The cafe with five faces, p.39
The Café with Five Faces, page 39
If there was one thing guaranteed to offer an immediate pick-me-up, other than copious amounts of red, it was Micky. This is not because Micky is, in and of himself, particularly entertaining, but it has to be said that he is an easy target for the humour of others, particularly when the humour in question reflects what one might politely label the genre of romantic satire. In other words, Micky is a romantic disaster area who is very easy to make fun of, even if the aspiring architect of his downfall has just suffered heartache of his, or her, own.
Micky, wearing his useful doleful features, duly arrived shortly after the second cork had been popped. He, like me, was taken aback to find the Beirut carpet occupied by a solo Misha, taken aback to the point where to tried to slip back out again unnoticed, but the draught of the disturbed curtains, which functioned as the door to the room, alerted the recumbent one to his presence.
“Ah, Micky, it is you, to be sure,” slurred Misha, for some reason pretending to be Irish. This was a side effect of Lebanese wine of which I had never before been made aware.
“Is Jo here?” stammered the newcomer, clearly in need of some sympathetic emotional support if he were to sit in the company of his jocular nemesis.
“Someone using my name in vain?” blustered a hearty female voice from the nether reaches of the Cape Town room beyond the veil.
Although Jo was also more than capable of taking advantage of Micky’s emotional susceptibility and insecurity, her remonstrations were generally delivered in a more kindly, well-meaning way, perhaps with a cruel streak of realism, which, in all honesty, the recipient frequently deserved. Micky could be seen to tangibly relax at the sound of her voice, a reaction which others, even those made of much sterner stuff, might have found somewhat surprising, given how loud, blunt and tactless she could often be. Or usually was, in fact, as she went on to prove.
“Where’s the service in this place?” she demanded with unrestricted volume. “Oh, there you are, Chaelli. Please be so good as to put your backside into gear and present me with a cup of your finest Algerian mint tea, fifty-fifty, as always.”
“And make mine a Yunnan Green, please,” said Micky, equally predictably but infinitely more politely. I retreated to the confines of my bar, leaving the tea connoisseurs to peruse the alcoholic wreck on the floor of Beirut.
Returning with their beverages on a tray, I found Misha being talked around rather than addressed in person. I gathered little sense had been gleaned from that particular source, so the two late arrivals were happily discussing Micky’s love life without the benefit of third-party input. As usual, the collocation ‘Micky’s love life’ was something of an anomaly. If there was indeed such an entity, it existed in either the remote past or in the even more distant ether.
“And how’s it going online?” Jo was asking in a restrained manner. I assumed coverage of Micky’s face-to-face interaction with a female of the species had been dismissed within the niceties of half a minute. And that was probably being generous on my part.
Micky sighed. There is, if truth be known, little point in stating this, as more than fifty per cent of his utterances begin in a similar fashion. However, it would be weird indeed to report his opening attempts at enunciation with, ‘Micky didn’t sigh’, so I shall adhere to my current policy. “I seem to have reached the levels of unpopularity where I don’t even receive spam anymore.” I wasn’t sure if this was an attempt at humour or not. There were times when it required a magnifying glass to spot his S of H, and there were just as many occasions when his humour seemed borne out of a deep sadness he was trying to alleviate. Not knowing which side of the fence to alight on confused his listeners, which resulted in silence which, in turn, had the effect of prematurely bringing an end to a potentially useful outlet. Recent campaigns highlighting the need to ‘get talking’ as a means of promoting mental well-being were often in my mind at such times. I knew from previous conversations, which Jo and Misha might not have been privy to, that Micky had demons which needed a means of escape. And an inability to express himself clearly or, even worse, attempts to make light of the problems in his life were of little help.
Now was a case in point. Jo sipped at her tea, squealing a little at the unexpected heat (I don’t know why – it was always presented at the same temperature) and hurriedly replacing her cup on the table, whilst staring at her friend and struggling to find the appropriate lexical items.
“So, erm, nothing new from Planet Chiara?” she finally enquired. This struck me as a neutral response which at least served to maintain the dialogue.
“I think I made a mistake there,” confessed Micky.
“Based on your past record, I would estimate the accuracy of that admission as somewhere between a safe bet and a classic understatement,” Jo responded judgementally. “Have you further added to your catalogue of misdemeanours?”
“You could say.”
“Well, do say,” ordered Jo. “No use bottling it up now you’ve started.”
Micky looked a little unsure as to how he had actually started anything, or perhaps even what he had started.
“Chiara…” prompted Jo helpfully.
“Ah, yes, well, I sent her a birthday card.”
“That’s nice,” said Jo supportively.
“With a self-penned additional message.”
“That could be nice,” responded Jo, a little uncertainty creeping into her tone. “What exactly did your missive say?”
The lovelorn one coughed nervously before reciting his lines as though he had been writing and rehearsing them for quite some time. “When I think of love, I think of you. And even though I know there’s a zero point five per cent chance of those feelings ever being reciprocated, I just want you to know how lovely I really think you are.”
Misha, whose presence had been easily overlooked and even forgotten, made the kind of sound one does when paying homage to the great white porcelain god, an idiomatic phrase I had been taught some years previously, maybe mistakenly, as meaning ‘throwing up in the toilet’.
