The Thursday Girl

This intriguing short story by Val Bonsall is set in a coffee shop.

ISEE she’s here again, Simon,” Phil says to me as he emerges from the store room of the little coffee shop where we both work, carrying a load of flapjacks that has just been delivered.

We get them from a young woman who’s recently set up on her own and they’re delicious. She deserves to do well.

Normally I’d be nabbing one, but my mind’s on other things.

I follow Phil’s gaze over to where a different young woman is seated at a table by the window. In fact, all the tables – a rather ill-assorted lot – are by the window.

This particular one is made from an oldfashioned sewing machine. The place has that sort of look about it. Shabby chic, I think is the desired ambience, but here the emphasis is definitely on the “shabby”.

“Yes,” I reply to Phil. “She’s here again.”

Every Thursday morning she comes in at precisely 10 o’clock and leaves again at 10.50 exactly.

It’s been going on for several weeks. I know that because I noticed her immediately the first time.

I’d been thinking of asking the Flapjack Girl for a date. I’ve ambitions to run my own business one day, something in catering, and I greatly admire her for what she’s done.

But then I saw the Thursday Girl with her lovely long hair and sweet smile.

“Do you think she works nearby?” I ask Phil.

He shrugs. “Maybe,” he replies.

“It isn’t as though she’s here to meet anyone,” I say. “She’s always alone.”

I glance at her again, sitting making notes as she sips her mocha.

“And she’s always scribbling stuff – have you noticed? Maybe a student or something?”

Phil nods. He fits in with the surroundings here, being quite unconventionallooking.

He’s older than me, and starting to go grey, but you should see him unloading boxes or anything like that. That man’s fitter than me.

“Or something, Simon.” He repeats my last words darkly.

The shop is usually very busy first thing, with people going to work and fancying a decent cup of coffee before they get there. Then it’s pretty hectic over the “lunch hour” period, which spreads over a lot more than an hour.

But in between, it can go quiet. Even counting in all the extra tasks we do that the customers don’t see, there are stretches of time when we’re less than rushed off our feet.

I think speculating about the lives of the customers must be Phil’s way of staving off the boredom that can afflict you in these less busy periods. He does it all the time.

I smile as I recall the man Phil suggested to me might be a career criminal because he kept seeing him coming out of the court building. And a clever one, too, since he clearly always walked away a free man. It turned out the bloke was a barrister.

“You’re right,” Phil now adds in the same tone, “that we don’t see her meeting anyone. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t in contact with someone.”

“You mean by phone?

I’ve never noticed her using her mobile –”

“No,” he interrupts me. “It’s more subtle than that, Simon.”

He gives me a patronising look.

Every week without fail she comes in, and there’s something about her I find intriguing . . .

“Just use your imagination,” he resumes. “This guy carries out, you know, secret type of work, right? His services aren’t always required and during these times he’s instructed to lie low. Keep his head down.

“But every month by arrangement he turns up at a particular time at a particular location on a particular day. If he’s needed for an important mission, a contact comes along in a big black car –”

I now interrupt him, laughing.

“Let me guess, these missions are all in marvellously exotic locations. Luxury hotels, champagne on tap! If you ask me, you’ve been watching too many old James Bond films!”

“Yeah, I must have been!” Phil’s now laughing, too. “I mean, that sort of thing never happens in real life, does it?”

I turn back to Thursday Girl, but she’s gone.

I look at my watch. Yes, it’s now turned 10.50.

* * * *

I go out myself not much later. It’s early for lunch, but we open up early and the period loosely between midday and mid-afternoon is our busiest.

We have extra help – Athena, who owns the place, comes in for a few hours while her little boy is at nursery school. She plans to do more when he’s older.

Meanwhile Phil and I try to arrange our lunch breaks so one of us is always there with Athena. It really does need two people at that time.

So I’m just wandering along the main shopping street, still vaguely thinking about the Thursday Girl, when suddenly I spot her ahead of me.

I guess it’s all Phil’s stories of intrigue influencing me, but I find myself wondering where she’s going.

By this I mean wondering more than I would normally. Is she going to a liaison with some mysterious figure in a big black car?

Certainly, unlike most of the people I pass, she isn’t just ambling along, glancing at the goods in the glittering shop windows.

