Out into the world

I’ve just sent my synopsis and the first chapters of my revised novel to seven agents and am now settling in for the long wait. Of the three who read it before, one returned the submission with a standard letter – quite a nice one, as such letters go – and one read the whole manuscript and then rejected it. What happened with the third one was more confusing. When I sent the submission I forgot to attach the attachments (yes, I know – how could I?) and put them in a second email. I then realised I’d forgotten to include the word count and sent that separately as well, apologising profusely for all the messages. Not long afterwards the second agent asked to see the whole manuscript and wanted exclusivity of reading. I informed the third agent and – as I thought – withdrew the submission. Two months later I got an email saying I hadn’t attached the attachments. I explained that I had withdrawn the submission and the next day got a standard rejection. I’m still not absolutely sure whether the submission was read, or if it was rejected because the agent thought I hadn’t sent it, or whether the rejection was a response to my withdrawing the submission.

When I drew up the current list of agents I included this last one again, forgetting I had already had a rejection. (You can tell that, despite everything, I do have a certain level of optimism.) After a few cringing moments and a hasty consultation with my writing group I decided to leave it and risk a repeat rejection. At least I won’t be surprised if it comes. Apart from the fact that I don’t want to draw attention to myself, it seems to me that doing anything out of the ordinary might only create more confusion. Agents are swamped with submissions and have to keep track of hundreds, if not thousands, of them, so it seems likely they would look more favourably on someone who causes them as little trouble as possible.

As always I’ve been alternating between glorious fantasies of an ecstatic agent and a wonderful publishing deal (highly unlikely for my sort of novel) and a sinking feeling that all these agents – whom I picked as the most suitable – will probably reject the book and I’ll then have to try a B-list and even a C-list before giving up and self-publishing. The difficult thing about having to wait so long – two months at least seems usual and I know people who have waited much longer – is that it gives the fantasies time to grow.  A friend of mine has just got the kind of deal everyone dreams about – big publisher with swish offices, meeting the editor for tea at the Savoy, some foreign rights already and a good prospect of selling to the US, etc etc. She has, I hasten to add, written an unusually good and highly saleable book. I don’t know what the advance will be, but I do know of some people who have managed to secure pretty large sums for an exceptional first novel. For a more ordinary one like mine the average advance – supposing anyone were to take it on – would probably be something like £5,000, or at most £10,000. Not a huge amount if you consider the months, weeks, years that have gone into writing it. I’d be very happy with that or less, though, for the joy of seeing my book published – properly published.

Several people have already said to me, “It’s so difficult to get a publisher or even an agent. Why don’t you just self-publish?” Although I have decided to do that in some way or other if all else fails, there is a kind of snobbishness about wanting to be recognised as a serious writer. Rather than simply self-publish and have the book in print before my very eyes, I’m prepared to put myself through all this agony in order to be published commercially. It isn’t too hard to see why. If you self-publish, unless you do huge amounts of marketing you’re unlikely to sell more than a few copies and your book is equally unlikely to be taken seriously by the literary world. So what? you may say. Isn’t it enough to have written it and know you’ve done it to the best of your ability? Well, yes and no. In the past I’ve put together ‘books’ for distribution to friends and there was a lot of satisfaction in doing that. And at the same time I still had a hankering to be seen as a ‘proper’ writer, someone whose work a publisher thought worth making available to the public at large.

I know there’s no guarantee at all that it will ever happen. I’m not a published writer now,  so if the book doesn’t get published the status quo will simply continue. But I can become a self-published writer, which is at least a consolation prize. Oh, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if the book actually made it.

Foot in mouth

I’m not sure what I was up to in my last post. The introduction to the story wasn’t very coherent and the story itself, well… As one friend of mine put it, ‘it doesn’t have a moral’, and it isn’t really about anything other than – er – porridge, though to be fair the porridge does behave in rather unexpected ways. Nobody has ‘liked’ it or wanted to follow my blog because of it, and I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. I’m not altogether sorry I put it there – I had fun writing it and hoped it might amuse people – but I’m left with the all-too-familiar cringing feeling that I’ve shown myself up: I’ve self-infatuatedly made public something that isn’t appropriate for the public domain. The story was written for, and appreciated by, a friend (not the one above) and wasn’t intended to go any further, until in a show-off moment it sneaked past me into the Blogosphere.

