The first time she came into the shop, Yung was polishing apples, rubbing them with a soft grey cloth till the skin gleamed red with promise. With each apple he took a pair of secateurs and cut each stalk to the same neat length, then took the soft green apple-paper and wrapped it back round the fruit like a nest. One by one he placed them on the wooden shelf, a perfect slope of apple-green and red.
As he looked up he saw the black dress, the long full skirt pulled into the waist, the ample bosom above. Black. The sign of an old woman. Or a widow. Her long auburn hair was pulled up under her hat, a few strands fallen, a touch of grey, tangled from the wind.
‘Good day,’ he said.
She looked up from the vegetables, managed a tired smile. ‘Good day,’ she said.
He was surprised. Her voice was deeper than expected. ‘Carrot velly good. Velly flesh. Sweet.’
‘Are they?’ she asked. She looked again at the cabbages and selected the largest half from the stack.
He picked up an apple, one he had already polished, took the paring knife from the shelf behind the counter and cut them both a wedge. ‘Apple velly good,’ he said, biting into his slice. ‘Help yourself.’
She hesitated. At last took small bites, chewed slowly, deliberately, as if trying the fruit for the first time, and he thought he saw her eyes close for a moment and her lips lift in a slight smile, but she did not pick up the remains of the apple or the knife he had left for her.
She bought the half cabbage, a bundle of carrots tied with flax, and three spotty apples from the marked-down bin. She did not look at his face and he understood that she was embarrassed that she had not bought any of the good apples he had offered.
He wrapped the cabbage, then the carrots in newspaper, put the fruit into a brown paper bag and quickly, without fuss, added the rest of the good apple and one other. He saw the look of surprise, then a brief searching of his face. There were dark shadows under her sad, green eyes. She thanked him and he watched her walk into the street, the strands of her hair teased by the wind.
She came into the shop every Monday and Thursday. Each time she was very courteous. Sometimes she would smile, and he would see the fine lines about her eyes and across the freckles of her nose. Her white teeth.
One afternoon after she’d walked out the door Mrs Paterson tsk tsked. ‘She buys day-old bread too, you know. Poor wee thing. You know the place with the peeling-off paint? The broken fence and the falling-down gate? She’s got two children and obviously not enough to feed them. Such a pity about her husband. Donald McKechnie was such an attractive man.’
And so, when his brother couldn’t see him, Yung added one good piece of fruit to the speckled or bruised ones Mrs McKechnie selected. If she chose three overripe pears, he added one shiny crisp apple. If she chose three speckled bananas, he added one juicy sweet orange. He would take the paring knife and offer her a taste of any new fruit that had come in, and even if some was already cut and left by a previous customer, he always gave her a new whole piece. When he passed her the vegetables and fruit, he said, ‘Good day, Mrs McKechnie,’ and he smiled, hoping that today would be the beginning of good fortune.