The Beachside Flower Stall

by Karen Clarke

  She stirred, and wrapped a hand over her eyes as if I was shining a torch in them.

  ‘Could you close the curtains, please?’ she murmured. ‘I really need to sleep.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘You’re early,’ said Jane the following morning, though she’d still arrived before me and had already finished setting up the stall. Sunshine glinted off the framework and silver buckets, which were brimming with fresh flowers, the explosion of colour competing with the duck-egg sky, and the fudge-coloured stretch of beach, opposite.

  ‘I wanted to get stuck in,’ I said, helping her to arrange the buckets on their respective pallets, before jabbing in the wooden labels.

  I was already starting to know my aster (a talisman of love and a symbol of patience) from my iris (associated with royalty), with the help of a dictionary of flowers I’d found on Ruby’s bookshelf.

  Unable to settle, once Ruby had made it clear she wasn’t in the mood for chatting the previous evening, I’d heated a pizza from the freezer, then took it into my bedroom and phoned Mum for a chat. I’d completely forgotten they were five hours ahead in Kazakhstan, but she’d been happy to burble on about how clean the metro system was, and how spacious their Airbnb apartment.

  ‘Honestly, Carrie, it’s a bit too smart, if anything. We were hoping for something more—’

  ‘Authentic?’ I’d said, soothed by the familiarity of her voice. ‘Something nomadic?’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Though we had some local food last night that we had to eat with our fingers. Your dad was a bit put out when he realised the sausage was made of horsemeat, so we had to find a McDonald’s.’

  ‘No bridges?’ I said. They had a thing about bridges, finding them ‘magical’ and would take about a thousand photos to show Sarah and me. We had to look interested, or Dad would get huffy.

  ‘Ooh, yes, we went to look at the Arch Bridge in Astana yesterday, but some silly boys had climbed on top to take a selfie, and the police were there, so it wasn’t really an—’

  ‘Authentic experience?’

  ‘Are you taking the mickey?’

  I assured her I was, and she chuckled.

  ‘How are things there?’

  ‘Not great,’ I began, then stopped myself. I longed to tell her the truth about Ruby, but knew my aunt would never forgive me if I did. I couldn’t face explaining about Tom and Megan either, so instead made her laugh about my first day on the flower stall.

  ‘It sounds more fun than that place where you used to work,’ she said. ‘And it’ll do you good, being out in the fresh air.’

  ‘It’s certainly authentic,’ I said, and she tutted and put me on to Dad, who informed me sleepily that Kazakhs believed that whistling a song inside a building would make you poor for the rest of your life, and every time he set foot in one he couldn’t resist whistling.

  ‘It’s weird, because I’ve never been a whistler,’ he said, and a huge surge of love had welled up inside me, and I’d had to pretend that Ruby was calling me.

  ‘Give her my best,’ he’d said, before hanging up.

  I still hadn’t been able to settle, and the birdsong on my relaxation app had only added an annoying soundtrack to my churning thoughts. I’d eventually got up, checking Ruby was snoring peacefully, before creeping through to the living room to browse her bookshelves.

  She was a fantasy fan, judging by most of the covers, but I wasn’t in the mood for shape-shifters, so settled on The A–Z of Flowers and Their Meanings, which soon had my eyelids drooping.

  ‘You look tired,’ Jane observed now, taking in my hastily scraped-back hair and make-up free face, complete with pink-rimmed eyes. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Please,’ I said, having forgotten to make one earlier. ‘You seem much better.’

  ‘Right as rain,’ she said, patting her stomach. She was wearing khaki dungarees tucked into turquoise wellies. ‘I managed some kippers for breakfast.’

  After updating her about Ruby, which didn’t take long, she set about fashioning a funeral wreath, using a circle of green foam, which she skilfully entwined with lilies, white roses and greenery, and secured with wire. ‘A Mr Johnson will collect this later,’ she said.

  ‘Do you do deliveries?’

  ‘No, though it’s something we’ve been thinking of looking into since Poll ’n’ Nate at the top of Main Street closed last year. No competition, you see.’

  ‘Pollinate?’

  ‘Clever, isn’t it?’ she said with a grin. ‘The owners were called Polly and Nathan.’

