The Beachside Flower Stall

by Karen Clarke

  ‘This time next month I’ll be back from my honeymoon, as Lady of the Manor.’ Her tone was self-mocking yet smug.

  ‘And then you’ll be dropping the sprog.’ Her friend’s accent spoke of boarding schools and ski slopes, and I guessed it was one of her old friends from school. ‘I still can’t see you as a mother, Megs.’

  ‘None of us can,’ said a voice with a hint of New York, and I vaguely recalled an American cousin Megan had looked up to. ‘I remember when you played with your dolls you carried them upside down, and jammed their heads between your knees to change a diaper.’

  Gales of laughter followed.

  ‘Hope you’re taking your folic acid.’

  ‘With my blueberry smoothie every morning!’

  ‘I expect she’ll get a nanny as soon as it’s walking,’ said another female voice, brisk and gravelly.

  ‘Of course!’ cried Megan. ‘I want to take a back seat for a while, once Tom’s running the company, and make my mark on the house, maybe throw some parties once my father-in-law retires. He’s going travelling, so I’ll be able to do what I want.’

  I wondered if Tom knew of her plans. And how was a baby going to fit in?

  ‘Make sure you go straight back on the Pill,’ said the gravel-voiced friend. ‘You don’t want to be knocking out babies every year.’

  My stomach knotted. It was hard to imagine Tom as part of this group, being friendly with their partners or husbands. But then, I didn’t really know him anymore.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Toby’s voice startled me and my hand shot out, knocking my glass over and sending brown liquid cascading across the table.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, reaching down to grab a tissue from my bag. I stood up and attempted to staunch the flow, and Toby rose and accepted a napkin from the circulating waiter.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, dabbing at his thighs. ‘Could have happened to anyone.’

  ‘Carrie?’ Megan’s face appeared round the edge of the booth, eyes sparkling. ‘I thought I recognised your voice.’

  That was all I needed; an audience for my humiliation.

  ‘Hi,’ I mumbled, scrunching the soggy tissue in my hand and pasting on a smile. ‘Fancy seeing you.’

  ‘Twice in as many days, after all this time!’ She got up and came over, looking stunning in a simple navy-and-white striped T-shirt dress that complemented her tan and showcased her lollipop-stick legs. I couldn’t help firing a glance at her midriff, but there wasn’t as much as a curve.

  Eyes roving over my outfit, she did a comedy double-take. ‘Oh my god, Carrie, are you wearing your dressing gown?’ she hooted.

  Looking down, I clasped the edges across my blushing cleavage, like a Victorian maid. ‘It’s vintage,’ I said, risking a glance at Toby, gratified to see he was checking his phone and not looking at Megan at all.

  ‘Well, you’ve definitely got the figure to carry it off,’ she said, in the generous tone people used when they were flattering those less fortunate than themselves. ‘I always envied you your boobies.’

  She reached out and gave them a jiggle, and one of her cronies, peeking over to watch, brayed, ‘Wait until you’ve breast-fed, Megs, you’ll be tucking yours in your knickers!’ She had bouncy, golden curls more suited to an eighties beauty queen. ‘Better stock up on Spanx!’

  Megan ignored her, switching her attention to Toby.

  ‘You must be the war correspondent,’ she said, deploying her most devastating smile. Oh. Shit. ‘I thought he wasn’t due yet?’ She addressed the last bit to me, without taking her eyes off Toby, who was glancing behind him as if Megan must be addressing someone else.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  ‘Cooper, isn’t it?’ Her words dropped into the dumbstruck silence as she stuck her hand out. ‘I’m Megan.’

  Toby dutifully took her fingers and gave them a tweak. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said, giving me a befuddled look over her shoulder. I pulled a pleading face I hoped said, ‘Please go with it.’

  ‘We were at school together,’ I said to him, brightly. ‘I told Megan you were coming next week because you were in…’

  ‘Budapest,’ Megan supplied, which was just as well as I’d completely forgotten where my fictitious boyfriend was supposed to be working. ‘You were doing something terribly important,’ she said, ‘but I’m glad you’re here. You can both have dinner with Tom and me one evening, how about that?’

