by Ali McNamara
Before I have a chance to apologise or ask her what she means, Amber storms off.
‘Amber, wait!’ I call after her, but she’s already striding down the castle corridor in the direction of the kitchen. I’m about to follow her when Charlie and Bronte arrive by my side.
‘Hey, how are you doing?’ I ask them, glancing back to the corridor. But Amber has disappeared from sight. ‘You both did a great job tonight. Well done.’
‘Thanks, Poppy,’ Charlie says. ‘It’s been a great success, hasn’t it? Do you think you might do more events like this here? It’s a fab venue.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that – this was only supposed to be a one-off to help Katie and Jonathan.’
‘Only we’d like to hold dad’s birthday party here,’ Bronte blurts out.
‘Bronte!’ Charlie glares at her. ‘Not so loud. It’s supposed to be a surprise!’ He leans in to me and continues in a low voice: ‘It’s Dad’s fortieth birthday in a couple of weeks and we’re organising a surprise birthday party for him. It was going to be at the Merry Mermaid, but the guest list is getting so long, I think we’re going to need a bigger venue.’
‘It would be sooo cool if we could hold it here,’ Bronte pleads. ‘Do you think the mad guy would let us?’
‘Stan isn’t really mad,’ I tell her. ‘He used to be a bit eccentric, that’s all. Er…’ I look around the ballroom at everyone enjoying themselves. Having this many happy people in the castle today has breathed life back into Trecarlan; I could almost feel the place smiling.
‘We’d do all the work,’ Charlie insists. ‘You wouldn’t have to do anything, I promise.’
I think about Jake, and holding a birthday party here at Trecarlan for him.
‘No,’ I say, watching as the eagerness in their faces turns to disappointment. ‘If you’re going to hold a party for Jake, then I definitely want to be involved. Count me in!’
‘Yay!’ Bronte calls as Charlie shushes her again.
‘I’ll speak to you about it another time, OK?’ I tell them. ‘I… I just need to go and deal with something else right now.’
I’m prevented from heading straight to the kitchen by people coming over to thank me for such a great evening, and then by Katie, who pulls me on to the dance floor, grabs a microphone, and makes everyone drink a toast to me.
When I finally get to the kitchen, I find not only Amber sitting at the big heavy wooden table in the centre of the room, but Woody and Jake too.
Woody has been acting as master of ceremonies all evening, a job he’s thoroughly enjoyed. Jake, as far as I was aware, hasn’t been involved today other than supplying us with flowers. So I’m surprised to see him.
Amber is drinking wine straight from one of the many bottles supplied for tonight’s celebrations. She lifts it up as I come into the room.
‘Ah, here she is, little Miss Gloomy,’ Amber says, taking another slug of the wine. ‘Did you know, boys,’ she addresses Woody and Jake, ‘that no one’s problems are ever as bad as Poppy’s.’
‘She’s had a bit to drink,’ Woody says apologetically. ‘Jake and I found her like this a few minutes ago.’
‘That’s right, they did!’ Amber says, grinning at them both. ‘My knights in shining armour, aren’t you?’
‘Amber, I’m sorry,’ I say, hurrying to her side. ‘I didn’t mean to say what I did. It came out wrong.’
Amber wobbles to her feet, and throws her arm around my shoulder.
‘I know you didn’t, my friend.’ She rests her head gently on my other shoulder, but then it shoots right back up again. ‘Poppy, you know you’ve really got to get over it… whatever it is… You know, the thing, the thing that makes you wear this,’ she gestures to my customary, though slightly smarter than usual, black attire. ‘Honey, you’ve got to let it go.’
I just nod. This isn’t the time or place to begin justifying myself to Amber. She’s obviously put a fair amount of wine away in the time it took me to get here.
‘What are you doing here tonight?’ I ask Jake, as Amber slides back into her seat. ‘I thought you only had time to supply us with flowers today?’
‘I’ve been helping in here,’ Jake waves a hand at the large pile of washed and dried plates neatly stacked on the worktop. ‘Castles tend not to have dishwashers, so I’ve heard.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, feeling guilty. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to be involved in the actual wedding day.’
‘You never asked me, did you?’
We stare at each other for a few seconds, the silence broken only by the sound of Amber glugging from the bottle.
‘Great wedding!’ Woody says brightly, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I’d love to get married one day.’
When no one speaks, he carries on: ‘I think marriage is a wonderful institution. Solid, you know.’ He brings his fist down on the table to emphasise his point, but a bit too hard. ‘Ow,’ he says, shaking his hand.
‘It’s not always that way,’ Amber says, as if thinking aloud. ‘Sometimes it can go very, very wrong.’
‘Yes, that’s also very true,’ Woody says as he rubs his sore fist with his other hand. ‘My parents got divorced when I was young. I was mainly brought up by my mother and my aunt.’
‘No –’ Amber waves her bottle over the table – ‘I don’t mean divorced, I mean really go wrong, like when violence enters the marriage.’
