Saltby Front, by Graham Leese
An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.
I wrote the letter in the summer of 1974, over four nights, in my bedroom above my dad’s ironmonger’s shop in Saltby, and it was, I still believe, the finest thing I have ever written. It was two sides long. It compared Sandra Jolliffe’s eyes to the sea off the North Pier in the evening, which was green and grey and difficult to describe, and it said that I had loved her since the school trip to York, when she had shared her crisps with me on the coach. I signed it ‘An Admirer’ and then, in case she thought it was from Kevin Hardcastle, I added my name underneath.
Sandra worked Saturdays at the Bluebird Café on the front, which belonged to her aunt. I could not take the letter in myself. I had tried twice, and both times I had bought a cup of tea and drunk it and walked out again with the envelope damp in my pocket. So I gave it to Mick Lund, who was afraid of nothing, and told him to give it to the girl behind the counter.
‘Which one?’ said Mick.
‘There’s only one,’ I said, which was true in every sense that mattered to me.
It was not true on that particular Saturday. Sandra had gone to the dentist. Behind the counter, in her flowered overall, stood her aunt, Mrs Agnes Cuthbert, a widow of fifty-eight with forearms like hams, who had once thrown a drunk fisherman bodily into the street. Mick gave her the letter, said ‘From Graham Sowerby, the ironmonger’s lad’, and ran.
I learned this at four o’clock. I spent the rest of the weekend in my room. I considered running away to sea, and then remembered that the sea was where Mrs Cuthbert’s brother kept his boat. On Monday I went to school by the back lanes. On Tuesday a note arrived at the shop, addressed to me in round blue handwriting, and my father handed it over with an expression I did not care for.
Dear Graham, it said. Thank you for your kind letter, which I have read several times. Nobody has compared my eyes to the sea since 1937, and I was very touched, although I must tell you that they are brown. I am afraid that I am already spoken for by Mr Hebden the coal merchant, who would be upset. I have taken the liberty of passing your letter on to my niece, who I think it may have been meant for, as she has been reading it all evening and will not give it back. Yours sincerely, Agnes Cuthbert (Mrs).
I read it seven times. Then I put on a clean shirt and walked down to the front, the long way, past the pier, because my legs did not seem to want to go the short way.
Sandra was behind the counter. She did not say anything when I came in, and I did not say anything either. Through the hatch I could see Mrs Cuthbert at the fryer, very busy, with her back to us, and her shoulders were shaking.
Sandra brought me a cup of tea I had not ordered, with two sugars I had not asked for. ‘You get to keep that one,’ she said, putting it down. ‘Not the letter. I’m keeping the letter.’
Her eyes, I noticed for the first time, were not green or grey at all. I decided it did not matter in the least.
“The writer presents first love as nothing more than a source of embarrassment and humiliation.”
To what extent do you agree with this view?
You should write about:
You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer.