Ms. Trebold opened her book at the bookmark and smoothed the fold at Chapter Twelve. She began to read: Geraldine woke… and paused to test the steel tea pot with the backs of long fingers. Dissatisfied, she returned to the counter with the teapot and tray.

‘It’s not hot.’

‘O,’ the young girl said. ‘Sorry about that. The machine’s been playing up— let me get you a new one.’

Ms. Trebold returned to her table and sat looking at the square of caramel shortbread waiting to be eaten and washed down with tea.

Quiet at the church café. Only the smoothing of Ms. Trebold’s mauve trousers, the footering about of the waitress and an overloud wall clock ticking away the long seconds. Background music, Ms. Trebold detected, turning up her hearing aid. Some ghastly piano; not to her liking. She lowered the volume until she could no longer hear it.

Then the drinks machine sputtered into life, startling her, noise from the steam, those empty walls and high stone ceilings.

A fresh pot of tea was brought to Ms. Trebold.

‘There you go, sorry about that.’

Ms. Trebold said nothing. She didn’t touch the teapot, the steam twisting from its spout evidence that it was this time hot enough. Within the steel three Earl Grey tea bags swirled in the darkening water. She watched the waitress return to the counter, her tight black leggings. I was attractive once, Ms. Trebold decided.

After three minutes, Ms. Trebold poured the brew into her cup and added a little milk. Then she bit into the caramel shortbread, finding it oversweet. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and again smoothed out the pages of her book at the correct chapter.

Geraldine woke to the sound—

—The door to the church café barged open, sending a draught to Ms. Trebold and the pages of her book. Ms. Trebold sighed. In sauntered an old man with a long winter coat and fingerless gloves. The man looked furtively toward the counter but the girl was busy loading the dishwasher and didn’t notice him come in. He sat down at the table next to Ms. Trebold and said:

‘Good morning.’

Ms. Trebold glared at the man from over red spectacles. Then she made a point of scanning the vacant tables and chairs all around the café.

‘I’m John,’ John said. He took a battered Thermos from an inside pocket and drank the remains. ‘Mind if I fill ‘er up?’ he said, nodding toward her teapot.

Ms. Trebold again sighed. Then she topped up her cup with tea, moved the pot to John’s table and said, ‘Here, take it.’   

‘Thanking you,’ John said.

Ms. Trebold pretended to read. Then she watched from an eye corner as John produced a Scotch pie from somewhere deep within his coat. She began to read, Geraldine woke… but John ate noisily with wet smacking lips and all she could imagine was the pale grey meat rolling around in his mouth.

‘Lovely morning,’ John said, eating. ‘Cold, mind.’

John was a man who saved his best his for strangers because it was easier to impress on them an ideal of personality. Every new face a fresh start. He blamed his family for his current predicament: from birth they decided the man he’d become, never allowing him to grow beyond low expectations; beyond a reputation carved out for him. And in the twilight of his years, when he looked back on his life for purpose; something tangible to prove them all wrong, he was found wanting.

‘Good morning, John,’ the waitress said, walking over to him. ‘You know you can’t eat your own food here. You’ll need to buy something or you have to go.’

‘It’s all right, Fiona,’ John said, smiling. ‘I’m sharing tea with…?’

‘Geraldine,’ Ms. Trebold lied.

‘Ok, John. Finish up and get going, please,’ the waitress said.

‘Right after my tea.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise, darlin’.’

There was a time, John thought, when he could have had a girl like Fiona. He wondered if he could ever settle for someone like Ms. Trebold. He watched her nibble away at the shortbread, her cropped white hair and the rims of her spectacles flashing ruby in the light. John shook his head and took another bite of the cold pie.

Fiona watched the clock and wondered how to pass the time with the dishwasher running and the tables wiped clean and nothing to do but laugh at old John pestering the snooty woman with the book and purple trousers. She longed for another customer, for something to do, something to keep her mind busy. All morning she’d wrestled a feeling of dread. A man from her past had returned to darken her world.

On her phone, a text from her mother read:

Everything all right Fi? x

Fiona replied:

Ye mum x

And then the man came through the door.

Ms. Trebold was delighted when John finished his tea and stood up to leave. He looked as though he was about to say something when again the door opened and in walked a man with something in his hand. Ms. Trebold thought, Is that a gun? and her head followed him to the counter. She decided, Of course, it’s not a gun! and then the man pointed the weapon at Fiona and fired.

Fiona crumpled behind the counter as thought hit by a heavy object dropped from the sky.

The shot rang in Ms. Trebold ears, she tore out her hearing aid and threw it to the floor where John lay with his hands covering his head.

The man strode over to John, lowered the gun and fired one-two-three shots.

Ms. Trebold, her hands over her ears, stared at the half-eaten pie on the table John vacated. Sun lit smoke hung in the air. A smell of rotten eggs that Ms. Trebold would forever associate with the man named John who had stolen her tea.

The man stood over her, brought the gun to her head.

She was no longer scared: If death comes, I welcome it- for years she would remember thinking.

The man mumbled something and left Ms. Trebold alone in the church café.

Much later she would tell police he said: ‘You remind me of my mother.’

She did not tell the police that she had finished her tea and her caramel shortbread before picking up the green receiver of the church café telephone to dial 999.

For once, some peace and quiet! she thought.

Geraldine woke to the sound of thunder…

November 2020