She’s striding out determinedly, with purpose. Without making any conscious decision to do so, I somehow find myself hurrying along behind her.

She zig-zags about a bit, through a small park where Phil often has his lunch, then crosses the road and turns into a narrow alleyway.

I know the town well, but I’ve never noticed the alley before, let alone ventured down it. I doubt many people do – it has a desolate look to it. There are no shops, no hairdressers or cafés – none of the usual stuff.

I hesitate a moment, then decide to go after her, concerned, I tell myself, about her safety.

To each side are old warehouses or similar structures. Fire escapes twist like snakes up the side of them. They are tall, blocking out much of the light.

It’s a secret, shady place. Sinister.

There’s no proper paving, just uneven cobbles. I nearly trip.

I look down for a moment, and when I look up again she isn’t there.

I decide she must have gone into one of the old buildings, when I hear the roar of a motorbike.

I go towards the sound and there she is, seated on the bike. She’s now wearing a black leather jacket and has put on goggles.

Suddenly it’s not Phil but me watching a thriller. At least that’s what I’m doing in my head, recalling one I saw recently with an angelic-looking but dangerous heroine. That film didn’t have a good ending for the actor in my position.

“You’ve come after me to get it, have you?” she says above the noise of the bike, which is pointing straight at me.

“I was going to come back with it,” she continues, getting off the bike and switching the engine off. “Yours is the only place I buy coffee where you pay at the end. Everywhere else I go, you pay when you order it. Today I forgot.”

She rummages in her pocket and produces two pound coins and one fifty pence.

I just stare at first, digesting what she’s said.

“You forgot to pay?” Neither Phil nor I had noticed.

“Yes. I’ve got things on my mind.” She frowns, twigging there’s something wrong here. “I would have brought it in as soon as I could.”

She’s taken the goggles off and is smiling and she’s the Thursday Girl again.

“Next Thursday presumably,” I say, smiling back.

“No, I won’t be in on Thursdays any more. I hope.”

“Oh.” I feel the smile leaving my face.

“I’ve been doing a temporary job for my brother.” She points to a doorway to the left-hand side of us that’s in better condition than the rest.

“He runs a market research company from offices in there, and he has a client who wants to know the footfall on Thursday mid-mornings along the street you’re on.”

“So you were counting people going past?”

“Yes. But I’m going for an interview this afternoon with an IT company. It’s a bit out of town, but I’ve got my bike so I’ll do it in half an hour or so.” She looks at her watch. “It’s too early to set off yet.”

Something in her expression gives me confidence.

“Er, since you’ve time to spare, fancy another coffee?” I ask.

“There’s a café I love round the corner,” she says eagerly, adding hastily,

“not that I don’t like yours, of course.”

“No, we’ll go round the corner,” I say. “I’ll weigh up the competition.”

What I mostly weigh up is Livia – that’s her name. And I like her even more than I expected to.

The time flies, and when I look at my watch I see I should have been back at work 20 minutes ago.

Before we part, we swap phone numbers and arrange another meeting.

By then I’m half an hour late, but I’ve no doubt Phil will stay on till I get back so Athena won’t be on her own.

Nonetheless I return by the quickest route which takes me past the park where Phil has his lunch.

To my amazement, there he is, seated on the low wall surrounding it.

He hasn’t waited for me to come back! I’m amazed. If he was the one who’d been delayed, I would have hung on. It isn’t fair to leave it all to Athena.

I decide to tell him this, but have to halt for a car coming round the corner. A long, sleek, black car.

It’s going very slowly, as though looking for something. Then it stops in front of Phil.

The driver gets out and opens one of the rear doors. A woman, very well groomed, emerges and sits beside Phil. Not right next to him, but near. It’s most odd.

They both stare fixedly ahead of them, but something makes me sure they already know, or at least are acquainted with, each other.

After a few minutes, the woman goes back to the car. Phil gets up and walks round the corner to the side of the park screened by trees.

The car then goes round the corner, too – as do I, just in time to see Phil getting into it, beside the woman.

He doesn’t come into work that afternoon. Or the next day.

I manage, full of energy because things are going really well with Livia. But Athena’s not happy.

“Not even a text to explain,” she complains. “Wouldn’t you at least have expected that?”

All I can do is shrug.

The End.