twentyfour

My pumps clip off the back of my heals as I tread along the path running through the fields planted with stones and crosses. Names, numbers, bad poetry engraved on every one. I divert from the path and start cutting inbetween them. A face for each name appears in my head. I stop at one: a couple; the husband fell asleep at the age of 49; the wife fell asleep at the age of 103. I think about those fifty-four years she lived without him. I wonder how long my Mum will remain faithful to the memory of my Dad. He isn't here. That's not why I came here. I don't know why I came here. It's certainly not out of habit; I've only walked past before, but when I saw the sun shining on it today something compelled me to walk through the wide open gates.

It is silent here, save the the sound of flapping wings as the birds fly from tree to tree. I go back to the path, my pumps loose, clipping off the back of my heals.

A black and white cat is walking between two gravestones. It stops, solid and looks at me. I press my bottom teeth to my top lip and suck in to make the noise of a mouse. This has never helped anyone when trying to attract a cat, ever. But still I try. The cat bursts into a bounding sprint and doesn't stop until it reaches the trees that surround the cemetry. There it stops and looks round at me again, curiously, before dissappearing behind a tree trunk.

I start walking back to the entrance gates. Near the entrance there's an angel, righ arm raised, reaching towards the sky. In it's left arm it is carrying a harp, and it is looking down at the ground, but still it is reaching with its right arm towards heaven. The right arm ends half way up the wrist; the hand is missing entirely. I look at the grey figure for the longest time, but when I turn away I don't remember any names or dates engraved on the statue. It doesn't matter, I tell myself.

Walking amongst these stones of names, dates and bad poetry I don't feel any sense of sorrow, dread or sadness. I feel at ease. Maybe it's all just meant to trivialise death. It makes slipping into nothingness easier to deal with. I'm certain the woman that lived fifty-four years after her husbands death managed those fifty-four years by thinking of death simply as falling asleep.

I start thinking to myself, their twin gravestones read out the same message, but only the dates were different. Then Sarah phones. The only reason I know this is because my phone tells me, as I answer to the heaving sobs of self pity that are running out of my phone.

'I can't believe I slept with him again,' she cries.

I start to ignore her and my mind begins to wander. I think of year 7, the first year of secondary school. Me, Sarah and a few other girls would sit together every lunch time. I remember Sarah telling us about getting her period: she was the first. She told us how her parents took her out for Chinese and they let her drink wine. That day, after school, I went to Superdrug and examined all the sanitary pads and tampons, deciding which one was right for me. I decided to buy a selection to try on at home, but when I got to the counter there was a guy there. I felt too embarrassed, so put them back. I chuckle to myself. Sarah says it's not funny. I forgot I had a phone pressed to my ear. I contempate telling her what I was just thinking of but she is already talking about herself again. I think that most of our conversations have replicated that day at lunch time when she told us about her period. Always telling me her experience like I am naïve to the ways of the world. Her life will always be worse than mine, she will always have more to complain about, but she will become a more worldly, well rounded person because of it. I feel the bloody pumping through my hanging arm – the one not holding the phone – making my fist clench. My jaw clenches too. Teeth pulled together tight. Sarah s whining down the phone, winding up a leaver increasing my blood pressure.

'Why are you phoning me Sarah?'

'What?'

'What do you want me to say? I've told you what you need to do, but I don't think you listen. I don't think for one second you have ever listened to a word I have said to you. You're a moron. You never ask me how I am, you just phone me crying about your idiotic mistakes.'

I pause and listen to the silence running up and down between the phones connected by satelites. The phone goes dead. I consider calling her back, but decide not to. I realise I have just been shouting down the phone in the middle of a cemetry.

twentythree

I leave the café with a strange feeling. I'm not sure whether I want to yawn or throw up. This is a purely physical feeling, or pain. I think the interview went well. I think about Melanie calling and saying I've got the job and then me working there and making friends with everybody and being excited about going to work in the morning. And then buying a flat closer to town and having everyone from the café round for a house warming party. I couldn't have that with Ant and Mozart, or anyone else from the restaurant.

I then think about Melanie phoning and saying I did really well but they found someone else with more experience. I tell myself it's best not to get my hopes up anyway.

I walk back to the bus stop slowly. The buses are infrequent and I have more than twenty minutes before the next one comes. I decide to go to the library and get a DVD out.

I get back to the bus stop with five minutes to spare. I read the back of the DVD case four times. The bus is ten minutes late. In the nine minutes before the bus shows up I think, maybe it came early while I was at the library. But if it had, surely it would have waited until it was on time? I contemplate walking home instead, but stay where I am. Eventually the bus comes and I get on and go home.

twentytwo

The forty minute trial starts with me putting on a faded polo shirt over my dress and tying an apron round my waist. The shirt smells strongly of other people.

The managers name is Melanie. Melanie shows me how to use the coffee machines and how to ring up orders on the till. There is still a queue at the counter and I feel like I am the in line entertainment. My cheeks burn as I stand with my back to everyone. I can feel my cheeks burn and this make them burn even more. I imagine my face right now, glowing, bright red, like a beacon of embrassement.


'Do you make coffee at your current job?' she asks me.

'Yeah, but we use cafetiers,' I tell her. 'None of this newfangled malarky.' I say this as a kind of joke, but Melanie looks at me with a blank expression.

'Er….I actually think Espresso machines are older than cafetiers. I think cafetiers were invented quite recently. Comparitively I mean…' Melanie tells me.

I give a surprised but interested look and don't say anything.

'…and if you need any help with anything don't be afraid to come and find me, or ask Alex here.' She moves an open palm in the direction of the camp barista currently serving people. He looks over his shoulder at me, smiles wildly and says Hi.

After she has left, I stand behind Alex, motionless, not sure what to do. Alex is serving. I see some customers leave there table and pick up a tray from the counter to go over to clear it up. I come back to the counter with the tray, unsure of what to do with it. There's no queue now and Alex shows me where the dirty cups and plates go.

People come in. People leave. Serving. Collecting coffee mugs. It's the same as the restaurant, I think to myself. I chat to Alex. Alex loves working at the café, he tells me. He says it's the friendliest place he has ever worked. He asks me about the restaurant and why I'm leaving. I don't want to say I have a crush on a racist kitchen porter that works there, but if I give him some vague answer about not getting on with people there then he could think 'what's going to stop her from getting on with people here?' I give him a different answer about wanting to get more experience.

At the end of the forty minutes the tail end of the lunchtime rush are just finishing their drinks. Melanie comes out from behind her black door and asks if I want to follow her. She tells me to get changed out of the polo shirt and apron and then we'll have a coffee and a quick chat about how everything went. We sit in the café and she asks me what I want. I have a regular latte and she has a double Espresso. Every movement she makes at the coffee maker seems completely natural and professional. She is at one with the coffee maker. I imagine her staying in the café after dark and sleeping next to the coffee maker with a big blanket covering the both of them.

She makes the coffees and brings them over on a tray. She drops two cubes of brown sugar into her double Espresso and stirs it gently, but somehow precisely. She asks me how I thought it went, explains what kind of hours I would be working were they to hire me and asks if I have any questions. I still haven't thought of any but I feel like she’ll hold it against me if I don't ask anything. Like it will reduce my chances of being hired..

'Are there any opportunities for, I don't know, like, promotion? I mean I know it's only an independent café but I was just wondering…'

'Right,' she looks right at me in a very business-like manner, 'well, like you said, we're an independent business. We don't have a chain of stores like Starbucks or anything that we can send you off to manage. But, you know, we run lots of different events here. Live music. Art show cases. And we're always keen to let you experience the more managerial side to how the café runs.

