Absolutely everybody in the Mocha, Saturday 11 am (OTA/MW)
Saturday at 11 am, and the Mocha was really busy. Among them were:
Andras, who had visitors. One of them was his brother Lajos, in the City again for lawyerly business, even though he no longer kept a flat here; the other was a bloke he brought along to sleep on the sofa, some researcher from Cambridge whose cousin apparently was Ilona's best and most high-strung graphics designer, here to briefly consult something arcane that was kept at Rutherford. Andras had no hope of even understanding what it was, except that it was Historical; so the bloke was most likely a historian, right? Funnily, though, he was from the same area of Old Blighty originally where Charlie had that farm Andras visited once; so there was something to talk about, at least.
Charlotte James, who had just been to an early morning visit to the new spa, and was discussing the relative merits of that versus the Michael's Brothers spa with Maude Temminck (whose character had much improved, Charlotte thought, since she was widowed, dried out, and had a grandkid) while her son Manny was sitting peacefully by, as if the chatter of women was no more meaningful than the waves of the ocean, and just as calming. On his lap, little Morgan Temminck was fast asleep. Theoretically, he was waiting for his wife, but Charlotte got the impression that he was content to just sit there.
Cindy was sitting a few tables on (having said hello to Charlotte and her lot, but still uneasy about the Temmincks, so she hadn't joined them), talking to the Indian woman, Chandika, and her adorable kid whose dog Hanu was most likely the illegitimate son of Axminster, but nobody minded any more, not even the owner of the mother, because Hanu was such a great dog, and while not pedigree, still an indubitable lurcher. They were talking about spas as well -- in particular, the one where Chandika worked. Cindy was very cautiously trying to work out whether it would be all right for her to go there, and Chandika was doing her best to gently reassure her that of course it was. The dogs were both under the table in classic Axminster pose, fast asleep.
Ricky had his earbuds in, surfing MySpace on his netbook; he was sharing his table with some tall stranger with lanky hair and a large nose who was also working away at his notebook -- a rather larger and posher one. They were both drinking chai latte, and any attentive observer might have realised that they were each drinking distractedly from both cups and totally not noticing. Unless one of them had the swine flu, it probably didn't matter.
By the door to the conservatory, two ghosts were lurking, mostly unseen by the rest of the Mocha. "Just listen to them!" Marek was saying. "They're totally superficial! All they ever talk about are spas." Manny shrugged. "I've spent my life talking about business; spas are a nice break. And I don't like women for their conversation, you know. More for their curves." Marek laughed.
[[OOC: Brief visit of Lajos Toth and Edgar Cobham to justify the icon and make sure that all twelve are really there!]]