If You Don't Know Me By Now

‘Sorry, darling, just trying to get you a life,’ he said, shrugging.

‘I have a life!’

‘A love life,’ he turned to serve a customer, leaving her completely irritated.

She didn’t need Emanuel’s broken concept of love. She didn’t need love at all. All the classic fairy stories told her everything she needed to know – the women who would cut their feet in desperation for a chance at a glass slipper and a better life, the abandoned children, the evil stepmothers. Okay, so Babs wasn’t quite in that territory, unless there was a story about ‘irritatingly sweet stepmother equivalents’, but no one talked about the characters’ dreams. No one thought, ‘Holy crap, that princess is going to have to give up her whole life to get dressed up, be presented to the people, pop out royal sprogs, and who the hell cares what she dreamed of doing before?’ Love trapped you. Kept you in one place. Hell, if her dad hadn’t become obsessed with her mum, they never would have lived in Doncaster. Maybe he’d have stayed in London, gone to college like he used to mention. He always wanted to be an accountant. But he met Daisy, and he chased her to Doncaster, and there he stayed, the local butcher for ever more.

Imogen always felt a little uncomfortable about how much her dad loved her mum, watching that unequal level of adoration. If love meant sacrificing every dream you ever worked for, and doing so without a second thought, she didn’t have time for love. Which was exactly what she told Emanuel when he brought the subject up again.

He looked at her with pity. ‘If you don’t have time for love, you don’t have time for life.’

Imogen rolled her eyes. ‘Go play a mentor in a rom-com, why don’t you?’ Then she disappeared to rearrange the stockroom for an hour, just so she didn’t have to listen to him any more.

*****

Imogen thought her little cousin had asked for her address to send her things: letters, birthday cards, care packages with her Auntie’s homemade baklava. Apparently that was naive. When she arrived back from work that afternoon, there was Demi, all blue-streaked hair and leather jacket, sitting on her front step looking miserable, with a rather alarmingly large holdall.

‘How long?’ she sighed, stepping over her to the front step.

‘Just a couple of days.’

They walked up the rickety narrow staircase, Imogen having to open the door and walk all the way through to the kitchen area at the end so that Demi could fit through the door and close it behind her.

‘You do realise this doesn’t actually qualify as a flat?’ Demi heaved her bag onto the bed and looked around.

‘You do realise you weren’t actually invited, and therefore don’t get to say shit,’ Imogen bristled. ‘Also, this is pretty spacious for London.’

Demi looked horrified, and Imogen nodded.

‘Anyway, we’re family,’ Demi shrugged. ‘Su casa es mi casa.’

‘That only works if I say it, Buster.’ Imogen clicked the kettle. ‘So do I need to call Thea so she won’t freak out?’

‘I called them from the train. Said they saw it coming. Plus I’m with family and they can’t get to me, so really they just have to wait ‘til I come home.’

Imogen rolled her eyes, but didn’t disagree.

Demi wrinkled her nose, still looking around. ‘No offence, but could we maybe go out and get a drink or something? This place is making me claustrophobic.’

‘Excuse me.’ Imogen turned the kettle off at the plug and grabbed her handbag. ‘I think you’ll find your presence is making this room claustrophobic. Which I would have mentioned. If you’d called. Running away from home every few weeks is stupid.’

‘I’m twenty-two. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for me to run away from home – I shouldn’t be living there as it is.’ Demi was making a fair point, but it was undercut by the way she crossed her arms and glared from underneath her heavy dark fringe.

Imogen knew better than to press this, and instead ferried her down the stairs and out to the Hope and Anchor, which Demi at least smiled at.

‘This is good,’ she nodded with approval, looking at the teal tiles along one side of the bar, and the framed picture of Winston Churchill, which someone had attached a fluffy moustache to.

When they were slumped opposite each other, and Imogen had had time to take in the scene, she wanted to laugh at how clearly related they were. Demi sat across from her – younger, prettier and more fiery with her blue highlights and nose piercing adding that little edge of rebellion, but they both wore jeans, band t-shirts (The Who and The Velvet Underground respectively), bright hoodies and leather jackets. Except she had a pint of cider and Demi had a Guinness.

‘Go on then,’ Imogen gestured with her pint. ‘Spill.’

