Various Flavors of Coffee (55 page)
“Bring me some coffee beans, and a grinder to grind them.” “Will the doctors allow it?”
“Not to drink. But I can smell the aroma of the grounds, and perhaps you could drink a cup for me.”
I laughed.“That’s the strangest order I’ve ever taken.”
“I always associate you with the smell of coffee. It was so wrong, somehow, when you met me that time in Castle Street af-ter you had been away, and you did not smell of it. But you smell of it again now, so that is all right.”
“Do I?”The smell was so ubiquitous in Castle Street that I was no longer aware of it.
“How is the café?” she asked.
“It does well. The new Kenyan is very good, just as you predicted.”
She closed her eyes. Then she said, in a voice that was slightly stronger,“I got your letter.Thank you.”
“Did it make a difference?” She nodded.
“Then I am glad.”
Her hand reached for mine.“It must have been hard to write.” “It was the easiest thing in the world.”
“Liar.” She sighed.“I have written a letter to you, in return.You will get it when I die.”
“There’s no question—”
“Please, Robert. Don’t insult me by pretending. The doctors
have been quite honest. My lungs have almost gone.They give me laudanum to dull the pain, but it dulls my mind as well. So when I have visitors I don’t take it. Then I have pain, and when I am in pain I am in no fit state to see anyone.”
“You’re in pain now?”
“A little.They’ll give me my drops when you’ve gone.” “Then I will go soon.”
“Perhaps you had better. I am a little tired.”
“But I’ll come back. And next time I’ll bring that coffee.” She died that night, in her sleep.
[
eighty-seven
]
t arrived a few weeks after the funeral, in a small pack-
ing crate. Inside were some legal papers relating to the shop. A solicitor’s letter, explaining that in full and final discharge of the es-tate of Mrs. Emily Brewer, deceased, he was obliged to inform me . . . et cetera. And then a letter in her own hand, the writing small and purposeful, as if she were conserving every ounce of ef-
fort.
My dear Robert,
I wanted you to know that I am leaving the café to my sisters. It is not much of a bequest, given how little profit it makes, but I was never able to be as unsentimental about business as my father, and I have been happy there. I hope you will decide to stay on, at least for the time being.The Cause needs Castle Street, and Castle Street needs you.
Robert, I believe that men and women will only be able to communicate properly when they are equal.That has got nothing to do with votes, you may say, but equal rights are a necessary first step along the way to what really matters.
That is why there is something I must tell you, however difficult it is
for me to set it down in black and white... You recall that morning when I told my father that I wanted to marry you, and why? I think you have always assumed that the reasons I gave him then were my real ones.They were not. I told him only what I thought would persuade him most readily.There had already been one potential scandal with Hector... How could I stand there and tell him what I really felt, how much I desired you? But it is true. I have pictured it so many times—I have covered every inch of you with my kisses, have imagined what it must be like to be in bed with you.There—I have said it. I have always wanted more than anything to share that experience with you, and then to wake up in the morning and feel your warm skin against my back, and your breath on my neck, and to know that if I just reach around, you will be there....
I was ashamed of it.We women are not meant to feel such passions, are we? After Hector, I swore to my father I had changed, that I was in control of my emotions, but the truth is I was not. And so I left too much unsaid.Then, later, with Arthur, when I might have said something... well, you know some of the reason I did not, but perhaps, too, by then I had become too much a prisoner to my principles.
You will fall in love again—of course you will, that is what happens.
When you do, there is one thing that you must promise me.Tell her everything—about me, and about you, and what happened in Africa. Tell her your true feelings, and perhaps one day in return she will be able to talk to you about her desires.
There is something else I want you to do for me: I want you to write it all down.To tell our story. I know you can do it better than anyone. I am sure everyone feels their life has been lived at a great turning point—perhaps that is one of the remarkable things about life, that it is actually an endless succession of great turning points—but I feel that this story, this moment, above all must not be forgotten.
Tell the truth, Robert, and tell it kindly. In the end, that is all any of us can do.
Sometimes, when the longing for you was almost too much to bear, I
reminded myself that men and women have been sleeping together for thousands of years; that millions of them do it up and down this country every day. But a friendship between a man and a woman is still a rare and precious thing. Robert, I love you—but most of all I am glad to have been your friend.
Your loving, Emily
The only other things in the crate were another letter and a small mahogany box. I recognized the box at once: it was probably the last surviving example of the original Wallis-Pinker Guide.
The letter was the last one I had written to her, with a note from the solicitor:
Mr. Brewer has asked that this be returned to you.
Castle Street April 28th
My dear Emily,
Your husband has been to see me. He is worried about your health—we all are.That will not surprise you: what may come as a surprise is that he made me an offer concerning your welfare.
He said that if you will give up your hunger strike, he will give you up—will stand aside so that you can divorce him. He does this, of course, in the mistaken belief that you and I are lovers, and that we will marry if you are free. He wants me to persuade you to follow this course of action.
My darling Emily, when I think of what joy it would be to be married to you, you must know that I cannot conceive of anything more wonderful. And yet I am not going to try to persuade you one way or the other. I do not tell you to give it up, or to continue with the strike. All I will say is that it is a great thing you have done, and that
whatever you decide to do now, I will be proud of you. And I will never stop loving you.
