The kiosks are on the club's till system and every sale is logged, because the caterer is paid on them. Kiosk four on the east concourse is shuttered on non match nights. At twenty past eight the till logs a sale. One pie, one tea, paid in cash, the price from years ago. The warmer, which is off, is one pie down. The urn, which is off, has poured a cup. The shutter has not moved.
I am the catering manager at a football club and kiosk four is the one I stopped putting on the rota.
The kiosks.
Twelve round the concourses, tills on the club system, every sale logged with the time and the item and the tender, because the caterer is paid on the takings and the club is paid on the caterer. On non match nights the kiosks are shuttered and the tills are off.
At twenty past eight, kiosk four logs a sale.
The sale.
One pie, one tea. Cash. The price is wrong: it is the price a pie and a tea were at this ground a long time ago, a price I had to ask about, and the till, which does not have that price in it, takes it, and the cash drawer, in the morning, has the coins in it, the right coins for the old price, and the coins are old.
The warmer, which is off, has one fewer pie in it than I left. The urn, which is off and cold, has poured a cup, which I know because there is a cup in the bin under the counter, used, with a tea bag in it, and the shutter has not moved on the camera and the door to the kiosk is locked with my key.
Twenty past eight is half time of a half past seven kick off.
What has been checked.
The till, replaced. It logs the sale.
The kiosk, at twenty past eight, by me, inside it, in the dark, with the shutter down. At twenty past the till lit. The sale rang up, item by item, on the screen. The warmer door, beside me, opened, on its own, and a pie went out of it, not fell, went, the way a pie goes when a hand takes it with a paper bag, and the urn tap turned, and tea ran into a cup that was on the counter that I had not put there, and the cash drawer opened, and coins went into it, and the drawer shut, and on the other side of the shutter, on the concourse, somebody said, ta, love, and walked away, and I heard the walk, and I heard the pie being eaten.
Who.
Kiosk four's old staff are findable. A woman who ran it for twenty years told me. A regular, a man, every home match, at half time, kiosk four, one pie and one tea, same words, ta, love, same coins, counted out, and he had been, she said, the first customer at half time for twenty years because he left his seat before the whistle to beat the queue, and one match he had not come, and she had kept a pie back for him, and he had not come the next match either, and somebody had told her.
She said she had not kept a pie back after that because it seemed silly.
He is coming. Every night, at half time of a match that is not on, to a kiosk that is shut, for his pie and his tea, and he says ta, love, to nobody, and pays the old price, and it is taken.
What is done about it.
The sale is on the caterer's reconciliation every night as a cash sale at kiosk four at a price the system does not have, and the caterer has asked me who is selling pies at the old price out of a shut kiosk, and I have said nobody, and he has said then where is the money coming from, and I have said, a regular.
What I do.
I run the catering.
I keep a pie back. That is all. At close on a non match night I put one pie in the warmer at kiosk four, on its own, on the top shelf, where she used to keep his, and I leave a cup on the counter by the urn, and I leave the drawer with the float in it, because a till with no float cannot give change and he never needs change but a till should have a float.
The sale is still logged. The pie is still gone. But there is a thing now on the camera, on the concourse side of the shutter, that was not there before: at twenty past eight, before the till lights, something stands at the shutter. The camera shows the shutter, and a shadow on it, from the concourse lights, the shape of a man in a coat, standing, the way you stand at a kiosk that is not open yet, patient, and then the till lights and the shadow steps up to it, and after, when he goes, the shadow turns, at the end of the concourse, and lifts a hand, which is a thing a regular does to the woman in the kiosk, and there is nobody in the kiosk, and I have started leaving the light on in there, so there is something to wave at.