Back out in the Pumpkin Cafe, I rest on the counter top while the two women behind it clear up a bit and chat. There are no customers waiting and only two people sitting at the tables. Post rush hour is the chance the staff get to wipe the machines and the surfaces before it gets busy again.

They are wearing their name badges: one is Stacey, the Toonappaneenee Lady; the other is called Milada. I know Stacey quite well, an older blonde with grey roots and a habit of burning the toasties. Milada is young, new, I’ve only seen her a couple of times before. She has fine pale skin and very thin lips, so colourless they almost blend with the rest of her face. I’d love to talk to them about Caleb. Men are Stacey’s favourite topic of conversation – I’ve heard her many times. She’s doing it right now, in fact. She talks about men in the same amiable, unsurprised way that people talk about the weather – men are a kind of constant, a background note. They are useful objects for meaningless chatter when there is nothing else more important to talk about.

‘Now, he’s easy on the eye …’ she is saying to Milada. ‘Doesn’t smile much, not sure why. Mind you, there’s something about him, you’d want him if there was any bother, don’t you think? Like, the blokes round here who act tough but you know they aren’t tough at all when push comes to shove. He’s the opposite, I reckon, really quiet, like, but I reckon he could handle himself.’ She gives a small snort. ‘He could handle me any time.’ She lifts the lid of the sandwich toaster and frowns into it, as if she is expecting something to be in there – a toastie or panini that has served its time. It’s empty, though, and she puts the lid back down with a shake of her head. ‘I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crisps.’

Milada is rubbing a cloth hard up and down the metal tube that protrudes from the coffee machine. She stops and looks at Stacey.

Stacey gives a little laugh, a rather unkind laugh, I think. ‘It’s a phrase, Milada, it means, you know, you wouldn’t say no to sex with them just because they did something small like, you know, eating crisps in bed and getting crumbs everywhere.’

Milada purses her thin lips, wobbles her head from side to side, eyebrows raised, resumes her task. ‘This is something English men do? Eat crisps in bed?’

‘And toast. They like to watch television too, same time as they’re eating. Never met a man who didn’t want a television in the bedroom.’

‘I miss Moravia,’ Milada says with a sigh. ‘The hills and the forests near my village. Sometimes. I don’t miss the snow.’