Demi leaned forward, hands splayed to tell her story in that Greek way, all backstory and impressions, but she stopped, leaned back and sighed.

‘I’m just not as good a person as you are,’ she said, tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip. ‘You stayed at home until you were twenty-six. You paid the bills, cooked, looked after your dad, stayed in contact with the family. You never missed a birthday and you were studying and working two jobs!’ Demi shook her head. ‘I can’t seem to be there for either of them. They say I’m selfish, and they’re probably right.’

‘I did it because I had to, Dem. I had no choice. Your dad being sick, well, he’s better now, but your mum is always going to see him as ill. You know what she’s like. It’s almost a competition as to who can love him the most. I don’t blame you for not playing along.’

Demi shrugged. ‘That whole time he was sick they both pushed me away. He didn’t want me to see him weak; she didn’t want to sacrifice any time with him. But now he’s better and things are still … weird. They didn’t want me to leave, but they don’t really want me there, either.’

Imogen sighed. She didn’t really have any insight into her Auntie’s weird ways. But she knew what it was like to watch one parent dedicate themselves wholly to another and get forgotten in the process. How weird that it should happen to her cousin in such a similar way. A small, bitter part of her complained that at least Demi got to keep her dad around. She shook her head.

‘My dad couldn’t survive without me. That’s why I stayed,’ Imogen shrugged. ‘It doesn’t mean I wasn’t planning my big escape that whole time.’

Demi looked up hopefully. ‘Do you think you would have left if Babs hadn’t come along?’

Imogen thought about it. ‘Eventually. But I would have been in my forties and really resented him for it.’

‘You would have left before then, Saint Imogen,’ Demi laughed.

Imogen shrugged, honestly unsure. At the time it felt fated: Babs moving in, hitting her savings target, the promise of the job. It was like the stars had aligned … except that she should have know better than to believe in fairy tales.

‘If it hadn’t been now, it would have been three months from now when I woke up to Chico biting my face. Or over dinner listening to Babs giving me a life lesson on the importance of intimacy in lovemaking.’

Demi choked on her drink, and Imogen just nodded, grinning. As irritated as she was that her cousin had arrived uninvited, it was nice to have family. She hadn’t realised how lonely it had been without the bustling noise of all the cousins, and second-cousins, and third-cousins at their get-togethers.

‘Did you go to Kristina’s baby’s christening?’ she asked Demi, thinking of the hilarious invite she’d received where the child had been photoshopped into a variety of unlikely scenarios. One of them being on board the Death Star.

‘Yup, it looked like a dragon had vomited blue and gold everywhere.’

‘Oh, stop it.’

Demi raised an eyebrow and smirked around her pint. ‘The baby screamed blue murder, then shat in the font.’

Imogen pressed her lips together. ‘… Holy crap?’

Demi’s shoulders shook. ‘Cheap shot.’

‘But quick,’ Imogen grinned. ‘So, then what happened? The priest declared that the devil was inside little … ’

‘Frank.’

‘Excuse me?’ Imogen dribbled her drink down her chin. ‘What?’

‘The baby. He’s called Frank.’

‘Why?’

‘Who the fuck knows? But there was this big hoohaa about the priest refusing to christen him unless he had a Greek name –’

‘– yep, I remember those arguments.’

‘So when the baby shat in God’s magical paddling pool, it was of course because he didn’t have a strong Greek name.’ She put on a thick accent.

‘So what happened?’

‘They donated a hundred quid to the church and the baby’s middle name is Apollo.’

‘You’re shitting me?’ Imogen shook her head, grinning.

‘Nope, talk to Frank for that.’

The afternoon passed into evening, full of laughter and ridiculousness.

‘Please, come on! Big city! Lots of things to do!’ Demi cajoled. ‘There’s this band I love playing in Camden tonight. Let’s go?’

Imogen’s usual excuses – ‘I’m broke, I’m exhausted, I’m lonely’ – suddenly seemed flat and empty. She needed Demi to bring life, get her motivated, but Imogen wasn’t sure what she brought to the equation. She tried not to think about it.

‘Sure, why not?’

‘Good, I knew you were still fun really.’ Demi sipped the cocktail that she had convinced Keith to make, which was an alcoholic disaster, and winked.

