MEET ME AT THE STATION CAFE

The café at the train station had been open for almost a century and sometimes Mary Brown felt she had been working behind the counter for every one of those hundred years. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, Mary was there. And every winter she looked at the paintings of the Amalfi Coast, which hung on the café walls, and promised herself that when spring came she would be in that sunny, lemon-bright Italian paradise, sipping an espresso that someone else had made.

- by CJ Wray

It hadn’t happened. Yet. In the meantime, there were the café regulars to brighten her day. After the commuters had swarmed through, grabbing their takeaways for the train into London, a quieter, calmer crowd arrived. Mary would be ready for them. Before Gerry, the retired bank manager, had folded his umbrella and opened his newspaper, Mary had his cappuccino on the table. When June came in with her tartan shopping trolley, Mary was already making her mug of English breakfast tea. Mick and Jason, the builders, both liked a hot chocolate (orange-flavoured in the run-up to Christmas). As for Anne, she always had Earl Grey, in a proper cup and saucer. “Just like in the old days.”

Anne had been coming to the café for as long as Mary could remember. For at least as long as Mary had been there, which was almost 40 years. When Mary first worked at the café, cups and saucers were the norm. Now there were just two unbroken sets left, which Mary guarded fiercely. Only Anne was ever allowed to use them.

Though Mary knew everything about Gerry and June and Mick and Jason, and they knew pretty much everything about her, Anne remained a mystery. She would pass the time of day but she had never revealed any personal information. Mary didn’t know if Anne had a husband or children. She didn’t know whether she had always lived in their little town or if, like Mary, she longed to get away.

Sometimes, when she wasn’t busy, Mary would secretly watch Anne at her table. She had an elegance about her, both in manner and in dress. As she drank her tea, she would gaze out of the grubby café window towards the ticket barriers, as though she expected someone she knew to arrive at any moment. They never did.