Steve Tanham

The Beast in the Cafe Steve Tanham

There was silence, and I looked up into her beautiful eyes. She smiled."You want he do all the work?" The question was expressed simply and with candour. I started to speak, but she moved her eyes sideways in the manner I had sometimes seen her use when she wanted to move on, quickly."I brought bill," she said. "Now going off-shift . . . check and pay counter, inside." With that, she jammed the small folded chit under my coffee saucer and turned to go. I looked up, somewhat bewildered, at her departing back. She must have felt my gaze and turned around. She walked back to me and planted one of her gentle kisses on my head. "Enjoy coffee while hot," she chuckled. "You unravel start of thread?"It had taken me a while, but I had finally located the practically invisible knot that Don Pedro had used to secure the ball of red wool. I nodded in response to her question."Good," she said, reaching into her pocket and taking out a plaited section of wool. She placed it next to my coffee, turned and left. I had an ominous feeling that life was happening somewhere else; and that I had been invited . . . but had, so far, failed to arrive . . . The Beast in the Café tells the journey of an ordinary man... a writer. A quiet coffee on a sunny afternoon, watching the world go by... that was the plan. But suddenly his world is turned upside down by an insistent Pomeranian and his mysterious owner. Everyday objects become the tools that lead first to knowledge, then to the glimmering of understanding...