‘You’re looking for Ruby?’ the waitress asked as she set out the tea things.
‘She’s meant to get off early today,’ Gracie said. ‘Her brother’s birthday. He’s come up from the country.’
‘Tell her I said hello,’ the waitress said.
‘When’s she get off?’ Gracie asked.
‘She doesn’t,’ the waitress responded. ‘To get off, she’d have to get on. She hasn’t clocked on for two weeks.’
‘You’re having a laugh,’ Gracie said. ‘I saw her leave this morning, had her outfit on just like yours.’
‘Look,’ the waitress said, softening. ‘You can have the tea on me. If you want the pie and mash that’ll be the regular rate. But I’m telling you. Ruby doesn’t work here any more.’
‘What shift d’you work?’ Gracie asked.
The waitress shook her head. ‘Time sheet’s in the staff room,’ she said. ‘Her name’s above mine, so I see it twice every day. Once when I clock in. Once when I clock out. She hasn’t been here for two weeks.’
The waitress left them, the mystery not important enough to merit losing precious seconds of serving time.
‘She goes out every morning in her uniform, same as all these,’ Gracie said, looking around at the staff. ‘Comes home at God knows what time, stopping out with friends she says.’
‘Maybe she’s changed to a different branch,’ Cook said. He leant back to allow a different waitress to deposit two plates of food. The pie was steaming. The pastry was done perfectly. He could tell, just looking, he was going to enjoy it.
Cook caught sight of an elderly couple standing in the doorway. Something odd about them. They were dressed in indoor clothes, coats hurriedly shrugged on. Pullover on the man. Red pinafore on the woman. They’d been settled in for the evening and something had caused them to hurry out, unexpectedly. One thing they didn’t look like was a couple of people who’d stepped in for a cup of tea. They were looking around, on a mission.
The waitress intercepted them. Cook couldn’t hear the conversation, but it was clear the woman in the red pinafore wasn’t being fobbed off by the officious waitress. She looked like she wanted something. The way she was standing in the doorway, other customers pushing past, coming and going.
Cook watched as a man emerged from a blank door behind the serving counter. He wasn’t a waiter, more of an office type. White shirt with a black band around the right sleeve. Kept his cuffs out of the ink as he was doing the books.
The man approached the woman and listened attentively. He shook his head, but the woman stood her ground. He looked in solidarity to the waitress, then gave way, nodding slightly. The waitress made a gesture, letting the womanpass. They all headed back through the restaurant, a little crocodile of four people, threading through the tables.
Cook stood up.
‘Drink up,’ he said, to Gracie.
Cook followed the party of four. He ignored the complaint of the nearest waitress, filling a tray with cups and saucers at the service counter, and pushed past. He reached the featureless door just in time, stuck his foot in it while he waited for Gracie. He could hear footsteps ahead of him, climbing the stairs, and as soon as Gracie reached him they followed. The staircase was utilitarian, not for customers, black scrapes on the walls at waist height from deliveries. A gouge in the plaster showing thin wooden strips behind it. An unloved space.
At the top of the stairs, a plain corridor gave a couple of options. Two doors, one on the right and one on the left. Cook heard voices behind the door on the left and pushed it open.
‘Staff only,’ the man with the white shirt said, as Cook stepped into the room. It was some kind of canteen. A tea urn on a melamine counter, a tray of upturned mugs, a bottle of milk. Several chipped tables with uncomfortable chairs, each table with an overflowing ashtray and a collection of the day’s papers.
‘We’re here for the same reason as her,’ Cook said, nodding at the woman in the red coat.
‘You know Irene?’ the woman asked.
‘Ruby,’ Cook said.
The woman burst into tears, and her husband gathered her into him, glaring at Cook.
‘Ruby left,’ the manager said.
‘Our daughter hasn’t come home,’ the woman in the red pinafore said. She was facing the manager but she made sureto address Cook as well, not sure who was most able to get things done.
‘She always gets home at twenty past six,’ the man added.
‘Perhaps she took shelter when the raid happened,’ the manager said.
The manager looked at Cook as if for moral support. He looked like he’d much rather be timing waitresses and weighing slices of cake than dealing with this odd interlude.
