Tom Frost came in at the usual time. He sat down at his table, in the corner by the window. His clothes were smart, well made, but old: patched and darned and wearing thin. Neat clothes and wild hair; he cut some kind of figure, that was for sure. He always came in when it was quiet, and I was always the only one working. I would bring him his coffee, and go back to my place behind the counter.

Sometimes I watched out the window. I liked that I would see some of the same people every day, keeping to their private timetables, rushing or not, all of them going someplace that took up most of their lives, just like this cafe took up most of mine. I had given those regulars names of my own. I'd embroidered stories for them. But sometimes I'd just watch Tom Frost.

He brought in cheap paperbacks; a new one every day. Some of it was good stuff, too. He would read and drink his coffee for a bit before he looked at the menu and that was my cue to go over and take his order. He enjoyed ordering. I could see that. It was only ever one thing, but it was never the same as the day before and he didn't follow a set rotation or anything. He took pleasure in the fact that he might surprise himself, I think. He would say what he wanted, say: 'Danish,' his voice clear but soft around the edges, like years of booze and smokes had worn it down. He would say what he wanted and then think for a moment. Then he'd nod, one short nod, like he was saying: 'yes. That's today. Danish.' And it sounds strange but it would kind of set up my day too. I'd be walking Danish that day. Or doughnut. Or whatever.

Today things felt a little different. Tom Frost didn't look at me when I brought his coffee. I watched him from my spot behind the counter and I noticed he wasn't reading. He had a book but it was closed on the table. And he looked more dapper than usual: a silk scarf, mango-patterned, in mute colours, tied around his neck. He wasn't drinking his coffee, either, he was just drumming his fingers on the table and checking the clock on the wall, the watch on his wrist, the feet on the pavement. I saw the woman with the red trench walk by. Red 'Rosanne'. She was looking down, looking sad, looking resigned to another day and she was right on time. Maybe he saw her every day too. Maybe he could tell the time by her too. I caught him turn away from her, check the wall, check the wrist, and look out again. And there was dachshund 'Dave' walking his little dog. I turned back to Tom Frost. He was raking a hand through his explosive hair, maybe trying to neaten it up. And then he was looking at the wall, at the wrist, out the window.

He half stood up when a woman came through the door. She looked uncertainly around the room and I knew she was looking for him.

I wasn't sure about it the whole way there. It was so nervous – I’m too old to be so nervous – so I wasn't sure about it the whole way there and when I saw the dingy little place I hesitated. But I'd come a long way. I'd really come a long way. And it had been a long time. I walked in and looked around. And there he was, in the corner by the window, half standing as I came in. It was a gesture I'd never imagined him making. In my head he was still a young man, lounging back in his chair, confident. Arrogant. But of course he wasn't the same and he was hovering in that half stand like he was between that sit-down young man I knew, and a stand-up old fellow.

He looked so different: smaller than I remembered, weathered and lined and frosted all over. But he also looked exactly the same. Like he wasn't so much one person, but a construction of people: a palimpsest of himself, past, present and future.

He smiled. It was the same smile that used to unlock me, but it wasn't the same. I smiled back and walked over. I didn't know whether to hug him, kiss him on the cheek or shake hands. He moved in for a hug and we awkwardly brushed our cheeks together before I sat down busily to cover how strange I felt.

'Coffee?' he asked putting up his hand. I nodded. His voice was deeper, a deeper shade of nicotine brown. We were quiet as a girl came over.

'Coffee?' she asked. I nodded. 'Filter okay?' I nodded. I could feel her staring at me so I looked back at her. She just smiled and walked away.

'She okay?' I asked him. He looked surprised and he looked over at the girl.

'Sure. Seems no different from any other day.'

'You come here a lot?' I asked. He looked bashful. He looked down at the table, put his hand down on a book resting there.

'Most days,' he said. I translated: every day.

'What're you reading?' I asked. He lifted his hand and pushed the book towards me. It was an old science fiction novel by someone I'd never heard of called Tevis. I flipped it open to the beginning and there was a quote by Edward Hopper, which made me smile, given we were in a greasy spoon. Of course, this cafe was nothing like an American diner. But the vague similarity was amusing.