‘That’s a nasty business,’ Woody says, while Jake and I just listen. ‘When I was training we had to attend a domestic violence incident.’
‘What did the man do?’ I ask. I absolutely loathe that kind of behaviour: men thinking they can use their fists on a woman because she doesn’t conform to their way of thinking. It’s barbaric, no better than cavemen.
‘Oh, it wasn’t a man doing the beating, it was a woman,’ Woody says, remembering. ‘She – apologies for my language, ladies – but she beat the shit out of him. The ambulance took him to hospital and everything.’
‘Did he press charges?’ Jake asks.
Woody shakes his head. ‘Nope. He was too embarrassed that his wife had done that to him to take it further.’
‘That’s terrible,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘If anyone tried anything like that with me, I wouldn’t hesitate to ring the police.’
‘You don’t know that, Poppy,’ Amber says quietly. ‘You don’t know until you’re in that position.’
‘Oh, I know all right, I —’
‘No, you don’t!’ I’m surprised by Amber’s tone. ‘You don’t know, Poppy, but I do.’ She looks around the table and lowers her voice. ‘I know exactly how it feels because I’ve been there. I’ve been beaten. And by my own husband too.’
We all sit around the table shocked into silence by Amber’s admission.
‘When, Amber? When did this happen?’ I’m the first to ask. I just can’t believe this. I’m shocked not only by Amber’s story, but by the fact I didn’t even know she was married.
Amber looks up from where she’s been staring at the table, and instead of the usually bright, bubbly, confident Amber, I see a vulnerable, scared young woman.
‘It’s been happening on and off since we got married about two years ago. Not many people know. Ray, my husband, is highly regarded in the business world in New York. But behind the scenes he’s into all sorts of shady dealings. He knows how to hide anything he doesn’t want the world to know about – including a beaten wife.’
I see Woody bristle.
‘Did my mother know?’ I ask, piecing everything together.
‘Yes,’ says Amber. ‘I started to miss days off work, and then when I did come in I couldn’t hide my bruises well enough to fool her. She was great with me though, let me stay at her place until I got back on my feet. And she helped me find a new apartment too.’
I feel a rush of love for my mother well up inside me.
‘That’s how I got into this new spiritual way of life. I met some people in my apartment block and they started telling m
e their beliefs and it all made sense to me. I was happy for the first time in ages. Everything was going great until Ray found out where I was. He tried to get me to move back home, but I refused. Like I said before, Ray has some shady connections, so I was scared of what he might do. When I told your mom, she suggested I come here to get away from everything for a while.’
I’m aware we’re all staring at Amber in a mixture of amazement and horror.
Of all the things I thought Amber might have kept hidden, a violent marriage wasn’t one of them. Amber was so confident, how could this have happened to her? And how had she managed to get over it and rediscover the ability to be so happy and positive about life?
‘Are you safe here?’ Jake asks with concern. ‘Can your husband find you?’
‘On his way to being an ex-husband, thank goodness.’ Amber shakes her head. ‘No, Poppy’s mom said she’d tell them I’d run away, and she had no idea where I was. And that’s what I have done in a way: run away from my problems instead of confronting them.’
‘No, you haven’t done that,’ I insist, sitting down next to her and putting my hand over hers on the table. I knew better than anyone what it was to run away from what was bothering you. ‘You’ve done the brave thing. You’ve stood up to him by making your own way in the world, and I for one am glad you did. I’d be lost without you in our little shop. I’m so pleased you came here.’
‘Me too!’ Woody insists, making a very un-Woody move by taking Amber’s other hand in his.
‘Amber, we all love having you here in St Felix,’ Jake adds. ‘And Poppy’s mother is right: you’re safe here with us. St Felix is very good at healing old wounds. I can vouch for that.’
Amber squeezes both our hands, then pulls them away to grab her bottle.
‘Then let’s raise a toast to St Felix,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to remember this evening in a negative way – the wedding has been too beautiful and too romantic to finish it on a sour note. Come on, let’s raise our glasses!’
As Amber quickly opens another bottle, we each grab a mug or glass and hold it out to be filled.
‘To St Felix,’ Amber says, as we all lift our glasses. ‘To its wonderful healing ways, its gorgeous views, and its lovely, lovely people! I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world right now. And,’ she continues, just as we’re about to take a sip of our wine, ‘to love. Let love always find a way of finding us!’
‘To love!’ we all agree, and I can’t help taking a quick glance at Jake.
And I’m surprised to see he’s doing the same to me.
Thirty-two
Goldenrod – Careful Encouragement
As summer reached its height we were seeing a lot more holidaymakers in St Felix. Daisy Chain, along with many of the other shops on Harbour Street, was starting to turn a healthy profit. And it wasn’t only our regular flowers and Amber’s special bouquets that were making money; we’d begun to sell a lot more of our flower trinkets too.
