The Little Flower Shop by the Sea (11 page)

Even though my mother had lent me the money without any strings attached in an attempt to entice me into staying at the shop, I’d insisted I would pay her back as soon as the place was up and running and hopefully making a profit.

If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it my way.

So here we are, wearing our white painting overalls from the DIY shop in the next town. Amber has brightened hers up by tying back her unruly red hair with a brightly coloured headscarf, but I remain in my usual monochrome, the only difference being that my predominant colour on this occasion is white instead of black. There are unopened paint pots at our feet and we hold clean brushes and paint rollers in our hands.

We both sigh as we look at the empty walls, dressers and tables.

‘Where do we begin?’ I ask, looking up at the bare wall.

‘I have no idea,’ Amber says. ‘Have you ever decorated before?’

I shake my head.

‘Me neither,’ she says. ‘We always had someone in when I lived at home. The house and the rooms were too big to do it ourselves. Not that my mom would have sullied her hands decorating. It might have chipped her nails!’

I look across at Amber. The way she dresses and acts, I’d assumed she didn’t come from a wealthy background. I’m cross with myself; I of all people should know not to judge someone by their appearance. I only had to look in the mirror.

‘So, where do you think we start?’ I ask, looking down at an unopened tin of paint. ‘With that?’

‘Putting the kettle on is usually a good place to start when you’ve got the workmen in!’ a voice calls at the door, and we see Jake and a posse of people, including Woody, Belle, and some of the Women’s Guild ladies, wearing an assortment of mismatched outfits, and carrying brushes, rollers, sandpaper and a whole host of tools I hadn’t even considered we might need.

‘Come in, my friends!’ Amber calls, as everyone pours through the door. ‘If you don’t mind an American making you tea, I’ll put that kettle on at once!’

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask Jake, still astonished by the many folk pouring through the door.

‘We thought you could do with a hand,’ Jake says, propping a long-handled roller against the wall after Miley has left his shoulder and scampered after Amber. ‘You told Rita at the Mermaid you and Amber were going to be starting to decorate today, didn’t you?’

‘Yes…’

‘So she put the word out, and here we all are!’

I couldn’t believe how many people had come up to me in the days following my decision to keep the flower shop, all wanting to congratulate me, thank me, and tell me I’d done the right thing.

The Daisy Chain obviously held a very special place in many people’s hearts here in St Felix, and I was determined to find out why.

‘This is brilliant,’ I say, still finding it hard to believe everyone has turned out like this. I’m not used to people helping me. ‘I… I can’t pay you all though.’

Jake looks at me oddly. ‘Why would we want paying – we just want to help you.’

‘But why?’

‘Because that’s what friends and neighbours do – help each other.’

‘Sure. Yes. Of course.’ I smile awkwardly. ‘Well, thank you, this is… brilliant – I said that already, didn’t I?’

Jake smiles. ‘Yes, you did. But don’t thank me, thank Rita; she and Rich will be along later when they’ve done the breakfasts at the Mermaid.’ He looks around. ‘Right, so what should we do first?’

Luckily there are a few people in the decorating posse that know what they’re doing. So between them they organise us into teams, so we can get going in some sort of orderly fashion. Apparently there’s much rubbing down to be done first to remove flaking paintwork, and then cracks that must be filled. These things hadn’t occurred to me at all.

I thought you just painted over cracks: in decorating, and in life.

A while later I’m helping Charlie, Jake’s son, sand down one of the big wooden tables. Charlie is a lovely boy, tall like Jake, but whereas Bronte takes after Jake in colouring, I assume Charlie must take after his mother. He has bright blue eyes and pale blond hair, and his manner, although polite when spoken to, is quiet and unassuming.

‘Sorry you’ve got dragged in here on a Sunday morning,’ I say, trying to make conversation.

‘That’s OK,’ he says, rubbing the table leg with his piece of sandpaper. ‘Not much else to do. The weather forecast isn’t that great.’

‘What would you be doing if it was?’

He looks at me as if he’s wondering why I care.

