by Tim HaywardWe stood at the door, staring at the "For Sale" sign, a confused turmoil of emotion. My wife had wanted to live on this street all her life. The house, the only derelict left in a gentrified district, was phenomenal opportunity for improvement and investment. She was thinking about money, about decoration, about room to expand the family, about local schools and about growing old together, happy in our beautiful home.
I was thinking about the smell. Not the musty honk of a long neglected dump but the penetrating, rich, oily odour of fresh roasting coffee drifting from the end of the street.
"You clearly need some time to think, Sweetheart. I'll just pop along and get us a coffee."
In a space between two tall old houses was a tiny shanty of a shopfront. A stovepipe spewing the intoxicating smell was jammed through a hole in the plate glass behind which lurked an elderly man, tinkering like some mythic kobold among a fantastic collection of antique machinery.
A hand-lettered sign, patently of the same vintage as shop and owner said "Coffee" so I tried the door.
"Go away!" he yelled.
He was of Mediterranean descent with a long, lugubrious face, dark bags under his eyes and an enviably full shock of grey hair.
"No coffee today. Closed." He spun the sign on the door and shot a couple of dozen home made security contraptions across the frame.
I was electrified. A lifelong lover of the bean, I'd spent a considerable amount of energy loathing the chain "coffee" emporia. I'd gone into print many times, bemoaning the death of family owned local cafes at the hands of unfeeling multinational chains. I'd decried the third-rate, slave-produced, ersatz cack they dispensed and now, I had the chance to live this close to probably the last surviving outpost of the real deal -- an authentic, cranky old eccentric who roasted and ground his own beans.
I rushed back.
"Let's do it," I gabbled.
"But it's a derelict shell."
"I'll do all the work. I'll build, fix, paint. It's your dream. You should have it."
My wife tells me it's the most romantic thing I ever said. If only she knew.
We bought the house and I did, indeed, spend six months putting on a roof, plastering, painting, plumbing and installing God's own kitchen. Often the neighbours would drop in to see how things were going. As each found out what I did for a living, the conversation would turn the same way.
"You're a food writer? Have you had Gregory's coffee yet?"
I hadn't. My Pavoni, my grinder, my cups and all the paraphernalia of addiction were in storage. I was deferring gratification. But each day I walked past the shop and slowly my relationship with Gregory developed from open hostility to a begrudging nod.
From my neighbours I learned his legend. He'd been an engineer. He'd left his country during some military upheaval. He built and maintained his own machines. He secretly ground special blends for all the best restaurants in town. He was an eccentric millionaire. His beautiful daughter was a politician in their home country and each neighbour proudly confided that Gregory made a special, personal blend just for them.
Finally, the house was finished. I moved the family in, unpacked, made sure everyone was happy, then headed off on my personal pilgrimage. I was going to my local, independent coffee-man. This eccentric genius, this zensai of the Arabica would create a personal blend for me and I would reach a pinnacle of happiness the envy of my peers.
Maybe I looked wrong. Perhaps it was something about my cheery demeanour that pissed him off. Perhaps, in some paranoiac way he loathed newcomers. Whatever the reason, the coffee he sold me would have choked a goat. It was vile in way you can't possibly imagine unless you've felt you've discovered your life's greatest wish, waited six months, spent everything on a wreck, destroyed your L4 and L5 vertebrae carrying bags of cement and then had a crap cup of coffee.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Eight times.
I kept going back, discussing with him various blends, grinds, roasts, hoping against hope that it was some momentary lapse. But the coffee just got worse.
I started lying. First to Gregory. I would buy cans of Illy from a delicatessen in another part of town and smuggle them past his shop under my coat. Then to my neighbours . . .
"We're still working to perfect the blend."
Then, when I felt I couldn't keep up the deception a moment longer, I confided in my neighbour, Keith, an erudite and respected psychotherapist . . .
"Gregory's coffee -- it's not terribly . . . good, is it?"
He looked at me as if trying to decide if I was a viperous disloyal cad or merely mad. I'd failed to support a beloved independent trader -- a cardinal sin in the middle class enclaves of North London. He'd have taken it easier if he'd caught me in bed with his wife . . . and daughter.
So that's how things stand now. Keith knows my shameful secret but I hope he's enough of a gentleman to keep it to himself. The rest of the street are drinking truly abominable coffee to keep a small trader alive and I'm still smuggling it into my own house and lying to the neighbours. But I'm watching. One day I'm going to catch one of these bastards with a can of coffee under his coat.
Tim Hayward is a freelance writer living in London, and former host of the UK forum. He publishes the newsletter Fire & Knives. Photo by the author.
Reply
' blend. That way you can see what the rest are getting and in the unlikely event that it is better than the stuff that you get you might get feedback when you supply the neighbour. If it's the same old rubbish then you know your neighbours have no taste.
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