  She passed a beaming smile between us, then slid an arm around my waist. It was like being squeezed by an anaconda, and I knew I wasn’t imagining the wave of animosity coming off her. ‘It’s good to catch up with one of my oldest friends,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘It’s so nice to be back in touch.’

  She tightened her arm ever so slightly, and my robe pulled apart at the edges. I tried to wriggle away but she held on, smiling brightly at Toby, who was starting to look like he wished he’d stayed at home.

  ‘Tom is so thrilled you’ve found The One,’ she went on, her nails digging into my flesh. ‘We were talking about you earlier.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ My face felt in danger of shattering from the effort of smiling, while Toby gestured with his eyes that my underwear was on display.

  ‘I’ll check our diary and let you know.’ Just when I thought I couldn’t bear it a moment longer one of her friends called, ‘Come on, Megs, our food is here,’ and finally her arm fell away.

  I took a stumbling step towards Toby, as if I was a hostage being released to a negotiator, and he put out a hand to steady me.

  ‘Ooh, don’t forget, eleven o’clock tomorrow,’ she said, pinching my elbow as she passed. ‘I can’t wait to see what you’ve done.’ She fluttered a wave at Toby. ‘’Bye, Cooper.’ She flicked her glossy hair. ‘You’ve a diamond there, look after her.’

  She wafted back to her friends and said something I didn’t catch, which made them roar with laughter. I rearranged my clothing, mentally preparing my goodbye to Toby, when he said quietly, ‘I’ll go and get us a proper drink, and you can tell me what that was about.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘You were in late last night.’ Ruby peered at me through the permanent twilight of her room, her eye mask round her forehead like a bandana.

  ‘Sorry.’ Head pounding, I placed a mug of tea beside her. ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you.’ I cringed, remembering that, at one point, singing had occurred.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ Ruby shuffled upright, worrying her hair with her fingertips. ‘I was watching a horror movie.’ She nodded at the small television set perched on top of her chest of drawers. ‘Talking of horror, you did quite the version of Delilah.’ Her mouth twitched. ‘Must have scared the neighbours.’

  I winced. ‘Sorry about that.’ When I drank too much – a rarity – I tended to warble Tom Jones classics, which was odd, considering I could barely remember the lyrics when I was sober. Jasmine had recorded me once, but I’d made her delete it.

  ‘Did you have a nice time?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said, turning to open the curtains, wincing again as a shard of sunlight struck my eyes. My head felt heavy, as if someone had filled it with cement while I was sleeping. ‘He was nice.’

  ‘Nice enough to see again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I dropped onto the side of her bed, sending particles of dust whirling into the air. My stomach rolled queasily. ‘I’m not really looking for a relationship.’

  ‘So why go out with him?’

  Because I invented a boyfriend more interesting than anyone I’ve met in real life, and Tom’s marrying Megan, and I haven’t had a proper relationship in ages, and I’m never going to be with Tom because he’s marrying Megan, oh, and they’re having a baby, and I’m almost thirty—

  ‘Carrie?’

  I jumped. ‘It was my friend’s idea, really,’ I said, rubbing my eyes with my knuckles. I’d forgotten to remove my mascara and my fingers came away black. I’d also fallen asleep in the robe I’d gone out in, but at least t
hat didn’t look out of place. ‘She’s always trying to set me up. I think she thought there’d be a better class of man in Dorset.’

  Ruby smiled over her mug. ‘Maybe she’s right,’ she said. ‘Although it wouldn’t be very convenient to meet someone here if you’re going back to Manchester.’

  ‘True.’ Her words gave me a jolt. Was it possible I was starting to think of Shipley as home? Ridiculous. I’d only been here a week.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Ruby sipped her tea.

  ‘Toby.’ I tried to recall how we’d left things the night before. We’d sat outside the pub with our drinks for a while, away from Megan and her friends, and I’d told him all about her and Tom, and the boyfriend I’d invented on the spur of the moment – which made him laugh, a nice deep rumble – and how Megan was considering letting Ruby do her wedding flowers, depending on the outcome of my flower sample.