'I hope this answers your question.'

twentyone

I am working for McDonalds. I don't think I am actually working there, but I just have this feeling of 'I can't believe I'm working at McDonalds.' I try and hide it from my friends, but it's like this uncontrollable feeling of shame. I'm sure actually working at McDonalds isn't quite as bad as I make it out to be in my mind. I wake up early and lie in bed for about an hour thinking. My interview is at 12pm and at 10:30am I realise I don't have anything ready. I look through my clothes and think about what I am going to wear.

I get out of the bath and dry myself and brush my teeth, looking at myself standing in front of the mirror, naked. I look at my nipples. I once found a really long hair on my right nipple and was terrified with the thought of having hairy nipples the rest of my life, or having to save up to get electrolysis on them or something. I pulled it out with one of my tweezers, follicle and all. One hasn't grown since.

I get dressed in black leggings, black undershirt, blue checked flannel dress and a grey cardigan. I think to myself this looks good! Good interview clothing.

It's 11am. I make breakfast and earl gray.

I get the 11:24am bus into town. The buses are infrequent really, hourly. Always late too. I look at my watch when I sit down and the bus starts pulling away: it's 11:29am. I still have plenty of time, but my mind is a mess. My thoughts about interview questions and answers are spinning round in my head. I count my breathing for a minute to try and calm myself down. 16. A second minute. 14. I press the button and the bus pulls over.

I step off the bus, sun shining in my eyes. I figure I may as well get to the interview early and start walking towards the café.

It's busy when I get there. I start to wonder why they decided to hold the interview at lunch time on a Saturday. There's a queue at the counter, so I wait in line before telling one of the baristas that I am here for the interview. I'm fifteen minutes early anyway. He is friendly and tells me to take a seat wherever and the manager will come and see me in a bit. I look around the café and there is nowehre to sit – everywhere is taken. I stand to the side of the counter and try and stay out of peoples way, but people seem to get confused and ask me if I am waiting for anything. I blush and say no.

Eventually, the manager comes through a black door, She is a woman in her mid-30s, I guess. Business like in a post-hippie/free spirit sort of way. Confident. She strides up to me and says Hi, shaking my hand vigourously.

'Come through here with me.'

She takes me through the black door and into a narrow corridor. Abstract pictures of coffee beans and stovetop espresso makers are on the walls. She leads me up to a door with a metal sign fixed to it: MANAGER. She takes a key from her pocket and unlocks the door.

'Take a seat,' she smiles, ushering me into the room. There are two seats: one is a big comfy-looking computer chair behind a computer desk; one is a chair from the café. I contemplate the computer chair for about a second, then sit down in the one obviously meant for me.

'Did you get here alright, parking wasn't too bad was it?'

'Ah no, I got the bus.'

'Oh excellent. You live near-by then?'

'Yeah, just outside town really.'

'Right, so first of all, I'd just like to let you know that there's been a lot of competition for this position. We had over fifty applicants and out of that we're only interview 10%. So don't feel too bad if you don't get the job!

'The way this interview is structured, I don't know if anyone explained to you on the phone, but what we do is I'll give you a formal interview for twenty minutes and then you will actually work the floor for forty minutes. Is this okay?'

'Yeah.'

She leans down on the desk to write something.

'I will have to write down all of your answers, so don't worry if I seem a bit unresponsive. It's all part of the interview. Okay? And then afterwards we'll talk briefly about how it went and you can ask me any questions. Now, before we begin, do you have any questyions that you want to ask me?'

My mind is utterly blank. I don't even know if I'll make it through the first question. But the questions begin. I answer automatically.

'Right, excellent,' she says. 'And now as a last question: if your friends or co-workers could describe you in three words how do you think they'd describe you?'

I pause. One by one people come to my head. They're being interviewed in a dark police cell. Being asked questions about me. They're being interviewed on the local news saying what I was like after I was killed by a sex offender.

EX: Stubborn
ANT: Flat chested
SARAH: A good listener
MUM: Un-ambitious
MOZART: ???

'Um…I have no idea, I guess… reliable.trustworthy, and… funny?'

'Okay.'

'No wait, that sounds silly, I mean…'

'Don't worry,' she says, 'Good, okay. Do you want to come with me and we'll get you an apron and a shirt?'

I get up out of the chair and a drip of cold sweat runs down the side of my body. I shake my head and tell myself to stop thinking so much. I tell myself I am not living in the moment.

twenty

The restaurant starts to clear. I start to wipe the tables down. I begin to stack the chairs while this last few customers are finishing. I ask John if it's okay if I can go and get my bus. He says he'll be fine. I go to the changing room to get my bag. Mozart is there, changing his shirt.

'Getting the bus?' he asks me, top-half naked.

'Yeah.'

We walk to the bus stop not saying anything to each other and wait there in silence. It's dark now and the street light next to the bus stop isn't working. It flickers on and off and is a dull orange colour. We get on the bus and sit next to each other. Mozart pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts writing something in Polish. All the letters seem to have accents, dashes and moutaches on them. I watch as he is writing his text, punching at the keys with his weather-beaten thumbs. He writes and deletes then writes a bit again and then saves the text to drafts instead of sending it. I want to ask him something stupid, but I restrain myself. I think about how old Mozart is. I think about all the things I know about him. I think about him in his living toom or study or someone else living room or study giving a violin lesson. He is standing patiently with his hands behind his back, listening attentively as his pupil finishes their piece - I imagine the pupil as a young girl with tied back brown hair and deep, big brown eyes. She has come straight from school and is still wearing her uniform; skirt, shirt, tie, blazer, white knee high socks. She stops playing and Mozart says 'very good', and then gives her some advice on the way she is holding the violin or how she should put more emphasis and feeling onto certain parts or certain notes. And when the girl gets home she writes in her diary on her bed about her violin teacher from Poland. And the next day at school she tells her best friend how she thinks she might be in love with her violin teacher from Poland and it suddenly becomes big news.

Mozart wakes me up to ask if I have found anywhere to work yet. I tell him about the interview at the café tomorrow. He says he knows the café and says it's nice.

'Very good cakes,' he says, winking at me, 'Don't eat too many!'

I blush. I ask him about his violin lessons and ask how many pupils he has at the moment.

'Only two at the moment. But I put advert in paper…?'

'Right.'

'So, who knows…' he purses his lips and moves them from side to side, like they're not really attached to his face – fake lips – making a vague expression.

'Well, if I know anyone who wants violin lessons, I'll send them your way!'

We both laugh at this, even though its not really meant to be funny. He looks forward grinning to himself; I look forward, confused, and not sure what to say next. I think he says something like 'I'll miss this,' and then I say 'pardon?' He puts his arm on the back of the seat and turns so he is facing me.

'I need to get off,' he says.

'Oh, sorry, okay,' I get up and let him get past me.

'Thanks,' he whispers and then walks down to the front of the bus, pushes the bell and waits for the driver to stop and open the door,

I can see him under the light of the street lamp out of the window and then we start to pull away and Mozart is swollowed by a blob of darkness.

I think about all I know about Mozart. This vague person in my life. This co-worker. This racist. This confused feeling in my stomach, like a knot untying and retying itself. This violin tutor. This apparition that slowly seems to be becoming a physical entity in my life, and who will just as quickly disappear again at the end of next week. What will I know about Mozart then? What will I have of Mozart then? I want to get off the bus and follow him. I want to know if he's still a racist or if he thinks it's okay to call Ant a nigger. I want to confirm his status as a living human being.

I get home and my Mum is lying with the dogs on the sofa. They are all staring intently at a crime drama on TV. I can't help but laughing as I look at them.

