A Table for One, Please

Ruth preferred the small table beside the window at Café Vesper, but she was willing to negotiate.

On Saturday morning it was occupied by a man writing something on a laptop with the expression of a person who believed the building had been constructed for that purpose. She took the table near the newspaper rack instead. The light was good, and nobody walking past would be able to read over her shoulder.

There were advantages everywhere, if you looked before complaining.

Her coffee arrived on its usual small tray with a glass of water. She put the water on the left, moved the spoon and opened the paper.

Outside, the snow had begun to loosen at the edges. A delivery van splashed through a shallow puddle. Someone in the café was carefully unwinding a scarf that appeared to have no end.

Ruth had nothing particular to do until she decided to do it. She had been looking forward to the morning all week.

“May I?”

Lena stood beside the empty chair, holding a cup in both hands.

“Of course.”

“Only for a minute.”

“Then you won't need that much coffee.”

Lena sat and smiled. She had a faint line of paste on one sleeve and a paper cut covered with a small plaster. Ruth knew the signs of someone who had gone downstairs to do one little thing in her workshop and discovered, some time later, that it was nearly lunch.

“Working?”

“A bit.”

“How much is a bit?”

“More than I meant.”

Ruth folded the paper. She didn't tell Lena to stop working. People generally knew when they were working too much; being informed by somebody drinking coffee rarely helped.

They talked about a shop window farther along the street, where somebody had arranged a collection of teapots on a ladder. One teapot was so near the edge that Ruth had altered her walking route to avoid looking at it.

“You could tell them,” Lena said.

“Then I would become involved.”

“You're already involved.”

“Privately. It's much less demanding.”

Lena laughed, and her shoulders settled a little.

After a while she said, “What are you taking tonight?”

“Nothing. I'm staying at home.”

“Oh. Is everything all right?”

Ruth looked at her over the rim of her cup.

“Very.”

“I only meant—”

“I know what you meant.” She put the cup down. “I liked the last two Saturdays enormously. Tonight I want to eat something small and finish my book.”

Lena glanced towards the newspaper as though it might contain further instructions.

“You could do that tomorrow.”

“I could. But I'm rather keen on doing it today.”

There was no sharpness in the answer, though Ruth heard the beginning of some in herself and set it aside. Lena was being kind. Kindness occasionally needed redirecting; it didn't need punishing.

“Have you told Marta?” Lena asked.

“I sent a message.”

“What did you say?”

Ruth took out her phone and looked.

“Can't come tonight.”

Lena waited.

“That's all?”

“It seemed to cover the situation.”

Her phone lit in her hand. Marta's name appeared above a question about whether she needed anything from the shops.

Ruth looked at the message, then at Lena.

“Ah.”

She could see how it might have happened. A short sentence, no explanation, an unexpected absence. She disliked being treated as fragile, but she had handed Marta a message that looked rather as though it had been sent from beneath a blanket with a thermometer nearby.

“I'll ring her,” she said.

Outside the café she stood beneath the awning, letting a woman with a shopping bag pass before making the call. Marta answered almost immediately.

“I'm perfectly well,” Ruth began.

“Good. Lena didn't know—”

“Lena is with me. I'm having coffee. Tonight I'm staying in with a book, and I wanted you to know before you cooked enough for everybody.”

There was a small pause.

“That's all?” Marta asked.

“That's all.”

“Oh.”

“I would very much like to come next Saturday, if you'll still have me.”

Marta laughed. “I'll consider it.”

“Good. Now go and do something other than worry about my dinner.”

“What are you having?”

Ruth looked through the window at Lena, who was watching the man with the laptop attempt to fit his charger into a socket behind a large plant.

“I haven't decided.”

“There's soup—”

“Marta.”

“Yes. All right.”

When Ruth returned to the table, her coffee was still warm.

“Sorted?” Lena asked.

“I was insufficiently charming by text.”

“It happens.”

“Apparently I need punctuation with a friendlier face.”

They stayed until Lena's cup was empty. At the door, Ruth asked if she would like coffee again the following week.

“Saturday?”

“Perhaps. Or a day that suits us. We can be quite radical.”

Lena said she would like that.

Ruth walked home by the longer street, avoiding the teapot. In her kitchen she found two small potatoes, an onion and the last of a good cheese. She put them on the counter and considered the available pans. A small supper in the oven would do nicely. There would be very little washing-up, and no need to put anything into a serving dish unless she felt like it.

By dusk the windows were dark. She drew the curtains, turned on the reading lamp and changed into soft trousers. Her book was waiting on the arm of the chair with a bookmark at the place where, the previous evening, someone had knocked at the door just as the conversation on the page had become interesting.

She had not quite forgiven whoever it was.

While her supper cooked, she put on a recording she had listened to for years. The opening bars were enough to bring back a train journey, an old pair of red gloves and a conversation she could no longer remember properly. She smiled at the gloves. They had been lovely and entirely impractical.

She ate at the small table with a cloth placemat and the blue plate she liked. The potatoes were good. She had made slightly too much, which pleased her; tomorrow's lunch had arranged itself.

Her phone chimed. A photograph from Marta: four bowls, Emil holding the bread knife at an unfortunate angle and a corner of Lena's sleeve.

*Your absence has been noted. Your place is available next week.*

Ruth sent back a picture of her book and the empty plate.

*Excellent evening here too.*

Then she put the phone on the sideboard, reached for her glasses and went back to the interrupted conversation.