by Ali Harris
That said, there is lots of hard work still to be done, but it should feel like a pleasure rather than a chore on these warm summer days and evenings. Keep watering and weeding new plants, fill any gaps with summer bedding plants, remove fading blooms and remember to tie errant climbers firmly to supports or they will trail over other plants and make a mess of everything.
Take my advice and your garden is sure to grow into the perfect plot you’ve always dreamed of.
Love, Dad x
Chapter 21
Bea Bishop is spending these long summer days flat-hunting, career contemplating and soul-searching . . .
It’s a sunny Friday afternoon at the end of my first week of being unemployed. I gaze up at the forget-me-not blue sky and exhale in satisfaction. No longer cooped up in an office all day, I feel completely revitalised. It’s amazing how liberating it feels to have nothing. I may have lost my fiancé, my job and my home, but I feel like I’ve gained something else. A chance to start again, live a different life. I know how lucky I am to have this chance – and with it the support of my family and best friend. I sometimes wonder what I’ve done to deserve it.
I’ve spent most of the time happily pottering around in Milly’s garden, which she admits she’s rather neglected. ‘You know the only hedges I’m familiar with are financial ones!’ she’d said, barely glancing up from her portfolio performance reports when I queried her about it. ‘Feel free to do whatever you like out there though!’
Five blissful days pruning and dead-heading roses, tying in the clematis that had got rather out of control, forking over the borders and generally having a tidy-up. I’ve even planted some bedding plants that will flower for her by the beginning of September, giving a lovely second flush of bright technicolor to the garden – yellow sunflowers and fuchsia-pink zinnias. I’ve even popped in some cosmos. I like the idea of them flowering once I’ve moved on. It’s like I’ll be leaving behind a little piece of myself. With all this time on my hands, I can’t help wondering where I’m going to end up next. I know I can’t stay here forever, it’s not fair on Milly and Jay. But it’s strange because I just can’t picture a place of my own. Instead I keep thinking, dreaming, about going home to Norfolk. I’ve been remembering how, before Kieran left, I was at my happiest there. I swore I’d never leave, that my heart was lost to the epic skies, the pretty villages and awe-inspiring coastline, not to mention Loni’s garden. It is the place I have always felt closest to myself – and my dad.
I have a desperate urge to go back now. I keep telling myself it isn’t that I want to see Kieran, but I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve looked at his Facebook profile, and his message. It doesn’t help that Loni keeps pulling the umbilical cord, too.
‘Why don’t you come home for a bit?’ she says every time she calls me. Which is every day at the moment. ‘There’s nothing keeping you in London now, is there, darling?’ I haven’t wanted to offend her by replying, ‘Except my sanity.’
‘So hop on a train and come and have some quality time with me!’ she’d said last night. ‘We can go for long walks on the beach, you can go for runs, meditate, you can even type up my latest manuscript for me!’ I baulked at this. The last time I made the mistake of doing that for Loni she was writing The Art of Finding Female Freedom in Your Forties and Fifties. I’d been traumatised by the amount of sex in it. I’m not sure I’ve ever got over it.
‘Oh please, darling, it would be such a joy to have you here!’
‘I’ll think about it, Loni,’ I replied. It’s strange because whilst usually I’d make up any manner of excuse to stay away, now I find myself genuinely wanting to go home. Am I just running away again – but this time from my problems here in London? Or am I running to something else. Someone else . . .
I down gardening tools and stand up, raising my arms to the sky and then bending over to ease my back. In that moment I decide to take a walk. I could do with stretching my legs, getting out, seeing some people, otherwise all I’ll have talked to today is the flowers. And that isn’t going to convince anyone that I’m not on the brink of another breakdown. I know everyone is waiting for me to tip over the edge. Milly asked me this morning if I was planning on hiding myself away here forever. ‘I’m not hiding!’ I tried to reassure her. She raised a dark arched eyebrow. She knows I have a history of hibernating when times are tough. ‘I’m just . . . revitalising. It’s not like before – I promise.’ She hugged me then, holding me a moment longer than necessary. ‘I’m OK, I promise. Please stop worrying.’
