Page 70 of Cream & Sugar

“Did you and Shaun have fun?” Anna asks.

“Huh?” I say, alarm bells ringing.

“He texted. Said he was taking you to try some coffee places?”

“Oh! Right. Yeah, it was awesome. Great… coffee.” I say, not at all convincingly.

“Mm,” says Anna, clearly thinking the same. But unless she’s psychic, there’s no way she can know what else we got up to. Though, from the way she’s staring at me like my head is a crystal ball, I wouldn’t rule it out.

The bell above the door rings, followed by the pitter-patter of running feet.

“Mama!”

A small boy, no older than five, hurtles across the café floor like a whippet. Behind him, a stout woman who looks just like Anna, only older and greyer and weighed down by an enormous green handbag, babbles away in a language I don’t understand.

“Hi, honey!” Anna squats down to hug her son, simultaneously shooting the woman I can only assume is her mother with a sharp look. “We said five, Matka!”

“I have to drive Philip to the hospital!” Anna’s mum gestures outside where a frail-looking man waits in the passenger seat of a pink Fiat 500. “His hip has gone again. It’ll be hours. Not fair for little Ethan to be stuck in a waiting room!”

“I’m working, Matka!” Anna says. I can tell she’s trying to keep her voice happy for her son’s benefit, not that she needs to. Ethan has spotted me, staring me down with the kind of soul-rending judgment only toddlers can muster.

“It’s okay. I brought toys.” Anna’s mum pulls a teddy bear, a keyboard, and a remote-control car from her handbag.

“Matka!” Anna palms her forehead. “You said you could look after him all day!”

Anna’s mother throws her arms up in the air like an angry jellyfish. “What should I do? Leave poor Philip out on the street with a bad hip?”

“No one is suggesting that—”

“You just don’t like him.”

“Matka, Philip doesn’t need you to look after him. Ethan does!”

Anna’s mother gasps. “How can you say that? He is a healthy young boy. Philip is a frail old man. Ethan can play here for a couple of hours. No problem!”

“How many times do I have to say it? This is a café, not a playground!”

“Better here than in the hospital! What if he catches a horrible disease, makes you sick, and you can’t work? What then, hm?”

Without breaking our staring contest, Ethan tugs on his mum’s apron.

“Mama, where’s Shauny?” he asks.

Anna gets to her feet, taking Ethan’s hand. “Shaun is off today, darling. This is Freddie. Say hi.”

“Hi, Ethan!” I give him a wave and, after a few very intense seconds, he waves back.

“Hi, Feddie.”

“Who is this boy?” Anna’s mother asks, brandishing Ethan’s teddy bear at me.

“Matka!” Anna scolds her before turning to me. “This is Freddie. He’s new. Freddie, this is my mother, Milena. Ignore everything she says.”

“Nice to meet you!” I put on my most charming smile, the one that usually makes grannies melt. With Milena, however, it’s like farting on a glacier.

Milena scowls.

“Why can’thedo the work? This is a fit young man and you are getting too old for this. Makingcoffees,” she tuts. “This is young people’s work! He will do it, and you will watch Ethan. He is your son!”