Most of the people I know would have been more circumspect. Either they don’t have a blog at all or, if they do, they post sensible pieces that enhance their credibility as writers. But then, part of me still protests, this is only a blog, and surely a blog is loose and undefined enough to contain whatever you want to put in it. I won’t repeat myself by saying more. I wouldn’t want to get po-faced about what I write here and – up to a point – I don’t mind too much making a fool of myself. If you take the risk of putting things out there, that’s what happens sometimes. Except, of course, that there’s a part of me that does mind and wants to look professional and grown-up – wants, in fact, to look like a proper writer.

But, as writers, aren’t we always in some sense showing ourselves up? We never know what’s going to get past us on to the page, or what it will reveal about us. All kinds of things find their way into fiction, even if it isn’t autobiographical, and if we read it later the response may be, “Oh no! Did I really write about that?” Or, of course, “Wow! I actually wrote about that!” Without the element of involuntary self-disclosure – risky though it may be – many pieces of writing wouldn’t have the rawness and edginess that make them good. Not, I hasten to add, that porridge is in any way raw or edgy – quite the reverse, if I know porridge – but the way the story got out perhaps illustrates the process by which the private gets made public. And the way that writing is in some sense deliberately making the private public – not only putting thoughts on to screen or paper but wanting to get them ‘out there’ where they will be seen. It follows almost inevitably that sometimes what’s put out there is a mistake, but then he who never makes mistakes…

So here I am, shamefaced, extracting my foot from my mouth, ready to expose myself again as I go on writing.

Porridge

I said this story was too ludicrous for public consumption but have decided to serve it up anyway. I don’t think it’ll destroy my credibility as a writer, though it may not exactly add to it. But if you can’t be daft in Blogland, what’s the point of it?

Ah, but of course – Blogland is somewhere else. It wasn’t actually me that wrote it, you know, it was the Bloglet. I don’t write things like that: I’m trying to get a novel published and I’ve even written poems. No, it was someone not too closely associated with me, and I’m being kind enough to blog it for them. Any resemblance to my work, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Spurtle’s* Surprorridge

*A spurtle is a Scottish porridge stirrer.

Spurtle’s porridge factory in Slough produced all kinds of porridge. It came in forty-eight shades, from light oatmeal to deep maroon. For special occasions they even took orders for striped porridge, in colour combinations such as mid-khaki and apricot pink. This was a speciality of their chief porridge chef, Mr Scrimmington Oatsheaf, who himself was striped in rather fetching shades of pale pink and cream.

The owner of the factory was Mr Josiah Spurtle, who unlike his father Eliezer and grandfather Habakkuk had had a lifelong aversion to porridge. It was they who had built up the factory into a world-class business, leaving Josiah to carry it on as best he could. Because he couldn’t bear the taste or the smell, he had encouraged Mr Oatsheaf to develop new porridge flavours to complement the colours, including the hugely popular smoked haddock with white chocolate and onion. As well as this, the talented Mr Oatsheaf had excelled himself by creating frozen porridge, known as Frorridge, a healthy alternative to ice cream,  and Sollidge, cakes of solidified porridge with fruits, nuts and spices, made especially delicious by the addition of Marmite.

The inspiration for coloured porridge had come from Mr Spurtle’s wife Myrtle. Walking into the living-room one day, in a dress of self-striped blue velvet that matched the curtains, she exclaimed, “I’ve got it! I know exactly what people want. Designer porridge in a range of colours to tone in with their furnishings. Just the thing for the Oatsheaf colour co-ordinated porridge bowls.”

