Who Loves You Best (21 page)

But I wasn’t lying. For some reason, I
am
fine with this. I wasn’t ever meant to grow old. Can you see me settling down with two point four kids and a pension plan?

The only person I feel sorry for really is Clare. It’ll break her heart. I haven’t told her; I haven’t told anyone. No need for her to find out before she has to. I don’t drink nearly as much as everyone thinks I do. Alcohol isn’t the
reason
I trip and stumble and slur; it’s my
excuse
.

I’m sorry about Jenna, too. She’s the first girl I’d have liked to give things a shot with. Fortunately, I’ve always been such a fuckup with women, there’ll be no distraught widow or fatherless babes left to mourn. Looks like my complete inability to form a lasting or meaningful relationship has done everyone a favor.

I don’t plan to go quietly into the night. I’m not going to end up a prisoner in my own body, unable to walk or talk or piss or breathe on my own.

The car jolts as I take a speed bump a little too fast. Underneath my jacket on the backseat, my grandfather’s shotgun rattles.

“Craig, please. Won’t you reconsider? This is such a bad time—”

“That’s why I have to leave,” Craig says firmly. “I’m sorry to break it to you over the phone, Clare, but you’ve hardly been here for the past few weeks—”

“My daughter was ill!”

“And before that, Rowan had colic, and before that, you were on maternity leave.” He sighs. “What’s happened to you, Clare? PetalPushers used to be the most important thing in your life. These days, even when you’re here, your mind’s not on the job. I keep telling you we’re losing money hand over fist, and you just bury your head in the sand. I grant you, it’s been much better this past month or so, but we still need to branch out if we’re going to survive. A recession is a bad time to cater to a niche market, but you won’t—”

“We’ve been through this,” I interrupt tersely. “I’m not selling out. PetalPushers will come through this. We’ll put the expansion plans on hold for a bit, tighten our belts, and ride out the storm.”

“It’s not going to be enough,” Craig says. “Look, Clare. I’m sorry to do this to you, but to be honest, you could do with saving my salary right now anyway. KaBloom! has offered me limited partnership, and free creative rein. They’re very interested in some of my marketing ideas.”

I pace the kitchen, twisting the phone cord around my fingers. “Craig, I need you,” I plead. “I can’t be everywhere at once, not with seven shops. You’ve been with me since the beginning. No one else knows the business as well as you. I realize we have very different ideas about where PetalPushers should be heading in the future, but maybe there’s room for compromise. I’d hate to lose you. If it’s a question of money—”

“You can’t afford to pay me more.”

I suppress a flare of anger. This is
my
company. I know it better than I know my own children. Craig isn’t privy to everything that goes on; he has no idea of the real cause of our financial problems. How
dare
he tell me what I can and can’t afford?

Because he’s got me over a barrel, that’s why.

“I know what I can afford. Look, Craig. Let’s sit down and talk this through, see if we can work something out.”

“I’ve already accepted the job.”

“Have you signed a contract?”

“Not yet, but—”

“I’m coming in.” I glance at the kitchen clock. Jenna’s running late today; she’s usually here by seven-thirty on Monday mornings, and it’s ten to eight now. “I’ll be there in an hour. Don’t do anything until I get there. Will you promise me that, Craig?”

“Well …”

“At least hear me out. Surely I deserve that much, after twelve years?”

He sighs. “I promised to go and sign everything this afternoon. You’ve got until then.”

I hang the phone back on the wall and mollify the twins with a bowl of Cheerios. Rowan stuffs them in his face with two fat fingers, but Poppy seems more interested in seeing how many she can work beneath the waistband of her nappy. She beams happily at me, the picture of health. You’d never guess how ill she was just a week ago.

I feel sick every time I think about it. In my wildest nightmares, I never thought such a thing could happen to me. My baby lying sick in the hospital, maybe even dying, while I’m dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and hauled down to the police station to be asked dozens of stupid, pointless questions—“Do you ever feel jealous of your daughter, Mrs. Elias? How did you feel when your father died?”—and all the time, all I could think of was Poppy, Poppy alone and wondering why her mother wasn’t there.

Marc should have come with me. He didn’t stay behind because he needed to marshal the troops and call Davina. He stayed because
he wanted it to be true
.

I’ve forgiven him for stealing from my company, re-mortgaging the house, putting the whole family in jeopardy. But I’m not sure I can forgive him for this.

I barely hear the eight o’clock news, anxiously listening for Jenna’s key in the lock. I really need to get going; it’ll take me thirty minutes to drive to the shop in Fulham. I
can’t let Craig leave now, not with everything else up in the air. If Marc and I … if we … if I can’t learn to live with this … I need work to stay settled. I can’t cope with the business and the children on my own. Thank God I have Jenna. As long as she’s here, I can deal with everything else.

Dammit, where
is
she? She’s never been late before. I hope the wretched Tubes aren’t out, the whole of London will grind to a halt and I’ll never—

The phone rings, and I grab it off the wall with one hand, liberating the ketchup bottle from Poppy’s curious reach with the other. “Yes?”

“Clare, it’s Jenna—”

“Where are you? Is it the Tube? How long do you—”

“I can’t make it in today, I’m sorry. Jamie’s sick, I need to stay with him. I know it’s short notice, but you said you weren’t planning to go into the office today—”

“But I
need
you,” I exclaim. “It’s really important that I go in to work today. Please, Jenna. I’m sure your boyfriend can’t be
that
sick—”

“Clare, he is. I’m sorry, but there’s no one else to look after him.”