  ‘Not even at her mum’s house, I have to go to Hudson bloody Grange so she can show off,’ I’d grumbled. ‘And I’m competing with a criminal florist who designs flowers like handbags for slebs, and charges an absolute fortune.’ I was slurring a little after my second – or was it third? – glass of wine, my words falling over themselves.

  As daylight had faded from the sky, and the fairy lights outside the pub had come on, reflections twinkling in the harbour, we’d carried on chatting, though I couldn’t recall the exact details. Toby had mentioned his wife, Em, a few times, and their boss’s baby, Bunty – surely the same Bunty that Ruby would be doing the christening flowers for? – which had deepened their longing for a child of their own.

  I remembered he hadn’t seemed particularly drunk when he offered to walk me back to Ruby’s. He’d given me a piggyback some of the way as my feet had swollen up, pretending to stagger beneath my weight – at least, I thought he was pretending – and I kicked my shoes off and stumbled the rest in bare feet, clutching Toby’s firmly muscled arm.

  When we arrived at the back of the bakery I’d prodded his bicep, and now I cringed at the memory of me saying, ‘Woof, woof!’

  In the glow of the light by the door he’d looked vaguely self-conscious, and when I had launched into Delilah he’d patted my shoulder awkwardly and suggested I drink a glass of water before going to bed.

  ‘Care to join me?’ I’d said, with an appalling attempt at coquettishness, hooking a finger over the neck of his T-shirt and pouting my lips for a kiss. He gently but firmly unpeeled my finger, and while I struggled for an art-related pun to sum up the evening, had beaten me to it by saying, ‘Hope you don’t feel too sketchy in the morning,’ and gently cuffed my arm.

  ‘At least he was a gentleman,’ Ruby said, when I imparted this last bit of information, recounting how he’d helped me unlock the door and walked away backwards, watching until I was inside. ‘Some blokes would have taken advantage.’

  ‘I’m not the sort to be taken advantage of, even when I’m drunk,’ I huffed.

  Her mouth turned down. ‘I wish I’d had some of your self-control when I was young.’ Her hand moved down, and I saw she’d been looking at old photos. ‘Maybe I wouldn’t have got myself into trouble.’

  ‘That’s me and Sarah,’ I said, picking up a school photo of us in uniform, our hair in bunches, Sarah giving me the side-eye. Three years older, she’d got to the age where being lumped with her little sister, wasn’t cool. ‘I’d just got my second teeth and wanted my little ones back, that’s why I’m not smiling.’

  ‘Your dad sent me it.’ Ruby’s smile returned. ‘I’ve got plenty more.’

  ‘Look how happy Mum and Dad are.’ I picked up a wedding photo of them, Mum in a half-lift, her tulle wedding dress rucked up at the back. She had her hands on Dad’s shoulders, and was laughing with her head thrown back.

  ‘He almost dropped her,’ Ruby recalled, fondly. ‘That dress was surprisingly heavy.’

  ‘Is that Donny, I mean Peter’s, father?’ I picked up a picture of a young man and studied it closely. ‘He looks nice.’

  ‘Of course it’s not.’ She knitted her eyebrows. ‘It’s your grandfather.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course it is,’ I said, noticing the resemblance around the mouth. ‘I haven’t seen many pictures of him when he was young.’

  ‘I do miss him, you know, in spite of everything.’ She took the photo from me and put it face-down on the bed. ‘Donny, I mean Peter, looks a lot like him.’

  It was as if now she’d told me about her son, she couldn’t quite stop herself from mentioning his name. ‘He’s nothing like his father,’ she added. ‘Not in looks, anyway.’

  ‘What’s this?’ I picked up a square envelope, which was blank, feeling notepaper inside.

  ‘It’s a letter I wrote for Donny, explaining why I gave him up,’ she said, face tensing. ‘I was going to give it to him when we met, but didn’t get the chance.’

  Her wistful tone strengthened my wilting resolve to visit Peter, and I remembered with a lurch that I had to be at Hudson Grange in less than an hour.