Josiah leaned back on their oatmeal-coloured sofa and stretched out his long thin legs. ” What a wonderful idea, my love,” he said admiringly. “I thank Heaven for your love of porridge.”  For she adored it and ate a bowlful at every meal.

Myrtle went over to her husband. Short and porridge-plump, she was no taller standing than he was sitting down. “Yes,” she beamed, stroking his hair, which stood up from his head like a shaving brush. It had once been glossy brown but had now faded to the colour of gruel, a form of porridge that he detested above all others.  ”It is rather brilliant, though I say so myself. And I think this Oatsheaf has what it takes to bring our new porridge to the world. You had better make sure you pay him properly for it. We wouldn’t want to lose him to our competitors, would we? Just think what he might do with tapioca.”

Mr Oatsheaf had brought his culinary genius to bear, creating flavours and colours of dazzling originality and making Spurtle’s a byword for all things porridginous. One of his most recent triumphs had been a wedding cake for the Spurtles’ daughter Pyracantha. The three-tier cake, made entirely of Sollidge laced with brandy, was covered in frothy snow-white meringue and decorated with golden spurtles, one of which Josiah Spurtle solemnly presented to his new son-in-law, Terence Peashoot, in the hope of their continued collaboration. Terence could not bear to tell Josiah that his heart was not in porridge but in pease pudding.

After the wedding Mr Oatsheaf asked to see Josiah Spurtle. “Mr Spurtle,” he said, the stripes on his face standing out more than usual, “I’m very much afraid I can’t continue making coloured porridge. I no longer believe in it. I want to go back to making porridge-coloured porridge.”

“You can’t do that!” gasped Mr Spurtle. “Our reputation depends on coloured porridge. We’ve just had an order from the Prince of Wales for two hundred litres in deep moss green.”

“I know,” said Mr Oatsheaf sadly. “And I will make sure he gets it. But after that…”

“After that, what? If you won’t make coloured porridge you will have to go, Oatsheaf.”

Mr Oatsheaf smiled. “Let me try what I have in mind, Mr Spurtle,” he said. “It may not be coloured but it will be unlike anything else, I promise you.”

Mr Spurtle reached up to flatten his hair, which was standing unusually erect. “Hm,” he said. “I’ll give you a week to make a trial batch. And if it doesn’t  cut the – er – porridge you can say goodbye to your job.”

Mr Oatsheaf smiled again as he left.

Within a week the trial batch was ready to be sent to two hundred of Spurtle’s most loyal customers, some of whom had been eating Spurtle’s porridge since the time of Habakkuk Spurtle. Mr Oatsheaf took a factory van and delivered the porridge personally, in special insulated pots designed to keep it hot for up to twenty-four hours. As soon as he had handed over the pot he rushed back to the van, so that the customers would discover the surprise for themselves. He saved one final pot for Mr and Mrs Spurtle.

“Is this a joke?” Myrtle Spurtle said when she opened the pot. “It’s nothing but ordinary porridge.”

“Oh dear,” said Josiah. “I did hope he would pull something off. Why don’t you try it anyway? I can’t face the stuff.”

As soon as Myrtle put her spoon into the porridge a rainbow appeared all round the bowl. It pulsed and expanded, sounding a faint but very beautiful high note. When she sampled what was on the spoon, it was not only the best porridge she had ever eaten but also tasted of Christmas pudding and brandy butter and rhubarb crumble and strawberries and cream, not to mention tiramisu and hot chocolate. As she ate, the rainbow continued to expand and contract and the note became an elusive melody. As soon as she finished the rainbow disappeared, and the melody with it. Nobody would have known there had been anything but porridge.

“Well, well,” she said to her husband, licking the spoon. “Did you see that? Did you smell it?”

“See what, my love? You mean the porridge? It just looked like porridge to me.”

Myrtle realised that the porridge’s wonderful effects were known only by the person eating it. She tried to tell her husband so but couldn’t convince him.

“That’s it for Oatsheaf,” he said furiously. “He’s been having me on.”

