Coffee Case

If coffee were a suburb it would be Paddington. The rich texture of the old terrace houses with their lace balconies, the cultured and luxurious shops and the carefree atmosphere of the back streets so close to the city but so far from the hassle. Although, I don't just look after Paddington, it's often where I relax on a slow day or hid on a bad one. Today however was different. I was heading for Cambridge Street for a potential lucrative refinance enquiry. As I parked, I grinned a good bye to my corporate commodore and dreamed of spending my commission on a sporty convertible. I opened the wrought iron gate and walked up to the well renovated by otherwise typical terrace house and knocked on the solid navy door. When the door slowly opened, I started to feel uneasy almost nervous.

A capacious woman in late twenties opened the door as Norah Jones played somewhere at the end of a long corridor.

"Hi, I'm Cass the nanny. You must be that mortgage guy that Fran's waiting for."

"Sorry, Oh sorry, come in. Please come."

I thought that she was going to take my hand and escort me to mum like a toddler whose latest attempt for freedom had been thwarted.

"Hello, I'm Andrew, Andrew Morgan. Nice house!

As I followed her in, Norah Jones gave way to Wham and the smell of stale tobacco and cheap grog hit me. I had forgotten about this place, this party, discarding its memory like a bad film. Except, I hadn't merely forgotten about this party. I hadn't simply put it down to bad luck or just one of those things. I had purged this memory from my body. However, I'm getting ahead of myself and this is probably, painful as it is, best told as it happened.