The first customer

Source: an original fiction extract.

I had arranged the jars in three perfect rows before the market opened. Apricot at the front, plum behind, and the experimental orange marmalade at the back where its uneven pieces of peel were less obvious. My sister had lent me the tablecloth. My father had lent me his van and an expression of confidence that became harder to bear each time I remembered it. By ten o'clock, thirty-seven people had passed without stopping. I knew the number because counting them gave me something to do with my face.

The first customer wore a coat with a missing button. He picked up a jar of plum jam and read the label slowly. I began explaining the fruit, the small batches and the absence of anything I thought he might disapprove of. He asked the price. When I told him, he put the jar down carefully. I heard myself offer a discount for two, although I had not planned one. He said he lived alone. I apologised, which seemed strange even as I said it. He moved to the next stall, and I straightened the jar he had hardly displaced.

An hour later, a woman bought three jars without tasting anything. I wrapped them so gratefully that I nearly forgot her change. She said they were presents and asked whether I had a card. Suddenly the labels looked professional again. I imagined coming back every Saturday. Then the man in the coat returned. I expected him to ask for the discount. Instead he said he had been thinking about the plum jam because his wife used to make it. He asked whether it was very sweet. I gave him a clean spoon and a sample from the open jar.

He tasted it, waited, then said it was not like hers. The sentence struck harder than it should have. I began to explain that every recipe was different. He smiled and said he had not meant that as a complaint. Hers had been much sweeter, perhaps too sweet, though he had never told her. He bought one jar at the marked price. After he left, I realised I had spent most of the conversation listening for a verdict on myself. He had been trying to tell me something about breakfast in a house where another person no longer sat.

At the end of the afternoon, eleven jars had sold. It was not enough to pay for the equipment, and too many to dismiss as a complete failure. I packed the remaining stock while the stallholder beside me folded her canopy. She asked how the first day had gone. I gave her the number, then said I had found it difficult to stop talking when people looked at the jars. She laughed and said that took practice. On the drive home, I made a note to bring more tasting spoons next time. I left the price of the plum jam unchanged.

Consider the whole source. A reader said: “The narrator treats customers’ responses as judgements of personal worth. The first customer helps the narrator begin to see that a sale involves another person’s needs and memories too.” Evaluate how far you agree. Support your judgement with detailed references to the text and the writer’s methods.