Developing the Novel

The Girl in the Cafe.

This is chapter one of three that I wrote in my last year of University for a module called Developing the Novel. I managed to score a first for this dissertation worth 60% of my final overall grade.

 

She comes in every morning at 8.18am, sits near the side of the wall with a painting of the glen and orders a cherry bakewell tart with a small earl grey that she never drinks. I think it’s so that she can warm her hands on the mug. I wonder why she doesn’t buy a black coffee which is 10 pence cheaper , maybe she doesn’t like the smell. She fiddles with the crumbs that fall when she eats and brushes them off the table when she leaves at 8.29am for the 8.40am bus to Invergordon. I know because the bus stop is outside our café.  The first time I saw her was the only time we have ever spoken. I apologized to her at the till when I handed out her change. I was scared of brushing against her hand so I dropped the coins from a height and they scattered in different directions; under tables, in a chicken salad, on old Bernie’s fat foot. I don’t serve her anymore. I put the loaves of bread in the oven so that they’re ready to be taken out the moment she walks to the counter to pay. Sandra or Laura serve her now and I stay in the kitchen slowly stacking the loaves on a tray whilst peaking through jars of pickled onions to watch her.

I’d been watching her for a month. Maybe two, but I didn’t have the idea about the book back then. My name is Ian McFadden. I used to live in Ireland until I was seven when we moved to the Scottish highlands. My life never changes even though a large part of me wants it to. I read newspapers and watch the news every day at 6.00pm after work. I marvel at successful business people and entrepreneurs. I wish I could organise international book fairs or decorate the London underground with poetry. But I know I couldn’t ever be one of them. But I wanted to do something.

I did it. I left the book for her on her table at 8.16am. I tried to do it casually but Sandra saw me. She always gives me looks as though she thinks I’m weird. But this time all she did was grin. At 8.18am the girl came in through the door and walked to her table as usual. My right hand twitched as I buttered a slice of granary bread behind the counter. I watched her face as she picked up the book and ran her fingers over the cover. She gazed around. I quickly looked back at my knife smothered in mayonnaise realising that I didn’t even know her name. Maybe it was something pretty like Ella or Elizabeth. Sandra stood next to me, rested her hands on the counter and sighed with a smile on her face. I could tell the sigh meant, oh poor pathetic Ian can’t speak to a girl. The café was busy but nobody talked much, all you could ever hear was the occasional sound of cutlery. I waited for Sandra to speak while I mixed mayonnaise and egg in a bowl.
                     “Milly’s the name in case you didn’t know,” Sandra whispered in my ear finally, clasping a custard donut between her hands.
                    “Ohh she’s just your type isn’t she, Laura isn’t she just his type,” she whispered loudly and rushed out to the staff room to gossip. I felt numb. Oliver Tint glanced up from his usual mug of black coffee. A truck driver stared at me. I knew he was a truck driver because truck drivers were the only strangers in our village. My underarms tingled, my feet were moist and I worried that someone would accuse me of dripping sweat into the egg mayonnaise sandwiches that I was making. I looked at Milly. I finally had a name for her. Perhaps she hadn’t heard Sandra. She slipped the book into her bag and got up to leave earlier than usual. As she got up I could feel her look at me as she walked to the till to pay, I flicked my eyes from my sandwich to her and to the sandwich again I tried to walk away but it was too late. I looked back at her. She reached her arm out towards me. I stared at it. My right hand twitched again and I could see her eyes browsing my face. I realised she was holding her arm out to pay. I blushed and gave her the change, our hands touched.
                          “Thank you,“ she said. It was the first time I’d heard her speak close up. Her voice was soft, without a distinguishing accent. When I went home that night I watched the news with a smile spread across my face because I could feel that something was going to happen.