench presses and bicep curls, claimed ownership of three fledgling “can’t miss” business ventures, and had the latest Japanese mobile, not yet available in the UK and costing him a small fortune. He was dressed in a black leather car coat which was a bit too long in the sleeves as they caught his palms whenever his arms fell to his sides, which presented him with a struggle each time he attempted to display his large wristwatch, as he kept checking to see what it said. He wore pleated and chalk-striped charcoal trousers and black dress shoes with squared off toes. He was frumpy, though he had passable taste which unfortunately belonged to someone else. He didn’t seem to know his actual size.  The slacks were cuffed and had such a break to them that they broke several times in a pile atop his shoes. He was on his mobile while waiting on line, a human cliché—for he was one of those self-centered blokes who talked on the phone loudly for all to hear. With his free hand he attempted over and over again to jerk the watch out from under the generous lambskin sleeve while fully extending the elbow of his other hand (the one with the Swiss Army knife version of a mobile) out perpendicular to his body and level with his shoulder so as to exaggerate his size like a male peacock does with its colorful plumage. He looked like a garden sprinkler head when he torqued and turned his torso to catch any gazes that his antics might attract, no matter the sex, no matter the reason, because underneath this macho jet setting ensemble was a young man who was unsure of the interpretation of his many private man-crushes.

Jing, Jing!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

DANAYUS…! LARGO-SIZED JAVA AND NUTMEG LATTE…?!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

PHILIP…! LARGO-SIZED CHOCO-LATTE…?!

 

She felt emptiness sitting beside Echo, a woman without a tactile clan or sisterhood, and with that thought, anxiety crept back into her head. The small world wasn’t so small when matched against the physicality of friendship, and she clearly felt part lovesick and part homesick. She began to realize that Echo was what made Cheever’s all the things that it was beyond delicious coffee, and that without her it would become the isolation which she so often resoundingly represented, that she subscribed to. How could she be so callus to adhere to the new social order of indifference? When had she lost the true value of real friendships, real bonds?  Where had her friendliness gone? She no longer talked in lifts anymore, the tube was a lonely place, and unlike so many things in this posthuman world, she couldn’t manage dispensing with Echo out of hand or disregarding her behind pseudo-introspective accoutrements like a pair of shades or ear buds or designer canines, plastic surgeries, a private car, the Internet—where had the sympathetic hostess who hugged so many in comfort of loss gone? Where had the woman who pressed a bare hand against a bleeding man’s throat, disappeared to?

“I’ll miss you…” Emily said, homing herself.

Echo teetered on the edge of confessional, for what she was holding back was significant, yet still she didn’t cave.

What is it? Emily obsessed inwardly. Is it me? She looked down at her cup which she palmed with both hands. Then she lifted it up, hesitated, and then looked compassionately into her friend’s eyes. Like a mirror Echo returned the look with immediacy.

“…I’ll miss our silly coffees.”

“Here’s to silly coffees!” Echo mustered a mock toast, “Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

She knew that leaving Emily—leaving London—was inevitable. Any way she looked at it, it couldn’t be helped, but at the same time, it wasn’t a situation which she could explain—nor was she willing to.

“So how are the websites?”

“They’re good…they’ve gotten me so busy! I’m up all night. Without them, I’d either have to move, or quit the museum. Loads of people have come across my channels and watched in. Do you know that I have like a quarter million people that think that I’m best mates with them…as in real life?”

“That’s how we became mates…”

“Which is very, very unusual. Most of the people fall into one of two categories: they eitha subscribe to my sites so that they can promote theirs and get me to be one of their subscribers…or they really, really think that they’re creating a personal friendship with me, like that’s how they go about making friends! It’s really weird. Do you know how many people spend the majority of their time on the Internet with people that they have neva, eva met compared with spending time with their real mates in real life?  Tons of them!  It’s so odd.”

“I’ll never understand how you can become ‘BFF’ with someone whom you’ve never met. I suppose it’s cool and all that you can have discussions with people from all over the world, but what about learning to be with someone? Spend time with them in three dimensions?”

“Exactly!”

VICKY…! ONE LARGO GREEN…?!