When Josiah got into the office next morning, there were so many emails and phone messages that he had to put production on hold  and ask the staff to go through them with him. Every one of the messages told him, with joy and amazement, the astonishing effects of the porridge. Even more amazing was that each person’s portion had been different. One had whirled round and round in the bowl and tasted like a full English breakfast – starting with porridge, of course, and ending with toast and marmalade. Another portion had set off a shower of coloured lights – like fireworks but perfectly harmless – and run a gamut of flavours from polenta (which had a certain resemblance to porridge) to spaghetti carbonara and pizza con pepperoni. In fact it seemed as if the porridge could tell what the person’s favourite foods were and somehow reproduce them. And in every case only the person eating it was aware of its marvellous properties.

Josiah Spurtle sent for Mr Oatsheaf at once. “Oatsheaf,” he said. “This is pure genius. How did you do it?”

“Ah, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” Mr Oatsheaf replied mysteriously. “Let’s just say I understand porridge.”

Soon Spurtle’s Surprorridge, as it was quickly named, had become a gourmet sensation. Pots of it were sold at inflated prices in exclusive delicatessens and people queued to buy it. ‘If you thought our coloured porridge was special’, the poster read, ‘you must try this’. Mr Oatsheaf was asked several times to demonstrate the Surprorridge on television but he always refused, saying some things were better kept a mystery. Each time he refused, sales went up even more. Josiah Spurtle kept raising his salary and eventually made him a director of the company.

Mr Oatsheaf bought a large house, with a locked cabin in the garden where he conducted his porridge experiments. He often tried to persuade Mr Spurtle to try the Surprorridge, but when eventually Josiah put spoon to bowl, he alone among the millions of afficionados tasted only porridge.

Mr Oatsheaf shrugged. “It must know you don’t like it,” he said.

After a year or so, when the novelty had worn off and new products had come on to the market such as self-frying sausages and grow-your-own cheese, sales of Surprorridge began to fall. By this time Mr and Mrs Spurtle were living in a huge mansion and had bought another one for Pyracantha and Terence. To Josiah Spurtle’s regret Terence had not joined the porridge business but instead had begun to develop new lines in pease pudding. Terence had held secret talks with Mr Oatsheaf, but nothing had come of them.

Then one day Mr Oatsheaf announced to Mr Spurtle, “I’m not making Surprorridge any more. There’s no future in it and I’ve had enough. I need to give my creativity full rein.”

Terence, who happened to be visiting the office, looked at Mr Oatsheaf expectantly.

“I’m going to Australia,” Mr Oatsheaf said. “There are possibilities there in semolina.”

Josiah and Terence both looked aghast. “So what am I to do about Surprorridge?” Josiah asked. “It’s become my life. You’re not taking the secret with you?”

Mr Oatsheaf smiled his mysterious striped smile. “Well, yes and no. There is one person here who loves porridge enough to be able to do the things with it that I can. You may not have noticed, but I have already been teaching her.”

At that moment the door opened and Myrtle appeared, wearing a delightful tunic in oat-coloured slubbed wool and trousers of a darker matching shade.

“Yes,” Mr Oatsheaf said. “Your wife has a huge talent. She has already been able to create almost perfect Surprorridge. The lighting effects aren’t quite symmetrical yet, but the rest…” He made a circle of his thumb and forefinger.  “She will take Surprorridge to undreamt-of heights.”

Josiah stared at Myrtle in utter amazement. “But why didn’t you tell me?” he said.

“I wanted it to be a surprise – like the Surprorridge.” Myrtle smiled at him and then at Mr Oatsheaf. “What I’ve always said is, you can never go wrong with porridge.”

Josiah did not look quite as happy as she had expected – but then he had never understood how wonderful porridge was.

Same again?

After I’d written my last post – some time ago now – I realised parts of it were repeating things I’d said before. I’m sure you know how easy it is, or at least you will if you’re over a certain age. If this blog had been a continuous piece like a novel it would have been easier to spot, but as it was I blithely put up my new ideas, only to find they weren’t. The post wasn’t a word-for-word repetition – more like variations on a theme – but still it was less original than I would have liked. But then originality is hard to come by if what you’re doing is writing down your thoughts. I don’t know about yours, but mine have always had a habit of repeating themselves.