‘Hey,’ she said, affronted. ‘I’ll never stop worrying. I’m your best friend, remember? And I know you better than you know yourself.’
The sun is blazing in the sky as I walk down Greenwich Church Street, past the arched entrance to the bustling market and the prettily painted shops and on towards the DLR station. I can just see the mast of the Cutty Sark glimmering like a beacon as the sun hits it. I feel a connection with this historical clipper, her ropes and thin rigging woven like an intricate cobweb, a cat’s cradle between the fingers of the three spiked masts that pierce the cobalt-blue sky. The mid-morning sun catches the diamond-patterned glass the hull is encased in, making it sparkle like a precious jewel. I walk around it slowly and it’s like the present is fading away and the ship is being transformed into a working cargo ship. I imagine the sails flapping majestically in the ocean breeze on her maiden voyage to Shanghai. I’m reminded of Kieran as I stand here. Is it because of the naval uniform he’s wearing in his Facebook profile picture; or is it that my subconscious knows he’s a ship that’s sailed and I should just stop thinking of him? I push him out of my mind (again) and start walking back down Church Street, so deep in thought that I don’t look up as I step into the road. I gasp as I see a bus heading straight towards me. The driver honks at me and I leap back onto the pavement, my heart pounding as an image of the sign emblazoned on the side of the bus freezes in front of my eyes.
It’s a giant advert for Greenwich University that says ‘Join us today!’ with a picture of laughing students. I whip my head round, watching the bus as it disappears around the bend. Then I feel my legs buckle and I sit down on a bench, my legs shaking uncontrollably as I hear Loni’s voice in my head: We always get shown the right path if we wait long enough, darling.
I think of the UCAS form I filled in all those years ago, the one that had Greenwich as my first choice, until I changed my mind at the last moment and chose UEA because I didn’t feel strong enough to leave home. Milly had told me not to be silly, that I must move in with her, but I said no quite firmly. I think she was as surprised as I was. She said I was making a mistake, and she was right.
But now an exciting thought occurs to me. What if I can go back and do it differently now? Finish my abandoned Garden Design degree, but this time in Greenwich, where maybe I should have done it in the first place? Then I wouldn’t have met Kieran, I wouldn’t have had that crazy summer, I would have finished my degree, maybe I would still have met Adam. And maybe, just maybe, I’d have actually married him because I wouldn’t have had the same past, there wouldn’t have been a Kieran to ruin everything. Because I’m starting to think that perhaps Adam and I weren’t the problem: what happened before we met was.
I get up finally, my legs still shaking as I continue to walk, keeping my mind firmly fixed on that Garden Design course. I still have all my work zipped up in my portfolio folder at home. I could get Loni to post it to me and then send it all with my application. It’s June now, maybe I could still apply to do just the third year of the course! Get a job to tide me over in the meantime, assist a garden designer or do something connected to garden design. After all, I may not have finished my degree but I have never stopped learning. I’ve read every book, watched every TV programme, been to every garden show. And I haven’t stopped gardening either. When spring came, and after months of not leaving my room after Kieran left, I began caring for Loni’s sprawling, unloved garden. Slowly, but surely I pulled
up the weeds, untangled the climbers, cleared the beds, replanting and repotting until it was beautiful again. I brought it back to life, and it did the same for me. Then I transformed Milly’s garden when I first moved in with her. And of course, the roof terrace at Adam’s flat.
Being a garden designer is the only thing I’ve ever truly known would make me happy. I just stopped believing that I deserved to be.
I think of something Dad once said to me when I first showed an interest in gardening. I must have only been about four and I was helping him plant the strawberry and tomato plants in our veg patch.
You don’t become a gardener, Bea; you’re born one.
This is who I am and the sooner I accept that the better.
