Saskia looked up moodily from her first machiato of the morning. The volume of the Spanish chatter from the table two along was insufferable. It was Saturday and barely ten. Surely Spanish could happen quietly sometimes?

At home in The Hague everybody knew that Saturday mornings were gentle domestic affairs, the cafés piping soft music, even classical, not the violent metal sounds of the Friday night borrel, the after office end of week drinking. But here in Brussels, despite the Flemish proximity, the sensible Dutch way held no sway. She sighed, sipped and glared.

Patrice, leaning back against the Italian coffee gismo in a brief interlude between customers, spotted her look and grinned. Keep out of a girl's way in the morning, any girl, blonde or not, he thought to himself. No point in prodding wasps nests. He wondered what she was. Northern, obviously, not fat enough to be English. But neither was she one of those huge Dutch fortresses. Too pretty to be German. He'd go Danish. It would explain the gloom.

Catrina shuffled up to the bar, eyes down as she rootled through the shapeless leather bag dangling from her left shoulder. Purse hunting, mobile hunting, keys hunting – the bloody sports occupied her for at least two hours a day. Her last and unlamented boyfriend, Christoph the computer nerd, had told her this. It hadn't been hugely funny when she had been in love with him. Now the fact that he had bothered to calculate it and then produce the result with all the smugness of a well fed cat just demonstrated how unutterably sad he was.

Such a loser. He had lost her.

She saw Patrice's grin as she looked up, purse triumphantly in hand, and her day brightened. Now here was what she was looking for. Dishevelled, yes, off hand, often, but drop dead dishy all the way. She thought, I'd never find that in Derby.

Across at the Spanish table, it sounded as if the momentary hilarity had been replaced by furious argument. All four people, three men, one women, were talking at once, the woman most volubly. In fact, Mercedes would have told anyone in perfect French or florid (though not always easy to catch) English, they were only discussing whether it was going to rain. This is usually a near certainty in Brussels, which is what Mercedes was trying to tell the boys –  Jordi, Jose and his younger brother Joaquin, the latter only up from Valencia for a long weekend, hence the discussion. Should they risk going all the way out to Heysel and the park round the Atomium or should they just stick around Flagey, take in a film and then see which bar sounded good for the evening? But this – the shape and calibre of the clouds, the direction of the wind, what had happened last Saturday – all had to be examined with conviction or not at all.

In his turn Patrice caught the beam of Catrina's smile as he turned and half inclined his head to take her order. At least there was one happy customer this morning. This girl looked OK too, if in that disorganised way that all English girls (he assumed she was English) had. It was as if they had got out of bed and failed to put the bits of their body together in the right order. Her hair, for example, an interesting sandy colour, but pulled tight at the back with wisps escaping instead of being allowed to flow full and free. And that baggy mauve T-shirt, a size too big, stuffed into a much too formal jacket for the weekend and completely hiding her figure, the rest of which (he noted appreciatively as he glanced at her jeans while she worked out the French for fresh mint tea) was surprisingly neat and trim without being skinny. And the bag, one of those Afghan woolly creations that reduced any woman to looking homeless.

Across by the window Saskia was aware that her sharpened glare was having absolutely no effect whatever on the Spanish contingent. She had neither seen, nor would have cared if she had, Patrice's amused interception. She sipped the machiato and returned to her laptop screen where she was attempting to log into her Ziggie account – that world artery of intimate friendship that made so much more public than previous generations would have thought bearable. Even this, though, was beginning to torment her. The wireless system in the café was so slow that it had already taken her fifteen minutes – almost the whole machiato – just to get her to the password stage but then Ziggie wouldn't let her in because by the time the signal had been sent, the system had given up waiting and just demanded the password again.

Behind the bar Patrice pulled a handful of mint leaves from a plastic box, shoved them in a glass, poured on the hot water and added a long spoon, sugar and tiny slab of chocolate to a saucer. Catrina watched him dreamily, massaging the Euro coins between her fingers as if they were his hair. He round a paper napkin round the glass and tucked it in place with a practised twist. Catrina could barely bring herself to pay but then thought that if she gave him the coins instead of putting them on the bar her fingers might meet his. They did, for an instant and she tingled. If Patrice tingled, though, he didn't show it; merely chucked out a 'merci' and moved briskly to the till.

Catrina, adjusted the bag on her shoulder, picked up her tea, turned and looked around for a table. There was a small one free, two in from the window, between a woman working at a computer and a jolly group chatting away in what she could tell even from there was Spanish. She began a slow walk over, her eyes firmly on the lip of the glass so as not to spill.

Jose was adamant, and determined that Mercedes would not pen them all inside all day just because it might rain. They would go to Heysel. Mercedes was not so easily defeated, however, and wailed to Jordi for support. For Saskia, just as Ziggie blocked her entrance once again, the wail from Mercedes was too much. She grabbed her coffee cup, pushed back the chair with determination and stepped forward. There was a word to be had and it should be comprehensible in any language.

Shut up.

It was unfortunate that Saskia and Catrina should arrive at the same side of the spare table at the same time, one intent on making her point, the other equally intent on making it to the table. As Saskia strode forward she nudged Catrina's bag hard. The bag lurched from the shoulder and slipped heavily down the elbow. Mint tea was catapulted upwards and when it came down – glass and extras first, the leaves, then boiling water - it fell into the moving bag and over the black silk shirt on Mercedes' back.

The wail became a shriek. Catrina howled. The boys jumped up. Patrice spun round.
Typical, thought Saskia. She was not going to take the blame for their foolishness. Taking the blame was not her way. If that stupid girl had been looking where she was going and if those Spanish idiots had not been shouting like children, nothing would have happened. Without a word she went back to her table and began to shut down her computer.

Jordi was livid. It was clearly Mercedes was in a great deal of pain from her scalded back and that great oaf of a woman had not said a word of apology. While Patrice emerged from the bar with a cloth soaked in cold water, Jordi pushed past the lamenting Catrina to confront the Dutch woman.
'You pain her,' he accused in halting English, 'you will make sorry.'

Saskia shrugged. 'Why?'

Jordi was staggered. 'Why?' he repeated.

'You make too much noise. She gets hurt. It's right.'

Jordi Santal was a Catalan gentleman and hitting girls was against every code in his twenty-six year old book but this was provocation beyond his belief. How could someone cause another to have shocking burns and not show even a scintilla of regret? Patrice began to pad down Mercedes' shirt with the cool cloth as Catrina stood by miserable and helpless. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jordi straighten threateningly. Saskia hadn't noticed. She was calmly packing away her computer.

Patrice gestured to Joaquin to take over the care of Mercedes, handed over the cloth, and moved swiftly to Jordi's side. He laid a hand on the Catalan's arm.
'Non Monsieur.'

Jordi glared at him, then relaxed.

Madame,' Patrice began to Saskia, then switched to English, 'you were at fault I believe. Now you will apologise, if you please.'

It was not a notion in Saskia's constitution. She looked up at both men and regarded them with content.

'I will not,' she said simply.

'Then you will leave,' stated Patrice.

'I am leaving.'

'And you will not come back. Again. Jamais.'

Saskia looked up in astonishment. 'You ban me?'

'Oui, Madam. You are banned.'

The Dutch girl looked around the Café Franck. She was bemused. Nobody had ever banned her from anything, nor thrown her out. She stood still waiting for things to change, to return to normal, for a usual Saturday routine of two machiatos and Ziggie to reassert itself.

'Maintenant, Madame' insisted Patrice, 'out. Please.' And her moved to open the door to her right. In silence Saskia obeyed.

Outside, the first drops of rain began to fall.