No
. She can’t do this to me. Not today, not now.

“Can’t you just dose him up with something and put him to bed? I’ll send a taxi to come and get you. You don’t have to stay overnight, I’ll be home by six—”

“I’m sorry, Clare, I really
can’t.”

For a moment, I almost hate her. She has no idea what she’s just done. What does she know about real life? She swans around, partying and having fun, with no responsibilities
or obligations or worries to speak of. A little credit card debt! She should try my life for five minutes.

“There must be something you can do,” I say, suddenly near to tears.

“There’s really nothing—”

“You don’t understand. You can’t let me down like this. I
have
to get to work. What am I supposed to do?”

Her tone turns stroppy. “Look, I’m not doing this on purpose. I didn’t
ask
him to get sick.”

My mind races, seeking a way out of this trap like a rat in a maze. Marc’s at the office, Davina’s two hours’ drive away, Candida, Poppy, and Fran will be at work. Fran! Maybe I can borrow Kirsty.

I want to scream. Of all the times for Jenna to leave me in the lurch! For all I know, her boyfriend’s not sick at all, and they’re both going back to bed to shag all afternoon at my expense.

With an effort, I hold on to my temper. I can’t afford to have her quit either.

“Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Will you be back tomorrow?”

A chill thought strikes me. Suppose she’s seen through my little sweetness-and-light routine with Marc? If she’s guessed things are going off the rails, she won’t want to be caught in the middle. For all I know, she’s got another job lined up already. “You
are
coming back, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m coming back. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jenna says shortly, and rings off.

Fran’s phone is engaged, so I bundle the twins into
their playsuits and jackets, and jump in the car. I just hope she doesn’t leave home before I reach her.

I leave the twins with a startled, but willing (once I brandish a fistful of twenty-pound notes) Kirsty, and race to the Fulham shop, where I coax Craig, by dint of a crippling, unaffordable pay raise and the promise of free rein with some of his new ideas, into staying. Then I give him the rest of the afternoon off, and send Molly home early, too. I need some time alone. I need to be with my flowers. I’m worn out. So many people wanting a piece of me, pulling me in different directions. It’s never bothered me before, I’m used to organizing everything; but for once, I wish there was someone who could share the load. Just for five minutes.

I’m in the back, sorting through some vivid blue lobelia, and wondering how to use them. With a twist of hedera ivy, they could look wonderful. I imagine a June bride walking down the aisle with these, a splash of tropical color against her white gown. I had ivy in my bouquet, ivy and mistletoe and white calla lilies—

The bell signals a customer. I walk out to the shop floor, unbraiding a twist of raffia from my wrist.

“Cooper.” I smile. “How is Ella this week?”

“Recovering at home.”

“Oh, I’m so pleased.”

He nods shortly. “Zinnias. Please,” he adds, as an afterthought.

Zinnias
. I glance at him sharply. The Victorian meaning
of zinnias was absence, as well as the emotional correlation, sorrow.

Maybe he has to travel again. Over the past weeks, each time he’s come into the shop to order flowers for his girlfriend, I’ve gleaned a few more details about his life. He’s a journalist; well, a writer, really. “Journalist” makes him sound like an inky-fingered hack. Cooper Garrett freelances for some serious magazines like
Newsweek
and
Time
(Craig elicited those particular details; like getting blood out of a stone, he said) and does some travel writing, too. But what I find more interesting is the unpaid work he does for several high-profile NGOs, like the Red Cross and its sister arm in the Middle East, the Red Crescent. Cooper is the one who writes those emotive, wrenching color pieces that drum up donations. He’s so silent and taciturn in person; you’d never know how articulate, how eloquent, he can be on the written page. I’ve looked up and read his pieces online, of course. Everything I can get my hands on.

I scoop a bunch of stunning zinnias out of a water bucket. They’re deep orange at the center, radiating to hot pink and then bright yellow. Not my favorite flowers; but certainly cheerful, and they work well mixed against the late pussy willow.

“No need to deliver this time,” he says. “I’ll take them myself.”

I can’t imagine Cooper abandoning his wife in a police station in the middle of the night. Or getting himself into a financial mess and leaving it to Ella to sort out. Oh, I’m sure she gets stuck with his dry cleaning when he gets back
from a trip, but I bet she doesn’t have to run around making sure his life runs smoothly, as if he were a third child. From the first, he’s struck me as the kind of man you can rely on in a crisis. Even if he is a little rough around the edges.

“How’s your daughter?” he asks suddenly. “Poppy, isn’t it?”

I startle. “She’s much better,” I say. “How did you—”

“Your colleague. Craig.”

“How kind of you to remember. She had us terribly worried for a few days, but she seems over it now.” My voice cracks. “She had so much salt in her body, they thought I must have given it to her. The police came … it was so dreadful—”

Tears spill suddenly down my cheeks. I dash them away, hopelessly embarrassed.

“Of course it wasn’t you,” Cooper says, his matter-of-fact conviction an unexpected balm to my lacerated self-esteem.

“They can’t seem to find another explanation,” I say helplessly.

“Then they’re idiots,” he snaps. He stares intently at me, then spins on his heel. “I’m sorry. Something—I have to go.”

He picks up his zinnias and bolts for the door, leaving me openmouthed. He really is the most extraordinary man. It must be quite a challenge for Ella Stuart to sustain a full-length conversation with him. Still, he seems devoted to her. He’s been in here every other day for weeks now.