I feel something inside me stir, a long-forgotten feeling of certainty. I look up and see that I’ve stopped in front of a florist’s on Greenwich Church Street. It’s a slim, Victorian, red-brick building, unpainted, unlike many of the other shops, and I’m surprised that I’ve never noticed it before. But it has a pretty blue awning, and old-fashioned lead windows that have little glass baubles suspended from pieces of invisible thread in an arc. Each one has a single orchid inside, cut up to the petals and together they look like the path of a shooting star. Outside there are wrought-iron tables covered with pots of pretty sweet peas and lilac, small wooden stepladders displaying buckets of glorious hydrangeas, fat pink peonies and delicate roses, as well as vintage crates filled with shrubs and flowering plants. Above the awning is a sign with ‘Cosmos Flowers’ painted in pink lettering and surrounded by silver stars. I’ve seen that logo before somewhere. I think for a moment – it was on my wedding day! My bouquet and the buttonholes Milly picked up came in a crate with that painted on the side – but I’ve definitely never been to this shop before. It must have opened recently.
The door is open and I wander in, gasping at the delightful space with exposed brickwork and a ceiling hung with star jasmine and fairy lights that glimmer and twinkle in the space. I find myself drawn to the shop in the same way that I have always been drawn to gardens.
‘Can I help you?’ A girl comes to the counter from the back of the shop. She’s wearing green gardening gloves and carrying a bouquet of peonies in a bucket. She’s the definition of the word blooming: her face is blushed pink like a rose, her eyes are a stark delphinium blue against the thick black of her mascara, her hair is bleached the colour of daffodils and is scraped up into a bun as plump as the peonies she’s holding, whilst tendrils fall around her face like catkins. She is stalk thin too, yet, when she steps out from behind the counter, a budding pregnant belly appears. She looks down at it and then back at me, her mouth curled into a rueful smile.
‘I know it looks like I’ve just stuck a sodding football up there but I promise you it’s a real baby. You wouldn’t believe how many people said to me that I’d get some proper boobs now I’m up the duff!’ She looks down dejectedly. ‘So far, nada. Just massive nipples.’ She gasps and flings her hand over her mouth. ‘Too much information, right?’
I laugh and wrinkle my nose as I nod.
‘Sorry,’ she groans. ‘This pregnancy has given me TMI Tourette’s. I’ll be telling you about my piles next!’ I cough awkwardly and look around. That really is TMI.
‘Anyways,’ she says, without a hint of embarrassment, ‘what can I do for you? I’m Sal, by the way.’ She points at a badge on her chest and smiles.
‘Bea,’ I reply. ‘Bea Bishop. Pleased to meet you.’
I glance around in delight. The shop smells so wonderful, of endless summer days and just . . . greenness. Permeating the air is the distinctive smell of hydrangeas and peonies and the intoxicating scent of sweet peas, roses and lavender.
I realise that I came in not intending to buy anything but now I’m here I want to get a gift for Milly to thank her for everything she’s done for me.
‘I’d like a bouquet of flowers, please.’
‘I’d gathered that much,’ she grins. ‘Is it for a friend or a boyfriend?’
‘My best friend,’ I reply. ‘She’s been really good to me recently. I’ve moved in with her temporarily while I’m job-hunting.’
‘Price range?’
‘For my job?’ I’m a bit taken aback. It’s a personal question from someone I’ve just met. But she does seem very upfront.
‘No! The bouquet!’ Sal throws her head back and laughs.
‘Oh, sorry, of course! Um, not too much, given I’ve just jacked in my job so . . . I don’t know, £30?’
‘OK, we should be able to do something lovely for that,’ she says, clapping her hands and then resting them on her baby bump. ‘If it’s for a friend maybe you could start with a couple of stems of—’
‘Actually I already know what I want!’ I interrupt. ‘Can I have some gladioli, please, and some purple irises and ooh a couple of these king protea?’ Sal starts pulling out the stems and collects them in her hands as I direct her. ‘If you could trim them, add some nice greenery, and maybe surround the protea with some softer flowers, that would be great.’ I point at a bucket of long-stemmed flowers. ‘These alstroemeria would be perfect.’
‘Wow, you do know what you want!’ Sal says admiringly as she plucks stems from buckets.
I laugh at the irony of what she’s just said. ‘Trust me, you’re the first person who’s ever said that to me.’
‘You said you’d just left your job, right?’ she asks, glancing back at me over her shoulder. ‘What did you do?’
‘Oh, I was just a temp,’ I reply, embarrassed.
‘And you left because . . .?’