'Good day at work then?'

'Not too bad,' I say, still laughing. 'I heard back from the café. I have an interview tomorrow.'

'Oh, excellent precious!' She sounds genuinely pleased for me.

I get a yoghurt from the fridge and eat it in the living room, asking my Mum questions about what is happening. She grunts answers and ignores me.

nineteen

It is Friday. A week before my final day. I get up, the same as usual. Get ready, get on the bus, go to work.

It gets to lunch time and I go to the staff locker room to get some sandwiches out of my bag. I cook the sandwiches in the grill that we have for paninnies. While it's cooking I look at my phone. I have an answer phone message from the café, calling me in for an interview tomorrow. At first I'm not quite sure how to react. My jaw feels numb, like I can't taste anything – or maybe my mouth is feeling so overwhelmed with the taste of something that I can't taste what my mouth normally tastes like.

I phone the café back to confirm the interview. The phone rings but then I realise my sandwich is about to burn so I stop toasting my sandwich and put it on a plate. I then try phoning again.

The phone rings for a very long time. I think I have waited three minutes before an answer phone cuts in and tells me that they are not there right now and to leave a name and number after the beep. I don't even know if this is what it actually says but almost all answer phones say this, so I just assume.

'Hi, I'm just ringing to confirm the interview for tomorrow. I…um…yes…' I pause. I don't know what I'm saying, or what to say. I pause for a very long time. I think I have stopped breathing. I panic and hang up the phone. I'm still panicking. This could end up in me leaving a very bad impression for my interview tomorrow. I should really call them back, but I don't know what to say. I go and eat my sandwich and try to calm down. I pour a glass of water and look at my phone. I decide to ring them again. The phone only rings four times before someone picks up.

'Hello, I just called you but I think I lost signal.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. I was in the middle of leaving you an answer phone message when it just cut out.'

'Oh.'

'It was just to confirm a job interview for tomorrow.'

'Oh!'

I give them my name and confirm my phone number as well as the time and place of the interview before hanging up. This feels good. The numb feeling has returned to my jaw and I'm glad I didn't just leave the answer phone message. They will probably listen to it later and laugh about it, but I will pretend it didn't happen for now.

In the kitchen, Mozart is pilling pint glasses into the dish washer.

'HALLO!' he shouts at his glasses before turning and grinning wildly at me.

'Hiya,' I say. I always feel like we could have something to talk to each other about but neither of us bother saying it, or we want to say it in a language that the other can't understand. I am hanging around the kitchen not doing anything. I go round to where Mozart is stacking all the pint glasses on a tray for the dishwasher. I watch him. He looks up and smiles, continuing with his work.

'Have you been working less hours?' I ask him.

'Hah?' he says.

'Less hours,' I repeat, 'you haven't been here as much.'

'Oh no,' he says, 'I have been doing lessons. On violin,' he says and plays a few notes on an imaginary violin in the air.

'You seem to be getting on better with Ant,' I tell him.

'Hm?' he says.

'The chef…Ant?'

'Oh yes! He's good boy. I play football with him last week. Very good.'

I tell Mozart that it's very good and go back out into the restaurant, blushing slightly, to see if anyone is there.

eighteen

My first week back goes quicker than I expect. My boss lets me do half shifts and says I'll only get part-time pay for this week, but he tells me in a happy voice. He even smiles and says he wishes I wasn't going. I don't know what to say to this or how to react so I just apologise and say bye.

The sun shines through the dusty bus and I sit with my head vibrating against the window. The weather has been good recently. In the evening, after I get home from work, I sit in my room and watch the sun through my bedroom window painting the clouds orange, red, pink and purple.

The past week has gone by so fast. My Mum hasn't given me any more university prospectus' to look at. I don't think she's given up hope though. I spoke to Sarah: she still hasn't had a chlamydia test yet. I haven't heard back from the café. I feel good with these little anxieties. Like these are the kinds of things I should be feeling. My Mum cries when people die on TV but I remember going to my Uncle's funeral when I was fifteen and I didn't feel a thing. During the sermon I held my hand up to my face and covered my eyes for a bit, my Mum put her hand over my shoulders and rubbed them gently, but I wasn't crying. Of course I felt sad, and I miss him, but I didn't feel like crying.

My Mum and I make dinner and then wash up together. We don't really talk about anything this whole time but it doesn't really feel like we need to.

I am drinking glass after glass of water. I run the tap and fill my glass, then drink it in a couple of seconds, looking at the bottom, and then start filling it again, I wake up and my mouth is dry, I have a headache and the sun is shining on me. I wash in the sink and have some instant coffee and ibuprofen for breakfast, before running to the bus stop.

There's no one at the bus stop and only a couple of people on the bus when it comes. When I get to the restaurant there are no customers there. I decide to sweep outside, while it is sunny. When I've brushed all the dried dirt and dead leaves off the yellow paving slabs in front of the restaurant I feel proud of myself. I have left one single paving slab unswept and I look over all of them comparing them to this single paving slab.

A BMW pulls up in the car park and two people get out: an old retired couple. The man is wearing mustard corduroys. I follow them into the restaurant holding my broom and go and put it in the store cupboard before going behind the bar to serve them.

They would like two black coffees.

I tell them to sit wherever they like.

It's just me and the old couple in the restaurant, for a long time. The sun is coming through the windows and the whole restaurant is well lit. Later there will be a rush of people coming in after their work-day has finished ordering drinks and food and I'll go into the kitchen and Mozart will look up and say hallo and Ant will say something obnoxious.

The couple say thank you and leave. I clear away their coffees and take their cups to the dishwashing area. No one is there yet. I set everything down and go back out into the restaurant.

My head feels like it's swelling. I look at the clock continually. I feel its beating arm, pulling itself round in a circle. I feel short of breath, like the arm is winding a cord around my neck. I wipe down all the tables, chairs and the bar. In all the time it takes me to do this no one comes in.

Finally, John, a waiter who works part-time, comes in. We talk and this makes the time go quicker. He tells me about school and some essays he has to write. I pretend to seem interested until customers start to come in.

Pretty soon the bar is full of people drinking, eating, making orders. I go into the kitchen. Mozart isn't at his sink. He and Ant are standing at the firedoor, which is always left open. They're talking. They're smiling at each other. They both laugh about something and Ant slaps Mozart on the back. Mozart comes back round to his sink. He spots me and is grinning.

'Hallo,' he says.

'Hi,' I say, cautiously.

Ant looks over from his work area. I expect him to say something insulting but he doesn't.

'I heard you're leaving,' he says.

'Next Friday, I mean not this Friday, but the Friday after.'

'Ah right. Where're you going?'

'What?'

'Do you have another job lined up?'

'Er…kind of. I don't know.' I laugh.

'Well that's fucking stupid,' he says.

I agree and shrug my shoulders. I pick up some plates that are to be taken out and look at the ticket to see what table they are for. I walk out of the kitchen with the plate and the ticket, opening the door with my backside. I look up and both Ant and Mozart are looking at me. Ant makes a last ditch attempt at a joke: 'I guess you could always sell your body,' but I am already out in the restaurant area.

I take the plates to a couple sitting by a window. As soon as I set them down someone else asks for a bill. Time is moving in fast forwards.

seventeen

It’s still light when I get home. I watch TV in the living room and eat a microwave meal.

It turns dark outside and my Mum gets home from work.

‘Why’s it so dark in here?’ she asks and then switches on the main lights in the living room.

‘Did you see what came in the post this morning?’ she asks.

‘No.’