Nor long ago an old friend sent me the beginning of a story about porridge. Yes, that’s right – porridge. She thought I’d made it up, I thought she had, but either way the plan was that I would finish it. As a story it’s too ludicrous – deliberately so – to be made public, but I had great fun writing it and didn’t mind too much that the writing itself wasn’t very brilliant. One of the problems the story faced was the repetition of the word ‘porridge’, for which – so far as I’m aware – there is no exact synonym. OK, I know Americans call it oatmeal, but to us oatmeal is the raw ingredient, not the substance itself. But being forced to repeat a word in a single piece for lack of viable others is not the same as finding you’ve repeated ideas and phrases from one piece to another. It’s less shaming, certainly: more a question of craft than memory.

Although I’ve probably been repeating myself for most of my life, when I do it now I can’t help being more conscious that age may be playing a part. I’ve always been forgetful in certain ways – I leave things on trains, for instance – but I have noticed that in the past few years the number of times I’ve ‘lost’ something because I’ve forgotten where I’ve put it has increased rather alarmingly and, more unusual for me, I’ve sometimes been unable to remember the name of a person or place. Or got it wrong, which for someone who is fairly pedantic is not good news. Until recently I persisted in calling Shaldon (a lovely village just across the estuary from Teignmouth) Slatford – I think because of the similar letters – and didn’t understand the puzzled looks I got. Likewise – worse, really – I was talking to someone the other day about a mutual acquaintance and realised afterwards, having again got a rather puzzled look, that I’d given the person the name of somebody quite different. I confess I do have a habit of attributing names to people according to their appearance – I  rather shocked a friend once by saying I was sure a particular William ought to be a Peter – but I seem to have become more likely these days to believe in my own attributions. Perhaps it’s easier to hold on to them as it becomes harder to remember the real ones.

I don’t know exactly why repeating myself should feel more shameful than getting people’s names wrong, since the latter is far more likely to cause offence. Perhaps it is more obviously something that old people do. Not that I’m so very old, I hasten to add, and anyway what’s wrong with being old? It’s just something that happens if you’re still alive after a certain number of years, though obviously the extent and nature of the ageing process is a highly individual matter. No, what feels awful about repeating oneself is that it’s boring. People lose interest and don’t want to know. My last blog post didn’t get many ‘like’s, and although I don’t know the reason (see previous posts) I immediately suspected it was because I’d repeated myself – not only that, but actually told friends on Facebook that I’d repeated myself. (I don’t think I’d hire me as a publicist, somehow.) So in this post I’ve made a concerted effort not to repeat things I’ve said before. Whether I’ve been successful remains to be seen. I suspect it’s less original, more like other things I’ve written, than I realise.

I don’t think I would have written this piece at all had I not felt a need to apologise for my sins of repetition. Yes, I have repeated myself, it’s saying, but at least I know I’ve repeated myself: the self-editor hasn’t completely gone AWOL. And after all this is only a blog, and far too ephemeral to get all literary about. Even if they’re not repetitious, some pieces are bound to be better and more interesting than others. Just wait and see what the next one’s like…

Here we go again

After its first two rejections by agents I’ve been giving my novel a makeover. Revision no.5 is nearly finished now. I’m sending it to a couple of kind friends who I hope will be able to tell me some of the things that are still wrong with it (even if they can’t list them all) and then I’ll give it a final going-over. After that it should be ready to be dressed in its best frock – smart title page, new synopsis, typos corrected - and presented to a whole lot more agents. I’m much less gung-ho about it this time, knowing how good my friends’ books are that already have agents, but I’m not going to give up yet. A bit of me is still waiting eagerly for that one agent to say, “I loved your book. I so want to take it on. Have you got any more?” even though experience suggests they’re far more likely to come back with, “I’m sorry but this really isn’t for us,” and probably not say why. One of my lovely tutors from Bath Spa said encouragingly, “I’m sure it will work out – don’t take no for an answer” and I’m trying to hold on to that. But there are hundreds of people out there with novels at least as good and interesting and well-written as mine, and the sad fact is that probably quite a lot of them won’t get published. Whether mine has got that special agent/publisher pheromone remains to be seen.