  ‘That was handy.’

  ‘All ready for your appointment?’ she said half an hour later, as I checked the pails of flowers for water. My heart gave a massive thud. Mesmerised by the routine, and soothed by the seaside sounds I’d forgotten since living in Manchester, Megan and Tom had slipped to the back of my mind.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said, wondering if it was too late to invent a medical emergency. Then again, there was an outside chance Megan might not recognise me out of context. I doubted she’d given me a second thought in the past ten years, having apparently wiped our so-called friendship from her mind the minute she’d hooked up with Tom.

  I’d resisted any urges to look her up on social media, telling myself there was no point torturing myself. I still didn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, which Jasmine said made me a ‘throwback’ but rather adorable.

  ‘I’ll take care of any customers when she turns up,’ Jane went on, stabbing in a final rose stem, and doing something complicated with a length of ribbon. ‘Don’t forget to show them—’

  ‘Them?’ I almost dropped my coffee.

  ‘Brides-to-be usually bring their mothers,’ she said, tweaking a petal into place.

  My shoulders sagged. For a horrible moment, I’d thought she’d meant Tom. Unbidden, images of him gatecrashed my brain; his crinkly-eyed smile; the way he rubbed his eyebrow when he was tired; his pretend tough-guy face the time Hovis wee’d indoors. It had been pouring with rain one Saturday afternoon, and we’d run from the beach, back to the house he shared, where he’d let me choose a couple of CDs, while he mopped up Hovis’s puddle. I still had them, tucked away in a box in my wardrobe at home.

  ‘It might be an idea to take them to Cooper’s Café.’ Jane’s voice yanked me back up memory lane. ‘That way, you can talk in peace.’

  ‘But I won’t know what to say.’ And I couldn’t imagine Megan sipping a latte with me. In truth, I couldn’t imagine her at all. In my head, she was still eighteen, her head thrown back and a glass in her hand. I’d never seen her drink anything but Diet Coke or champagne.

  ‘They’ll do most of the talking,’ Jane was saying. ‘You just show them our portfolio and make sure you write everything down.’

  ‘I think I’d be better off staying here—’

  ‘Now, why don’t you write out a card for this wreath?’ Jane butted in. ‘The message is in the book under tomorrow’s date, and there’s a selection of cards in the top tray.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, glad to at least have something to occupy my mind.

  Job done, I gave the card to Jane and she slipped it among the flowers, distracted by a teenage boy asking if he could buy half a bouquet for his mum’s birthday, as he couldn’t afford a whole one.

  It was almost ten o’clock.

  I moved from under the shade of the canopy into a patch of sunlight, and stood for a moment, inflating my belly with air. I wanted to be calm when I saw Megan; cool and in control. If she recognised me I would try not to visibly react. I would say something like: ‘Oh, Megan, hi, it is you. I thought the name rang a bell,’ and perhaps give an enigmatic smile. ‘I suppose there wouldn’t be another Megan Ford, marrying a Tom Hudson in Dorset.’ I would glance at my watch to indicate how busy I was. ‘Shall we get on?’ No, that sounded cold. She’d know I was trying to hide my real feelings. ‘Let’s grab a coffee and you can tell me what kind of flowers you’d like in your bouquet.’ Better.

  I
conjured an image of us in the café, our heads bent (was her hair still long and liquorice black?), browsing photos, but it quickly disintegrated into me tipping a cappuccino over her head and kicking her in the shins.

  Maybe I should confront her about the way she’d behaved back then. It wasn’t just Tom, I’d had time to realise in the months after I left; she’d been pretty mean at school sometimes, too.

  But if I did, she’d think it still bothered me, and even if it did, I didn’t want her to know that.

  I decided to aim for sophistication. After all, I was the one who’d moved away and made a new life for myself, while she’d remained in Dorset.

  If only my hair wasn’t the same untameable beast it had always been.

  Stop it. It didn’t matter what Megan thought. All that mattered was persuading her to let Ruby’s Blooms supply the flowers for her wedding. I wouldn’t even think about Tom’s part in it.