‘Here,’ she hands me a thick, glossy catalogue advertising a multitude of degree courses. On the cover, a black boy, an asian girl, a white girl with long blonde hair and a white boy with short brown hair are lounging on some grass all smiling or laughing at each other.

‘They look like they’re having a great time.’ I say, and go back to watching TV.

‘I just think that it’s something you should really consider, precious.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘I don’t want to keep on nagging you, but I really think it’d be a great opportunity for you. I know your Dad would have wanted you to go.’

I get up and go up to my bedroom.

I realise I have two missed calls and one text. They are all from Sarah. I read the text and laugh and then feel bad for laughing. It’s like watching someone in the street trip over: pangs of sympathy are mixed with relief that it’s not me. I consider phoning her but I decide I’ll wait until tomorrow.

It’s late, but I don’t feel tired so I decide to go downstairs and eat some ice cream. My Mum is in he living room with a glass of wine, watching TV. I walk past the living room door and she says sorry.

‘Don’t be,’ I say, over my shoulder, nonchalantly.

I sit in the living room with my Mum in silence. I eat my ice cream; she drinks her wine. When I finish I take my bowl into the kitchen and rinse it in the sink.

We say night to each other as I pass the living room and go up the stairs and go back to my room.

sixteen

I walk from the library to work. It’s not far, just a ten-minute walk going through town. I walk past the café where I handed my CV in. There isn’t a sign in the window anymore. I don’t know if this means that they have found someone or they just haven’t started calling people about interviews yet.

I look at my phone.

No messages. I guess I should keep on looking for new jobs anyway, just in case.

The town centre is empty and I walk with an unbroken stride. I don’t actually realise just how fast I am walking until I get to work fifteen minutes early and have started to itch at the beginnings of a sweat.

I take my coat off and fold it into my bag, which I then hang up in my locker in the staff changing rooms.

There’s one chef in the kitchen: it’s not Ant. Mozart isn’t there yet either. A knot of nervousness unties and reties itself in the pit of my stomach. I want them both to be here just so the initial awkwardness is out of the way.

There are a few people on their lunch break in the restaurant. I start cleaning the empty tables that occupy 60% of the restaurant. Spray, wipe in circular motions, then on to the next table.

There are two people at the other side of the room. They are not saying anything to each other. One of them pulls their phone from out of their pocket and starts stabbing at it intently; the other sighs and balances their head in their right hand.

I finish two more tables before going over to ask if everything is okay. The one balancing their head in their right hand looks up at me and says,

‘Can we get the bill, please?’

I go and get them the bill and two imperial mints on a tiny plate. They pay by card.

After they have left I go to clear up their table. On the tiny plate is a receipt for their bill, £3.65 in change and two imperial mints. I put the money in the tip glass behind the counter and put the imperial mints back with the rest of them.

My shift is only half over and I feel exhausted. My eyes feel like they don’t belong inside their sockets; like they are made out of a synthetic material that my retinas are allergic to. I rub them and try and read a newspaper at the bar. My eyes keep on wandering off the page though.

My boss comes into the restaurant and asks how my first day back is going. I ask if I can go home early and he says that it is fine and there will be enough staff to cover anyway. He doesn’t seem pissed off and I’m not sure if this means there’s something wrong.

I go to the changing room and take my bag out of my locker, then make my way out of the back entrance and walk to the bus stop. Outside, it has gotten cold. I open my bag and take out my coat.

The bus peers round the corner at the end of the road before it pulls out and comes rolling up towards me. I stick my left arm out into the road until it had stopped right in front of me. I go to step onto the bus, but some people are getting off first. An old woman that has a plastic cover over her hair is pulling one of those bags on wheels behind her. A man behind her is lifting the bag over the gap between the bus and the pavement. His back is bent so his blond hair hangs down in front of his face. A knot in my stomach unties and reties itself. He looks up at me.

‘Hi,’ I say with a certain amount of surprise.

‘Hallo.’

‘I’m going home,’ I say, lifting my hand in a half wave.

‘See you soon.’

I sit next to the window near the front of the bus and look outside. I think of how indifferent Mozart seemed to me. The same thoughts spin round in my head, but no progression is made with them. I try to think of something different, but eventually it winds up back at the same thoughts.

fifteen

I leave for work a bit earlier than usual because I want to take the Mozart CDs back to the library.

I get to the library and the man with the John Lennon-style glasses is there again, sitting in the exact same seat I saw him in before. In front of him are stacks of newspapers. His arms are lying by his side and his head is laid back. If his eyes were open then they would be looking straight up at the ceiling, but they’re not. Instead, his mouth is wide open.

At first, he is completely still. I wonder if he’s dead or something. Then suddenly he gives a loud snort and wakes himself up. He looks around the room, either to see where he is or to see if anyone saw or heard him. He then wipes some saliva from his chin and starts sorting through the papers in front of him.

I take the CDs out of my bag and hand them to a young guy in a black shirt and jeans, standing behind the counter. He has an ID badge on a strip of material around his neck – this is the only way I know he works here.

He smiles as I hand him the CDs and says ‘thanks.’

I take my earphones out, to make sure I don’t shout at him and say thanks back. I can still hear my earphones quite clearly now they are unplugged from my ears and I am sure he can too.

I walk past the library after I leave and glance through the open window at the side of the building. The man in the John Lennon-style glasses has fallen asleep in his chair again.

fourteen

I have never had a sick day. Not since year 6 in primary school and not until last week when I got a concussion at work. But even then I had the following week off as holiday.

When I had that sick day in year 6, it wasn’t a test day or anything. It was a Wednesday: PE day. I had complained to my Mum of a stomach-ache at breakfast that morning, but she must have assumed I was faking it. Even though I had never had a sick day before then. She drove me to the school gates and dropped me off.

‘Hurry up then,’ she said as she lent across me and opened the car door. It took me about fifteen minutes after we had our carton of milk in the morning for me to throw up all over the table in front of me. I remember a couple of the girls screaming and some boys laughing and shouting in excitement as cereal and milk that had turned to mucous came out of my mouth and nose.

The next thing I remember was sitting outside the principles office with my bag at my feet and a sick bowl in my hands, waiting for my Mum to pick me up. I remember feeling hungry and taking a chocolate bar out of my lunch box. Mrs Blackwell, the mother of a boy in my class, walked past and said,

‘Hmpf! She can’t be that sick if she’s eating chocolate!’ as if talking to someone else who was backing up her judgement. I’m not too sure exactly what she did at the school, but she wasn’t a teacher. I folded the wrapper around the remains of my chocolate bar and out it back in my bag as I waited for my Mum to show up.

When my Mum got me home she made me change into my pyjamas and go straight to bed. She checked on me every hour or so to see how I was. But now that I had actually been sick I really didn’t feel too bad anymore. So as soon as she left my bedroom I would get out from under my covers and start playing with my toys.

At dinnertime she asked me if I thought I would be able to hold something down. I said I would and we went downstairs and ate Garlic Kiev’s and chips and watched the news. Afterwards, we had neapolitan ice cream and I sat on the sofa with my Mum and she brushed my hair: it was very long back then; down to my coccyx. Even though I had spent most of the day in bed I thought I might fall asleep right there.

She then got up and went upstairs. When she came back down she had two books and my pencil case in her hand. One of the books was my exercise book; the other was a maths textbook. She set them up at the dining room table and told me I could make up for the work I missed at school today.

The next thing I remember was having a long argument with her about how it was PE today and it was maths tomorrow. I think I actually screamed, I MISSED PE TODAY about twenty times in a row until I ran out of breath, while my mother just stared at me with her arms crossed. She would then reply calmly,

‘Well then, you’ll be ahead of everyone else tomorrow won’t you?’

