There was an awkward moment when Celeste absent-mindedly took off her cardigan and the Saturday girl caught sight of the cuts on her forearm.
‘God what happened to your arm?’ she blurted out, without thinking.
Celeste covered the partly healed wounds with her hand. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m so clumsy. I tripped over my workbox yesterday.’ She turned her back on her. ‘I’ll go and put on a plaster.’ She went into the bathroom at the rear of the shop and got out the first aid kit. She was angry with the girl for being so tactless – she was sick of having to make excuses, to explain herself to people. But she was even more angry with herself for being such an idiot. She’d been free of this curse for almost two years. She couldn’t allow her mind to go back to that dark place. Unconsciously she ran her fingertips softly along the faint scars at her wrists.
‘He can’t do this to me,’ she said grimly. ‘He almost killed me once. I won’t let him do it again.’
She looked up and couldn’t recognise the stranger in the mirror.
You were there in the mirror when I looked at myself. I hated myself and the guilty person that you made me feel I was, that nobody cared about. You were there in my mind each time I took a blade to my body to hurt and cut myself again and again to punish myself for the shameful person I became.
You are there in the mirror.
You are back.
‘I refuse to be your victim,’ she said out loud.
Her reflected image frightened her, and she had to look away.
*
Anyone looking through the windowpanes later that afternoon would have been touched by the scene inside Seventh Heaven. It was like the set of a romantic movie. A big delivery had arrived, and Celeste was halfway through unloading and putting the new blooms out on display. She was flushed from the cold air outside and the exertion of helping to carry the boxes into the shop. Although she’d had a bad night, her complexion was naturally clear and luminous, so she looked as delicate and fresh as the blooms all around. She was encircled by a rainbow of petals – scarlets, violets and pinks. Flowers filled the stone counter and cascaded to the floor. Almost the entire floor space was taken up with silver buckets containing single flowers, bunches of spring daffodils and tulips, and varieties of foliage in a hundred shades of green. As she reordered the window display, she worked at conditioning the flowers, placing them in buckets of icy cold water from an outside tap. She went in and out of the backyard. It was snowing again, and the air was so cold that it seemed as if this time it was going to stick.
The Saturday girl had just popped out to get herself a sandwich when the door opened and an elderly gentleman came into the shop to buy fresh spring flowers to celebrate his wife’s birthday. Celeste helped him to pick out flowers for the bouquet, asking about his wife’s favourite colours and blooms. Now she stood behind the counter making up the hand-tied bouquet. The man was a local resident. She had passed him occasionally walking his dog and had noticed his shuffling, unsteady gait. Today he was without the dog and was walking with the help of a stick. The side of his face was badly bruised. He told her he’d had a fall on the icy pavement. She noticed that a car was pulled up right outside the window with its warning lights on, waiting on the double yellow lines.
Celeste worked quickly and methodically, skilfully placing the blooms in her left hand to distribute pink dragon tulips, gladioli and white roses and structure the bouquet with foliage before binding it with twine, trimming the stems and wrapping it in cellophane.
The man waited in silence, his head tilted forwards stiffly. He was watching her white steady hands with a peculiar intensity as she worked quietly, putting together the bouquet. His own hands shook as he struggled to get a wallet out of his pocket. Celeste guessed he must be suffering from the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.
‘Would you like to choose a card to write a message for your wife?’ said Celeste, nodding towards the card holder that contained a selection of designs. He fumbled with the cards and knocked over the holder.
‘Please don’t worry,’ said Celeste kindly. ‘I’ll just finish tying this and then I’ll help you.’
While the man hesitated, she made polite conversation only half listening to his replies.
‘When is her birthday? How long have you been married?’
‘Her birthday is today,’ he said quietly. ‘And we’ll have been married fifty years this August.’
Celeste pulled out a card and picked up her pen.
‘Now what would you like me to write?’ she said. ‘What is your lucky lady’s name?’
For a moment the man seemed unable to speak. Then he swallowed to clear his throat.
