The Tin

On Monday the woman left her tea untouched. Not just the bag, lying dry on its saucer, but the water in the glass as well. As Vera wiped the empty tables, she saw her put both hands round it. The last passenger train had left four minutes before the woman arrived. Now a car's headlights swept across the wet paving and disappeared behind the bicycle shelter.

‘You haven't put the bag in,’ Vera said.

The woman looked at her hands. ‘I know.’

Vera moved on. Some customers didn't like having things explained, even when you only mentioned it because you'd once made a whole pot of tea without any tea in it yourself. She pushed the chair beside the woman under the table. The felt pad had come off one leg, leaving a faint curved scratch on the floor. She would stick a new one on tomorrow.

At ten past eleven the woman paid. She put her purse into her olive-green raincoat and pulled up the hood, although the rain had just stopped. Vera expected to see her over by the car park. There were two cars left, one of them her own. But the woman went the other way, towards the footbridge.

The outside door fell shut. Vera picked up a chair at an empty table. When she looked out again, the woman was at the top of the bridge, exactly halfway between the lamps. She held her hands in front of her chest as though pressing something against her coat.

Vera checked her phone. Fourteen minutes past eleven.

She went on with the chairs. Monday was her long day; by this time a chair could feel heavier than a crate of soft drinks did in the morning. The woman stayed on the bridge. There were no more trains for anyone going into the city. The freight train would come later, if it came. Those times weren't on the yellow board.

When Vera brought the last of the washing-up out of the kitchen, the space between the lamps was empty.

On Tuesday she spread the accounts on the table by the window. Milan was behind the bar, a tea towel over his shoulder. It was his evening, but at home the latest box of till receipts always seemed to occupy the very chair she wanted to sit in. Here, at least, she could ask if a description didn't make sense.

‘What's this? Three small judges?’ she asked.

Milan put a glass under the tap. ‘Orange juices.’

‘That's not what it says.’

‘My handwriting's expressionist.’

She turned the receipt round. Three small juices. Yes, she could see it now. She made a pencil mark beside it and put it on the right pile. Outside the window, someone was using the new underpass. A cap moved over the edge of the steps and vanished. The man would once have taken the bridge, past her door. The council had made the route quicker. It was hard to argue with that.

At eleven the door opened. Monday's woman shook out her hood over the mat. This time a blue tin hung from her hand, its thin handle tapping against the metal. She chose the same table.

‘Tea?’ Vera asked.

Milan looked at her. She had got up with the pen still in her hand.

‘I'll do it,’ she said.

Again the tea bag stayed beside the glass. Vera set the water down carefully, clear of the tin. A strip of masking tape was stuck to the handle. She could make out a B and perhaps an A, but the woman turned the tin towards her chair before Vera could read the rest.

‘Would you prefer a different kind?’

‘No, this is fine.’

Anything else would be interfering. Vera went back to her receipts. She was three euros short in last week's figures. Milan said it was probably Ivo and his colleague's coffees: they had paid while she was in the kitchen looking for change. She later found the coins in the compartment for notes. She held them up for him.

‘There. The bank's been saved.’

The woman didn't join in the laughter. She watched the bridge.

At ten past eleven she got up. Milan held the card machine for her. She carried the tin out without knocking it against the door frame, even lifting her hand a little to clear it. Four minutes later she was between the lamps again. A small rectangle of light appeared in front of her face.

‘She's waiting for someone,’ Vera said.

Milan came to collect the empty glass. ‘They'd better get a move on.’

‘There aren't any more trains.’

‘They might be coming by bike.’

That was perfectly possible. Vera could have thought of it herself. She picked up the next receipt but kept losing her place in the column. Up on the bridge, the little light moved from side to side once. Then it went out.

On Wednesday a woman carrying a cardboard tube came in while Vera was clearing the lunch plates. A visitor's badge from the community centre hung from her coat. She introduced herself as Sanne, from Stichting Perronlicht. Vera vaguely remembered the name in connection with hiring a room, though she couldn't remember what for.

‘We spoke about a poster,’ Sanne said.

‘Possibly. Was it me you spoke to?’

‘I left a message.’

Vera dried her hands and indicated the windowsill. ‘Let's have a look.’

Sanne unrolled a photograph of men with a handcart outside a station building. No locomotive, no ceremonial ribbon. One man had pushed the sleeves of his oversized shirt high up his arms. The text below announced a presentation about work in and around the station. From the collection of Dorus van Esch. The foundation's details were printed at the bottom.

‘Not just this building,’ Sanne said. ‘The smaller workplaces round it too. What people did there.’

Vera held the corners of the paper. The station in the photograph still had the canopy she knew only from old postcards. Some of her customers would certainly remember it.