So much so that many of the original bits and pieces that Belle had supplied me with for the shop had already sold out. So I’d approached the makers of these items, personally this time, to ask if they’d like to supply the shop on a regular basis. Thrilled, they had agreed. As a result, Daisy Chain featured the work of many local artists displayed amongst the flowers.
This afternoon I’m off to see Bronte at her house, to talk to her about whether she’d like to sell some of her creations in the shop.
Aside from the ceramic work Jake had shown me on the night we’d gone to her school, I’d noticed that Bronte made a lot of her own jewellery – some from papier mâché, some from beads, and some from items she found on the beach like shells, pebbles, sea glass and tiny bits of driftwood. It was all really pretty and very different, and observing the type of people we were attracting to the shop, I knew it was something Daisy Chain’s customers would like.
The rest of the shops in Harbour Street didn’t sell the sort of items we did; they were either practical, everyday shops that sold food, newspapers or stationery, or they went for the traditional seaside wares: buckets and spades, ice creams, sun cream and beach towels. Apart from Belle with her studio, no one else dared to do anything differently. It was a shame because Harbour Street and St Felix had so much potential. The few empty shops at the higher end of the street could be filled with so many things other than another charity shop, which I had been afraid we’d get if things didn’t pick up. But with the town a lot busier now, I had high hopes that new businesses might eventually be attracted back into St Felix.
So this morning as Basil and I walk up Primrose Hill to our meeting with Bronte, I’m in a buoyant mood even though I’m slightly concerned about visiting Jake’s house. I’ve come during working hours in the hope he’ll be busy in the nursery, but he lives on the same land he grows his flowers on, so I’m crossing my fingers I won’t have to see him, or too many of his flowers. I’ve been a lot better around flowers lately, but even so I don’t want to chance being exposed to so many of them – that might be taking things too far.
Basil and I arrive at the nursery and walk through a gate and up a long path leading to a pleasant-looking farmhouse, and as I ring the bell and stand back to wait, Basil immediately lies down to rest while I take a quick look around me.
I can see a few polytunnels, lots of greenhouses and some fields spread out at the back and sides of the house, and I can’t help but shudder at the thought of all the flowers that might be lurking in there – hundreds of the things, all condensed into one place…
I’m hoping that Jake isn’t home. Not because Bronte and I need to discuss his birthday party; I’ve already had several secret meetings with Bronte and Charlie in the back room of Daisy Chain, and our plans for a party at Trecarlan are coming along a treat. No, the reason I don’t want to see Jake today is because I’m afraid he’ll suggest a trip to see his flower empire. Although, the way Jake has been with me lately, it seems highly unlikely.
Jake’s changed since Ash and I got together. He no longer pops into the shop at lunchtime, and he never asks me to join him for a quick drink at the Mermaid after work. As much as I like Ash, this distance Jake has put between us saddens me greatly. I don’t want to gain a boyfriend and lose a good friend, but that’s what seems to have happened.
‘Hey, Poppy. Hey, Basil,’ Bronte says, opening the door. ‘Come in.’
We follow Bronte into a tidy hall with pictures hung neatly on the walls, and then through to a spotless kitchen where she has laid her jewellery out on a large scrubbed wooden table for me to see.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ she asks. ‘Coffee or tea?’
I get the feeling that the usually confident Bronte is nervous.
‘What are you drinking?’ I ask, looking at a can on the side.
‘Diet Pepsi,’ she says. ‘Would you like that?’
‘Yeah, that would be great.’
Bronte gets me a can, and Basil a bowl of water, then we sit and examine her jewellery, talking about how she makes it, where she gets her inspiration from, and what sort of things she could make for the shop.
‘Are you sure people will want to buy my jewellery?’ she asks. ‘It’s just a hobby.’
‘Do you ever make jewellery for your friends?’
‘Sure, that’s all they ever want for birthday and Christmas gifts.’
‘And do they wear it?’
‘Yes, all the time.’
‘There you go then. That’s all I need.’
‘This is amazing!’ she says. ‘I can’t believe my jewellery is going to be in a real shop.’
‘Is your dad OK with all this?’ I ask, wondering if Jake is here.
‘Dad, yeah, he’s cool. He was the one who encouraged me to keep making my stuff when I thought about giving up.’ She pauses, then confides: ‘Mum and me used to do all these kinds of things together before she died. She was very arty – Dad says that’s where I get it from.’
I nod.
‘I mean, we didn’t make jewellery like this – I was only ten when it happened. I think we used to make bead necklaces though, and I remember us painting and drawing together.’ She screws up her face. ‘It’s hard sometimes to remember. Does that sound awful, Poppy?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I know what you mean; as time goes by our memories become slightly hazy. Doesn’t mean you love your mum any less though. It just means new experiences are taking up the space that’s allotted in your head for memories.’
‘I like that,’ Bronte says, nodding slowly. ‘It makes sense. Like a flash drive that’s full and there’s only so much space on it. My memory flash stick is so full I need to remove some data from it to allow new stuff to be uploaded.’