Neither of us listened to each other and I ended up locking myself in the bathroom, sobbing to myself as my Mum banged on the bathroom door, telling me if I didn’t study now then I would regret it later in life. She then left and came back fifteen minutes later. I was still crying and sniffing up my own snot.

She tapped on the door gently,

‘Baby,’ she would call me, ‘I need the toilet.’ She then paused and continued, ‘Listen, you know I love you, don’t you? I’m just trying to do what I think is right, and what I think your father would have wanted. It’s not easy for me, you know?’

There was silence, except for the hum and whir of the extractor fan, which the light switch turned on automatically. I got down from the toilet seat and undid the lock. I had stopped crying but my face felt puffy, red and wet. I opened the bathroom door and my Mum was standing there, her face puffy, red and wet. She dropped to her knees and hugged me tightly and we both started crying again.

This was the last sick day I ever took off work until last week, when I hit my head on the back of the door to the walk-in freezer at work and got a concussion. Today is my first day back since then and I am seriously considering calling in sick for the first time ever. My phone is in my hand. It would be an easy call to make, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I put my phone down and get out of bed. I pick up my towel off the back of the radiator in my room and go to the bathroom.

I wrap a towel around my head and slide down into the bath. I listen to the radio for three songs before getting out and brushing my teeth. My Mum yells from the bottom of the stairs that she is leaving and hopes I have a good day at work. I say thanks, toothbrush still in mouth. The front door slams shut as I spit the white froth into the sink. I wipe my mouth and look at myself in the mirror. I smile. I force an outwardly positive image.

thirteen

I am a camera watching my ex come out of the kitchen at work and sit opposite me – or an actor playing me. There are similarities, but I know for certain that it’s not actually me. I’m worried that the person playing me is going to say something stupid. I see myself sitting opposite him, awkward. I am wearing big sunglasses, a tank top and hot pants. I have sunburn on my shoulders. He asks me how I’m doing.

I reply, ‘Fine. You?’

‘Yeah I’m great,’ he says. ‘Been doing lots of fucking.’

My head is shaved and I am a whole foot smaller. It must be a different actor. We are in a club and I am crying. I ask him why he doesn’t love me. I am weeping like a toddler in a supermarket.

I wake up to my phone ringing. At first I am annoyed that I have been woken up, then I remember that it might just be the café phoning me about interviews. It’s not.

‘You’ve got to help me. I think I have Chlamydia,’ the voice on the other end tells me.

‘You think?’ I ask. I can hear my voice and it sounds like a voice that has just been asleep for 6 hours.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ve been up all night, you see. I just didn’t know who else to call.’

Sarah was my friend for most of our school lives. We always seemed to wind up in the same classes and we hung out with the same group of friends, but I don’t think we were ever particularly close. I'd received a couple of e-mails from her since she went to university in September, but this is the first time she has called me. I try to think if she has ever called me before. She must have at some point but I can’t think of any right now.

‘Have you had any tests done?’ I ask her.

‘No, not yet. God, I don’t know what to do. Fuck, I feel like such a slut.’

‘You’re not a slut.’ I tell her.

Sarah then tells me, at length, how she slept with her flatmates boyfriend and then found out last night while they were out at a club that her flatmate has Chlamydia. I stop listening for a minute and take the phone away from my ear to look at the time. It’s half five in the morning. I listen a bit longer. She keeps on repeating things. Maybe this is because I am not saying anything and she thinks I am not listening. Maybe she’s just a bit drunk. She then tells me: ‘I can’t tell anyone this but you. Every one else will think I am such a big slut.’

I tell Sarah to get a test done at a clinic. I then tell her it’s Monday morning and I need to start getting ready to go to work. After about four 'bye’s and three 'speak to you soon’s I hang up the phone and get ready for what I have been dreading these past seven days.

twelve

I go to Costa and order a Latte and poppy seed muffin before asking if they have any job vacancies – there weren’t any signs in the window. The girl behind the counter tells me that they don’t and I begin to feel embarrassed. I take my coffee and go and sit over on a bar stool in front of the open window looking out onto the high street. The track changes on the stereo and it is soft folk music. It sounds like a mobile phone advert.

I’m still feeling the sting of embarrassment after asking if they have any jobs available. I feel the barista’s laughing eyes burning into my back. I think about just leaving my endless coffee and getting out of there. Then I freeze.

Out of the front window I think I see my ex walking down the road. He has been at university for the past nine months now. I haven’t heard a word from him since he left.

It was his idea to break up, but to tell you the truth, I was relieved when we did. I was always looking at it from an outside perspective and thinking how weird it all was.

I feel the panic run through my body at the thought of having to talk to him. He probably doesn’t want to talk to me either. I’m nervous. I slide off the stool to go to the toilet and take a final look out the window just so that I am certain it is him, but he’s not there anymore.

I go to the toilet anyway so I have some time to sit down and collect myself.

After I leave the coffee shop and go to the next one, twenty meters down the road. There’s a handwritten sign in the window that reads: ‘Waitress required. F/T. Experience essential.’ Etc.

I take a CV out of my bag and walk in. There are three people behind the counter: two girls and a guy. The shortest girl comes over to me and asks if she can get me anything. I ask if the job in the window is still available. She says yes and I hand her the CV that I have in my hands. She holds in straight in front of her face, looks at me and smiles.

‘Great!’ she tells me. ‘We’ll probably call you in a couple of days to let you know when interviews are.’

I leave the shop feeling excited. I go home.

eleven

I can see everything in my room. It is pitch black but I have been awake so long that my eyes have adjusted to everything. I think about getting up and going downstairs to get a drink but then I tell my self that I will never get to sleep if I do this.

I am at my Gran’s and she keeps on cooking me plates and plates of oven chips. Her electric oven doesn’t cook the middle of them and I can’t get any ketchup out of them glass bottle. I stick a knife through the whole and it all comes out over my arms and hands. I am shocked by how much there is because there seems to be a lot more than the bottle can actually hold. I am now covered in ketchup. My Gran shouts at me in a terrifying voice, ‘what do you think you’re doing?!’

I start to cry.

I wake up sweating with a dry throat and a headache. It's sunny. I have a pint of water and a paracetemol for breakfast before taking the dogs into the garden. Mum has already left for work. I put the CVs I printed off at the library yesterday in my bag and get the bus into town.

Dust rises from the seats towards the roof of the bus. I can taste the dust in the back of my throat when I breathe. The bus is empty and I enjoy the short journey into town, without any stops. My headache has cleared now. I feel revitalised. I feel like a yogurt advert.

I have a look around some charity shops and end up buying a blue jumper for £4.

Walking towards a Costa - of which I have a picture in my head of a ‘barista position available’ sign in the window - a girl starts walking towards me. She walks past me and I look at her. She is looking straight back at me and I think she wants to punch me. I imagine her clenched fist pounding hard against the side of my face and me falling to the floor. I feel the shock overwhelming the pain of the punch as I lie there thinking about why she has just hit me. Why has she just hit me? Maybe she knows me or knows something about me that offends her. I think it’s unlikely as I can’t think of anything that I’ve done recently that would offend anyone really. Maybe she is Mozart’s girlfriend/wife. I dismiss this instantly because if she were then she would have no reason to want to hit me anyway, unless Mozart had told her he was in love with m or something. And even then, how would she know what I looked like?

The thought of why this woman would want to hit me – in actually fact she hasn’t said a word to me – lingers in my thoughts as I carry on walking. I assess my self. Perhaps it is the way I am dressed, I think. Maybe this is enough to take a dislike to someone. I decide not to think about it anymore before my thoughts begin to manifest in the form of a stomach ulcer.

ten

I get in and Mum is home already, talking on the phone. She waves me over whilst saying, ‘She’s just walked through the door, just this second.’

