Four The cafe

The rain is light, but steady since noon. Mist rises from the trees, from the roadways. She comes past the front window with its painted coffee cup, white with a green stripe around it and three steam trails coming up out of it in wavering lines, as if three clutching fingers have slid down the wet glass. The door is marked CAFE in peeling gold letters; she opens it and steps inside, shaking her umbrella. It's cream-coloured, as is her poplin raincoat. She throws back the hood.

He's in the last booth, beside the swing door to the kitchen, as he said he'd be. The walls are yellowed by smoke, the heavy booths are painted a dull brown, each with a metal hen's-claw hook for coats. Men sit in the booths, only men, in baggy jackets like worn blankets, no ties, jagged haircuts, their legs apart and feet in boots planted flat to the floorboards. Hands like stumps: those hands could rescue you or beat you to a pulp and they would look the same while doing either thing. Blunt instruments, and their eyes as well. There's a smell in the room, of rotting planks and spilled vinegar and sour wool trousers and old meat and one shower a week, of scrimping and cheating and resentment. She knows it's important to act as if she doesn't notice the smell.

He lifts a hand, and the other men look at her with suspicion and contempt as she hurries towards him, her heels clacking on the wood. She sits down across from him, smiles with relief: he's here. He's still here.

Judas Priest, he says, you might as well have worn mink.

What did I do? What's wrong?

Your coat.

It's just a coat. An ordinary raincoat, she says, faltering. What's wrong with it?

Christ, he says, look at yourself. Look around you. It's too clean.

I can't get it right for you, can I? she says. I won't ever get it right.

You do, he says. You know what you get right. But you don't think anything through.

You didn't tell me. I've never been down here before-to a place like this. And I can hardly rush out the door looking like a cleaning woman-have you thought of that?

If you just had a scarf or something. To cover your hair.

My hair, she says despairingly. What next? What's wrong with my hair?

It's too blonde. It stands out. Blondes are like white mice, you only find them in cages. They wouldn't last long in nature. They're too conspicuous.

You're not being kind.

I detest kindness, he says. I detest people who pride themselves on being kind. Snot-nosed nickel-and-dime do-gooders, doling out the kindness. They're contemptible.

I'm kind, she says, trying to smile. I'm kind to you, at any rate.

If I thought that's all it was-lukewarm milk-and-water kindness-I'd be gone. Midnight train, bat out of hell. I'd take my chances. I'm no charity case, I'm not looking for nooky handouts.

He's in a savage mood. She wonders why. She hasn't seen him for a week. Or it might be the rain.

Perhaps it isn't kindness then, she says. Perhaps it's selfishness. Perhaps I'm ruthlessly selfish.

I'd like that better, he says. I prefer you greedy. He stubs out his cigarette, reaches for another, thinks better of it. He's still smoking readymades, a luxury for him. He must be rationing them. She wonders if he's got enough money, but she can't ask.

I don't want you sitting across from me like this, you're too far away.

I know, she says. But there's nowhere else. It's too wet.

I'll find us a place. Somewhere out of the snow.

It isn't snowing.

But it will, he says. The north wind will blow.

And we shall have snow. And what will the robbers do then, poor things? At least she's made him grin, though it's more like a wince. Where have you been sleeping? she says.

Never mind. You don't need to know. That way, if they ever get hold of you and ask you any questions, you won't have to lie.

I'm not such a bad liar, she says, trying to smile.

Maybe not for an amateur, he says. But the professionals, they'd find you out, all right. They'd open you up like a package.

They're still looking for you? Haven't they given up?

Not yet. That's what I hear.

It's awful, isn't it, she says. It's all so awful. Still, we're lucky, aren't we?

Why are we lucky? He's back to his gloomy mood.

At least we're both here, at least we have…

The waiter is standing beside the booth. He has his shirt sleeves rolled up, a full-length apron soft with old dirt, strands of hair arranged across his scalp like oily ribbon. His fingers are like toes.

Coffee?

Yes please, she says. Black. No sugar.

She waits until the waiter leaves. Is it safe?

The coffee? You mean does it have germs? It shouldn't, it's been boiled for hours. He's sneering at her but she chooses not to understand him.

No, I mean, is it safe here.

He's a friend of a friend. Anyway I'm keeping an eye on the door-I could make it out the back way. There's an alley.

You didn't do it, did you, she says.

I've told you. I could have though, I was there. Anyway it doesn't matter, because I fill their bill just fine. They'd love to see me nailed to the wall. Me and my bad ideas.

You've got to get away, she says hopelessly. She thinks of the wordclasp, how outworn it is. Yet this is what she wants-to clasp him in her arms.

Not yet, he says. I shouldn't go yet. I shouldn't take trains, I shouldn't cross borders. Word has it that's where they're watching.

I worry about you, she says. I dream about it. I worry all the time.

Don't worry, darling, he says. You'll get thin, and then your lovely tits and ass will waste away to nothing. You'll be no good to anybody then.

She puts her hand up to her cheek as if he's slapped her. I wish you wouldn't talk like that.

I know you do, he says. Girls with coats like yours do have those wishes.