The important thing about all this isn’t really whether I get an agent or not- though that would be nice – it’s how much I’ve been learning from the revision. I think I can see more clearly now what actually makes a novel work (or not) and how to do it. It’s all so obvious: go straight in at the beginning, make sure each scene moves the narrative forward, keep focused on the main plot, don’t get bogged down in unnecessary description, and don’t let the main character be either completely wet or hopelessly unsympathetic – unless you’re clever enough to do it on purpose. I know all those sticking points and can spot them in other people’s work, but the ability to see them in my own novel – and, what’s more, try to do something about them – has developed much more slowly. It’s hard to take the pruning shears to all that beautiful foliage that you’ve nurtured with such care.

Elizabeth Bowen puts it succinctly in her Notes on Writing a Novel (in the posthumous collection Pictures and Conversations): ‘The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevance – due either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author’s attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most useful – and possibly the only – help that can be given.’ Infatuation and indecision – yes. Infatuation with a particular scene or piece of description, because I think it’s good or it says something I want to say, even if it doesn’t fit in the novel. The antidote to that is having the confidence to cut out what doesn’t serve the book, however much I like it, and one of the joys of using a computer is that it’s easy to keep good bits for recycling later. I know all about indecision too: which pieces to keep or cut out, what belongs to the story and what doesn’t, what goes where, who says what. That’s not so easy to deal with. In the end it comes down to trusting my sense of the novel’s momentum and some sort of gut feeling about how it needs to be – which of course can change drastically from revision to revision. I’m not sure I’ve got it right yet but I’ve gone another step on the way. A step in the direction of becoming more professional and, like a good parent, putting the book’s needs before my own.

And so it goes on. I may have got as far as I can for now, but whether or not I get an agent this time round there will still be revision to do. If no-one takes the book I’ll have to look again at why not, and if they do I’ll no doubt have to shape it up according to their suggestions. Some of my friends have been rewriting their books for months under their agents’ guidance. I could of course say, as some people do, that I won’t compromise my artistic integrity. If I were a more confident and experienced writer I might well say that, but though there are some changes I definitely wouldn’t countenance, I’m open to doing whatever it takes to make my book better. Just as I can’t see the back of my own head, I can’t necessarily see how my writing comes across and can usually gain something from having it pointed out – bearing in mind that the other person’s view is also subjective.

Sooner or later, and with all their faults, books do get finished and appear in print – or on the internet or someone’s Kindle. It doesn’t mean they can never be revised again – look at all those poems that poets have redrafted through the decades – so perhaps for ‘finished’ I should say ‘finished enough’. I’m hoping I’ll know, or someone will tell me, when mine has reached that state.

Love me, love my blog

Although I’ve told myself (and my audience, all two and a half of them) that I just enjoy blogging for its own sake, I’ll be honest and admit it isn’t really enough. Most writers mind whether their work is read or not – even if it is only by their small and faithful audience of friends and family – and most want some sort of response to what they’ve written.

The disconcerting thing about writing a blog is that you never know what kind of response you will get. I suppose that applies to writing in general, but with a blog it’s more immediate. You know straight away that someone ‘likes’ your piece, and it’s also obviously pretty quickly if no-one does. I was disappointed, for instance, that nobody ‘liked’ the story I posted last time, when previous posts had produced at least a few immediate ‘likes’. The story did need more work, but as far as I could judge  it was fairly presentable as it was. Or was it in fact markedly less good than other posts that have been ‘liked’, some of which I haven’t thought very much of at all? Perhaps the process whereby blog posts get read and ‘liked’ is more random than I like to think and depends on little more than the weather, the time of day, the title or what mood someone is in.