  I inhaled again and breathed out slowly. The day was getting busier, people pausing to browse the shops on their way to the beach. There was a newsagent’s across the square called Flannery’s, and a man was polishing the windows to a sparkle. I glimpsed my reflection, outlined by the flower stall behind me, and noticed my hands were balled into fists.

  I stretched them out and wiggled my fingers, wishing my nerves would stop twanging. I was calm, I was Zen. I knew how to change a car tyre and manage a burst water pipe—

  A hand landed on my shoulder and I jumped about a foot in the air. As I wheeled around, I stumbled over my own feet, and let out a strangled yelp as I fell over backwards.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry!’

  As I lay on my back, blinking at the cloudless sky, I had a sense of déjà vu. I barely needed to look at the face looming over me to know it was her; my body had reacted of its own accord by leaping away from her touch.

  Megan looked the same, yet subtly different. Her lips looked slightly plumper, but her hair was the same shade of liquorice-black, cascading over her shoulders, her sculpted face tanned an olive shade that enhanced her silver-grey eyes.

  ‘Are you OK?’ The same slight drawl, overlaying her well-bred accent.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Gathering my wits, I rolled onto my side, pretending not to notice her outstretched hand, tipped with blood-red nails.

  Jane’s wellington-booted feet appeared in my line of vision. ‘Carrie, what on earth are you doing?’ she said, as if I’d thrown myself down in a tantrum. ‘Has she fainted?’ she asked Megan, who’d dropped to her haunches, her blush-pink skinny-jeaned knees touching her chin as she inspected me more closely.

  ‘Oh. My. God.’ She clapped her hands to her cheekbones. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ she shrieked. ‘It’s Bagsy!’

  I winced. It was ten years since I’d heard that horrible nickname. ‘Is it you?’ She craned forward, eyes narrowed like a professor working out a tricky calculation. ‘It’s got to be, with that hair.’

  I scrabbled to my feet, blisteringly aware that I must look deeply uncool – in both senses of the word – in crumpled trousers and short-sleeved shirt, while Megan looked effortlessly stylish in the sort of white vest-top that would have made me look like a young offender.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ I said, ungraciously. Tom couldn’t have mentioned my phone call the other night. ‘Hi.’

  She straightened and clasped me to her, as if I’d returned from being missing, presumed dead.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ She let me go and stood back, shaking her head so her hair rippled and glinted in the sunshine. She was still taller than me, even in sparkly flat sandals.

  ‘We knew each other at school,’ she said in a confiding tone to Jane, who was darting looks from Megan’s flawless face to my perspiring one, as if she couldn’t comprehend that such a creature could be connected to me. ‘I’m Megan Ford,’ she elaborated. ‘You do remember me, don’t you?’ She returned her gaze to my stunned-deer one, her eyes clouding with doubt. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  Was she joking? ‘Of course I remember.’

  Megan gave a swirl of laughter. ‘Phew,’ she said, swiping the back of her hand across her forehead. ‘I thought for a minute I was losing it.’

  I couldn’t seem to breathe properly, taking sips of air. It was obvious she’d had no idea I was in Shipley, but was going to make a meal of it now she’d found me.

  ‘We lost touch when she moved away,’ she said to Jane, sticking her bottom lip out and making her eyes go sad. ‘Doncaster, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Manchester, and it wasn’t really like that,’ I said, realising when Jane’s eyebrows flew up that it sounded too intense.

  ‘Oh?’ Megan hoisted her slouchy, tan-leather bag onto her shoulder, her smooth expanse of forehead crinkling slightly. ‘I remember you couldn’t wait to leave Tom’s party that night…’ She stopped, and for a split second I thought she was being diplomatic, but then she shot out a hand to grasp my wrist. ‘You’ll never guess what?’ she said, eyes glinting. ‘I’m marrying him next weekend, can you believe it?’

  I really couldn’t.

  She thrust her hand under my nose, and I briefly glimpsed an engagement ring with a gem the size of a Fox’s Glacier Mint. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ she said, standing back as if to get a better view of my reaction. ‘He was going to give me something that belonged to his grandmother, but I went out and chose this instead, it’s much more me.’ Her eyebrows gathered in a frown. ‘Tom Hudson!’ she clarified, as I continued to gawp in stupefied silence. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten him too?’ She flicked her hair back and I caught a whiff of coconut-scented shampoo. ‘You introduced us, remember?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten him,’ I managed. ‘We were friends, remember?’