‘I want to do something I love,’ I say with a newfound assurance. ‘I’m thinking about going back to university to study garden design,’ I add shyly, marvelling how saying it out loud makes it feel more real. ‘I started a Garden Design degree years ago but unfortunately I left before the final year . . .’ I trail off, not wanting to go into detail about why.
‘I thought you seemed more knowledgeable than our average customer!’ Sal exclaims, snapping her fingers and pointing at me.
I shrug modestly. ‘I’m not that knowledgeable, I just know my best friend. And you should always choose bouquets that most closely represent the person you’re giving them to, don’t you think?’ Sal nods emphatically. ‘And gladioli shows strength of character and faithfulness and that just sums Milly up. King protea,’ I continue, ‘because it represents courage and resourcefulness. And alstroemeria signifies friendship.’
Sal stares at me for a moment and then frowns. She folds her arms over her bump and studies me. ‘Are you one of those mystery shoppers?’
I laugh and shake my head.
She goes behind the counter and gets her scissors, still studying me suspiciously as she begins to arrange the flowers I’ve chosen.
‘So are you local? I’ve not seen you here before . . .’
‘No, well, yes, well not really,’ I stammer. ‘I mean, I used to live in Greenwich, years ago . . . and I’ve, well, I’ve moved back recently. I’m not sure how long for though . . . maybe forever, maybe not.’
‘Not so decisive now,’ Sal grins, deftly stripping off leaves. She pauses and looks at the bouquet before her. ‘I’m going to add some eucalyptus to give the bouquet some extra girth.’ She looks up at me and winks. ‘And for you, there’s no extra charge.’ She grabs a generous amount and then begins winding twine around the bottom of the bouquet. ‘That’ll be £30, please,’ she says, handing it to me.
‘That looks amazing – thank you!’ I exclaim, taking the flowers. I hand her the cash, feeling an unfamiliar sickness that comes with spending money now I don’t have an income. Or Adam.
‘Well, bye,’ I say, feeling strangely sad to leave the shop.
‘Hang on, Bea!’ she calls out.
I turn back. ‘Yes?’
‘You don’t fancy a cuppa, do you?’ she says, a hint of desperation in her voice. ‘It’s very quiet today and well, this may sound a bit freaky-stalkerish and I to
tally understand if you want to leg it from the heavily pregnant, oversharing flower-shop owner, but I have a little job proposition for you, if you’re interested . . .’
Chapter 22
I walk – no, I practically skip – to Milly’s, feeling like life has just handed me a big unexpected chance – as surprising and beautiful as any bouquet of flowers.
‘I need someone to help me out part-time until I have this baby, and then cover the management position full-time while I’m on maternity leave,’ Sal had explained when we’d settled down with our tea in the shop’s little back courtyard. I couldn’t believe it when she told me that she’s not just having a baby on her own – apparently she split from the father of her baby because he didn’t want her to have it – but she’s running her own business too. I’m utterly in awe of her. ‘I was just wondering if, well, if you’d like to do it while you’re waiting to start your garden design course? I’m desperate to hire someone but no one has had quite the right skills and then you came in and, well, it sounds crazy, but it feels like fate!’
It did sound crazy and I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t just happened but, as I walk up the hill soaking up the delicate peachy-lemon late-afternoon sunshine, smiling at the pink and white blossom billowing in the summer breeze on the edge of Greenwich Park, my arms are filled with flowers and my thoughts are too. I’d tried to tell Sal that I wasn’t qualified to do the job and that I didn’t have any sort of certificate in floristry, or any training, but she’d just laughed.
‘Bea, you’ve proved you know more about flowers in the last five minutes than most people that have worked here did in months! Besides, you don’t need qualifications – I took on this failing business a year ago after doing loads of dead-end jobs. I had a bit of help from my dad to start with for the lease, but I’ve turned it around alone.’ She’d stuck her chin in the air defiantly. ‘None of my teachers seemed to see any potential in me, but just because I wasn’t good at school didn’t mean I wouldn’t be good in business, so I trusted my instincts and proved them wrong. I’ve always been a people person and I’ve learned that in this trade all you need to do is to listen to and empathise with people.’