The staff at Costa coffee shop at North Greenwich eyed one particular customer with increasing curiosity. For the last few months he had been visiting their shop every Wednesday morning. That in itself was odd, as, due to the location of their cafe, they had few regular customers. But what made this man especially noteworthy was the fact that he clearly had a physical disability. Every Wednesday, at around ten, he would barge through the door of the shop in his large electric wheelchair, select the same cheese and ham toastie from the food shelf, before rolling forward to the counter and typing into the ipad he used to communicate that he would also like a large cappuccino. He would then place his Ipad and baseball cap on the nearest available table before going and ‘parking’ his wheelchair by the back wall of the shop.

This happened as regularly as clockwork: the Costa staff had grown used to it, and now knew that the fellow drank his coffee using a special plastic straw and that he kept his money in his bumbag. Where customers with such disabilities had once been rare, in twenty-first century London they were becoming more and more commonplace. Getting out of his wheelchair, he then always walked in his own unsteady, almost frightening way back to the table he had put his things on to wait for his coffee and sandwich.

Only, something had recently changed. When he first started coming into their shop, the man had seemed a pretty jovial sort of fellow, smiling, laughing, and even typing jokes into his Ipad. For the last two or three Wednesdays, though, he had appeared quieter, slower, and much more depressed. It was as if some enormous problem was suddenly bearing down on him, or that the entire world had grown much darker for him. Of course, the cafe staff knew that it wasn’t their business to pry, but they could tell something was wrong.

This morning, however, things seemed to have changed once again. At just after ten they heard the door of their shop swing open. The cafe staff all looked up to see their regular customer surge through the door, his smile returned to his face. It was as if his usual confidence had been restored. As he passed the shelf, he picked out the same toastie he ate every Wednesday; only this morning something odd happened. Rolling up to the counter, instead of starting to type his usual request for a cappuccino, his palsied fingers went in an entirely different pattern.

“Tea,” he typed. “Earl Grey. Hot.”