Or is it simply that certain things work in a blog and others don’t? I’ve posted a couple of stories previously and the odd poem, but I can’t remember now whether anyone ‘liked’ them or not. Some my most considered and heartfelt posts have had very little response, while others that were written relatively quickly and didn’t seem to be saying very much have had a lot more interest. But then I can’t see in them what I can’t see, just as I can’t see the back of my own head or the way I stand when I’m not looking in a mirror.

So how seriously do I take the favourable comments or the baffling silence? Like most writers’ egos, mine revels in a good massage from time to time. But equally I welcome feedback that isn’t all ‘positive’ but will help me to improve. I certainly get that from my lovely writing group, most of whom are far better writers than I could ever be. I wouldn’t seriously expect the same standard of interest and perspicacity from blog readers, most of whom will – like me – scroll through a post and only stop to read it properly if it takes their fancy. Unless it’s by a friend, of course, in which case I will take more time with it. I don’t necessarily ‘like’ or comment, though, unless something in particular jumps out at me.

Which all goes to show that no response is just that, and the reasons for it are unknowable. And there’s still that craven bit of me that wants to beg, “Oh please read it, please tell me you’ve read it and liked it.” In other words, please love me – the me that shows up in the blog. I’m not twisting your arm, honestly. But whether you like the blog or are totally indifferent to it, I’ll still go on talking at people in it and believing that somewhere out in cyberspace there are people who might actually enjoy it.

You Never Know

I wrote this story last year for a competition. It didn’t get anywhere – but then it doesn’t. I’ve tweaked it a bit since then but it could probably do with another going over.

You Never Know

 Perched on a high metal stool, her feet resting on bars some way from the floor, Sarah stared idly out of the window at parked cars and determined shoppers. The narrow granite shelf on which her lunch rested was just too far away to make eating comfortable. She picked up the warm, slightly soggy cardboard container – 100% recycled, fully compostable – and rooted among layers of rice and dhal, bean stew and cauliflower cheese, with an ineffective wooden fork. There was something pleasantly anonymous about sitting here: she didn’t have to bother about anyone seeing her.

She put down her food and looked round the high-class wholefood supermarket, its sign advertising organic smoked salmon and its shelves of hypo-allergenic baby food. Looking self-absorbed and slightly cross, people were earnestly weighing up which kind of raw chocolate to buy or contemplating varieties of gluten-free pasta. As she moved her head she felt her hair coming down. She groped for the slide that was just about holding it up and fastened it back. Tufts were still escaping from the sides but she didn’t much care. As she turned to her food again she vaguely noticed a man moving towards the eating area, a lidded paper cup held out in front of him like a sacred vessel.

He didn’t sit next to her but left two empty stools between them. As he passed, the edge of her body gave a slight shiver, which made her look towards him. He smiled, holding her gaze until she tucked her head down. She shivered again and carried on eating. When she stopped to drink some water he was looking in her direction, with the kind of inviting smile that could begin a conversation. She was chewing a piece of undercooked broccoli and continued to do so, while he sipped his coffee and lifted tiny peaks of foam to his mouth on the end of his wooden stirrer.

Until then Sarah hadn’t registered much about the man’s appearance. He was wearing a raincoat, open, and under it a blue shirt and brown jacket. She noticed that because she didn’t like blue and brown together. She noticed too his large dark eyes, with thick eyebrows that gave his face a theatrical look. She turned back to finish her meal and had to stop herself glancing round him again to see if he was still looking, still smiling. Once she had pushed away the cardboard container she allowed herself to catch his eye, without giving him anything as definite as a smile. The sense of familiarity startled her. Though they had never met, she was sure they knew each other.

