Tues 24 Jan
Late morning in the back-up café. I took my seat, Table 15, nearest to the counter, and studied my latest Sainsbury’s receipt. I’m now on 423 Nectar Points. The possibilities are endless. Maybe I could run away somewhere with those points and just start again?
Behind the counter, Mr Muscles, the new young barista, is overdoing the ‘darling’ today. Best case scenario, maybe he’s got Tourettes. I think some of the women, the older ones mainly, don’t mind it, but the younger ones don’t appear impressed. I suspect there is some bemusement that it’s someone of their own generation delivering the ‘darling’. Muscles is doing it all the time, like some market trader.
“How’s your mum, darling? I’m so used to doing two cappuccinos. When’s she out of hospital, darling? You have a lovely day, darling.”
As usual, he’s in a very tight t-shirt. Muscular men, all-year round, will always go with the tight t-shirt. The bar is right by the door. Every time that door opens, he’s surely going to feel a cold blast of air on those exposed biceps. But it’s all about showing off those muscles.
Muscles tells one of the kitchen staff, a disinterested woman clad in purple, Italian, that he’s got to leave early today to pick up his girlfriend’s kid from childcare. He carries over some boxes to the back of the café for her, another opportunity to showcase his always visible biceps. He squats before he lifts the boxes. There’s no audible knee clicking. Oh to be young again, I tell myself, before trying to focus on tweaking tonight’s short set at a gig in Southwark. This particular set is, these days, a natural 10-12 minute set. Trying to quash it back into a 5 requires all manner of editing and timing.
I’m hearing that the temperamental Double Denim may not be returning. I thought he was part owner of this place, but I may have that wrong. It looks like something has happened behind the scenes. I’m hoping it’s simply a case of him being a little melodramatic and feeling like his worth isn’t being recognised. Maybe he’s playing a little hard to get in whatever negotiations may be going on. I’m a fairly good reader of people and I suspect DD just needs to be shown a bit more love before he gathers up those toys hurled from the pram and returns again. He took a while to get used to, but I hope he returns. The place needs him.
It reminds me a little of one of my earliest memories, one that predates school. My old Stockwell nursery was run by a woman called Doreen who all the kids worshipped. I still remember her face. She had a bouffantish short black hairstyle, a natural quiff, and a mole just above what always seemed to be very pink lips. One day I remember, she just walked off after what appeared to be some tense disagreement with her assistant, a woman called Margaret, whose two boys, one of whom was called Darren, also attended the nursery. Margaret lived right next door to the nursey and in whatever time remained for me at the nursery, she would be running it. But seemingly every day, all us kids ever seemed to talk about was whether Doreen was coming back.
She never did.
Will Double Denim be the modern-day Doreen?
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