  ‘You’ve got a day off,’ Ruby said, writhing back down in the bed, and while she was smoothing the duvet around her, I slipped the envelope into my jeans pocket. ‘Why don’t you make the most of the weather and go to the beach?’

  ‘Maybe.’ I rose, pain stabbing at my temples. ‘What are you going to do with yourself?’ It seemed wrong to leave her in bed. ‘Maybe we could both go out later. We can have a picnic at Lulworth Cove, or a wander around the castle. I haven’t been for years.’

  ‘Maybe before you go home, but not today,’ she said, turning her back to me. ‘Go and get some fresh air, love, and I’ll cook us some dinner for when you get back.’

  Feeling dismissed, I headed back to my room and opened the curtains. Sunshine flooded in, spotlighting the flower-pups, which had slid to the floor in the night. I picked them up and set them down on the bed.

  ‘I’m relying on you two,’ I said sternly. ‘You’d better not let me down.’

  Groom-pup’s top hat was wonky, and bride-pup’s veil had tilted over her eyes. I straightened both with a sigh and looked at my phone.

  There was a message from Toby.

  I enjoyed last night. I feel like visiting Budapest now. And becoming a war correspondent.

  I smiled.

  Best stick to painting. Less chance of being shot at.

  I nearly was, once. Story for another date? As friends?

  My smile froze.

  Was my singing that bad??

  God, no, it was great, you could easily win The Voice!! I like you, but I just don’t think I’m ready for a relationship yet.

  I analysed my feelings – not easy with a throbbing headache – and decided my heart wasn’t exactly broken. My pride was dented, but at least he wasn’t going to lead me on. He was a man who knew himself well, and I liked that.

  I liked him.

  Carrie?

  * * *

  Sounds good. I typed quickly. You give great piggybacks!

  It’s my favourite form of exercise. Hey, if you ever need Cooper again, I’m available!

  You’re too kind, sir

  Good luck with your presentation this morning.

  I’ll need it

  You’ll smash it! x

  My mouth was smiling again. Being put in the potential friend-zone wasn’t the worst experience I’d ever had.

  Wrenching my hair into a ponytail, I took myself for a shower.

  Twenty minutes later, after swallowing a couple of painkillers and a slice of lemon cake, I was on my way to Hudson Grange with the flower-pups and the wedding portfolio in a canvas bag in the footwell of my car.

  Despite only visiting Moreton once before I’d somehow remembered the way, as though the journey had scored itself on my brain. The view flashed by in a sun-dappled blur of green and blue, the car engine protesting from lack of use. The battery had required a jump-start, and it was lucky that Bob had been at the bakery, whipping up a batch of loaves – though I suspected he was secretly hoping
to talk to Ruby – and could attach my jump-leads to the engine of his van.

  As I drew closer, it felt as if an inferno had ignited in my stomach, and I began to wish I hadn’t succumbed to the slice of lemon cake. To distract my brain, I tuned into a local radio station and tried to concentrate on a heated discussion about Brexit, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Tom and Megan.

  Would Tom be happy living at Hudson Grange after he was married? I couldn’t imagine it, when he’d been so keen to leave at eighteen. And could Megan really persuade him to stop being a vet? I imagined that she and Mr Hudson made a formidable team, and the fact that Megan had won Tom back after a ten-year absence was testament to her determination.

  Or was I doing him a disservice? He wasn’t a puppet; at least he hadn’t been. He’d stood up to his father for years, and escaped Megan’s clutches once. Surely the fact they were about to marry and become parents must mean he truly loved her. I couldn’t imagine Tom getting married to please anyone but himself.

  I’d always avoided looking fully at the truth, like turning away from a bright light that would hurt my eyes, but it was inescapable.

  Tom loved Megan. He’d never loved me, and never would.

  I switched off the radio, my eyes brimming with tears, and realised I was already in Moreton. It looked perfect in the buttery sunlight; a row of thatch-roofed cottages on one side, and a glittering strip of river visible through trees on the other.

  Blinking furiously, I crossed a narrow bridge and followed the road up a winding hill until I rounded a corner and came across the arched, stone entrance to Hudson Grange. Driving slowly up the gravelled driveway, I took in the view of the house as it drew closer.