The decision is yours. With all my love, Robert
—lingle,
The Coffee Cupper’s Handbook
*
rewer had been right: Emily’s sacrifi made little dif-
ference in the long run. At the last minute the government dropped its support for the conciliation bill. The militants, outraged, responded by calling for England to be made ungovernable. What followed was chaos. Burning linen was pushed into let-terboxes, government buildings and shops had their windows smashed, cricket pavilions and even churches were set on fire.Years later, the suffragettes liked to claim that theirs had been a peaceful insurrection, but that was not how it looked at the time. Prime Minister Asquith was a particular target. They tried to tear his clothes off while he was playing golf, and were prevented only by
his daughter Violet, who beat them off with her bare fists. When his car slowed to avoid a woman lying in the road, a group appeared from nowhere and began striking him with dog whips, his head protected only by his top hat. A man mistaken for him was whipped at Euston Station; the Ireland Secretary had his kneecap damaged protecting him in Whitehall; an Irish MP sitting next to him in a carriage was wounded in the ear by a hatchet. Meanwhile, almost two hundred women were on hunger strike.
To begin with, like many others, I thought the government deserved whatever they got.We male supporters had been organized into a separate body by now. I broke a few windows and burned a few empty buildings myself, and each time I thought with a burst of satisfaction that I was doing it for Emily. But—again like many others—I eventually found that I did not have the same appetite for conflict that the movement’s leaders had.
For me,
that realization came on the day we were to attack the National Gallery.The plan was for two of us to go in as if we were just looking at the pictures, then simultaneously produce butchers’ cleavers with which to slash the paintings.The particular object of our attack was to be the Rokeby Venus, a famous nude only recently acquired by the Gallery. By this time all public buildings were being guarded by the police: for that reason, it was thought essential to send along a man and a woman together, as we would attract less notice.
I had not seen the Venus before.The canvas had pride of place in the rear gallery, underneath a skylight.The woman was lying on a couch, looking into a mirror. Her skin seemed to glow with life, and the dip of her back was so realistic in every detail that it was as if she was there, in the room with us.
I thought: That woman is dead now—has been dead for
the various flavors of coffee
*
529
centuries—but the sensual power of her gaze—the way Velázquez responded to it, as a man and as a painter—these will last forever.
I remembered a line from Emily’s last letter—the letter that was, even then, folded inside my jacket.
To wake up in the morning and feel your warm skin against my back, and your breath on my neck, and to know that if I just reach around, you will be there...
I stood in front of that painting, and when the clock of St. Martin-in-the-Fields struck four—the signal to strike—I found I could not move. It was the woman beside me who raised her cleaver: the woman who with a desperate cry slashed the long white back from shoulder to waist, so that the canvas hung limply in shreds, and one could see, suddenly, what had not been apparent before—that the Venus was only a painting, an illusion, utterly fragile.
The suffragette was immediately seized by the guards. I stood for a few moments in front of the ruined masterpiece, tears burning my eyes, then I turned and walked away. I dropped my cleaver into the fountain in Trafalgar Square and kept on going. It was the last time I was involved with the Cause.
Sugar
[
ninety
]
“New crop”—a fresh light coffee flavor and aroma which enhances the natural characteristics of a coffee blend, particularly in flavour and acidity.
—sivetz,
Coffee Technology
*
year passed. I visited Emily’s grave; I ran the café and
maintained the Guide; I paid no attention to politics and still less to the arts. In truth, I paid little attention to the café either. There were hardly any customers now—the militants no longer needed a place to meet, and because I preferred to be left alone, I made no particular effort about those few who still came.
And then one day Ada and Philomena paid me a visit. I came in late, and found them looking around the place with a faintly perplexed air.Ada was running her gloved hand over the counters, inspecting the result with a fastidious expression on her face.
“Can I help you?” I said sourly.
“Oh, Robert, there you are,” Ada said.“Perhaps you had better make us some coffee.”
I sighed.“I’ll get some Java.The mocca is too stale.”
They exchanged glances, but said nothing while I prepared the coffee.
I had not seen them since the funeral.Then, of course, they had been in black. Now, as they took off their long, waisted coats, I saw they were wearing dresses of pleated, stencilled silk, with high, floppy collars and wide silk belts. Ada’s was quite restrained, but Philomena had coupled a flowing dress of abstract pattern with a green cloche hat, from which a pheasant’s feather stuck straight upright like a squaw’s head-dress. For a moment I found myself reflecting that it was extraordinary what some people would wear. Then I caught myself. It was simply the new fashion—the ragtime style, it was called, after the musical craze from America. Dances like the Turkey Trot required loose-fitting clothes like these, although of course the split legs were good for shocking the older generation too. And although these new looks were a long way from Victorian corsets, one could still discern the influence of the Liberty Style of my own misspent youth.
I brought the coffee over, and we sat around one of the marble tables.
“You’re aware we own this café now?” Ada asked. I nodded.
“From what few accounts have been kept, it seems to be losing money.”
“The location is wrong,” I said brusquely. “This is a residential area. Nobody needs a place like this on their doorstep.”
Again the two women exchanged glances.
“The thing is,” Philomena said,“it seems such a shame to close it.” I said nothing. I thought so, too, but neither could I see any reason for keeping it open.
“Phil has some ideas,”Ada said.“Would you like to hear them?” I said with a shrug,“I suppose I had better.”
I pulled a chair up. Philomena said, “You are quite right, I think, that this is not the best place for a café. But people do not only drink coffee in cafés.There is also the home to consider.”
I snorted.“No one drinks coffee at home either now, as far as I can see. It’s all packaged rubbish. Like Castle. Cheap beans, pre-roasted and pre-ground, then stored in paper packets on the shelves of Messrs. Lipton and Sainsbury until what little flavor it possesses finally evaporates.”
“Well, quite,” Philomena said. She regarded me with those sleepy, just-woken-up eyes.There seemed to be a submerged trace of amusement in them.