upon rank: pink and beige meringues, macaroons, tarts filled with fruit or custard, chocolate truffles sifted with cocoa. The women eyed them with hungry desire, delaying choosing. He could see they were touched by Pia’s swollen pregnancy. It wasn’t the sort of place Paul would ordinarily have stopped, it was fashionable and expensive, with chunky long tables of oiled wood, cream enamel lamps. The clientele were handsome, well dressed, loud.
While he watched through the window, Pia felt his gaze on her and lifted her head; a smile broke the surface of her absorption in her work, and she beckoned to him to come inside, brought him coffee and tried to persuade him to have a cake. He didn’t want cake, but the coffee was good, and he didn’t mind sitting there reading the paper, aware of his daughter passing backwards and forwards among the tables behind him, using the tongs to pick out cakes, ringing up bills on the till. When he went in another time, she was making the coffee, using the Gaggia machine, banging out the old grounds and tamping in the new, making shapes in the foam on the cappuccinos. She got used to him, and forgot to be flustered if he was watching. He recognised that he had overlooked, in Pia’s childhood, this capacity of hers for steady, graceful work; he had overridden it with his own certainties.
Anna in the café was quite different. Occasionally she came round to talk business with Marek in the evenings, but after the first day, he hadn’t seen much of her in the flat. At work she was unsmiling, fierce, effective, a little frown pulled taut between her plucked eyebrows. Her hair was scraped back from her face, and she was disconcertingly lean under the apron tied around her waist: her hard young body seemed in itself a challenge, a form of contempt. Paul saw how the customers were drawn to her as if they wanted to woo her, coax and soften her, and how she played on this, winding the sexual tension tight without giving anything away. Meanwhile she was kind to him as if they were in a conspiracy, undercharging him, bringing him cake to eat that he hadn’t asked for and only left on the plate. – Have it, it’s good, she said. – Eat. They charge too much. I see the invoices, I know what goes on here. Take it home, eat it tonight.
Anna’s default position towards authority was suspicious and derisory, but for some reason – because of Pia – Paul had been excepted. Like her brother she watched scrupulously over him, as if he needed cajoling and swaddling. He asked himself whether there could be anything sinister behind this, but couldn’t find it. They knew he didn’t have money. The longer he slept on their sofa, the more they must know for certain that he didn’t have power. Really, their generosity could only be superstitious and romantic. They must believe in the mystery of the coming child, and how it bound them all together in one improbable shaky family.
– It’s nice for you, Anna said to Pia, – to have your father round. It’s good.
He did not know what Anna would think of him, the grandfather-to-be, if she knew he was dreaming about her at night. Perhaps she guessed. These dreams occurred at the margins where deliberate fantasy slipped over into sleep, so he wasn’t altogether responsible. In one dream he made love to her in a hotel room, horrible like the one at the Travelodge in Birmingham. Anna came from the shower, her hair still sopping; cold water soaked into the sheets and pillows on the bed. She lay with her back to him, he put his mouth to the knobs of her vertebrae, standing out under her skin the colour of pale coffee, cold to the touch and goosefleshed. He ran his hand across her ribs, down her flat stomach, to her gaunt pelvis. In the dream the hot weather had broken and it was raining outside, the windowpanes blurred with running water, the room full with its rushing noise, its gargling in the gutters. The implications of it all were infantile,
While he watched through the window, Pia felt his gaze on her and lifted her head; a smile broke the surface of her absorption in her work, and she beckoned to him to come inside, brought him coffee and tried to persuade him to have a cake. He didn’t want cake, but the coffee was good, and he didn’t mind sitting there reading the paper, aware of his daughter passing backwards and forwards among the tables behind him, using the tongs to pick out cakes, ringing up bills on the till. When he went in another time, she was making the coffee, using the Gaggia machine, banging out the old grounds and tamping in the new, making shapes in the foam on the cappuccinos. She got used to him, and forgot to be flustered if he was watching. He recognised that he had overlooked, in Pia’s childhood, this capacity of hers for steady, graceful work; he had overridden it with his own certainties.
Anna in the café was quite different. Occasionally she came round to talk business with Marek in the evenings, but after the first day, he hadn’t seen much of her in the flat. At work she was unsmiling, fierce, effective, a little frown pulled taut between her plucked eyebrows. Her hair was scraped back from her face, and she was disconcertingly lean under the apron tied around her waist: her hard young body seemed in itself a challenge, a form of contempt. Paul saw how the customers were drawn to her as if they wanted to woo her, coax and soften her, and how she played on this, winding the sexual tension tight without giving anything away. Meanwhile she was kind to him as if they were in a conspiracy, undercharging him, bringing him cake to eat that he hadn’t asked for and only left on the plate. – Have it, it’s good, she said. – Eat. They charge too much. I see the invoices, I know what goes on here. Take it home, eat it tonight.
Anna’s default position towards authority was suspicious and derisory, but for some reason – because of Pia – Paul had been excepted. Like her brother she watched scrupulously over him, as if he needed cajoling and swaddling. He asked himself whether there could be anything sinister behind this, but couldn’t find it. They knew he didn’t have money. The longer he slept on their sofa, the more they must know for certain that he didn’t have power. Really, their generosity could only be superstitious and romantic. They must believe in the mystery of the coming child, and how it bound them all together in one improbable shaky family.
– It’s nice for you, Anna said to Pia, – to have your father round. It’s good.
He did not know what Anna would think of him, the grandfather-to-be, if she knew he was dreaming about her at night. Perhaps she guessed. These dreams occurred at the margins where deliberate fantasy slipped over into sleep, so he wasn’t altogether responsible. In one dream he made love to her in a hotel room, horrible like the one at the Travelodge in Birmingham. Anna came from the shower, her hair still sopping; cold water soaked into the sheets and pillows on the bed. She lay with her back to him, he put his mouth to the knobs of her vertebrae, standing out under her skin the colour of pale coffee, cold to the touch and goosefleshed. He ran his hand across her ribs, down her flat stomach, to her gaunt pelvis. In the dream the hot weather had broken and it was raining outside, the windowpanes blurred with running water, the room full with its rushing noise, its gargling in the gutters. The implications of it all were infantile,
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