John Vir owns a newsagent's in Southampton. His is the only shop that still stocks space dust along with packets of petrified celery soup, The Lady and Marxism Today, drosopila-studded fruit and boxes of henna. . Lucy and Paul are his favoured customers, especially Lucy with her enchanting purchases of catnip mice, hair bobbles and spangly combs. they live across the road, above Snooke's Electrical Stores, soon to become the Bluebird Café. With a grant from the local council, Lucy, Paul and their friends stencil blue doves below the picture rails and fit out the café with stripped-pine chairs from the Oxfam furniture store. While Lucy works in the café, Paul spends his time at the Badger Centre where he is a volunteer, supposedly working on his PhD, but actually spending his time bird-watching and clearing out the Small Native Mammals.

Into the newly opened café drifts the unempliyed and potato-faced Gilbert. He finds it a welcome change from his usual haunts, the DSS bedsit, the library and the park. The he gets a job on the dustcarts, and meets Mavis, who enjoys haranguing the council. Meanwhile John Vir thinks of little else but Lucy and invites her to the cash ’n’ carry, hoping it will be a prelude to carrying her away.

Sharply observed, funy and moving, The Bluebird Café is the first novel by Rebecca Smith.