Tea and Toast
from the glorious world of
George Bernard Adley.
You should understand, dear reader, that when Lily comes sailing into my print shop with the words "Georgie, we need to talk," you may stake your last shilling on the fact that this is not a matter of idle chit-chat. And don't imagine for one moment she'll tell you what this pressing matter actually is. No, first we are to proceed to Antonio's Roastery for coffee.
It's actually Eddie Thomas's establishment, and where the fellow acquired the name Antonio is a mystery known only to himself.
I made my case that I hadn't a farthing to my name, but Lily took me by the ear and hauled me, very nearly over the desk, straight out of the office. The coffee, mercifully, was to be on her.
Once installed, it was I alone doing the drinking of coffee. Lily, in recent years, has developed an alarming devotion to milkshakes.
"Georgie," she began, launching into her tale, "I am worried."
"Worried?"
"Worried," she confirmed, with a nod of the old bean.
And with that particular furrow upon the dear lady's brow, I could tell the worry in question ran deep.
"If this is about my wanting to name my cat Antonín Dvořák, then..."
"Georgie, I shall never understand you," she cut in. "Your business is genuinely in the soup, and you imagine I care two figs what you call your cat."
"And how, pray, do you know my business is in the soup?"
"Carol's been telephoning me. She says you're behind on the soap she delivered to you last week."
"But I never ordered the wretched stuff! She simply delivers as the fancy takes her."
"Isn't it a monthly arrangement?"
"Yes, I order it every month. But if I haven't ordered it, what on earth makes her think she can simply deliver it regardless?"
"She probably assumed you'd forgotten to order."
"My dear, that's her lookout, not mine."
"Seriously, Georgie, what is going on there?"
"Slight cash-flow difficulties. Nothing I shan't have well in hand presently."
"Yes, and haven't I heard that particular tune before. I know precisely how you go about getting things 'in hand.'"
"Well, what do you propose?" I asked, already aware that Lily would never have dragged me out here unless some scheme were already brewing beneath that fringe of hers.
"This very coffee shop," she said, with a smile so broad you'd have thought she'd just won the national baking contest.
"What about this very coffee shop?"
"We buy it!" She flung her hands skyward, positively radiant with excitement. "Or rather, we take it over."
"Have you gone entirely off your trolley? What do I know about coffee? And what on earth makes you think Eddie, lurking there behind his till, wants to give the place up?"
"He told me so," she said, looking thoroughly pleased with herself. "It's true. He's been taking evening courses to become a programmer. Something to do with computers. The man's making a career change."
It was at this precise juncture that I found myself in need of something considerably stronger than coffee. And it was at this very same juncture that a young man slunk in, clad in black denim and a Metallica T-shirt. With silver about his neck and dangling from each ear, and a tattoo of a hideous looking serpent coiled across his left hand, the fellow gave every impression of being under the influence of something that had rendered him remarkably tranquil.
"That's Jones," Lily whispered to me. "Our town's resident programmer. Though it's rather odd seeing him out in broad daylight. Like certain nocturnal species, he generally only emerges after dark."
"Perhaps he's come to give Eddie a programming lesson," I whispered back.
To cut a long story short, both Lily and I had entirely missed the mark.
To our considerable astonishment, it was Eddie giving Jones lessons, on the roasting of coffee, and all the attendant ceremony thereof.
"Now that," I observed, "is interesting."
"What is?"
"Here we have a coffee expert who dreams of bettering himself in life. So he labours away after hours, studying to become a programmer. And at the very same time, you have a programmer who dreams, day in and day out, of becoming a barista. It does rather seem the grass is forever greener on the other side of the fence."
Lily sighed. "All I see is that our plans have been thoroughly run over."
And it was at precisely that moment that my phone gave its small, insistent beep.
"Lily, old thing, I've a new order in. And not a small one either, mind you! I must dash."
Being the gentleman I am, I apologised profusely with a sparkle in my eye, and made my exit at speed. A man, after all, has work to be getting on with. And what with this new commission just landed in my lap, the grass on my own side of the fence had suddenly acquired a rather encouraging shade of green as well.