Demi had always been one to make things happen, one who would turn up unannounced with train tickets to a random destination and a massive grin. More often than not, they ended up at a tiny station in the middle of a field and spent most of their time waiting for the return train. But occasionally they’d find a great pub, or a sweet lake, or hidden garden, and return feeling like something new had been discovered. She had life. The indefinable thing that Imogen had never been very good at. Demi knew about make-up and clothes. She knew how to walk into a room, how to start a conversation with a stranger. Whenever Imogen went out with Demi, she always came back with a raging hangover, five new Facebook friends and the numbers of people she didn’t remember in her phone. That didn’t happen when it was just her. You had it or you didn’t. She liked to think she had talents her younger cousin didn’t, but pulling a perfect pint or being able to excellently reference your essays suddenly didn’t seem very relevant any more. She was the sensible one, the hard worker, the serious face. The one who stopped Demi running away, and comforted her aunt, and made sure her dad ate vegetables. Yet when Demi turned up, she got to be fun. But the payoff never seemed to be worth it. It was like the universe knew she was an impostor.

When they crashed into her flat at three a.m., desperately gnawing on the kebabs they’d cradled close to their chests on every night bus home, Imogen knew that she should have seen it coming. The realisation hit her harder than that sixth shot of Jaegermeister.

‘I have to be at work in three hours,’ she yelped, then ran to the bathroom to throw up.

*****

‘All right, sunshine?’ That lilt, while soft, was still painful to hear. And she couldn’t wear her sunglasses inside the store.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked Declan, realising as soon as she said it that it sounded a bit rude. ‘I mean, you don’t normally sub full shifts.’

‘Agnes apparently has something resembling a friend, and that friend is in hospital. And we couldn’t contact Emanuel to switch,’ he shrugged, unlocking the front doors.

‘Probably off stalking some hipster girl who has no idea he exists,’ Imogen snorted, then winced.

‘And I guess you’re not going to be much use to me today, either.’ He raised an eyebrow and held open the door so she had to walk under his arm.

‘Give me a couple of large iced coffees and don’t make me talk to anyone for the first hour, and I’ll be just fine.’

‘Drink making and floor cleaning it is, sunshine,’ Declan chirruped. ‘Good night then, I assume?’

‘My cousin visited unexpectedly. She kind of brings the party, whether you want to attend or not.’

‘Kinda seems like you didn’t mind attending,’ Declan said lightly.

‘What makes you say that?’ Imogen chucked back the first shot of espresso with ice and thumped her chest. It hit her tender stomach and she paused, bracing herself for trouble. Nope, all clear.

‘Well, the combination of the lovebites on your neck and what I guess is a fella’s number on your hand.’ He smirked. ‘Shame it smudged; you could have had a real connection.’

‘Maybe we already had our connection and I disappeared into the night,’ she bit back, entirely too tired to be embarrassed and making it damn clear she was not about to be slut-shamed by some guy.

‘And leave your cousin to fend for herself? No way, not buying it.’ He shook his head and grinned.

‘You don’t know that about me.’

He shrugged. ‘Just a feeling. Intuition. Let me make you a drink to cure the hangover?’

Imogen raised her hands in defeat, and went to double-check her till before the day started. She focused on counting the money, breathing deeply and trying to ignore the pounding in her temples.

‘Here.’ A plastic cup was plonked before her on the desk, followed by a plate with a bacon roll. ‘Perfect balance of sugar, fat, salt, caffeine and hydration.’

She smiled up at him, shocked at how dangerously attractive he was when he was solving all her problems. ‘Thank you.’

‘Take five minutes and then come out and get on the bar. I’ll tell everyone you lost your voice so you can’t talk to them.’

‘Are they already banging on the windows?’

‘Yep.’ Declan grimaced. ‘One of them started yelling “Open this door, I can see you in there, you know!” I was tempted to reply, “Yeah, but you clearly can’t see the sign that says we open at seven, ya twat!”’

He growled a little, then laughed. ‘Sorry, madam doesn’t have sensitivities when it comes to bad language?’

‘What bad language?’ Imogen asked honestly, brow furrowed.

Declan grinned. ‘Good woman. Go on, sort yourself out and let’s get on with this bastarding day.’

She saluted. ‘Yes, sir, Captain Sunshine.’

