Crystal Palace is where my train terminates. Had it not been, I might have stayed in my seat, staring at the advert in the hope of making sense of it. As it is, I’m the last to get off.
The rain has slowed to a drizzle, but I’ve barely left the Tube station before the newspaper in my hands is sodden, leaving traces of ink on my fingers. It’s already dark, but the street lights are on, and the neon signs above Anerley Road’s myriad takeaways and mobile phone shops mean I can see clearly. Garish lights hang from each lamp-post, in preparation for this weekend’s Z-list celebrity switch-on, but it’s too mild – and too early – for me to start thinking about Christmas.
I stare at the advert as I walk home, oblivious to the rain plastering my fringe to my forehead. Perhaps it isn’t me at all. Perhaps I have a doppelg?nger. I’m hardly the obvious choice to advertise a premium rate chatline: you’d think they’d go for someone younger, more attractive. Not a middle-aged woman with two grown children and a bit of a spare tyre. I almost laugh out loud. I know it takes all sorts, but that’s some niche market.
Between the Polish supermarket and the key-cutter is Melissa’s café. One of Melissa’s cafés, I remind myself. The other is in a side street off Covent Garden, where her lunchtime regulars know to phone ahead with their sandwich orders, to avoid queuing, and the tourists dither by the door, deciding if the panini will be worth the wait. You’d think Covent Garden would be a licence to print money, but the high rates mean that in the five years it’s been open it’s struggled to turn a profit. This one, on the other hand, with its tatty paintwork and unlikely neighbours, is a gold mine. It’s been here for years, raking in the cash long before Melissa took it over and put her name above the door; one of those hidden secrets that appear occasionally in city guides. The best breakfast in South London, says the photocopied article Sellotaped to the door.
I stay on the opposite side of the road for a while, so I can watch without being seen. The inside of the windows are steamed up around the edges, like a soft-focus photo from the 1980s. In the centre, behind the counter, a man is wiping the inside of the Perspex display. He wears an apron folded in half and tied – Parisian waiter style – around his waist, instead of looped over his head, and with his black T-shirt and dark, just-got-out-of-bed hair he looks far too cool to be working in a café. Good looking? I’m biased, I know, but I think so.
I cross the road, watching out for cycles as a bus driver waves me across in front of him. The bell above the café door jingles and Justin looks up.
‘All right, Mum.’
‘Hi, love.’ I look around for Melissa. ‘You here on your own?’
‘She’s in Covent Garden. The manager there’s gone off sick so she left me in charge.’ His tone is casual, so I try and mirror it in my response, but I feel a swell of pride. I’ve always known Justin was a good boy; he just needed someone to give him a break. ‘If you give me five minutes,’ he says, washing his cloth out in the stainless steel sink behind him, ‘I’ll come home with you.’
‘I was going to pick up a takeaway for tea. I suppose the fryer’s off now?’
‘I’ve only just turned it off. It won’t take long to do some chips. And there are some sausages that’ll be thrown out if they’re not eaten today. Melissa won’t mind if we take them home.’
‘I’ll pay for them,’ I say, not wanting Justin to get carried away with his temporary position of responsibility.
‘She won’t mind.’
‘I’ll pay,’ I say firmly, getting out my purse. I look up at the blackboard and calculate the price for four sausage and chips. He’s right that Melissa would have given them to us if she’d been here, but she isn’t here, and in this family we pay our way.
The shops and businesses peter out as we walk further from the station, giving way to terraced houses in rows of around a dozen. Several are boarded up with the grey metal shutters that mean a repossession; graffiti adding red and orange fireworks to their front doors. Our row is no different – the house three doors down has missing tiles and thick ply nailed across the windows – and you can spot the rented houses by the blocked gutters and stained brickwork. At the end of the row are two privately owned houses; Melissa’s and Neil’s, in the coveted end-of-terrace spot, and mine, right next door.