I began stopping off with the papers for breakfast in a new local café each morning when my youngest started play school – time away at that hour was luxury beyond dreams, and it became a habit to which still I cling, come hell or high water, on a daily basis. There've been changes in the cafe - people have come and gone, and the business itself developed into a local chain over the years. My own habits are pretty much as ever, though, and as ever I'm still very well catered to - often as not these days, by Sue.
Sue came to Ireland from China twelve years ago to study accounting by night and work in the café by day, where she became a manager and, I suspect, their most valued employee. Her smile is wide and her work is meticulous : orders arrive fast and exactly as requested. When customers are impatient or bad mannered, or kids get loud or exceptionally messy (and I'm talking serious food fights and broken cups) in the company of self absorbed parents (who present an awesomely compelling periodic Saturday morning hazard there), Sue's serenity remains unshaken - she just goes and gets out the brush and dust pan while less stoic staff call down curses. Sue didn’t have much English when she got here first, but she worked very hard on that too and learned. As is probably apparent by now, she's not much given to complaint, but did concede (under cross questioning from me) that at the start she found life hard here and some of our customs very different to that which she was accustomed in China. As her confidence grew, she got to know her regulars well - including me, and my children too when I brought them in holiday time. How tall one of my sons grew was a source of amusement to her.
Sue worked right up to the wire last year before giving birth to her own son, Marcus. And for a while she vanished, and I was just beginning to regretfully think that she was never coming back, when one day she appeared again. She looked amazing - best I ever saw her - rested and well, and having spent some months in China with her mother - with whom, she explained, she’d left Marcus.
I was stricken at the thought of a mother being such a distance from her infant and said so
“I’m so sorry, Sue. This is really terrible", I said. "Lee and his wife had to do this too - just awful”.
And now she was shocked - “It’s ok”, she said. “Really, it's ok. I talk to him and see him on skype – he is growing big already. It really is ok”
At this point customers arrived in the cafe, and Sue went to tend to them, but she came back with something she wanted to clear up.
“Please don't be sorry", she said. "This is our culture. The custom in China is that older people care for babies and people my age go to work. My son can learn many things from my mother, and my mother is very happy to care for him - I am happy too. In time he can come here, but for now this is good for everyone”.