*****

The thing Imogen was most annoyed about was that she had a whole day with Declan, and she was wasting it being a hungover mess. The only advantage was Demi arriving in the afternoon, dark circles under her eyes, croaking out for a large black Americano … and an orange juice, a sparkling water, a strawberry milkshake and a herbal tea.

‘I can give you a discount, but it’s still going to come to a fair bit, you know,’ Imogen warned her.

‘I would give my kidney for anything that would make me feel better right now.’

Imogen started making the drinks, Declan looking at the order and silently making things she had yet to start. It felt like synchronicity, perfect and normal and yet massively comforting.

‘You know, I feel a lot better, seeing you feeling so shit.’ Imogen stuck out her tongue at Demi, waiting for her drinks.

‘Well, fuck you very much.’

‘No, it means I’m not the older boring cousin who’s lost her ability to hold her drink. It just means we’re both bloody idiots.’

‘Ah, you must be the super-fun cousin,’ Declan boomed, handing over the milkshake.

Demi raised an eyebrow, arching perfectly.

‘No, most definitely not me,’ she winced. ‘No fun, not ever, never again.’

‘I thought you youngsters were meant to be unstoppable. These are your golden drinking years.’

‘Nope, my golden years are definitely behind me, Grandpa.’ Imogen laughed and pointed at Demi. ‘And she looks like a wild child, but it’s all an act.’

‘I’d argue, but I feel too crappy to bother. If you want to cast me as Maria from The Sound of Music, you can, as long as you do it quietly.’ Demi grumbled, clutching her Americano like a lifeline, while Imogen assembled the other drinks on a tray.

‘Sass runs in the family,’ Declan commented, Cheshire cat grin in place.

‘Along with quick wit, great hair and an inability to deal with bullshit,’ Demi said sharply.

‘The blatant hostility, however, is all her.’ Imogen rolled her eyes. ‘Go sit down before you fall down.’

Demi shuffled off, holding her tray of drinks desperately, with both Declan and Imogen watching her in fear, until she finally reached the comfy chair across the room, gently lowered the tray and collapsed into the seat.

‘Sorry about her. She doesn’t deal with hangovers well.’

Declan shrugged. ‘You actually seem really perky.’

Imogen tilted her head. ‘As perky as I can be, working here.’

‘Aw come on, this place? It’s not that bad! There’s that guy who always parks his huge car across the bus lane, and then the bus driver gets out and loses his shit and the guy says –’

‘I pay my taxes! If I want to park in a bus lane, I can!’ Imogen finished. ‘And where else would we see St Francis Apocalypto?’

‘With the plastic bottles?’ Declan snorted.

‘Yes, collecting the plastic bottles out of the bins! I said we’d recycle and he said when the world was over, people would come to him, because he’d have all the bottles and they’d need bottles!’

‘And don’t forget Binky,’ Declan said seriously.

Imogen tilted her head. ‘Don’t know that one.’

‘Rich mum, trailed by a dead-eyed nanny? Michael Kors handbag? Drives a Range Rover?’

Imogen frowned. ‘You do realise that’s, like, eighty percent of our customers?’

‘Skinny hot chocolate extra cream.’

Imogen’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh, that bitch!’

‘Haha!’ he pointed at her. ‘See, fun! And I can tell you from experience, it’s better than being that guy who stands with the cardboard signs pointing towards places. It’s better than being a roofer when you’re afraid of heights. It’s better than trying to sell PPI schemes and the only people you get answering the phone are little old ladies and you don’t want to screw them over. Plus, free coffee.’

Imogen shrugged, wiping down the tabletop, checking around for any customers. ‘Yeah, I guess. But it’s not what I came here to do. I came to write.’

‘So write,’ Declan shrugged. ‘Seems pretty simple.’

‘Yeah, it does until you have to do it. Until you’re exhausted and angry and stressed all the time, and you’ve got no time to be creative because you’re so emotionally spent.’ She shook herself in frustration. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

Declan raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. ‘Oh really, Salinger? Why not?’

He wasn’t as pretty when he was looking at her like she’d managed to disappoint him. She winced. ‘I’m sorry, that was a really shitty thing to say. Precious writer girl bullshit. I just meant it’s easy to tell someone to create, but it’s difficult to actually do it.’