‘I dunno, go down to the beach maybe, watch the surfers if the waves were good.’

‘Don’t you surf yourself then?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Do I look like a surfer?’

The only thing that looks surfer-like about Charlie is his blond hair. His frame, although tall, is lanky and slight. He looks as though the slightest gust of wind would knock him off a stationary surfboard, let alone one careering through eight-foot-high waves.

‘Not all surfers are the same,’ I suggest, remembering my brother Will and my own attempts at surfing. ‘Sometimes it’s just about taking part and having fun.’

‘Not in St Felix it isn’t. It’s taken very seriously here. If you’re not in the “gang”, you’re not in the surf.’

I’m about to protest further when a lady wearing a red headscarf and denim dungarees comes over. ‘Can you go and help your father lift that dresser, Charlie?’ she asks. ‘They need another pair of strong hands.’

Charlie looks at her as though she’s joking. Then he sighs. ‘Sure, Aunt Lou.’ He gets up and hands her the sandpaper, then heads over to where Jake and another man are trying to move a dresser away from a wall.

‘I’m Lou,’ the woman says, holding out her hand. ‘I believe we met in Mickey’s chip shop the other day?’

‘Oh yes, that’s right, I remember you. Thanks for coming along to help out today. As I said to Jake earlier, it’s most kind of everyone.’

‘People are like that here in St Felix, and Rose was very well thought of.’ Lou sits on the floor next to me and begins sanding the leg that Charlie was midway through smoothing down. ‘I do miss seeing her cheery face every day.’

I smile at Lou; underneath her red headscarf I can see tufts of grey hair poking out, belying her youthful complexion. ‘Did you know my grandmother well?’

‘Oh yes, we were very good friends. I came to her funeral up in London.’

I thought her face had looked familiar the other night at the chip shop. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t remember you the other evening,’ I apologise. ‘If it’s any consolation, you did look familiar.’

‘My dear, don’t worry at all. You had a lot to contend with at the funeral without remembering every face that turned up to pay their last respects to Rose. And there were an awful lot of people wanting to do so.’

‘Yes, there were. Oh, that’s how you knew my name at the chip shop – from the funeral.’

Lou smiles. ‘It was partly that.’

I wait for her to enlighten me.

She stops sanding, lowers her voice and leans in towards me. ‘Rose told me you’d come one day.’

‘What?’

‘She said one day her granddaughter Poppy would come back to St Felix to take over her flower shop. She often talked about you.’

‘When did she tell you this?’

‘Years ago.’

‘Before she became ill?’

‘Oh yes, well before that. She was always adamant you’d be the one to take over The Daisy Chain.’

I stop midway through sanding, my hand poised on the leg of the table.

‘But why would she have been so confident? It’s a big enough mystery to me that she left me the shop in the first place. But to be so certain I’d choose to run the place…’ I lift the sandpaper away from the wood and twiddle it around in my hands while I think. ‘When she was ill in hospital I’d go and visit her, but she never mentioned any of this. I assumed that if anything happened, the shop would go to my mother or one of my aunts – someone who was actually interested in flowers.’

‘She was right, though, wasn’t she?’ Lou says gently. ‘Because here you are, about to open the shop up as your own. And here we are, all helping you out, as she knew we would.’

‘She was always right,’ I laugh. ‘It was very annoying.’

‘Wasn’t she just!’ Lou smiles. ‘Try having a best friend who’s right all the time. It’s very wearing.’ Her expression changes to sadness as she remembers her friend is no longer here.

Never comfortable when it comes to dealing with emotions, I fall back on my usual strategy and change the subject. ‘So you’re Charlie and Bronte’s aunt?’ I ask, wondering if Lou was Jake or Felicity’s sister. She looked a bit old to be either.

‘Great-aunt, actually. I’m Jake’s aunt – his mother’s sister.’

‘Oh… that makes more sense,’ I blurt out.

‘Because I’m an old biddy?’ She grins. ‘I’ll have you know, I’m the reigning over-sixties surfing champion for North Cornwall.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep,’ she says proudly. ‘There may only have been three of us entered, but I still stayed on my board longer than those other pension-drawing wusses!’