“Zero point five,” repeated Jo thoughtfully.
“Well, I’m probably being overly optimistic, even with that figure,” acknowledged Micky.
“Well, if you weren’t before, you probably are now,” adjudged the self-appointed jury of one. “A little OTT, I think, although the first line has its charm.” She sipped at her now appropriately warm tea. “What kind of response did you get, dare I ask?”
“A change of subject,” said Micky gloomily. “Something about the issues facing the Italian government.”
“Well, that discussion could have lasted till a week next Wednesday,” lamented Jo, almost to herself.
“Senza una donna,” mumbled Misha, who seemed to be rousing from a semi-slumber but, in reality, had probably heard every word. “What’s the point?”
“Speaking personally,” said Jo, as she often did, “I think I’m very hard to live without. But I can manage perfectly well without a man, so why can’t you two be the same with women?”
“Perhaps because we’re heterosexual,” surmised Misha, a statement which did contain several elements of truth.
Jo appeared a little thrown by the astuteness of the supposedly drunken philanderer’s retort. “Well, you may have a point,” she conceded. “Moving on,” she added hastily, trying to turn the tables on her opponent, “what’s gone wrong in the world of Mishykins recently?”
“Ah, woe is me,” groaned Misha, struggling to sit an upright position. He seemed to suffer from an onset of mild vertigo as his shaded eyes reached an altitude of three feet above floor level.
“Fallen out with someone whom you hadn’t yet conquered?” asked Jo, perhaps a little slyly. Unfortunately, or otherwise, Misha had a reputation, richly deserved in my view, of loving the thrill of the chase and the ultimate conquest, but then losing interest rather more quickly than deemed acceptable in polite society. To be honest, I often wondered if his exploits were a figment of an over-active imagination rather than actually founded in reality, a sort of reversed mirror image of Micky, who flirted and lost with tedious regularity but was completely open about his failures, almost as though he couldn’t help himself. Misha certainly could never resist showing off, one could go so far as to say he wore his promiscuity like a high-visibility waistcoat, but his levels of honesty and exaggeration were, as yet, untested and, therefore, unproven.
“Why do women always see the worst in men?” asked the persecuted one, slumping about six inches but still managing to pour another half-glass from his reasonably full second bottle. It was unclear whether this question was aimed at Jo in direct response to her query or, as seemed more likely, to the world in general, or at least the three representatives thereof who were within earshot.
“There are many good reasons, believe me,” Jo retorted, with some sharpness and acidity (I apologise for making her sound like a glass of wine, a cup of coffee or some tasty concoction from The Great British Bake Off). “And, if half of what you say in this room is true, I suspect you, specifically, have been assessed correctly.”
“I’m cut to the quick,” said Misha, rather dramatically but almost convincingly. “I was actually being reflective on times past, if you must know, and thinking how paranoid people can be, and how it can spoil something beautiful.” He was verging on wistfulness.
“Don’t you think your regular behaviour, or perhaps your renowned espoused behaviour,” Jo argued with an accusatory note, “might actually be responsible for inducing paranoia in some of your poor, unsuspecting prey?”
If Misha was capable of looking offended, this seemed to be his moment. “As I’ve told you before, I have had periods of monogamy,” he asserted, defensively and with a hint of what could have been pride. “And, ironically, it was during one of the lengthier of such periods that I was most suspected of straying off the straight and narrow. It was so unfair!”
Jo tried and failed to suppress a laugh. “Well, if you will insist on perpetuating your womanising reputation, you can’t be surprised when it comes back and bites you on the posterior!”
“But the last time it happened,” protested an increasingly alert Misha, although with the desperation of a drowning man facing a certain fate, “my reputation was unknown in the city, or even in the country!”
“Wow!” said Jo and Micky in unplanned unison and with genuine surprise.
“Antarctica?” suggested Jo, with an unbecoming giggle.
“A densely populated part of South America, actually,” retaliated the one with hurt feelings. “She was a lovely, lovely girl, who I really was in love with, yes, really, but every time I mentioned another woman’s name, even in passing, it was like I was admitting to having an affair and she cooled on the spot. I genuinely believe it was her only fault, other than living too far away, for which she wasn’t to blame in any case.”
“Was she still in full-time education?” taunted Jo.
“Yes,” replied Misha, deriving a modicum of pleasure from his questioner’s momentary shock. “As a teacher.”
“Oh, that’s alright then,” said Jo, rather lamely, as if a balloon had burst inside her. She had been rather enjoying getting the better of a slightly incapacitated Misha and was clearly looking forward to taking further advantage. She decided to pursue her intended line of attack in any case. “What’s the biggest drawback in dating someone half, or even a third, your age?” she queried mischievously.
“Usually, them leaving university, getting a job and no longer needing a sugar daddy,” responded Misha, although with little evidence of dejection. “In my case, I was never fully there with the sugar, as I rarely had much more money than they did!”