'You read it?' he asked, and I shook my head. I just stared at the book cover: a skyscraper and a moon. The coffee came, I felt the girl looking at me again and we were quiet until she walked away.

'Didn't think you'd come,' he said eventually. 'I mean, I know you said you would, but...'

I stroked the cover of the book.

'I didn't think I'd come either,' I told him.

'It's good to see you,' he said.

I didn't know what to say. I wasn't sure about anything just then, so I looked at him, took in all the different versions of him that I could see, and I tried to remember the one I really knew.

'I heard you got married,' he said.

'Yes.'

'And children?'

'Yes. Three.' Because it was a habit, and because I was proud, and because this was what I had, I got their photos out of my purse. I pushed them over to him and pointed them out. 'The eldest is Daphne. She's thirty-seven now, and has two kids of her own – Leif and Charlotte. Our middle girl's not quite there yet. This is her,' I pointed to another photo. 'Jasmine. She's thirty-three. She's the one that always worries me.'

'Why's that?' he asked. I shrugged and didn't take my eyes off Jazzy's face. 'What about the youngest?' he asked, pointing to the last picture.

'Hazel. Twenty-six and totally grown up. She knows everything – even the things she doesn't know.'

He smiled and it was the kind of smile that seemed to be laughing at me.

'I wasn't like that,' I said.

'Sure,' he said.

The waitress came back to refill our cups, but I hadn't taken a sip. I thought she was just curious. I could tell she knew Tom. At least she thought she did.

'Did you have any?' I asked him.

'No. I got married, though. Her name was Joan. Good woman.'

The way he looked down, and that past tense prompted me:

'I'm sorry,' I said, but it was hard to feel really sorry about a name I'd only just heard.

He just smiled: 'Nah. We had a good innings.' He looked at me. Really looked at me. And for the first time in a long time I felt like that girl I had once been.

'I'm glad you found someone,' he said. I think he meant it kindly but it irritated me. I took some coffee. 'I'm sorry,' he said as I drank and it surprised me. Not so much the apology as the fact that he understood. 'You know what I meant,' he said, and he was right. I did know what he meant.

She seemed cold. Like she didn't really want to be there. And he looked shabby next to her. She was a small lady, petite, and she had those razor cheekbones that could make an older woman look just like a skull. Only she carried it off. She was elegant instead of severe. And when I went to offer them coffee I could tell there was a softness there and that the cold wasn't a lack of feeling but just her uncertainty. When she asked for her coffee, she didn't make a fuss with her order so I had the feeling she wouldn't stay long.

They looked shy with each other. It made me think it was a first date. I wondered how they had met. I watched him show her his book. She smiled at it but it was clear they were struggling for words and they were quiet when I went back with the coffee jug. I looked at her. The longer I looked the more beautiful she seemed to get. But then her cup was full.

Another customer came in and I was busy for a while. Later, I saw they had some old photos out on the table, really old-fashioned. Definitely not an internet date. Out of curiosity, I picked up the coffee jug and walked over to them.

There were three photos, three little girls. Her children. She left them spread out but they were quiet and their cups were full. I stole a glance and went back to my place behind the counter. Then I came up with her story:

She was a widow. Heart-broken and fading away. Her daughters couldn't bear her loneliness. They kept suggesting she get out there, join clubs, maybe try dating. She refused, of course. The idea was preposterous. But the girls were stubborn (a trait they shared with her) and eventually they wore her down. She agreed to go on a date and so they set up an internet profile... but that didn't explain him. I couldn't see why they would have picked him out. Not for a lady like her. I mean, I understood that at their age choices were probably limited, but I had seen plenty of smart old gentlemen pass by the cafe's windows. I knew they existed. What made them pick Tom Frost? The guy that came to this dingy coffee shop every day. The guy I watched. The guy I knew. The guy that was waving at me. It took me a moment to get back into gear. He didn't look put out when I got there, though.

'Could we have refills, please?' he asked. His voice rasped.

The waitress had been totally absorbed in a world of her own. It was so sweet and soft, the dreaminess on her face. It reminded me of when I was younger – the way I couldn't control my thoughts. I would have bet anything that she was thinking about a lover: one she used to have, one she had, one she would have. It didn't matter. The one in her thoughts would always touch her the same way. It made me a little sad, to see her jerked away from those daydreams and back to us.

