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"Teacher." As he spoke this word, the man sat down at the table, opposite the man he was addressing. The café they were in was nondescript, on the corner of a residential street somewhere in south London. The man hadn't paid much attention to where exactly it was he had been dropped off. There was the noise of trains in the distance and electronic pop on the café radio.
"Hello," said the Teacher.
"You're a hard person to track down," said the man. He caught the waitress' eye, and she came over and took his order for a milky coffee. "Did you want anything, Teacher?"
"Two slices of toast with marge, and a glass of water please," said the Teacher.
When their drinks arrived, the man watched the Teacher, one eyebrow raised, as he took a swig of the water. "Is everything okay?" asked Teacher. "Is your coffee all right? Do you want it Irished up at all?"
"Oh, I'd best not," said the man. "I'm… driving."
Teacher smiled, and waited. The man sighed, and leant back in his chair a bit. "I honestly wasn't expecting to find you at all. I should maybe have thought a bit more about what I would do if I did."
"You know what they say. Seek and ye shall find. But you'll be okay. Just improvise, like you normally do." Teacher took a swig of the water, and nodded at the man. "Are you sure I can't get you anything stronger?"
"Yes, positive. So, you know me."
"Of course I do. Anyone who is anyone does."
"Do you know what I have done?"
"Of course I do."
"Recently?"
"Of course I do."
There was another pause.
"I had to do it," said the man.
Teacher nodded, and again sipped his water, smiling. "Did you want absolution? Advice? You've managed all right so far."
"This is different."
"The stakes were very high, and you did what you had to."
"Did I do – the right thing?"
"You like to do right."
"Doesn't everyone?"
"You know as well as I do, the truth of that." Teacher ate some toast. "This is delicious. It's been too long since I had toast in a proper English caff."
"I do like things to be right. To be fair."
"We are in a similar business."
"Are we?" For just a moment, the man looked stricken, and the Teacher gestured out of the window.
"You see that tower block?" he asked. "If a baby fell out of a top floor window, would God send flocks of angels to carry it back up? Would he suspend the laws of physics to lower it gently to the floor?"
"I've never seen that happen."
"It generally doesn't. But what about some other occurrence that people might call miraculous? What about a baby falling out of a tower block, and there's a really fat man who just happens to be passing beneath at the right time, cushions the baby's fall, everything turns out okay. Does that happen?"
"I've definitely seen things like that happen."
"The fat man says, 'wow, had I not stopped to tie my shoelace just now, that baby would have fallen to the ground behind me, splat!' – still plausible?"
"Oh yes, definitely."
"Now, I'm not saying that God sends angels to untie the laces of fat men, but I think you understand what I'm getting at."
"There isn't always a fat man, though, and innocent people die. Is this fair?"
"Innocent people? Can you imagine people you've encountered who, if you had the chance when they were babies, you'd shove the fat man out of the way and let them fall? Make sure he wore his slip-ons that day?"
The man said nothing, but maintained eye contact. Teacher smiled at him. The man shrugged and looked away. "I've never been really fat. Maybe something to remember for the future."
"Everything works out in the end," said Teacher. "Sometimes it's a long game though. You understand that, I know. I'm glad you sought me out. We should do this more often. I'm enjoying talking with you. There are things we can talk about that we couldn't really talk to anyone else about, and I feel like you're actually listening to me, which makes a nice change."
The man grinned, broadly. "Oh, well. You know what they say. He who has ears…"