‘Marilyn,’ he said, ‘like the actress. Marilyn Rose.’ Celeste wrote the name carefully, in her neatest handwriting. Then she looked up.
‘And the message?’
His voice was husky. ‘Just something simple… In Loving Memory…’ he said. ‘In Loving Memory of Marilyn Rose, Ever Yours, Ralph.’
*
While Ralph was settling up the payment, which seemed to take forever as every movement was difficult and slow, he explained that every year of their marriage, without fail, he had bought flowers for his wife’s birthday. She had been his main carer for the past five years of her life as his condition had deteriorated but, sadly, she herself had died the previous September after a short illness. Now he was dependent on the brief daily visits of council carers who came to his home to help him get dressed and prepare his food. He wished he was able to visit the cemetery to place the flowers on his wife’s grave, but his carers were not allocated enough time to help him with an outing such as that. The cemetery was more than half an hour’s drive away. Instead he would take the flowers home and put them on his kitchen table.
‘I can sit and look at them and remember her,’ he said philosophically. ‘What else can I do? She’ll understand.’
As if on cue, the driver in the car outside the shop gave two loud beeps on the horn.
‘I better get going,’ he said, with a mischievous grin. ‘Or I’ll be in trouble. She’s scared she’ll get a ticket.’
Celeste took the man’s arm to help him out to the car with the flowers. Touched by his devotion to his dead wife, she had a sudden thought and on impulse she asked him, ‘Would you like me to take the flowers for you? Business is slow today. I can leave work early. If you give me the address, I’ll find the grave and place them on the headstone for you. If you like, I can take photographs and email them to you or send them to your home address?’
While the woman in the car leant on her horn, Celeste scribbled down the details and promised that before the day was out, the bouquet of fresh spring flowers would be beautifully arranged on Marilyn Rose’s grave.
Once Celeste had finished sorting and displaying the new stock, she rummaged in the storeroom cupboard for the key to the van. Meghan had taken the afternoon off to go shopping up in Oxford Street for a date with a new boyfriend that evening. She was recently divorced and was just beginning to dip her toe in the water again. She seemed to be quite dizzy about this new guy – behaving like a twenty-year-old not the mature forty-four-year-old businesswoman that she was. It was not like Meghan to take the afternoon off work to buy a dress so she must be pretty keen!
Celeste had been entrusted to set up the new window display and to condition the stock and close up for the day. But she had worked hard and fast and Seventh Heaven was looking, well heavenly, Celeste thought to herself quite proudly. She reasoned there would be no harm in leaving the Saturday girl to hold the fort while she borrowed the company van to drive across to the Brompton Cemetery and deliver the flowers to the grave of Marilyn Rose Peters.
The roads were busy with all the Saturday shoppers. There were a few flakes of snow still dancing in the air, but it was shaping up for a clear night. She put the address into her phone and braved the traffic. Eventually she saw the sign for the Brompton Cemetery and managed to squeeze
into a parking space on the Fulham Road before entering on foot through the South Lodge. The light was fading as the pale winter sun sank below the dome of the chapel. The soles of her old trainers scrunched on the frosty paths and the birds were singing an evensong chorus that she had never consciously listened to before.
Celeste had never visited the Brompton Cemetery and had no idea that it was such a vast and imposing historic site. Ralph had given her reference details to find the location of his wife’s grave, which turned out to be almost at the opposite end of the cemetery. As she searched for Marilyn’s grave, she skirted the chapel, crossed the Great Circle and walked for several minutes along the grand Central Avenue, flanked on each side by rows and rows of elaborate monuments and statues. She felt overwhelmed by the number of memorials to the dead – some 35,000 graves according to the visitor information. So, this was one of the places London hid its dead.
