FRONT OF HOUSE

You’re working in a restaurant in the the west of London, waiting tables to support you through hard times as a student. You’d been serving a table for one, a quiet but polite man who stood out from the other customers that you were serving, and not because he was on his own. There were a lot of business travellers in the hotels nearby, and it wasn’t uncommon to have a customer sitting on their own at a table, reading their Kindle while they ate, or scrolling through their phone, or just looking down at the table, trying not to catch anyone else’s eye in case they got a look of sympathy for being alone.
What struck you about this man, who was unremarkable in every other way, was his expression. He stared into space in front of him, as if he could see something there, something which troubled him very much. Each time you came to serve him, he’d tear his gaze away as if it were difficult, and look at you as if he were drinking you in. Not in any kind of sexual way, no hint of desire there, just as if you were the last other human being on earth.
Your noisy table two down left, and as you’d suspected they would be, they were terrible tippers. You picked up the last of their dishes and took them into the kitchen, came back to clean and reset the table, and the man on his own was gone.
Toilet, you thought. I’m good at reading people, and he wasn’t a skipper. They’re always nervy, too talkative, you can tell. He’ll be in the toilet.By the time you’d cleaned the other table though, reset it, and served another time a fourth round of drinks, he was still not back. A man came out of the toilets, heading back to his table, and you intercepted him, sorry sir, but was there anyone else in - no? OK, thank you, no nothing’s wrong.
You went to clear his table, putting it down to experience, another tip short, the boss on your case for the cost of a lost meal, thinking you should have seen the signs, and there it was, lying on his table, his phone. You wonder whether he’s had some kind of incident, got confused, wandered off, not realised he hadn’t paid, not realised that he didn’t have his phone. Or maybe he had no cash, but the phone was worth many times the cost of the meal. You couldn’t leave it there, as some other customer would spot it and pocket it, so you picked it up and took it to the office, steeling yourself to explain you’d had a skipper.
Your boss was on the phone though, having an argument about something, so you just held up the phone and mouthed ‘left behind’, and he gave you a curt nod and pointed to his desk with his free hand. You put the phone down and turned to go, and saw the black and white of the restaurant CCTV on the screen on the wall facing your boss.
There were four pictures in one: front of house, kitchen, outside the front door, outside the back door. In the CCTV for the front of house, you could see the table set for one, and a fuzzy indistinct shadow sitting in the chair where the man had been. You looked closer, but couldn’t make anything out, hurried out and stared at the table, at the chair in front of a plate of half-eaten food. There was no one there. You almost ran back into your boss’ office, ignored his annoyed look, saw a fainter shadow in the chair, fading like mist in the sun, and then it was gone.