The Woman In The Cafe (Re Edit)
by
Mark James
The woman stared at me from her seat in the café window. She clutched a cup of steaming coffee in pale gloved hands. Her hat, looking like a relic from the twenties, framed her bob of dark hair. Her eyes were a mesmerising shade of violet purple; all the more startling in contrast to her pale milk complexion and the gash of red on her lips. She wore a buttoned up blouse with a small brooch at the neck which moved gently to the rhythm of her sips and gentle respirations. Sitting motionless, cup raised, she stared outside, her head slightly tilted.
I lifted my paper and averted my gaze to watch a young man standing across the road. He was wearing a light grey suit and had a cashmere coat draped over his arm. He appeared to be waiting, and stared across at the window where the woman was sitting.
A red bus cut across his stare, but when it moved on he had gone. At the same instant, the woman turned her head to fixate on her coffee, which she sipped with vigour. She placed the cup softly on its saucer and called the waitress to request the bill. She lifted her drawstring bag and produced a small clasp purse. As the waitress approached her, I also mimed a request for the bill. The waitress' cheap perfume engulfed me in her slipstream. She smiled, and I nodded a polite acknowledgement to the woman at the window. The waitress did not respond. I reached for my wallet and placed the required change in the tray, leaving the minimum tip. The woman at the window did not pause to wait for change, but in a hurry. A note well over the cost of her drink was tucked beneath the condiments. The waitress called after her on discovering this, but the woman was gone, a bell sounding as the door closed behind her.
I got up and donned my coat and hat. I had decided after a split second's thought to follow the woman, though I have no idea why, other than innate curiosity. I have never stalked a person in my life. The feeling was curious; strange and exciting.
As I pulled the wooden door, its bell chimed quaintly and the chintz in the window caught the breeze as it swung towards me. I looked to the right where the woman had turned, but she was gone.
The strange thing was that there were no turnings off the street and no shops were open. There was just open space. She did not appear to have entered the funeral parlour next door.
I turned to the left, but the street with its parade of shops stood empty in the morning light. I gazed through a succession of shop windows, but to no avail. The woman had disappeared. I crossed the street to the newsagent's to buy a paper. My interest in the news had been ignited by a glimpse of a broadsheet in the café.
The shop was dark inside. The proprietor appeared distracted as he handed me my change. I walked out into the brightening morning and waited at the stop for the bus to arrive and whisk me to the monotony of work in my little insurance office.
I thought no more of the morning's events, nor my impulsive behaviour. As I rode the 49 bus to Cricklewood I'd re-entered the routine of mediocrity and automation. Until later that afternoon on my lunch break...
I was sitting on the park bench, glanding through the paper, reading the obituaries of academics and the long faded famous who I had thought long dead anyway, when I came upon a small article describing a long unsolved murder that had been re-opened. I vaguely remembered the case. The husband of the victim had claimed his wife's life insurance after her death. She had apparently been stalked by an insurance salesman who had followed her from the local tea shop. It had since been discovered that he had amnesia and could not remember anything of the incident. He had walked bold as brass into a newsagent's, dripping with blood, to buy a paper. I laughed heartily at his stupidity, noting the dark brown dried stains on my shirt and the two policement rushing in my direction.
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