It was a hazy spring afternoon when Davina entered the green grocer’s shop. The light slanted in between the notices stuck on the window, – MeLon’ s £1-99 and in one corner BICYCLE FOR SALE 27″ frame £20, and MAN & VAN, with telephone numbers. Plum’s the greengrocer had been at the centre of village life for a long time, and fulfilled many functions, not just the supply of your Five-a-day to whomsoever might be interested.
Since moving to the village, Davina’s intake of fruit and veg had escalated astonishingly. This was not due to a conscious decision to eat more healthily. It was due to her seeking an excuse to visit as often as possible. It was quite close to her flat, so she could manage to spread her purchases thinly, buying a little something at a time. She had come to love the feel of the rustly paper bags, of a succulent pear in the palm of her hand. The proprietor, a young man who was keeping on the family business, had decided she must be a health food obsessive, always wanting her fruit as fresh as possible. And that was fine, because he liked serving her. She always dressed very nicely too, though she seemed impervious to cold. Even on chilly days she rarely wore a coat, and often appeared in a vest top. He supposed she was also keen on keeping fit.
In fact Davina was a recent convert to the joys of intensive fruitage. She had at first just come to the shop out of curiosity and orientation to her new home. She asked for apples, – unable at the time to think what else to all for. The green grocer had stepped forward out of the shadows and been handsome at her. Quite powerfully. And it had had an immediate effect, so that when she said “a bag of apples please” and he had replied “what do you like? Cox?” She had become covered with confusion and had to go outside for a few moments, feigning a coughing fit.
She recovered herself, and got her apples to take home. It was very first experience of Cox like this, – in a brown paper bag, and it was as delicious an experience as the apples themselves. Next time she went in, a little shyly, and asked for the next kind of fruit on her then short list; pears.
The lovely green grocer had smiled at her again, and his hand her brushed hers as he handed over the brown paper bag. “I always say you can’t beat a lovely juicy pear.” She was almost sure he had winked.
As time had passed, her requests had become more adventurous, and her outfits smaller and tighter. She bought potatoes with the earth still on, and then asked him to clean it, “Can you make the earth removed for me please?” She asked him about his plums, and he generously let her feel them first.
By the time she asked for his advice on melons, she was dressed in a vest top so tight that from some angles it was possible to read her bra size through the taut fabric. She hoped the green grocer, expert as he appeared to be with succulent fruits, would not need to see the label to confirm what he could judge with his eyes.
She stood in the busy shop, breathless with excitement, watching him deftly reaching for a leek, adjusting his courgettes, talking effortlessly with the customers. She hung back, professing indecision, until everyone else has been served. “I’m interested in your melons” she said. “Can you advise me?”
He gave her that smile again, and she felt the sensations stirring within…She thought she could hear her blood circulating, rushing through her ears on its way to other, more secret places….
“I certainly can” he answered. “I’m a great man for the melons myself.” He lifted a cantaloupe gently with one strong hand, and lifted it up for her to see. “You have to handle them very gently…they bruise easily, do melons, especially when they are ripe…and juicy, and -” he shot a lingering glance at her chest – “ready to burst”
“I’m sure you’re right” she whispered, her voice failing in her throat.
“Should I get just the one, or would I be better with two?”
He put the melon on a scale, and reached for another. “I always say, why have one melon when you could have two”
She nodded, her mouth dry. “I’ll take those then”
“Anything else?”
She felt as though she stood at the brink; it was more or never…
“Can I see a courgette, maybe?”
Of course she could. He picked one out, and held out towards her. In an instant of pure passion she took a firm grip on it with one hand and pulled him towards her. They stood for a moment, the courgette firm and upright between them.
He reached past her and flicked the sign on the door to CLOSED and then allowed himself to be propelled backwards until he was leaning against a shelf covered in artificial grass, and still stacked with produce.
Davina was leaning against him, her succulent melons, still, he noticed, with the stalks on, were tempting him beyond endurance. And since he could not endure that, he gave in to it, dropping his courgette and unwrapping the melons (he was glad these did not rustle) and checking them for ripeness. They were, as he had expected, perfect. She leaned harder against him, and they tipped back into the shelf, which was fortunately strongly built, like him. “Mind my plums!” He cried. The contents of the shelf tumbled away across the floor. She didn’t mind his plums, at all.
Suddenly she looked surprised ” what’s happened to your courgette?”
He laughed “that’s the thing about a courgette…in no time at all, with the right conditions, it turns into a marrow!”