The Hilltop Cafe – Part 1: Corner Table

"It's cold again," said Patrick.

"It is always cold when you are in the corner," said Lucia, setting down his cup. "I think you bring it."

"I bring the fog. It follows me."

She laughed. He was sixty-five, tall and weathered, with white hair swept back and a face like an old chart, and he had been sitting at the same corner table of her tiny cafe every morning for three weeks. Lucia, sixty-two, widowed for four years, owned the cafe at the top of one of Valparaiso's steep, colourful hills, where houses in blue, yellow and green tumbled down to the harbour. The windows steamed up every morning when the fog rolled in.

Patrick, a retired captain from Cork, had come to Chile for a month and stayed for three. "I'm told it is a good place to be old," he said.

"Who told you?"

"The sea."

He ordered the same thing every day, coffee and a warm cheese roll, and stayed until noon, writing postcards he never sent. Lucia refilled his cup and listened to his stories about storms, whales and a very bad cook who had once served an entire crew a stew made of old boots.

"You tell good stories," she said.

"You listen well."

"It's my job."

"It's not, though." Patrick looked at her. "I'd like to ask you something, Lucia. I've been rehearsing it for a week."

"Then ask."

"Would you have dinner with me? Not at your cafe."

She smiled slowly. "I thought you'd never ask."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Harbour Lights.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Harbour Lights.