Cafe Soleil - Episode 2

When he personally took the plate of food out to her, he was disappointed to see she had been joined by a well-dressed man. He didn’t know what he’d hoped, that he’d engage her in conversation, what? Was he that desperate that he had to start hitting on customers now? No. That was not him. Besides, there were so many other things to think about. The daily visit to the hospital for one. One which filled him with dread. The tubes, the breathing apparatus, all that shiny metal. And his son, who looked almost normal. As though he was sleeping and would soon wake up from whatever dreamland he was in.

Darryl woke to a leaden looking sky and wondered if he should just dispense with outside tables today. If it rained there would be fewer fitness fanatics about. As he started pulling the chairs from out the back, he noticed they were getting heavier. Or was it him, piling on the pounds? He was too tired for his late evening stroll on the beach, too tired to get up any earlier and join the buff trainers on the esplanade. The café was something that occupied most of his daylight hours and if he were honest with himself, he would have sold it at a loss after the accident, rather than keep trying to hold on in the hope that something would miraculously change.

He realised his day wasn’t going to go as planned when he ducked out at lunch time and left the new waitress in charge. He just couldn’t hack another skinny thirty-something asking for almond milk in her soy chai latte with go lo or the tattooed sinewy trainer who accompanied her rabbiting on about his gluts and lats. The guy was handing around flyers, right in the café, without even asking. It was blah, blah, blah and I do forty reps of those and I bench press 200 any day of the week. These biceps? I recommend this little shop in town where I get my supplements. If you want the real thing though, give the owner a wink, sling him an extra fifty bucks and he gives you the really good stuff from UNDER the counter.

Then there were the whippet thin blondes and their Buggaboos - their precious cargo strapped inside, fat and dreaming, while their mothers chatted and compared notes about the right formulas and schools. Poor little devils, Darryl thought, let them slumber on in complete ignorance for a little while yet. They had no idea what was being mapped out for them and certainly wouldn’t be thrown out into the backyard with a simple suggestion that they go play! Like when he was a boy. What was that, nowadays? Every single moment of every waking hour would be organised, with some tutor teaching them higher mathematics or something while they crawled, drooling, along the carpet. Their mothers were now sipping lattes.

At mid-morning the retired old farts usually came in for their raisin toast and cappuccinos nattering loudly (most of them were pretty deaf) about their super funds and shares and what was going up and coming down. Darryl’s brain was reeling from information overload.

He had to get out of that chaos just to clear his head for a little while. In spite of the early cloud, it was already blazing hot and the sweat was collecting around his forehead, He thought a walk on the beach, just a short one, might be the go.