She hands me the phone and mouths to me, ‘it’s Grandma.’

‘Hi Grandma!’ I try to sound as cheerful as possible.

‘Hello dear, listen, I won’t keep you long I just wanted to see how you were doing after your nasty fall. Mum told me all about it. What a brute!’

‘Yeah I’m fine now. Don’t worry about it. I’ve just got back…’ I try to fit in.

‘Oh good, good. And Mum says you’re quitting your job? Well you don’t want to stay in a job like that do you? And I guess it’s only temporary. You’ll be off to university in September, won’t you?’

‘Err…I’m still not sure about that Grandma…’ I'm rolling my eyes and looking over to my mum who is nibbling on food from the fridge and opening a bottle of wine.

My Gran continues, ‘Well I’m sure something better will come up in no time.’

I grind my teeth and say, ‘Fingers crossed. I plan on handing my CV in to a few places tomorrow and I was going to look on the Internet for some jobs tonight.’

‘Oh that is good. Well good luck my dear. Best of luck.’

‘Yeah. You too.’ I’m not sure what I mean by this.

‘God bless dear. God bless,’ she says before being replaced by a dial tone.

I picture her going to her arm chair and putting on an oxygen mask just to catch her breath back.

nine

I go to sleep. I toss and turn for a bit and think I am just going to lie awake in bed all night. Then it is morning and I get up and take the dogs into the garden before making breakfast. I think I could live like this forever, but by the time it is lunch I am bored out of my head and nothing is on TV.

It’s ten-to-two when I decide to get the bus into town and go to the library.

I walk into the library through the swinging metal gate that has always been there for as long as I can remember. I go over to the computers. You have to book when you want them on most of them, except one. The one at the end you can log in for fifteen minutes without booking, as long as it is free. I log in and go to my e-mail account. I download the file I have sent to myself and print off five copies. This costs me £1.50 in total, and I push my coins, one-by-one, into the machine to release the pages that tell the story of my whole working career. Double-spaced with education, work experience, employment history, references and contact details. Just stretching to the two-page mark. I collect them together and go to the desk at the far end of the library to ask if I can borrow a stapler. There is a woman there in her late forties. Crows feet are embedded at the sides of her eyes. She hands me the stapler reluctantly, like I am about to use it in some perverted sex act. I take them stapler and my ten pages of A4 paper and go and sit in one of the big comfy chairs in the magazine section.

At a table near me, a man sits with a stack of different newspapers. He looks like he’s in his sixties but his clothes are very youthful. Grey hair pokes out from underneath his cap and he has round, John Lennon-type glasses on. I pretend to read for a bit because I want to see just how closely he is reading the newspapers in front of him. I can’t tell if he’s reading any section in particular. Maybe he is researching something. I push my curiosity to the side for now and start to staple the pages together.

I finish stapling the pages. I hold them together, up right, and tap them against my knees to straighten them out before placing them in my bag.

I walk over to the CD section. I’m not really too sure why I am looking through them. There’s nothing there I want to listened to. Most of the CDs booklets are tattered and torn and where in the charts about seven years ago. I wonder why I am wasting my time looking through the CDs and again turn to leave. The classical shelf is facing me and the eyes of old portraits of men in wigs meet me. I look back at them and step up to the section marked ‘M.’

The entire ‘M’ section is filled with double and triple CDs of music by Mozart (Wolfgang Amadeus). I look through them one by one then go back to some, pick up two at a time and compare. To be honest I don’t have a clue. CDs are a pound for a week. I take one with two violins on the cover over to the desk along with the stapler that is still in my hand. The woman at the counter grabs the stapler and the CD and then asks me bluntly for my card. She scans the card and CD and then asks me for the pound. She thrusts her arm out at me with the CD and my card at the end. I take them and say thanks. She says ‘thank you’ while clicking away at something on the computer screen in front of her.

I think it must be quite nice to be a librarian. I tell myself to look for library jobs when I get home.

It is five o’clock and the library is almost about to close. Having not eaten since breakfast my stomach now feels like it is digesting itself. I start walking home.

Walking home from town takes about forty minutes. At the thought of a forty-minute walk some of my friends would call a taxi or their boyfriends and get home this way. But I don’t mind. I don’t even mind that I have to walk next to a busy road most of the way. To the other side of me are the subtle variations of suburban front gardens. Tulips, fir trees, brick wall, rose bush, hollies, wooden fence, landlocked boat. Then I look over the other side of the road, in a gap between a row of trees. The view stretches for miles and there are untouched fields folding over each other. Green, yellow, brown, orange. I enjoy every step.

eight

It may be the worst mistake I have ever made, but I hand in the letter anyway.

When I give the letter to my boss he sighs and gives me the pissed off look he always gives me, in any situation. I look at his balding head. There’s a line where his hair once reached. It’s like someone has torn it right off and just slapped some sliced meat in its place.

He tells me I have to give four weeks notice, but I have the next week off because of my concussion. So that leaves three weeks before I can leave. He says I have to work these or else he won’t give me a reference. So, now I have a week before I have to go back there; a week before I have to think about dealing with everything I have so far managed to avoid; a free week to start looking for a new job.

When I go to give my notice in I go through the front entrance and go the same way when I leave. This way I avoid the kitchen entirely, minimizing my chances of seeing Mozart or Ant. I picture Mozart looking up at me from his sink and saying ‘hallo.’ I picture Ant making some comment about my breasts being small.

seven

My GP tells me later that I have a concussion, which she refers to as a “mild traumatic head injury.” My boss is waiting for me in the waiting room after I have seen my GP. I tell him that she said it was just a concussion and she said I am to get plenty of rest. He tells me I can have the next week off work if I like, but he’ll put it down as holiday. I say thanks and he drives me home.

His car seems like it is brand new and smells of air fresheners in the shape of pine trees that you get at garages. The radio volume is on about 1 and I ask him if he can turn it up. He says he doesn’t like to have to speak over the radio and he continues to drive me back to my house in silence, albeit for the tiny sound of the radio coming out of the doors.

I spend the rest of the day on the sofa watching TV and applying ice packs to my head. My Mum tells me I should try and stay up because it’s bad to fall asleep after getting a concussion. I tell her that the doctor would have said something to me when I saw her if that was the case. Still, I end up staying up until around four in the morning with the TV still on. When I wake up I cannot remember any of the dreams I had during the night. I go to the bureau in the hall and take out a pen and a piece of writing paper. Our address is pre-printed in the top right hand corner. I pause for a second and then start writing a letter of resignation.

six

I am in my parents bedroom, unwrapping Christmas presents. It's their old bedroom in the house we used to live in when my Dad was still around. My ex is there, but my ex looks like Mozart. My Gran is there too, but I guess my parents must be downstairs or else out at a friends. My ex keeps on asking me why I am there but he is doing it in such a roundabout way that I am not really sure what it is he's asking. I open a jar of sweeties. My Gran explains what it is my ex/Mozart is trying to say to me and I say, 'where else am I supposed to go?' as I play with the light-switch on the bedside lamp I have just unwrapped. I want to kiss my ex/Mozart or for him to kiss me, but I play with the lamp instead.

I think about this on the bus to work. I think it’s weird. Not because of my ex/Mozart or anything, but because it’s in our old house. I didn’t know my ex or Mozart when we lived in our old house. I was 9 when we moved out.

My ex was into interpreting dreams; I couldn’t care less to be honest. I think they’re interesting of course. It’s fun thinking about the fucked up stuff that goes on in your head that you don’t really ever have any control over, but I think trying to give them a meaning is just pointless.