“At the same time, I have probably hundreds of people that hate me.”

“Hate you?”

“Yeah, and they’ve neva fucking met me! It’s called ‘Hate Watching.’ They watch your videos, or read your blog or whateva so that they can basically hate you. There are whole websites devoted to the obsession of hating someone by watching their every move.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I get flamed every day by somebody.” Emily shrugged her shoulders, “That’s the Net for ya.”

They both smiled. Emily was the first to look away. They both drank. She hoped Echo would tell her more, but the conversation drifted and soon they were caught up in a variety of small talk and first-rate people watching.

Two men in handsome overcoats were standing outside. You could see them through the paned-glass door and shop front window. No hats but gloves, scarves and more than likely cashmere for the generous coats. They were talking and occasionally they laughed, their breaths freezing in the air like two Spanish bulls waiting for the moment of truth. It was going to snow at any moment, and it was a wonder when you looked into the sky how it was that it hadn’t begun falling yet.

Jing, Jing!

 

One of the men went in while the other remained outside to take a call on his mobile. The man unbuttoned his coat and queued up behind an overdone, extremely orange middle-aged woman who chauffeured a contemptuous sweater-clad Yorkie which was reclined in an air of entitlement atop the inside bend of her elbow and licking the hot pink varnish from the woman’s nails. Her clothing was spectacular, starting with tight black stirrup pants which were tucked into trendy calf-length shearling moccasins and trussed the full length with suede twine much like a butcher cinches up a tenderloin. The culmination was an extremely risky diamond-stitched goose down anorak with a gold and black faux leopard print (gold elastic belt, included). Accessorizing the ensemble were a gold vinyl backpack purse, a pair of turquoise horned rim glasses, and long pinkish-blonde hair covered by a faux tiger print kerchief. She loudly and with an unmistakable smoker’s gravel over-dramatised her special beverage requirements:

“Could-ja give us an Indonesian blend Latte—a small one? Yea, but here it is: don’t give us any milk, right?” she said, sounding more like a flower girl than anything.  “Instead, be a good little bint and steam up some soy in there, right darling..?”

The barista yawned with her eyes, and everyone on line slumped and looked round not only to see if anyone else besides them was getting a good look at this spectacle, but to see about the possibility of another queue, which there wasn’t.

The perfume was stiff—she and the dog were both wearing the same scent. What Echo and Emily had been witnessing was the arrival of one god-awful creation whom they affectionately dubbed, “Dame Edna’s Lovechild.” This was an absolute prize diversion from an otherwise emotionally draining farewell.

“…and give us an ice cube—s’always makes um too hot for little Jacinda here, right my tidy little toy-toy?”

Mmrap-mmrap! The dog agreed.

ELIZABETH…!  ONE LARGO EARL WIV ROOM…?!

 

Echo and Emily snickered with very little restraint, for their emotions were raw and the irony was much too rich to take a pass. At this point they had little interest in self control.

“Just one cube, though. It’s brass monkeys out there. I want it warm, not cold ja’know. Oh and tell us there duck: do you still have those lemon bar samples like you use to? We’ll take two if you’re not bog all out.” For everyone’s sake, the barista immediately filled the woman’s order, and so with that, a coupon, and a debit card, she was gone.

Jing, Jing!

 

When the sideshow ended and the perfume dissipated, the well-dressed man who was next on line order two teas. He paid, then tipped for himself, his associate, and the overdone cougar. He walked back toward the door stopping briefly to rebuttoned his coat, then he went outside and waited with the other man who was still on his phone call.

Jing, Jing!

 

In came a vagrant carrying an old newspaper and everyone stared covertly as he made his way to the back of the cafe. He came in to escape the cold weather, to warm up for a few minutes and to use the toilet. He didn’t even bother trying to blend in, though if nothing else his strong body odor would have given him away should he have even tried, and so he knew from past experience to keep moving.

GATES…! TWO LARGO EARLS WIV ROOM…?!

 

Jing, Jing!

 

The well-dressed man came back inside to pick up his order. He spotted his name on two steaming cups resting on the pickup counter next to a few others, and took them and walked over to the condiment bar and put some milk in each cup and then left again.