I hold out my hand to her to high five, and she responds appropriately by slapping my palm.

‘You should take Charlie for a spin on the waves,’ I say, looking over to where Charlie is now helping Amber sand some already filled cracks flat before they can be painted. ‘I think he’d like it.’

‘Tried,’ Lou says. ‘He won’t have it. He’s a bit too worried what he’ll look like. It’s an awkward age for a boy – seventeen.’

I nod.

‘It’s a shame,’ she continues. ‘They miss out on so much when they’re young because they’re worried what they’ll look like, and then when it’s too late and they can’t —’ she stops hurriedly. ‘Oh my dear, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean… I meant…’ She reaches out her hand and places it gently on my arm, and in one touch does everything I couldn’t do for her a few minutes ago.

‘I know,’ I reply, suddenly needing to examine the knots in the wood very closely. ‘It’s fine, really.’

‘No, it’s not. I know it won’t be easy for you, being here in St Felix again. Rose told me everything.’

I look at Lou. ‘Everything?’

She nods.

‘What are you two up to, hiding under there?’ Jake says, sticking his head under the table. ‘Poppy, I see you’ve met my aunt Lou.’

‘I think Poppy could do with a break,’ Lou says. ‘Is that kettle on at the moment?’

‘Er, I’m not sure, I’ll go and find out,’ Jake says, craning his neck to look in the direction of the back room.

‘Maybe a little walk might be better?’ Lou suggests. ‘Mickey said he’d lay on some lunch for us – perhaps you could go and find out about that?’ She raises her eyebrows at Jake.

‘Sure,’ Jake says. ‘You want to come, Poppy?’

‘I don’t know – it doesn’t seem right to abandon everyone.’ I look at the current team of helpers busying themselves in the shop.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Lou says. ‘A good lunch will be much more important to them in a few minutes than your presence right now.’

‘OK, if you’re sure.’

Jake holds out his hand, I take it, and he pulls me up.

‘Right,’ he says, giving my hand a squeeze. ‘Off in search of chips we go!’

Jake and I walk along the harbour towards Mickey’s chip shop, with Miley back on Jake’s shoulder. Even though Charlie had said the forecast was dismal, the clouds are now lifting, and it’s turning into a beautiful day in St Felix.

‘Do you want to sit a bit and wait, or walk on?’ Jake asks after we’ve found no sign of life at Mickey’s. Even though it’s Sunday, Mickey had offered to come in early to fry up some chips for the decorating volunteers – another act of kindness which completely took me by surprise.

‘Sit, I think,’ I reply, shielding my eyes from the bright sun. ‘I could do with a rest after this morning.’

We find a bench and sit down by the harbour wall, both of us looking out at the sea and the boats swaying rhythmically up and down on the waves now the tide is in.

‘Your children are very good, coming out to help us today,’ I say to Jake after we’ve been sitting for a minute or so admiring the view.

‘Yes, they’re good kids, they always have been. Especially Charlie. Bronte can be a bit of a tearaway at times.’

I smile.

‘What?’ Jake asks.

‘She called me an ageing Goth when Amber and I were giving away the flower garlands outside the shop the other week.’

Miley, appearing to understand what I say, chooses this moment to screech with laughter, while Jake pulls a face. ‘God, I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ I say, eyeing Miley until I realise she’s screeching along with a seagull sitting on the harbour wall. ‘Bronte’s young; she sees everyone as old, I guess. Although usually it’s the other way around for me.’

‘People think you’re younger than you are?’ Jake asks. ‘I certainly did when I met you.’

I nod. ‘Yeah, I’ve kinda got used to it over the years. Never felt the need to grow up gracefully.’

‘Why?’ Jake enquires. ‘Are you the Peter Pan of floristry?’

‘Hardly. I dunno, I just feel more comfortable not taking life too seriously.’ I look down at my boots. ‘If wearing Docs makes me seem younger, then so be it. Amber tells me I wear too much black though,’ I concede.