My mind is everywhere. Mozart keeps on coming into my head like an endless chorus to a cheesy pop song. I try and focus on other things like the other people on the bus, but then suddenly my mind will spring back to thinking of a way to confront Mozart.

When I get to work the place is packed. One of the other waiters tells me that there’s probably a wedding or business conference on, but I think this is just a guess he has made.

I don't have time to accept Mozart's nods until the lunchtime crowd has subsided. I have brought sandwiches with me today and I take my break in the garden area that backs onto the car park. I eat my sandwiches quickly before going back in to confront Mozart, thinking the reason why my stomach feels weird is because I am hungry. When I get back to the kitchen Ant is shouting at Mozart because a plate isn’t clean. Mozart looks at the plate patiently, like Ant is explaining some mathematical equation.

I go to the walk-in freezer and look through the stacks of meat and fish. It all looks like lumps of flesh and then I laugh because that is exactly what it is. I am laughing out loud when Ant walks in. He looks at me and I turn red.

'Did the tuna tell you something funny?'

I ask him what he was shouting at Mozart about. He tells me to go and suck him off if I feel so sorry for him. I tell him in a calm voice to go and fuck him self. I look at the frozen salmon lying on the shelf. Ant is silent and looking at me. I look at him and his eyes are on my breasts. He asks me if I am feeling cold and then gives me a smirk. I try to walk past him and try to walk out of the walk-in freezer. He grabs my wrist and pulls me round. I turn quickly and use my force to try and push him away but instead I end up falling over backwards and hitting my head on the back of the solid door. I rub where I hit my head before trying to get up. I get to my feet and realise there is blood on my hand. I don't remember what happens after this.

five

Mozart and I sit next to each other on the bus home again. It is not raining but you can't see anything anyway. He is sitting next to the window, looking out into the passing nothingness; I am sitting next to the aisle taking occasional glances at him. I apologise to Mozart about what Ant said and tell him not to pay any attention to what he says. Mozart looks at me and shakes his head.

'I don't like that nigger.'

I see a few people turn around. I turn red, that final word echoing off every face. I try not to respond. I try to ignore it. But the more I do the more I feel like a tiny man in Klan robes is chiseling a swastika onto all of my internal organs so that even after I am dead people will know what kind of person I really was. We sit in silence for the rest of the journey..When we get to his stop he asks if I would like to come round to his, perhaps. I tell him that I need to get home to feed my dogs, but maybe another time.

In bed I make up excuses for Mozart. Maybe he had heard Ant refer to himself in that way and had just adopted it due to his poor grasp of English. Nothing's working for me though. Every time I think of him saying it my fists start to clench. I get up and go downstairs, unable to sleep. I take a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge and sit down at the dining room table. In my mind I weigh up all the things I now know about Mozart: he is from Poland; he has blond hair; he plays the violin; he is quiet; he washes the dishes where I work; his hands are hard and worn; he doesn't like TV; we get on the same bus; he is probably a racist; his level of English probably isn't too good; he knows the word 'nigger'; he's probably a racist.

I decide I will talk to Mozart tomorrow. I go to sleep thinking about what I’ll say to him.

The theme from 'Friends' is playing over and over, except it is different. It’s like it is playing backwards but it all makes perfect sense (not like if it was a record being played backwards). I watch TV and there's a program on about it, which Mozart is presenting. He is speaking fluent English and he tells me about how the producers of 'Friends' thought that the song was now outdated and that people were getting annoyed with it. So they got a new band to record a song where all the chords were reversed and they changed the lyrics around a bit. Mozart is now interviewing the band and they ask him to play violin with them. He starts to play but it is all in a different key and sounds more like an entire orchestra rather than just one violin. They stop and look at him. Mozart apologises bashfully and puts down the violin.

***

I dread having to see Mozart at work. I walk into the kitchen and he looks up at me through his blond hair that’s hanging in front of his eyes and asks in his Polish accent:

‘Busy?’

But in my head the only word that is coming out of his mouth is 'nigger.' I flinch and say: ‘Yeah, seems to be a lot of people out tonight.’

He doesn’t say anything to this and goes back to his sink. I place an order and one of the chefs looks at it absent-mindedly.

Jazz is piped through, even to the toilets. I sit on the comfortable wooden seat. My trousers are done up and I am not going to the toilet. There is a sign on the wall, covering where someone has written some graffiti. The sign says:
RUNNING A RESTAURANT IS LIKE A GOOD FRIENDSHIP
SOMETIMES YOU MAY FIND FAULT.
IF YOU HAVE FOUND FAULT WITH ANYTHING HERE
PLEASE LET A MEMBER OF STAFF KNOW

I start to cry.

I go back to the kitchen and Mozart looks up at me. He looks at me slightly shocked. He can probably see I have been crying. Tears leave an unruboutable trace on your face. I want to say something to him. Tell him to stop being a racist or something, but it all sounds ridiculous in my head. He smiles at me and says,

‘Are you okay?’

I go over to the plates waiting to be taken out to the customers, pick them up and walk out of the kitchen.

four

Having to get the later bus means being trapped in a packed cage for twenty minutes with an army of school children. At a set of traffic lights the bus driver starts yelling from his seat that everyone needs to settle down or he will pull over and throw everyone out. There is silence, except for a few giggles. Then everything starts all over again when the lights turn green, and the bus driver doesn't stop. Eventually they all fall out of the bus a few stops before mine. I watch them through the safety of the window. They ignore the separating kerb between the pavement and the road and already I can hear car horns. A boy of about thirteen starts banging on the window next to me as the bus starts to pull away. A group of five other boys are standing behind him and laughing and as the bus pulls further away I see he has his hand down his trousers.

Mozart is not there when I get to work. There are no customers either. I start my shift by going through the clean cutlery and dividing them into sets of knives, forks and spoons. I then take a serviette, wrap it around the cutlery and dip a triangle in water, tying it all together. I walk through the kitchen door. Mozart is standing over the deep sink with his blond hair in his face. He looks up at me and nods. I smile back at him.

A couple are standing at the bar. They both have suitcases with white tags around the handles. The man has white hair and a dark tan. The woman has dark hair and an olive complexion and looks at least ten years younger. The man tells me they would both like Irish coffees. I tell them to sit where they like and I will bring it over to them.

Making Irish coffee is one of the few duties I enjoy at work. There is a certain chemistry in getting it right and making the whipped cream stay on top. Once I am satisfied I place both glasses on a tray and take them over to the couple. The woman is silent and does not say a word. The man with the white hair and dark tan thanks me and calls me babe. The top buttons of his shirt are undone and reveal more white hair on his chest. I say thank you and walk back behind the bar.

The couple drinking Irish coffee leave, the white haired dark tanned man thanking me once again as the woman walks out the front entrance, expressionless. I take an empty tray to pick up the empty glasses. The tables are now empty and Ant comes out to tell me to go on my break. Mozart brings my plate out as well as a plate with a sandwich on it. He puts the plates opposite each other on the table and goes back behind the bar to pour himself a pint of coke.

'It's not busy,' he states as he sits down to his sandwich.

We sit there, eating and drinking, not talking, as the music changes from Big Band to Bebop. I wait for the sound of the door, which will force me to put down my knife and fork and pull myself up from my chair. But the door doesn't open and we stay seated. We start to talk about what was on TV last night, Mozart tells me he tries not to watch too much TV and that he finds it too distracting. I think about him revealing these tiny bits of information to me about himself. I think about what I know about him. That he plays the violin; he is from Poland; he washes dishes where I work. I also now know that he does not like to watch TV. Not a lot really.

