Stuart Larner
Sitting at a table in the café under the escalator, he thumbs through the morning paper. Behind him, in the main body of the café, he hears the hiss and roar of the coffee machine.
The coffee smell permeates the entire small shopping centre, connecting all who will meet this morning through this perfumed medium. Hardly perfume. It is a strong, leaning-forward of the air against his mind, coaxing an expectation.
There is a distant clink of cups and clatter of spoons from the counter as another tray is laid out. He turns to see who the customer is, but it is not her.
He looks at his watch. He has read somewhere that those who come early to a meeting are generally those that have something important to say, and that those who come late generally do not want to hear it.
He checks himself from being unduly paranoid about her absence. There is no guarantee that his apology the other night would have got through.
He takes a long time drinking the coffee, but at last his cup is empty. With a sigh of resignation, he picks up his heavy bag from the chair opposite him, the place that he had been saving. He walks over to the escalator. As he ascends, he surveys the whole centre. There is some quick movement in the crowd down the entrance slope below. A woman is rushing towards the coffee bar. It is her.
He wants to run down the escalator to her, but it has carried him too far up. By the time he reaches the top, he can no longer see her. He rushes through the crowds along the upper mall, dodging the pushchairs, and takes the escalator back down. He is stuck behind a couple standing side by side blocking a step, but he leaps past them at the bottom to hurry across to the café. He catches up with her breathlessly as she reaches the counter.
‘You’re late – as usual,’ she says.