Your uncle left you a shut-down coffee shop and a book of 999 family recipes. Build it into a franchise.

Chapter I14 March

The uncle

Solicitor's letter came Tuesday and I've read it about six times now. My uncle. I've got two memories of him and I'm fairly sure one of them is somebody else's — a christening when I was nine, he gave me a pound and said don't spend it all in one shop, and I remember thinking he didn't look like he found it funny either.

There was a card every birthday with money in it and no return address, just the card. Mum used to go quiet when he came up. Property, she said once. Imports. I didn't push it.

Anyway he died last spring and apparently I'm in the will, which nobody saw coming, me least of all.

Chapter II2 April

What he left

Went to see it today. It's not a house. I'd somehow assumed house — three weeks of assuming house, I don't know why.

It's one room on a street I've genuinely never been down. Counter's about two metres. There's a filter pot on it that still works, I plugged it in to check. The keys came in an envelope with a paper tag on them in his writing and the tag says OPEN AT SEVEN.

Smelled shut. Not bad, just shut, you know that smell. Lights came on first go, which I wasn't expecting. I stood in there a fair bit longer than I needed to.

Chapter III2 April, later

The book under the till

Nearly binned it. There was a tea towel on the shelf under the till with something in it and I had a bin bag in my hand.

It's a ledger. Cracked spine, bit of parcel tape at the top gone brown. Nine hundred and ninety-nine recipes in it and four different sets of handwriting — proper copperplate at the front, then fountain pen, then biro, then his. Loads of them crossed out and done again underneath.

It says what cup each one goes in. Not just the drink, the cup. There's a note on page forty about what the milk does in August that I didn't understand at all and now think about constantly.

Sat on the floor with it till it went dark. Knees killed.

Chapter IV6 April

The nine hundred and ninety-nine

Counted them properly. Nine hundred and ninety-nine. I counted twice because I thought it had to be a round number somebody was aiming at, and it obviously is.

None of it's written down anywhere else. No copies, nothing in a folder, no cards. Four generations working something out and never telling anyone outside the family.

Made 137 this afternoon and it was awful. Made it again. Bit better.

Chapter V19 April

What you do with it

Opened. Turned the sign round at ten past seven because I couldn't get the lock to go, and then I stood there.

Nothing for forty minutes. I went through every reason this was a mistake, in order, twice.

Then a bloke came in and looked genuinely surprised it was open and asked for a filter coffee. Made him one out of the pot. He said cheers, and said it was nice seeing the lights on, and off he went, and I had to go in the back for a minute.

Sold nine today. Not nine pounds. Nine coffees.

Chapter VI28 April

Six at a time

Right, so — six on at once, three bits to each one. The grind, the extract, the pour. There's a moment for each and you either get it or you don't, and for the first week I mostly didn't.

It speeds up as it goes, which I'm fairly sure is deliberate and I resent it anyway. You're still apologising about the second one when the fifth's gone cold.

Four gone cold and you start the whole lot again from the first cup. I've done that more times than I'm writing down.

Chapter VII11 May

Somewhere to put things

Machine came. Enormous box. Sat in the middle of the floor for two days because there is nowhere to put it — I'd bought a machine and not the two feet of counter it stands on, which in hindsight.

So. Counter first. Till by the door, grinder where I can get at it without turning round, pastry case where people can actually see it. I've moved the grinder four times and I might move it again.

Ate a sandwich standing up at half three. I think that's the normal now.

Chapter VIII2 June

The room fills up

Bought chairs. Stood in a warehouse for an hour over two sets that were basically identical and then bought the first ones anyway.

People sit in them, which obviously is the point, but I wasn't ready for it. There's a woman on Wednesdays with a bag of library books who makes one flat white last two hours. A bloke who reads the entire menu every single time and orders the same thing. Two students in the corner arguing about something so quietly I can't hear any of it.

Wednesday woman's called Pat. Took me five weeks to ask.

Chapter IX21 June

People to help

Hired someone. Her name's on a wage slip and it'll be on one next month too and I keep coming back to that.

But the room runs while I'm in the back now. Tables get cleared before anyone has to look at them. Went to the wholesaler at half eleven on Thursday, middle of the day, and the place just carried on without me.

There's a note in the back of this from him about taking someone on. Two lines, and then nothing for about four pages.

Chapter X4 July

Work that comes back

Started keeping a list on the fridge door. I kept finishing things and then forgetting the things that come round again, which turns out to be most of it.

Three for today, three for the week, couple for the month. If I miss a day it's just missed. I tried carrying Tuesday into Friday and it's miserable and you never catch up.

And then there's this, which doesn't reset and doesn't hurry. Four hands in here before mine. Found one last night on the back of the quince page that just says HE CAME IN AGAIN, and I've no idea who or when.

Chapter XI30 August

Better, not bigger

Room's full. There isn't space for another table and for about six weeks my answer to every single question had been another table.

So, new grinder. Cost more than the first three months took and it's done more to the coffee than anything else I've bought, which is annoying in a way I can't quite explain.

There's a page near the front with grind settings on it in four different hands, each one crossed out by the next. Put mine at the bottom last night. Felt daft. Did it anyway.

Chapter XII15 September

What a level is made of

Did the sums on the back of a delivery note because I wanted to know what finished actually looks like.

Everything there is to buy comes to ninety-one things. That's the lot — every fitting, every chair, the whole back bar, the works. And it isn't enough, which I didn't expect and don't entirely like.

The rest is the fridge list and this book. Which means you can't get there by earning, you have to keep turning up and doing the small stuff that comes back round. I sat with that one for a while.

I think he knew. There's a list in the back of this in his writing that isn't recipes.

Chapter XIII2 November

The drum out the back

There's a door past the store room I assumed was a cupboard for eleven months. It is not a cupboard.

Drum, burner underneath, cooling pan next to it, and a big tin cone up the wall that I've since learned catches the chaff. There's a log hanging on a nail and it stops in handwriting that isn't his.

Thing about it is, everything else in here you pay and you get the thing. Not this. You load it and you decide how far you're taking it and then the only question is when to stop. Too early and it's grassy. Too late and it's ash and the whole street knows about it.

Burnt four kilos on Thursday. Sat down on a sack for a bit afterwards.

Chapter XIV9 November

A coffee of your own

Got one right this morning and I've been carrying it round all day like a school report.

Been at that drum a week. Pulled it at the right second, cooled it, ground a bit and made a cup and stood in the back with it not doing anything else.

And here's the bit I can't get past. Nine hundred and ninety-nine recipes, four generations, a hundred years of this, and not one of them roasted the beans. They bought it in. All of them, every time, the whole way back.

I didn't.

Chapter XV9 November, late

Sites

Last page of this thing is ruled and empty and has been since 1998. There's a heading at the top in his writing, underlined twice, and about a hundred and forty blank lines underneath it.

It says SITES.

He looked at a second one once. There's a note three pages back, going quite fast: LOOKED AT A SECOND SITE TODAY. TALKED MYSELF OUT OF IT ON THE BUS HOME. Then nothing for four years.

It's half eleven and I'm still here. Going to need a bigger pen.