Disconcertingly, she had the same feeling as when looking for her car in one of those vast car parks at big events like football matches or music festivals. Increasingly disorientated she walked up and down the rows until at last, she found the plot she was looking for far away from the Central Avenue in amongst a group of newer graves, memorials to local residents, made up of simpler, modern memorials. In fact, the cemetery was anything but like a car park. On the contrary, it was like a nature reserve in the heart of London – bursting with life – a microcosm of biodiversity of flora and fauna. Perhaps, because it was sheltered by the great city, spring seemed to have come early here – starting with the snowdrops that had sprung up around so many of the headstones like choirs of miniature angels.
It looked as if no one had visited Marilyn’s grave for many weeks. The headstone itself was clean and new but overgrown and obscured with weeds. She crouched down and pulled away a few tufts of stray grass and there it was. She read the inscription:
In loving memory of Marilyn Rose Peters
beloved wife of Ralph Edmund Peters
Below the inscription there was a space on the stone, which she understood must have been left blank at Ralph’s direction, ready to be engraved when the time came. He had decided he wished to be buried in the same spot as his wife.
By the time Celeste had finished weeding the plot and polishing the stone and arranging the flowers it was almost dark. She had set up a torch on her workbox as best she could to give sufficient light for her task. Other visitors to the cemetery had left and she was alone. It was almost closing time. Before leaving she got out her phone to take photographs by flashlight of the spruced-up grave and the arrangement of flowers at the base of the headstone. She was filled with a quiet satisfaction knowing that her kind gesture would give peace of mind to the gentle old man who had come into Seventh Heaven earlier in the day.
Celeste’s walk back to her car along the Central Avenue of the cemetery was lit by a vast orange full moon that hung low in the sky. The scene reminded her of the vampire movies that she had watched with her friends as a teenager, with the moonlight sending elongated monstrous shadows of the monuments and graves across the lawns. She heard a rustle behind a row of headstones and saw two eyes glowing yellow in the dark. As she stifled a cry, a fox darted out in front of her – stealthy and lithe as a werewolf. She quickened her pace, anxious that the wardens might have the locked the gate. She didn’t want to be trapped here for the night. She doubted she would be strong enough to scale the wall.
Her mood darkened with the night sky. There was menace in the air and her imagination was on fire. She heard footsteps on the path behind her. She saw figures moving between the mausoleums in front of the trees and torches flashing darts of lights among the branches. She jumped at a shadow that loomed ahead of her on the path. Guarding a young child’s grave, the vast stone angel to her left had soaring wings and an outstretched arm.
She shuddered.
The angel’s shadow on the frozen gravel seemed to be reaching out to catch her by the ankles and trip her up.
PRESENT
8
I sit behind You in class and can scarcely breathe in fear that You will look around. But I shouldn’t worry. You’re not the kind of girl to turn your head. And even if You did You wouldn’t acknowledge me. It’s not that you’re callous or cruel. It’s just that in plain sight, I’m invisible.
Girls like You are blind to boys like me.
It occurs to me that it’s only when I’m in disguise or hiding from You that You become aware of my presence. A crack on a floorboard. A rustle in the trees. A fleeting ripple of adrenaline. Then your ears prick, and You raise your head. You have a sixth sense – like an animal – You know You are being tracked.
But I make a pact with myself as I sit here loving the tendrils of hair that play at your nape when You swish your ponytail from one shoulder to the other. I may be invisible, but I know how to grab your attention. You don’t know it yet, but You need me. It’s time for some straight talking. Everybody has a price. I’m about to offer myself up to You with a sweetener You simply can’t resist!
*
Celeste was in big trouble when she got back to Seventh Heaven after her outing to the Brompton Cemetery. Meghan was waiting for her at the door with her arms folded. The Saturday girl was pretending to sweep the floor. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Celeste, anticipating what was about to go off.
‘What the hell were you thinking of?’ said Meghan. ‘Going off without telling me and leaving Emily alone in the shop! She doesn’t even know how to work the tills.’ Meghan followed Celeste into Seventh Heaven and snatched the keys away from her. ‘And as for taking the van! I never gave you permission. You’re not insured to drive it. It would have been a disaster if you’d had an accident!’
Celeste was on a high and in a defiant mood.
