The Extra Tomato

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

Her favourite stall was run by an old man named Ovid, whose tomatoes sat in wooden boxes in shades of red, orange and an almost purple. Mira always bought four. And every week, once she had paid, Ovid would quietly slip a fifth tomato into her bag.

The fifth one was never pretty. It was lumpy, or striped, or oddly yellow on one side. At first Mira assumed it was a mistake. Later she concluded that he felt sorry for her; perhaps she looked lonely, standing there with her carefully written list.

The thought troubled 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 burst out laughing so loudly that the woman at the flower stall turned around.

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

Mira had no idea what he meant.

Ovid reached under his table and pulled out an old notebook. Its pages were covered in tiny handwriting, and on many of them appeared a single word: Mira.

"I grow new varieties of tomato 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 merely to be polite, 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 on the receiving end of kindness. In fact, without realising it, she had been giving something all along.

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

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