It was in considering responses such as this that listeners with some kind of grip on reality really started to think, or were forced to conclude that Misha had a hyperactive gene in his brain which produced flights of pure fancy. Micky, however, long in awe of Misha as a role model in the romance stakes, laughed sycophantically, while Jo slowly consumed her mint tea in quiet despair and let the moment pass. Sometimes, it’s all you can do.
A wine festival at the Cantina Sociale in Beirut, presented in honour of Misha’s drinking preferences. There should be enough here to keep him off the streets for a while, one would think. Or hope…
2019: 61: Budapest: The Invasion of Privacy
I was surprised. I could sensationalise the emotion, but I shall refrain from needless exaggeration. Had it been any of my other regulars, I wouldn’t have batted the proverbial, but this was Jen. Perhaps my endless tirade of snide remarks had finally bored their way through her hardened shell-like exterior, but there she was, still stuffing her face with cake, yes, but actually having a Chemex – with my newly favoured Panamanian coffee – without milk. To you, my readers (or reader), this may seem insignificant. To me, it was a landmark moment which I greeted with alacrity and no little joy. Sad must one be to be cheered by such a trivial event, I hear you say, but such is my world on a wet autumnal weekday morning.
Jimez, recently fresh from writing a story which had actually made both sense and a serious point at the same time (either of the aforementioned strengths alone would usually be considered worthy of note in his case) was apparently taking a break from his exertions and had ordered his customary daylight-hours cappuccino accompanied by a generous slice of Eszterházy. Rumour had it, his story had been published, although the fact he wouldn’t enlighten us further made us question the reputation, or even existence, of the publication responsible. I wasn’t one to begrudge him a small celebration, however, as it was a pretty unique occurrence, and especially as he was splashing the cash.
Jen preferred silence while there was cake on her plate as she liked to concentrate on the prevailing matter of greatest import. She didn’t always get her own way, but Jimez tried his best to respect her anti-social wishes. Cake devoured and ignoring the fact that her companion had barely started on his slice – I was regularly under the impression she finished as quickly as possible in the hope of hoovering up others’ leftovers – she launched into conversation. Her voice, when she was trying to be engaging, had the quality of tinkling glass; I had never informed her of this as I was unsure whether it would be taken as an insult or a compliment. And I certainly had not imparted my opinion that when she wanted to be firm, her tones were quite likely to shatter glass at a stroke. For now, however, that was by the by.
“No product to show us today, I gather,” she tinkled.
“Not on paper, but the brain is in gear,” said Jimez, almost smugly.
“And you aren’t going to tell us anything?”
“Not yet, but this could be big.”
This statement could mean many things dependent on who it was uttered by. If it was said by Steven Spielberg, you were allowed to get excited; when it was Jimez, the immediate inclination was to laugh out loud. One good short story does not an accomplished author make, although my benevolent nature prohibited this thought from leaving my head. Jimez is a simple character in many ways with some complex undertones, which does not exactly equate to a fine wine, despite the poetic description. His artistic aspirations are largely designed to fill the void otherwise known as life, or perhaps, if I may be momentarily even more cynical, a sex life. He had inadvertently regaled us with stories from his past, one of which had seen him sink to the depths of falling asleep under the influence of too much alcohol while in the process of being seduced by a particularly attractive young lady from the east. East of where, he had never told us, but I was inclined to think Croydon. As a result of this self-inflicted humiliation, he had arrived at the inevitable conclusion that he valued wine over sex, and these days, preferred to go to bed with a laptop, in case inspiration struck during the hours of slumber. Personally, I suspected porn movies but had never subjected him to serious questioning on the issue. The consequence of these points, other than sexual frustration and an overly large off-licence bill, was failing eyesight due to over-exposure to computer screens.
Under the possible guise of research, Jimez decided to ask Jen a question instead. “What makes you cry?” Jen was taken aback by this unexpected demand on her intellect. “I mean, is it the sentimental or the serious?”
Jen really had to give this some thought, although this could have dwelt on where the question was leading as much as on the question itself. Her answer was brief and to the point. “Serious.”
“I thought you’d say that,” Jimez responded. He seemed to be fighting an internal battle to decide whether or not to reveal more of himself at the possible risk of embarrassment. For reasons best known only to the man himself, he chose exposition. “I cry,” he said carefully, “not at serious things which really matter, but...” His courage failed him.
“You may as well complete the thought,” encouraged Jen, tinkle-free. “Otherwise, we’ll be left to speculate, and that could be far worse.”
Jimez caved in, as usual. “I still cry at the ends of films like The Railway Children and Love Actually,” he confessed. “And it bewilders me.”
The final clause got a little lost in Jen’s laughter but still came across loud and relatively clear, relative to the usual reticence-affected standards of the speaker, that is.
I decided not to stand idly by, for once, and let one of my customers suffer in solitude. “Actually, I’ve been known to cry at romcoms.” It wasn’t intended as a noteworthy, dramatic statement, far from it, but it had the effect of wiping the smirk off Jen’s face and bringing the glow wrought by shared ignominy to the features of one Jimez. “It’s weird, I agree, but I can watch absolutely heart-wrenching stuff on television, which I recognise as awful, but I almost treat is as fiction aired as a warning, rather than someone’s dreadful reality.”