I watch him as he bites into his sandwich with the same effort and expression as when he is washing dishes in the kitchen. I want to ask him where he is from in Poland. I want to find out when his birthday is. There is mayonnaise on his lip and he shyly wipes it away.

The sound of the door opening surprises me and I get up to see Ant wiping his hands and coming though the door from the kitchen.

'So... What are you two talking about?'

We both look at Ant in silence as he grins back. I want to look at Mozart to see how he is reacting but I realise that this has the possibility of creating more drama than it's worth. But the comments keep coming, regardless.

'Has he shown you his "violin" yet?' Ant laughs, making inverted comma marks in the air with his hands. 'Maybe you should compose her something, Mozart.'

Mozart gets up from his chair and takes his empty plate to the kitchen. I finish eating while Ant sits beside me. After a while I break the silence with: 'Y'know, you don't have to be such a prick to him.'

He laughs and asks: 'Why do you care? He probably can't understand half of what the fuck I'm saying anyway.'

The sound of a plate breaking comes from the kitchen and Ant leaves the table swearing to himself.

three

Mozart and I get the same bus home from work. He gets on first and I'm not sure whether he wants me to sit next to him or not. I sit down and he looks up at me and smiles in the same way he does when I give him empty plates to wash up. It's raining outside. The journey has the musical accompaniment of tires sloshing through puddles, windscreen wipers screeching away the endless amount of rain blinding the driver. The bus engine is rumbling like a hungry stomach. Mozart is looking at his hands, thinking about playing the violin or something else in Polish. I look at his hands as well. They are rugged. I think of violinists as having dainty hands but Mozart's are pink like a cartoon pig, swollen by having them submerged in water for eight hours a day. I see Mozart looking at me in the corner of my eye. I am still looking at his hands. I look up at him and realise that he has been looking at me looking at his hands. I start to blush, but Mozart doesn’t seem to mind.

'Is the work tough on your hands?' I ask.

'It's okay.'

We get to Mozart's stop and I stand up to let him get off. He whispers 'thanks' as he passes me and then repeats himself to the bus driver as he hops off the bus and starts walking in the rain. I sit next to the window and close my eyes until it is time for me to get off.

I look up Poland on the Internet. It is a big country. Bigger than Germany, or maybe about the same size. It’s definitely bigger than England. I wonder where Mozart used to live and if he ever wants to go back someday. This town is small and uneventful and I can't imagine it is much more exciting than living anywhere in Poland. It’s not like living in London or Paris. Still, I like it here. Nothing changes because it doesn’t need to. At least it seems that way to me.

I look at pictures of Warsaw. I find a skyline picture showing the high-rise buildings. There is one building in the middle of the picture that is mirroring everything in the opposite direction. It reminds me of the view I get from the motorway when I go up to Leeds to visiting my cousins. I think I would like to go to Warsaw but only if Mozart could go with me as my guide. I think about going to the airport and getting on a plane with Mozart. Pulling luggage on wheels, making sure we have our tickets and passports. We're sitting down in the plane and it's about to take off. I'm sitting by the window. Mozart buys a drink from the trolley going past.

I fall asleep looking forward to going to work tomorrow, like when I used to look forward to going to school on a Wednesday because we had PE on a Wednesday. We got to get out of the classroom for at least an hour for PE, but I won't be getting out of the restaurant tomorrow. I'll be walking the same Scaletrix figure 8, into the same kitchen and Mozart will look up at me and nod without saying anything.

I am at my cousins and we are in Leeds going round the shops but everyone around us is speaking a different language. I see the back of my Gran walking into Boots and I call out for her. She doesn’t hear me so I start running after her. I can see my self running after her from an outside perspective and my cousins are standing behind me, rolling their eyes and clucking their tongues, saying, 'it's your own fault if you get lost.' I then fall down a step and wake up with a jolt.

I've missed my bus and have to phone work to let my boss know I'll be late. He sounds pissed off, but then he always sounds pissed off, in that way that quiet, bald, middle aged men who never smile do.

I brush my teeth furiously and look up at my face a couple of times to see the face of an Olympic sprinter, completely in the zone. I laugh, brush my tongue and gag for a second. I leave the bath water for my Mum and run out the front door with a piece of toast between my teeth and my arms still climbing into my coat.

two

Mozart is standing over a deep sink with a hose that looks like a showerhead. His blond hair hangs over his eyes as I walk through the kitchen door with a plate in each hand. Each plate is splattered with the remains of a meal: bits of fat, a stray potato, lots of peas. I place the plates down and he looks up from his sink to nod at me.

'Hallo,' he says.

Ant calls at me, his body half obscured by the lights that keep the plates warm. (The plates themselves are lined up sitting there, waiting for me to take them out to their tables.)

'When you wear a black bra I can see it perfectly through your white blouse, you know?'

I pick up the plates, taciturn. I don't stop for a second.

'What are you anyway, an A cup?' He laughs. I walk out the kitchen, pushing the door open with my backside. I don't acknoweldge him.

I think it's been like this since I started. I can't remember it being any different. Now that I think about it Ant could have said something similar on my first day. I never respond.

I walk out of the kitchen and into a restaurant drowned in Jazz. The restaurant has a collection of 16 Jazz CDs that play on rotation non-stop. Despite this wide selection available, I am now familiar with every song. I used to hear them in my head before I went to sleep sometimes, when I first started working here. Now they are no less annoying than the sound of forks scraping on plates.

I stand by the bar and wait for customers to come in. A middle-aged man in a suit comes in and orders a pint of bitter. He sits at a table on his own reading the paper. A group of four men come in and one of them orders for all of them. They sit down and start talking about county cricket. In the evening we get a fair amount of people coming in for food. I show these people to a table and then let them get settled before taking their order.

I go back to the kitchen to give orders to Ant. He makes a comment about my breasts or my white skin or something. I feel like a Scaletrix car going round a figure 8 continually – never going fast enough to filp and fly off the rail.

one

Mozart is a kitchen porter – a KP, a washer-up – at the restaurant where I work. He’s from Poland and he hardly ever says anything, except for Hallo, or Busy. He also plays the violin, but this took some serious bullying and is all he has let us find out about him since he started working here six months ago.

Ant, one of the chefs, was the first one to start calling him Mozart. He would question Mozart at length about meaningless things and repeat everything he said in a bad Polish accent. He would then question Mozart’s intelligence any time he ever did anything wrong or looked like he wasn’t doing anything in particular.

One day while Ant was berating him, Mozart broke down and let a shard of personality slip.

‘Did you ever go to school?’ Ant would say. ‘Do they even have schools in Poland?’ These were the kinds of things he would ask to wind Mozart up.

‘Of course they have schools.’

‘What’d they teach you?’

‘Maths, Science… Reading, Music.’

‘Music? They taught you music?’

‘Yes. I play the violin,’ Mozart replied, pride and annoyance resounding in his voice. This was met with laughter and ridicule from Ant.

After this Ant would only refer to him as Mozart. At first, Mozart would turn red and look like he wanted to say something to Ant that he couldn’t quite articulate, or just didn’t want to. Now he just accepts his moniker reluctantly, resigned to his fate: he is a kitchen porter; he is from Poland; he plays the violin; his name is Mozart.

Most of the time when I see Mozart he looks deep in solitude, expressionless, thinking to himself in a foreign language that I would never be able to make sense of. I sometimes think that if there wasn't the language barrier he'd be a completely different person. He'd be loud and charismatic instead of quiet and humble.

I think of him going back to a one bedroom flat riddled with mildew and playing violin until three in the morning.