When she came back with a paper cup of tea, he had moved one stool nearer; a woman with a nest of bright red hair was sitting where he had been. He sat with his chin resting on his hand, openly watching Sarah. His long reddish face had deep lines that suggested humour or sadness, or perhaps irony; his hair, grey threaded with black, was pushed back, keeping his view clear. She lifted the sides of her mouth and gave him a look that might be encouraging, then moved her stool aside, scraping it along the floor, and climbed on it again. As she stared out of the window she felt his gaze on her profile. She had brought with her a small catalogue from the exhibition of photographs she had just been to and tried to absorb herself in it while she waited for her tea to cool.

The shivery sensation had become something like excitement. Sarah tried to remember when she had last attracted or been attracted to a man she didn’t know. A strange man, she wanted to say: she had started to wonder if there was something strange about him. Why would he be interested in her, when she made so little effort to be interesting? What had made him single her out?  The dry, finely wrinkled skin of her hands reminded her how old she was. She doubted that he was quite so old, though perhaps he was not far off. The same generation, certainly. She glanced sideways from her catalogue and saw him take a drink of coffee, stare into the paper cup, swirl the last dregs round and swallow them down. Then he would go, if neither of them said anything.

He placed his cup on the granite shelf to his far side, where it didn’t come between them, settled himself on his stool and raised his eyebrows enquiringly at her. She drew breath to make some vapid remark but stopped herself. He seemed to do the same, inviting her to begin. She liked the way the smile lifted his cheeks and eyebrows; she liked him looking at her as though she was someone who counted. Scruffy as she was, she subtly preened herself inside her old padded jacket that had gone flat with the years. It disquieted her that he hadn’t said anything; the tension stretched taut between them.  How ridiculous it was getting: two middle-aged-to-elderly people facing each other and ducking away like shy teenagers.

She was used to living alone. After deciding she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with James, whom she had called her boyfriend despite their age, she filled her time with the kinds of things women on their own did, usually with other women on their own: the pottery class, the rambling club, the little job in the soon-to-be-closed library, the local choir. The diary was pleasingly full; she wasn’t looking for anyone to fill it. All the men she knew were either married or gay, surrounded by a soft but impenetrable barrier. This man here might be neither… You could never be sure of someone, that was the thing. Those dreadful stories of stalkers and con-men, women who’d been flattered by the attention and let someone get close who had then persecuted them. As he neatly folded his cup in half and opened it out again she looked him over thoroughly: the button missing on the raincoat, the swept-back hair, the signet ring on his muscular finger. Could you trust someone who wore a signet ring?

While she was staring at him, making an inventory of all that he might be, he caught her eye again and smiled. It was so infectious – so innocent, she would have liked to say – that she smiled back without thinking, as if they had already confided in each other and reached a point where words were unnecessary. He edged closer on his stool, still keeping the empty one between them, and she felt her body pulled to do the same. She imagined their hands meeting on the seat, warm flesh on the cold metal slats, and instead pressed her hand against the hard edge of the tabletop. She felt it making a groove in her palm.

Glancing out of the window Sarah saw a trail of people coming out of the church opposite, busy and gratified. A large notice-board behind them promised New Life. She wasn’t sure she wanted a new life: the model she had suited her quite well. ‘A relationship’ that needed time and care would only complicate things. A man might make demands, as this one was doing, sitting beside her and wanting her to talk. Perhaps he would have gone away while she had not been thinking of him, and then she wouldn’t have to decide.

She heard a quiet cough that might have been an abortive attempt at speech. It seemed to come from a low, resonant voice of a kind that she had always liked. She found herself clearing her throat in response, thinking, What’s to stop me saying something now? She could still get up and walk away after; a few words wouldn’t commit her to anything. Then she could disappear into a charity shop and stay in the changing-room until he had given up; or she could get her hair trimmed and hide in the hairdresser’s, pretending to consider having it all cut short. She could always talk to him first.

She slid down from the stool, reached for her rucksack that was resting against the footrail, unzipped it and put the catalogue inside. He had stood up too and seemed to be waiting courteously for her to go. They held each other’s gaze again, his smile becoming more uncertain as hers flickered and then died.

She shouldered her rucksack and walked out of the supermarket without looking behind her. Better not take chances: you never knew what might happen.