The Slate, by Helen Wardrop

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

Valuemart opened at the top of Far Gosford Street in the spring of 1968, with a brass band and free orange squash and a woman in a paper hat giving away biscuits. By the summer the queue for the tills went right back to the frozen peas, and Pawlak’s, at the bottom of the street, was so quiet that Krysia could hear the bacon slicer tick as it cooled.

Her father did not seem to notice. He opened at seven and closed at seven, as he had for twenty years, since he came out of the Polish squadrons with one good lung and a dictionary. He still swept the step every morning. He still put the oranges in a pyramid in the window, though nobody bought them now, and every afternoon he turned the ones that had begun to soften so that the bruises faced inward.

The customers had not gone. That was what made Krysia furious. They came on a Thursday, when the money had run out and Valuemart did not give credit, and they bought a loaf and a quarter of tea and a tin of something, and her father wrote it on the slate that hung behind the counter. Mrs Doherty, eleven shillings. The Okonjos, a pound and four. Mr Fitch, who had a bad leg and never paid anyone, two pounds fourteen and sixpence. On Saturday the same people walked past with Valuemart carrier bags and did not look in.

‘Rub it off,’ Krysia said. ‘Tell them cash or nothing. They’re using you, Tata.’

Her father wiped his hands on his apron. ‘They have children,’ he said, as though that settled it.

In January he sold the lease to a man who wanted to sell televisions. Krysia painted the sign for the window herself: CLOSING SATURDAY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CUSTOM. She made the last word a little smaller than the rest.

On the last morning the shop was full.

Mrs Doherty came first, with her coat over her nightdress and a jam jar of coins, and she counted out eleven shillings on the counter in threepenny bits and sixpences and then stood there looking at the floor. The Okonjos came together, the husband in his bus uniform, and paid a pound and four in an envelope and shook her father’s hand for a long time. Old Mrs Kaur brought a dish of something wrapped in a cloth. Even Mr Fitch came, leaning on his stick, and paid nine shillings of his two pounds fourteen and sixpence, and said he would send the rest, and everyone knew he would not.

Her father took every coin. He thanked every person by name. And to each of them, before they left, he gave a quarter of tea from the shelf, because, he said, he could not take it with him.

When they had gone Krysia looked at the slate. Most of it was still there. She reached for the cloth.

‘Leave it,’ her father said. He took the slate down from its hook, wrapped it in brown paper, and put it under his arm with the takings, as carefully as if it were worth something.

“The customers are presented as selfish people who do not deserve Mr Pawlak’s kindness.”

To what extent do you agree with this view?

You should write about:

• your thoughts and feelings about how the customers are presented in the extract
• how the writer has created these thoughts and feelings

You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer.