She was the tea lady. She’d always been the tea lady.
Although that’s not strictly true. Her aunt had been the tea lady, but when the niece took over no one seemed to notice, they looked at her tea trolley, not her.
She was an institution, or part of the furniture.
Management saw her as furniture and spoke openly in front of her, relying on a long tradition of class confidentiality. She never breathed a word of what she heard, she was the tea lady, she knew her station.
However . . . if she overheard that someone was to be fired she couldn’t help herself, she always felt so bad for them, she would serve them first in the morning, the hottest tea, the new tin of biscuits. This became office folklore, the hottest tea, the new tin of biscuits, your last meal before being summoned to management, before execution.
He looked at her, not just her trolley. He asked after her aunt, he repaired her wobbly wheel, he thanked her every day.
When his ship sailed for the war he didn’t see her at the quay, waving and crying.
He returned with medals and a wife, one knee that wouldn’t bend and a ringing in his ears that would never end. Over the next couple of years his medals tarnished, his English rose withered, then died, partly due to the heat, partly due to the disappointment of marrying a dashing war hero then being married to a city office clerk.
She was the tea lady, the stoic tea lady. She waited one year and one day after the death of his wife before she tried to gain his attention. She brought him the hottest tea, a new tin of biscuits.
Thinking he was to be fired, he struck management on the nose, stormed out shouting something about not fighting for this, and she never saw him again.
She was the tea lady. She remained the tea lady until management saw her as an unnecessary expense, with coffee shops all around the staff could buy their own beverages. As part of a “family company” PR campaign the tea lady received a generous annuity. Her niece, who pushed a trolley on a new jet airliner, took her on trips to places she’d only heard about on the wireless, and heard about during the war.
One day, as she wheeled her luggage through a busy airport, she thought she saw him in the crowd, then realised the man she saw was the age he had been when she last saw him. Back when she was the tea lady. She’d always been the tea lady. She saw him repairing the wobbly wheel on her luggage trolley, then she was crying, and waving, but they were on the ship together, waving back at the crowd of strangers on the quay, and there was no war, and she was the tea lady and she’d always been the tea lady and she wished she could tell her niece not to cry for her.
Parkstreet
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