The cafe closes at five and the shutter comes down and the till is cashed. At ten past five the till rings. Cream tea for two, paid by card, a card number the bank says is not a card. The table by the window, which was wiped, has crumbs on it in the morning, and two cups with tea in them, and two chairs pushed back, and on one of the chairs a coat, a man's, an old one, which the staff hang on the hook by the door, and which is on the chair again the next morning.
I am the cafe manager at a garden centre, which means scones, and the window table is the best in the room, and it is taken.
The cafe.
A room off the plant area with windows onto the display gardens, twenty tables, a counter, a till, a shutter that comes down at five. The till is cashed at five and the tables are wiped and the chairs are put up and the floor is mopped and the staff go at half past.
At ten past five the till rings.
The sale.
Cream tea for two. Card. The card number on the receipt is a number the bank has said is not a card number, in the sense that it does not have the right number of digits, and the till has accepted it, and the money is in the takings, every day, the price of a cream tea for two, and the bank has it, and cannot say from where.
In the morning the window table is not as it was left. The chairs are down, two of them, pushed back from the table the way chairs are when people have got up from it. Crumbs on the cloth. Two cups, with tea in them, cold, and a plate with the paper from a butter portion on it, and a knife with cream on it, and jam. And on the back of one chair, a coat. A man's coat, tweed, old, worn at the cuffs, with a pair of gardening gloves in the pocket.
The staff hang the coat on the hook by the door, for lost property. In the morning it is on the chair.
What has been checked.
The till, replaced. It rings at ten past five.
The cafe, at ten past five, by me, behind the counter, with the shutter down and the lights off. The till lit. The sale went through. And at the window table the chairs came down, two, I heard them, and there was the sound of two people sitting, and the small sounds of a cream tea, which anybody who has run a cafe could tell you in their sleep, the knife on the plate, the cup on the saucer, the lid of the jam, and two voices, low, not words I could make out, the voices of two people who have been having tea together for so long that they do not need to say much, and a laugh, hers, and at twenty to six the chairs went back, and a coat went over one of them, and the voices went to the door, and I heard her say, have you got your coat, and him say, yes, and the door, which was locked, and nothing.
He had not got his coat. It was on the chair.
Who.
The cafe has had a window table since it opened and the staff who have been here longest remember the couple. Every Thursday. Cream tea for two. The same table, which they would wait for. He in the tweed coat, she with the laugh. For years. And then he had come on his own, a few Thursdays, and had sat at the window table with a cream tea for two, and had not eaten the second scone, and the staff had not charged him for it, and then he had not come.
He had forgotten his coat, one of the old staff said, the last time. She had said, have you got your coat, as they went, every week, because he always forgot it, and the last time she was not there to say it, and the coat had been on the chair, and they had hung it on the hook, and it had been on the hook for a year, and then it had gone, and they had thought somebody had taken it.
It had gone back on the chair. Where she could remind him.
What is done about it.
The cream tea for two rings every day and the card is not a card and the money is real and the bank has given up, and the area manager has asked me why my covers show two more a day than my footfall, and I have said, regulars.
What I do.
I run the cafe.
The coat was hung on the hook. That was right. That is where a forgotten coat goes. But a coat that is forgotten every day and comes back to the chair every night is not a forgotten coat, it is a reminder, and she has been giving it for years, and he has been going out of the door without it.
So I do what she did. At twenty to six, when the chairs go back and the voices go to the door, I say, from behind the counter, have you got your coat. Out loud. And there is a pause at the door, and his voice says, oh, and the footsteps come back to the table, and the coat goes off the chair, I see it lift, and the footsteps go back to the door, and her laugh, and the door.
The coat is not on the chair in the morning. It has not been since I started. The chairs are pushed back and the crumbs are there and the cups are cold and the till has rung, but the coat has gone, with him, out of the door, and I think about it more than I should, that a man could need reminding for years and all it took was somebody on the right side of the counter to say it.