His tea was warm. His answer could wait.
A Small Favour
“Just Saturdays,” said Vera, as though she were asking Ellis to pass the sugar.
He had already moved the bowl towards her. Now he left his hand beside it.
“At the bakery?”
“Nine until four. I’d be out the back, so you’d only have the counter.”
She took a sugar cube and dropped it into her cup. Ellis lifted his own. The handle was warm beneath his finger, and a little steam rose past his moustache.
Vera had brought two buns from the shop next door to his house. They sat on a plate between them, still joined along one soft edge.
“You’d know what you were doing,” she added. “After all those years in your shop.”
Ellis took a sip.
Nine Until Four
He had liked serving customers at the stationer’s. He still remembered who wanted a newspaper folded and who would complain if anyone folded theirs.
“Would that be every week?” he asked.
“If you could. Saturdays are getting busy.” Vera stirred her tea. “The bread’s manageable. It’s the cake orders. Someone comes in for a birthday cake, someone else wants to change a collection time, and I’ve got flour on both hands.”
Ellis set his cup on its saucer.
“I can’t do Saturdays.”
Her spoon stopped.
“Oh. Have you got something on?”
“I meet Peter and George at ten. We walk along the canal, then have lunch.”
“Every Saturday?”
“Most of them. When it rains, we start with lunch.”
Vera smiled a little, but her eyes returned to her cup.
“I’d hoped you might.”
“I know.”
He separated the buns and moved the plate nearer to her.
An Hour on Friday
“How are you keeping the orders?” Ellis asked.
Vera opened her bag and brought out a small notebook. A folded receipt marked a page halfway through. There were names in the margins, arrows between entries, and a collection time crossed out twice.
“I can find everything,” she said. Then she turned another page. “Usually.”
Ellis looked at the book without taking it from her.
“I could come over on Friday, from two until three. We could set up a page for each collection day. Name, order, telephone number, time. I’ll show you how we kept ours.”
“Would an hour be enough?”
“For that, yes.”
She ran her thumb over the folded receipt.
“I’d still need someone for the counter.”
“You would.”
Vera sat back. For a while, they ate their buns. Outside, a delivery trolley rattled over the paving stones.
Then she pulled the receipt from the book and turned it over.
“I’ll put a notice in the window tomorrow,” she said. “And get a bigger notebook.”
Two Until Three
Ellis brought his calendar from the dresser. He opened it on the table while Vera found a pen in her bag.
“Friday, two o’clock,” she said.
He wrote her name in the space and added the finishing time.
Vera checked her own diary.
“So you’re free on Fridays?”
Ellis looked up over his cup.
“From two until three.”
She met his eyes, then laughed and wrote both times down.
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