Setting the tray carefully on the table so the overly full latte wouldn’t spill over the delicately balanced slice of Victoria sponge, she slid comfortably into the chair and breathed a sigh of relief. It was always a worry when she walked into the little café that someone else would be sat in her chair. She couldn’t blame them she supposed, they weren’t to know it was hers… and yet she would always feel an irrational anger when the chair was occupied and she was forced to sit somewhere else.

The Chair was soft enough that she could sink back into its comforting embrace, yet firm enough she would be able to stand unaided. She liked it’s tall back and wings as they provided a sense of privacy, hiding her from the prying eyes of her fellow customers.

Snuggled into a bay window, alongside it’s partner and a small mahogany table, the chair provided commanding views of the town centre, while the window’s aspect provided her with the same sense of privacy from passing eyes outside, as the wings did for those inside.

Form here she could watch the tourists moving in and out of the Cathedral, phones out to take hundreds of pictures of every statue, stain-glassed window and religious icon. Pictures that will only be shown once to an interested friend or polite family member before being forgotten as new journeys are made and duly photographed.

Some days she longed to go out and tell them to put those wretched phones away and just see with their own eyes what people created centuries ago, to embrace the emotion of the place and absorb the information their ever-patient tour guides had spent hours learning.

But she never did.

Instead, she would let her gaze wander around the square, until it was inevitably drawn to McArthur’s. The department store whose polished frontage had caught the attention of shoppers for more than a century, ever since the original Mr McArthur had branched out from dressmaking and opened an accessories department, inspired by a Christmas visit to London’s Oxford Street.

After, the Cathedral, the department store was the town’s biggest attraction, stuffed to the rafters with every item a person could possibly need in their life, and plenty they didn’t. A person could easily get lost once through those doors and emerge blinking hours later holding a new hat for an event they hadn’t yet booked, more cushions for the sofa and a large casserole dish that inevitably would end up gathering dust on the shelf after single, unsuccessful, outing.

It was her favourite game to sit quietly in the chair and watch people push open the heavy wooden doors and imagine what they were purchasing, what item it was they desperately needed to make their lives complete.

The middle-aged man with greying hair and a growing beer belly, had just ducked inside for a new pair of golfing gloves. He had been beaten last week by a young upstart in the monthly office round and he was determined to find an advantage to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. In truth the gloves were unlikely to help, he couldn’t admit it to himself, so strong was his desire to be the best, but the gloves weren’t the problem… he was. He was a poor golfer, lacking the required hand-eye coordination to get the ball on target, while the beers he consumed as they moved around the course only made his aim worse.

Following him, was a young woman pushing a pram and parading a small gaggle of boys behind her. They would be headed to the toy section, as the boys had been exceptionally well behaved while her strict in-laws visited, and they deserved a reward. The older would choose yet another football, while the youngest opted for a small red fire truck like the one in his favourite book. Toys purchased, they would stop briefly at the makeup counter, where the woman would pick out a new lipstick, imaginatively named, Rosy Clouds. After all it had been a long visit and she deserved a treat too.

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, two women her own age in beautiful tea dresses, one blue, one yellow, enter the store with arms linked. She pictures them passing each level in the store’s ornate elevator before disembarking on the top floor, where the hair salon could be found. Wrapped in the signature dark green McArthur gowns to protect their dresses, the women would gossip as stylists elegantly worked their hair into designs fit for a queen. An hour later they’d emerge, admiring their new dos in the shop windows before turning towards La Maison, the town’s brasserie, where they would attract the attention of the older bachelors, while sipping glasses of ice-cold chardonnay.

And so, it went on… she could spend hours playing this game, long after her coffee had been reduced to dregs and crumbs were all that remained of her slice of cake. But as long as the chair was comfortable, she would stay.

When the doors of McArthur’s closed promptly at 5pm, she would sigh, glance once more around the town centre before slowly rising and shuffling out of the door, home to the quiet, lonely flat where none of the furniture would ever be quite as nice as the chair in the window.

E