Jing, Jing!

 

Outside the second man had just finished his call when the first man handed him a cup. They looked to be in their forties with nice hair, clean shaven, very nice suits, and shoes—top drawer all around. They lingered for a minute or so, chars smoking, breath blowing clouds into the tight air, then they walked south in the direction of Borough Tube Station.

And so it was time for the two women to leave as well.  After they had finished most of their coffees they got up and went out the door and stood on the sidewalk in the same spot where the two men had just been standing. The city buzzed.  The traffic crept along, headlights burning in the dim daylight, ever creating ephemeral plumes of sooty winter fog that were it not the present, surely Victorian. Echo shivered. They drank a brief communion together, and then they hugged, and kissed their goodbyes.

“When do you leave?” asked Emily.

Echo had dreaded this. She looked at Emily—arms crossed to stay warm—then looked down shamefully, and rocked her body slowly back and forth in a spontaneous display of emotional discomfort. Emily read the body language as Echo looked back up at her.

“Tomorrow.”

She broke her bead on Emily and looked awkwardly out into the street at nothing in particular, trying to shake the guilt and the sadness and the frustration that was welling up once again inside her.  Emily stood waist deep in disbelief.

Tomorrow?

 

She felt an undertow. Her face went numb. A second ago, this had been one of many coffee klatches still to come. Now it was the last. She tried to think about what tomorrow would be like and the day after that and so on. The waves kept coming, pounding her over and over, and she momentarily lost her footing—she was miles from shore and drifting up to her neck in briny water.

“Tomorrow..? Morning or evening?” the inquiry came part brutal and part dejected.

Echo shook her head.

Emily was very close to losing it, was fighting back her own nausea but held fast, which was her signature panache that every adversity that she faced, whether mental or physical, remained buried deep inside of her. She moved her windblown hair out of her face and mouth and put back on her toque, then looked out at the traffic and the mass of people, the two women again engaged in solitary thoughts.  Then she panned up at the buildings that appeared to be leaning inward against the backdrop of cold and heavy achromatic clouds. But the city gave no advice.  In her bout of hesitation, she tried to resolve one thought, to land on one thing that made sense, that would be brilliant and mature. It was her turn to say something, and again she looked at the buildings, then once more at the traffic. She had nothing except secrets.

Finally looking back at her friend and managing a gracious smile she said, “Well I’m glad that we were able to get together today. It was the right thing, Eck….was choice to meet here…in person, rather than the mobile or email or text or something, d’know?”

Echo nodded freezing and lethargic….

“Cheever’s was the first place we ever went to together, when we skipped work, remember?”

Echo nodded again. She would take whatever Emily would give her no matter the tone, no matter how trivial. Emily searched with a pained squint, looking one more time for that familiar sparkle in Echo’s eyes, but all she saw was a weary eyebrow flex, and so resigned to conclusion, she embraced her—and with a hug to the side of Echo’s face whispered in her ear. They kissed and then unhinged from each other’s space.

“Bye Eck….” Then, she looked at her watch, “all the best…good luck.”

Again she looked at her watch, planning her exit, and with nothing more to say, and her nose beginning to run, she sniffed. She felt a slight panic build from the flood of pumped blood, and she snorted to mask her hyperventilation. She looked toward her appointment, and then back.

“I better go…I’m going to be late…” She wanted to say more, she wanted to offer more.  “…Good luck Echo…I mean it, girl….” But she couldn’t conjure anything that truly meant goodbye. “…Keep in touch!”

“Bye, Em.”

Emily grabbed one more empty hug, another touch for her, another memory for Echo, and then she wheeled round and headed north toward the London Bridge Tube.

Echo watched her go in the silhouetted motion of a well composed posture, and then she called out again, “I love you, Em!”

Emily’s spirit flinched, but she did not stop, and as she bobbed along, she gracefully flung her scarf round her neck, purse floating at her side and gradually disappeared into the foreshortened crowd, and with her mascara running down her cheeks, she started running like an doe in spring.

A small card lay on the sidewalk directly in front of Echo’s feet.

It began to snow.