‘But I didn’t!’ she said. ‘So, there’s no harm done. I’m sorry. I was trying to do someone a good turn.’
But Meghan wouldn’t let it go that easily. The takings were down. Celeste wasn’t pulling her weight. She was charming with the customers but unreliable and careless with money. She undercharged and gave away flowers for free. She was extravagant with ribbons and wrappings and decorations and her time. She was too slow on the artistic side of the work and too slapdash on the business side.
‘I can’t fault your creativity or your customer service,’ said Meghan. ‘Your arrangements are beautiful, and everybody loves you. But I can’t trust you. You’re irresponsible. I’m going to have to let you go.’
Celeste pleaded for one last chance.
‘I’ve said I’m sorry and I promise I will never leave the shop or touch the van again without asking for your permission. But please hear me out. You want me to earn my wage. Well I’ve thought of a business idea that might just give Seventh Heaven a whole new lease of life – a “second coming”, if you like! It came to me when I was driving back from the Brompton Cemetery.’ Celeste’s eyes were bright with excitement. ‘This digital marketing course that I’m taking, most of it is meaningless jargon. But I’ve learnt something. If you want to be successful you have to find a gap in the market. I finally understood the meaning of that dreadful word “optimisation”. You have to find a gap, and then you design your website to “optimise” the market opportunity.’
Undaunted by the sceptical look on Meghan’s face, Celeste ploughed on. ‘This website I’m supposed to be designing for you – instead of just revamping the old one, we could use the new website to launch a whole new online flower delivery venture – like Interflora but instead of sending flowers to the living, we’ll send flowers to the dead.’
She paused to see how Meghan would react, but her boss said nothing and went over to the kettle to make herself a coffee.
‘Think of all the people out there,’ continued Celeste, ‘the old, the sick, new mums, busy employees, who are unable or haven’t got the time to go and visit the graves of their loved ones but would like to mark important festivals and anniversaries with flowers and memorials
on their headstones. Well that’s where we come in. The service we’ll offer will be individualised and unique – we’ll personally deliver flowers to the cemetery, tidy and weed the plot, clean the headstone, arrange the flowers, and email photographs to our clients – all this to be available at the click of a button!’
Meghan wouldn’t look at Celeste. She seemed to be concentrating on counting up and reconciling the money in the till. Finally, she said quietly, ‘Are you sure about this? With all you’ve been through… I’m not sure it would be good for your mental well-being to spend so much time dwelling on…’
‘On the contrary…’ cut in Celeste. ‘I think it would help me… you know, to use my skills and creativity to honour the dead and do something positive to help others in their time of need…’
‘Well, it’s an interesting idea,’ said Meghan, changing to a business-like and pragmatic tone. ‘After all, it’s a captive market – we’ve all got to die! But I don’t like your use of the word, We.’ She locked up the till. ‘We don’t have time for this. It’s hard enough keeping up with what needs doing on the premises. If…’ She pointed at Celeste. ‘If I agree to this then you are going to have to deal with it all – the website, the deliveries, the grave tending, the photographs, the follow-up. It’s your project. It will be hard work.’
Celeste grabbed her hand. ‘I promise I won’t let you down. I’ll put my heart and soul into it.’
‘This is your very last chance,’ said Meghan. ‘You’re on six weeks’ probation. Any more trouble from you and you’re out.’
‘There won’t be any trouble, cross my heart.’ Celeste smiled sweetly. ‘I even have a name for it – CelestialHeadstones.com – that’s what it’s called.’
*
Celeste spent the whole of Sunday working on her business plan for CelestialHeadstones.com. She set up an Instagram account, which she planned to link to the website for posting photographs of her work once the orders started coming in. That was the easy bit. The website was more challenging. She made notes and drawings for the website design. Death was not the easiest topic to market and advertise. She wanted CelestialHeadstones.com to look beautiful and uplifting, not morbid and depressing. She needed to explain the service being offered but more importantly she wanted to showcase her creativity and floral designs.
No Smoke Without Fire Page 5