Sometimes I look back and think that the thread running through my entire life as a mother has been the search for after-hours espresso bars. Back in Durham, when we had only two children, husband and I instituted a hopeful plan of 'dates' so that each child had time alone with a parent. We chose Sunday evenings as date night, envisioning a cozy cocoa tete a tete. This proved misguided. We knew of children in the north of England who were fed and abed by six o'clock, which should have clued us in. During the, oh, month or so that this great idea lasted, we struggled to find anyplace to take a toddler out at the shocking hour of 7:00 pm. Pubs were the only game in town and toddlers emphatically not welcome (dogs okay). I remember driving around the first Sunday, having promised my little son a hot chocolate, and in desperation, ending up at McDonald's. He was happy enough. I was not. We changed the dating plan.
A few years later our family moved south to Brighton (Hove, actually:) With no job for me, and with the older children often with after-school playdates, time alone with each of them came about naturally. What grew in me, perhaps unnaturally, was a huge craving for time by myself. Somehow, I realized, I had none. Either I had not noticed it for the preceding six years, or it had newly evaporated, left behind up north with childcare and community and my research position and babysitters. The terrible mother within me could not deny a desperate desire to be on my own, to lay down the weaponry of maternity, to leave the house without pushchair or nappies or packets of crushed goldfish in my pocket. I wanted to arm myself with only a book or the latest New Yorker. Even a year-old New Yorker.
Husband, bemused as only one in possession of an office with a door that locked could be, agreed to get home from work one evening a week by 6:30. That first time, I flew out the door and reached my pilates class exactly at 7:00, communed happily with my core for an hour, and rolled up my mat at 8:00. The night was young; these were the bright lights of Brighton, not the moonlit glow of Durham's quaint cobbled streets. I wandered along Church Road, heading for Caffe Nero, which was just closing. Costa Coffee, the same story. The charming little independent with the mismatched chairs had shut an hour before. All the open, well-lit doorways led to smoky pubs. So instead I drove to the seafront, parked beneath a streetlamp and read a chapter in my car. I felt degenerate, as though I were part of a drug deal. (Maybe wishing. No. Not really.)
In subsequent weeks and months I tried variations: a hotel bar, a pseudo-American diner that closed at 9:00 and happily poured me the dregs of their dilute tan liquid ('free refills!') while mopping the floor around my chair, a fish-and-chips shop where they let me drink tea for a quarter of an hour, longer than it took to prepare the order I didn't really want. Pathetic, definitely pathetic. Eventually I found an available, affordable (if fundamentalist) nursery place for the youngest, and had two mornings a week on my own. Temporary heaven.
The kids are now big and bustling with their own plans and yet in many ways, just as needful of parental attention. Most of the time I love it. But it turns out that my Inner Bad Mommy continues to call a few shots. She still wants a night off, which means a night out, because a night off in, isn't. I want to have some time to think and write, bracketed from parenting, housework, and real work. And here we are in Toronto, a city ten times the size of Brighton and Hove ('and Portslade'- in smaller font), which surely teems with late-night caffeine-based joints.
I compiled a list of 'ten best late-night cafes'. A whole list! My coffee cup runneth over, I thought. The list grew shorter when i saw that 'late night' actually meant, in some cases, 'open until 8:00 pm.' What kind of a big city is this, exactly? Still, I didn't need all ten. One would do. The first place I tried, a mere five-minute walk from home, was in trendy Kensington Market. It seemed perfect: espresso only til 8:00pm, but tea all hours, a little wine, lots of beer, and spirits. End-of-day croissants for a dollar. There was a large butcher-block table and smaller 2-seater ones, several occupied by lap-tappers like me. The music grew louder and the lighting dimmer in the latter hours, but in a good way. I felt welcome and the place stayed open until midnight. It buzzed without being busy.
Then, two weeks ago, the cafe curse caught up with me. A large notice in hand-lettered orange crayon stood by the till: 'no laptops after 9:00'. It looked crude and threatening, like a ransom demand. I felt both disappointed and offended. 'Is this serious?' I asked. 'It seems kind of... mean.'
The owner bristled. 'It's not mean,' he told me. 'I just want to make enough money to pay my staff. We need a more bar-like atmosphere.' I wished him luck, but left anyway, not wanting to sit there and wait for my curfew to arrive.
My ten-best list had included another spot just around the corner from the dictatorial cafe. I poked my head in, wary now, and found the tiny place quiet, a smattering of customers, one of them intently reading a paperback book with several colours of highlighters nearby. 'Do you have a rule about no laptops?' I asked the barista-slash-bartender. The menu listed espresso drinks as well as a variety of whiskey-based cocktails.
'No!' she replied, with a shocked expression. 'Of course not.'
'Well, I've just come from one that does,' I told her, and ordered an Americano. She shook her head in sympathy. I shed my coat and scarf and hat and gloves, and perched on a high stool at a narrow counter. The woman next to me picked up a blue pen and drew a firm line across a page.
The coffee arrived, not quite hot enough. 'Oh,' said the barista, accepting my tip, 'Just to let you know, the live band starts at about 8:30.'
And so it did. The band must be a popular one, because the tiny space filled up. Standing room only, eau de underarm prevalent. Elbows jostled my mouse and the woman with the highlighters packed up and abandoned me. I saw- and smelled- which way the wind was blowing, ordered a bourbon sour (delicious), and after a close call with someone's shoulder bag, closed the laptop. I drained my glass as the band finished warming up, and headed home in time to help with homework and read a bedtime story.
I've since found a website with yet another list of late-night work-friendly venues in downtown Toronto. One of them is McDonald's.