  ‘That’s right! You used to walk that funny little dog of his.’

  Did she truly believe that was all Tom had been to me? A dog-walking companion? ‘His name was Hovis,’ I said forcefully.

  Jane fidgeted, clearly growing impatient with this rather loaded exchange.

  As if sensing it too, Megan glanced at a bangle-style watch on her wrist.

  ‘Listen, we must have a proper catch-up while you’re in Dorset,’ she said, as though she’d always hoped to run into me one day. ‘What I was going to ask, before you fell over, was whether you could tell me where Ruby’s Blooms is?’ She glanced around the crowded square, somehow missing the wheelbarrow with the name on. ‘I had an appointment five minutes ago, but I’m rarely in Shipley unless Tom wants to meet for lunch, so I don’t know it very well. We tend to go to The Anchor—’

  ‘I know about the wedding,’ I burst out, unable to keep up the charade. ‘Your mother phoned to ask if we could do the flowers.’

  Megan clutched her chest as if she’d been shot. ‘You’re the florist I was supposed to meet?’ Her eyes enlarged. ‘Oh, Carrie, what a coincidence!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t know you were a florist, I thought you’d be doing some office job “oop north, tha knows.”’ Her accent was offensive. Had she always been this… awful? ‘Where was it again? Macclesfield?’

  ‘Manchester,’ I said, through gritted teeth.

  ‘And you’ve moved back?’ Something new had entered her too-bright tone. ‘For good?’

  ‘I’m helping my aunt out for a bit,’ I said shortly. ‘This is Ruby’s Blooms.’ I took a step back and brandished my arm at the stall.

  Her gaze moved past me and widened further. ‘You work here?’

  ‘Temporarily,’ I said, rattled by her tone.

  ‘And this is your aunt?’ She looked at Jane, taking in the dungarees and wellies. ‘I thought she lived in Wales.’

  So, she had remembered something about my life. Despite mostly talking about herself, she’d occasionally shown an interest in my family, seeming to find us vaguely amusing, as if we were circus performers. ‘That’s my mum’s sister, Barbara,’ I said. ‘Ruby’s my aunt on my dad’s side, and this is her, erm… business partner, Jane.’


  Jane bobbed her head, and for a horrible minute I thought she was going to curtsy.

  ‘Carrie can take down the details of what you’re looking for,’ she said demurely, but Megan was shaking her head.

  ‘Listen, my mother panicked and probably didn’t realise this wasn’t a legitimate business,’ she said, in a rather condescending way. She’d never got on with her mother.

  ‘It’s totally legitimate,’ I argued, and when Jane stiffened, tried to lighten my tone. ‘My aunt’s not well at the moment, but I can assure you—’

  ‘Oh, poor thing.’ Megan pressed a hand to her heart. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s just that I’ve been let down by Jay Simmons.’ She paused, and I had the sense we were supposed to know who she was talking about. ‘He’s won lots of awards, and designed a wedding bouquet in the shape of a handbag for a supermodel,’ she continued. ‘We were lucky to get him in the first place, but my father’s an old friend of his father and pulled some strings.’

  I still had no idea who he was. ‘You’re back in touch with your father then,’ I couldn’t resist saying.

  Her smile dimmed. ‘Well, he’s still in Canada, still married to that woman half his age, and they’re having another baby, would you believe?’ She said ‘baby’ the way most people said Rottweiler, and I remembered how upset she’d been when she’d heard her father’s new girlfriend had given birth to twin girls, and another baby girl a year later. ‘But he’s doing what he can from over there, and he’s going to try to be here on the day, pregnancy permitting.’ She inhaled and shook back her hair, as if throwing off thoughts of them. ‘Anyway, Jay has this cute little shop in Shoreditch, but he was arrested last week for smuggling cocaine into the country, which has left us rather in the lurch. I decided to go local instead but, no offence’ – her voice grew kind – ‘it wouldn’t be fair to expect you to compete with that level of expertise.’