'What's her name?' I asked Tom as she walked away from us again. He shrugged. 'You come here every day, don't you?'

'Yes,' he said. 'But I just drink my coffee and read. Have a bite to eat.'

'Why here?'

He shrugged again. 'You remember that cafe we used to hang out in, in Nantes?'

I did remember. I remembered coffee and cigarettes, wine and roses. I remembered lying in the parks reading Rimbaud and Jules Verne. I remembered fighting.

'I come here, because it reminds me of there. It's just like it, don't you think?'

I looked around before I realised he was joking. He didn't laugh, though. He just smiled. I shook my head and smiled too. And I remembered fighting.

'Did you ever go back?' I asked him.

'To France? I took Joan to Bordeaux once. She didn't take to it. We stuck closer to home after that. Caravans and catastrophes.'

'That's a good title for something.'

He shrugged: 'I don't write much anymore. Just play the old songs.' He looked at me. Searching. I had a sinister impulse to reach across the table and put my fingertips to his eyelids, as if he were a corpse. I wanted to close his eyes, stop him from seeing. Because I was older now, and different.

'I don't have much time for writing, myself. I dabble in verse. Think in poems. But we're busy, you know? Neil drags me all over Europe, but it's been ages since we've been to France. We're going to Finland this summer. I like the idea. I'm going to look for Moomin Valley.'

He didn't say anything. Just looked at me.

'Neil says the mosquitoes are enormous there. Like the ones in that kids film Jumanji. Did you ever watch that?'

He didn't say anything, but he shook his head.

'Hazel absolutely loved that movie. She watched it as many times a day as she could get away with. For months, it was all she put on. And she became obsessed with the jungle. Of course, that means nothing to you if you haven't seen it. You must have heard of it though? Robin Williams?'

He just smiled.

'Where's that coffee?' I asked looking around and, of course, there she was, walking back to us.

She looked at me with this curious expression. I couldn't tell what she wanted from me, but it looked like she was asking me a question. I poured the coffee.

'Would you like to order some food?' I said.

She picked up the menu that was propped between the salt and pepper.

'What's good here?' she asked.

'Do you want me to tell you the truth?' I said. She looked at me and laughed. And I couldn't imagine how I thought she was cold at all.

'What do you usually have?' she asked him.

'He's partial to the pastries. A connoisseur of croissants,' I said and they both smiled at me.

She hesitated before she said: 'Danish.' Then she gave a little nod. That's when I realised this wasn't a first date. They knew each other, had known each other, were getting to know each other again. That explained the awkwardness.

'Coming right up,' I said.

He watched her walk away. He was seeing her for the first time. She was pretty, in a pretty ordinary way, and he seemed to appreciate that as much as it deserved.

'Good choice,' he said. And we were quiet. I traced the skyscraper on the book with a finger. Then he said: 'Tell me about Neil. How'd'you meet?'

I brought the pastry over and she looked at me as if I was bringing her a cup of air underwater. She took the plate, then stood up awkwardly.

'I'm sorry,' she said, to me, to him, to the table and the chairs. 'I'm sorry,' she said to the Danish sitting sadly on the table, pastry soft and strangely soggy. Then she pushed past me and walked out. She hesitated as soon as she got outside.

I hesitated as soon as I got outside. But I was out now. And there wasn't any going back in. I felt I shouldn't have come. But in his letter he had seemed so lost. And so I came. Just like I used to. I thought about going back in. But I couldn’t. I could cross the miles but not the years. So I walked away.

She walked away. Walking Danish, perhaps, whatever that looks like. And he sat there. He fiddled with his book, then he pulled the pastry over and broke it into pieces. He kept his eyes down, he drank his coffee, he kept quiet. When he was done, he left what he owed on the table, didn't bother to ask for a bill. He walked out and turned right, just like he usually did. He walked past jogging 'James' kitted out in his spandex suit, red sweatband round his head. I watched him walk out of the window frame. Then the door opened. It was sad-eyed Catherine. She was right on time. She took her usual table by the counter, opposite the door. I brought her her cup of tea, weak with a spoon of sugar, and left her while she pondered which bap she'd prefer today. Sausage or bacon?