The Extra Tomato

Every Saturday morning, Mira walked to the little market in Ashdown Square with a canvas bag and a short list. She had moved to the town in spring and still knew very few people, so the market was the one place where she felt part of something.

Her favourite stall belonged to an old man named Ovid, whose tomatoes sat in wooden boxes in shades of red, orange and almost purple. Mira always bought four. And every week, after she paid, Ovid quietly dropped a fifth tomato into her bag.

The fifth one was never pretty. It was lumpy, or striped, or strangely yellow on one side. At first Mira assumed it was a mistake. Later she decided he felt sorry for her. Perhaps she looked lonely, standing there with her careful list.

The idea bothered her, so one Saturday she brought him a jar of plum jam she had made herself."For you," she said."You don't have to give me extra tomatoes."

Ovid looked at the jar, then at her, and laughed so loudly that the woman at the flower stall turned around.

"Extra?" he said."Those aren't gifts. That's work."

Mira didn't understand. Ovid reached under his table and pulled out an old notebook. Its pages were full of tiny handwriting, and many of them carried one word: Mira.

"I grow new kinds of tomatoes from seed," he explained."Most people only want the beautiful ones. But you always come back and tell me what you thought.'Too sour.''Sweet, like a peach.''The skin was too thick.' Do you remember?"

She did. She had said those things only to be polite, just to have something to talk about.

"You are my best taster," Ovid said."For six months, you have been helping me choose." He turned to the last page and tapped it."This one is ready. Next summer, I will sell the seeds."

At the top of the page, in careful letters, he had written a name for the new tomato: Saturday Mira.

Mira felt her face grow warm. She had believed she was a stranger receiving kindness. Instead, without realising it, she had been giving something all along.

Ovid opened the jar of jam, tasted it with one finger and nodded seriously.

"Too sweet," he said."Bring me another next week."