I was in Piccadilly Circus and was quite distressed. A couple approached me, were sympathetic to what had happened and offered to take me for a coffee. We were right by a coffee shop but the woman said she knew a cafe in Piccadilly tube station so down we went, the entrance opposite The Regent Palace Hotel, and there was this little cafe tucked away right next to the stairs.
We were the only customers, there was a waitress in a pink gingham 50's costume and an old woman at one end behind a counter on which there was a strange Heath Robinson contraption made of copper. I couldn't work out what the hell it was, it stretched the length of the counter, and I felt very unnerved by the old woman who stared intently at me the whole time we were there. Everything about her seemed to be gray.
Something strange happened (sorry to be so vague but this is very personal) and I ran out of the cafe, up the stairs and straight into the arms of my boyfriend who I'd been looking for. The couple came out after me and the woman spoke to my boyfriend, said she was relieved I'd found him and commented on how odd the strange thing that had happened was.
A couple of years later I was in Piccadilly tube station with a friend and remembered the cafe, reflected on how I'd been up and down the stairs opposite The Regent Palace Hotel countless times and never so much as glanced at it, which was odd considering what had happened there. I asked the friend if he fancied a coffee and we headed for the cafe.
It wasn't there. He said there'd never been a cafe there and I argued that there had been, it must have been bricked over...until he pointed out that the wall tiles were original and had been there since the station was built.
We checked every entrance to the station even though I knew for a fact which entrance it had been next to. The only thing resembling a cafe was the snack bar in the ticket hall. I was so distressed that my friend stopped a guard and asked if there used to be a cafe down there. The guard said no.