‘True enough,’ he shrugged, walking off, and Imogen felt a rustle of irritation at herself. She’d offended him, obviously, and things had been going so well … not that she wanted anything … but it was nice to have a friend …

Declan reappeared, clutching a small black notebook. He slid it across the counter to her. ‘You’ve heard of the saying “write what you know”?’

She opened the moleskine notebook, and saw not words, but sketches, cartoons and caricatures. The more pages she flipped through, the more people she recognised. There was the little old priest holding his bottles, but instead of joking, the words above his head said ‘Someday they’ll want me. I’ll be important.’ There was the mocha bitch who’d screamed at Imogen only three days before. Her eyes were bulging out of her head as the speech bubble yelled ‘Don’t touch my whipped cream!’ And there was Emanuel, with Cupid’s arrow stuck in his back, gazing lovingly at a coffee cup wearing a knitted hat and with ‘chai’ written across the bottom.

‘Dec, these are fantastic.’ She didn’t look up from the book, flipping through more. ‘Are you doing anything with them?’

When she looked up she saw he’d gone from rugged and confident to unsure, his shoulders curved in on himself. ‘They’re not exactly gallery material. They’re therapy, mainly. I do a couple of those, and then I’m ready to work on a bigger piece, or take some photos, or do something else.’

Imogen blinked slowly. ‘I don’t know, I just didn’t expect this from you.’

He chuckled. ‘Cheers, what did you expect? Football games and pints of lager and action movies?’

‘No …’ She considered, not exactly sure what she’d been expecting. ‘Kind of thought you’d be a drummer in a band, or you’d be into UFC fighting. Something … dominant.’

His face brightened at that, blue eyes cheerful. ‘Nice! And I’m the bassist, thank you. Still very important. Less … dominant.’ His voice dipped in a way that made her stomach throb pleasingly.

‘You just seem really cool with who you are. Few people are so easy in their own skin.’ She tried to shrug it off, like she hadn’t been watching. Like she hadn’t been a little jealous of one more person who seemed to know how to be happy, how to fit in and be okay without wanting something more.

‘Oh, love. That’s an act, all an act. We’re all fucked up in one way or another. The only important thing is to know how, so we can fight against it tooth and nail.’

Imogen took a deep breath and looked around for customers. How had they even managed to have a conversation this long? It was unheard of.

‘That’s pretty true,’ she nodded, thinking it was truer than she’d like to admit.

‘But that’s a lesson for another day,’ he said softly, leaning into her space. ‘The question is, Imogen Cypriani, are you going to write something real today?’

Chapter Five

Cafe Disaster

What the people who make your coffee really think about you.

Welcome to the first instalment of the Twisted Barista Tales. I’ll be your coffee monkey for the evening. Join us on a mystical journey, from macchiatos to hot chocolate, from frapshakes to insanity. I’ll be identifying every fucking ridiculous thing you awful people do, so if you recognise yourself in these stories, it’s my obligation to let you know … you’re a dick.

Let’s begin.

There are many things that, as a barista, I am responsible for: your drink, my attitude, your experience, the constant sense of pointlessness. But things I am not responsible for include your bladder (it’s not my fault there’s someone in the bathroom), the weather (it’s not my fault you wanted a frapshake and now it’s raining outside) and our opening times.

I have had multiple responses when I say we’re closing. They’re usually indignant, sometimes they’re incredulous. Mostly, they can’t seem to fathom that I and my fellow baristas are, in fact, human beings with lives. It’s a bit like when you’re a kid, and it’s easier to believe that teachers go into a storage cupboard and plug in for the night, rather than accept that they have families and aspirations and sex lives. We only exist when they see us there. We only exist when we’re serving coffee. We don’t have homes to go to, or lives outside the coffee shop.

Example:

Customer: What time do you close?

Me: Six-thirty.

Customer: But that’s in five minutes!

Me: Yes, that’s why we told you we’re only doing takeaway cups.

Customer: That’s outrageous, I want to speak to the manager!

Me: Why?

Customer: Because you shouldn’t close at six-thirty, I have nowhere else to go now!

Firstly, your lack of a life is another one of those things that is not my problem. Secondly, the reason you have nowhere else to go is because every other coffee shop closes at the same time. So go bug them about it.

Another:

Customer: Why do you open so late on Sundays?