‘We'll confirm the times later. This is to find out who's interested.’ Sanne pointed to the foundation's address in small print. ‘Anyone who knows anything can get in touch there.’

Vera looked at the window. The summer iced-coffee advert was still up. The glass in the drawing had promised more of a chill than most September days had managed.

‘It can go here,’ she said.

She took down the iced coffee, picked off the old bits of tape and fixed the poster to the pane beside the door. Sanne held the curled paper flat while Vera secured the top corners. It was easy to read from outside.

‘Thank you. People know where to find this place.’

Vera went with her as far as the pavement. A new lamp lit the steps down to the underpass. She still needed to replace the bulb by her own door; its light was weak and yellow.

‘We could put out some cards nearer the time, too,’ she said.

Sanne liked that idea. They exchanged numbers. Only after she had gone did Vera notice the greasy print of her own hand on the glass. She cleaned it off without wetting the poster.

The woman came back that evening. Eleven o'clock, tea, the dry bag beside the glass. This time the blue tin was on the table. Vera read BAS on the tape.

It was windier than on the other evenings. The woman kept a hand on the handle to stop it moving. She didn't turn when the door opened. At ten past eleven she paid. On the bridge she took up the same position.

Vera was just about to check the proper time on her phone when a late customer returned for his scarf. She helped him look under the benches and eventually fished it off the coat rack. When she looked towards the bridge again, the woman's screen was lit. It was raining. The woman wiped something with her sleeve and lowered her arm.

On Thursday Yasmin was still in the doorway when Anouk Meijer arrived. They waved; apparently they knew each other. Vera had served Anouk coffee before and knew she was a photographer. Her surname appeared under photographs in the booklet that had been at the library.

Anouk didn't sit down. She looked at the new poster, its lettering reversed through the glass.

‘When did Dorus have something delivered here?’ she asked.

Vera put a plate back in the rack. ‘You mean a folder?’

‘He says it was boxes.’

‘There was a flat folder. Last week. For you.’

‘I collected that.’

Vera nodded. She remembered. Anouk had come towards evening, tucked the folder under her arm and asked if she could leave the large outer wrapper. Something about a fastening that wouldn't go back in place.

Anouk looked at the poster again. ‘I need to know exactly what happened.’

Behind her the phone for orders rang. The baker had said he would call about the bill that afternoon. Vera recognised the number and declined the call.

‘What do you need to know?’

‘What you took in. And what it said on the slip you signed.’

They couldn't sort it out among the schoolchildren coming through the door. Anouk had to leave as well. Vera told her what she remembered and promised to get out the business folder. They would sit down on Monday, before the lunchtime rush. Anouk put the appointment straight into her phone. She didn't have coffee. A little later she sent a message: I'll send you the image he gave me too. Vera saw the notification but didn't open the attachment between orders.

Later that evening she found a blue edge under the bench by the window. She had been sweeping and at first thought the woman had put the tin down while she got her coat on. But there was no coat left on the rack. The glass of water stood on the table, the tea bag beside it.

Vera looked outside. The steps up to the bridge were empty.

She lifted the tin by its handle. The tape felt soft, one corner rolled back from use. The lid sat crooked on the rim. As she set it down, it opened. A length of cable slipped out.

Inside were a small microphone and coiled leads. An elastic band held an envelope containing three photographs. Vera checked the back for a name or telephone number. Nothing. She lifted the flap and eased the top photograph partway out.

Two young men outside the old signal box. A sign: LAST SHIFT. Rolled-up trouser legs thick with mud. Behind them, a departure board and the cigarette machine that had been gone for years. She turned the photograph over. In pencil: 23.14. Don't forget.

She put it back and closed the envelope. Once, looking for a name in a lost wallet, she had read a letter instead. She still remembered its first line, however hard she had tried to forget. The owner had collected the wallet later and thanked her.

The tin could go beside the umbrellas. Whoever had lost it would know where to look.

Even so, Vera went outside for a moment. The bridge gleamed, an uneven strip of light across its wet steps. The gate would go up on Monday. She had put the notice on the door herself, next to the one announcing the new underpass.

At the top she found a small white chalk mark on the handrail. Below it, a screw was missing from the brass plate. She held her thumb beside the hole without touching the plate. Rain had darkened its edge.

The previous week a man had asked if the café clock was for sale. He dealt in old things. He had been talking about demolition while Vera was still mopping the floor behind him. She hadn't even answered his offer.

Now she took out her phone. She didn't know who she would call. She put it away again. One screw was missing. The woman might be on any platform.

Back in the kitchen she set the tin beside three umbrellas that probably belonged to nobody any more. The clock above the door said twenty past eleven. Her phone said fourteen minutes past.

She tapped the wooden case. The hand didn't move. It had been six minutes fast for months. She should have fetched the stool and put it right. She would do it tomorrow.