The Beachside Flower Stall

by Karen Clarke

  ‘I think he needs to go out,’ I said, as Hovis raised a hopeful muzzle to the door.

  ‘He probably needs a wee. You can let him go, he won’t run off.’

  I opened the door, and Hovis shot into the courtyard with a little yip, his nose snuffling the ground.

  I turned back, and discreetly looked around. It was good to see Tom in context again, and the place looked a lot like the house he’d once shared; washing by the machine, books on the worktops, empty mugs, some veterinary books on a shelf – and my photo of Hovis on the windowsill. I wondered if Megan had noticed; whether she even knew it had come from me. I longed to open cupboards and drawers, and have a good poke through, but instead I said, ‘Megan’s invited us for a meal on Tuesday evening.’

  ‘Sorry?’ He was rinsing a mug at the sink, swishing water around, his back radiating tension. ‘Invited who, where?’

  ‘Me and Tob— Cooper, to Off the Hook with you and Megan.’

  Tom put down the mug with exaggerated care. He reached for a tea towel and roughly dried his hands before turning to look at me. ‘Do you want to go?’

  My ribs tightened. ‘Do you?’

  Irritation scudded over his face. ‘Maybe you and Megan should go on your own. You can talk about wedding stuff.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about wedding stuff.’ I bit my lip. I hadn’t meant it to come out so sharply. ‘I mean, there are other things to talk about besides weddings.’

  ‘Is Cooper interested in weddings?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Why does he want to have dinner with people he’s never met? Doesn’t he want you to himself while he’s in Shipley?’

  I couldn’t make out his tone. ‘He, erm… I…’ I scratched my nose. ‘He’s not the possessive sort.’ My mouth felt twitchy with nerves, and to my horror, I heard myself say, ‘Actually, we’ve only been on a couple of dates.’

  Tom’s forehead creased. ‘According to Megan, he’s The One.’ He did capital letters with his voice.

  ‘I might have given her that impression.’

  His eyes were twin question marks. ‘Why?’

  ‘To shut her up, I suppose.’ I wanted to melt with embarrassment.

  ‘So, he’s not The One?’

  Hovis let out a noisy yawn, as though he’d heard enough.

  ‘Not really,’ I muttered.

  Tom folded his arms. ‘I’m getting the impression you don’t really like Megan.’ He sounded more curious than angry.

  A shaft of sunshine beamed through the window, and highlighted the planes of his face. He looked incredibly handsome.

  ‘So, what if I don’t?’ I was suddenly sick of pretending. It had been a long and confusing day, and although I had no one to blame but myself for messing things up with Peter (I couldn’t really pin it on Doris) I felt deflated with exhaustion. I wanted to take to my bed with a plate of custard creams and stay there for at least six months. My bed, in my house, in Manchester.

  ‘You know that night?’ he said, out of the blue. ‘My twenty-first.’

  My chest clenched. ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’d been hoping…’ he tipped his head back, as if searching the edges of the ceiling for the right words. ‘I was going to ask you out, properly, I mean.’ His head came down and his eyes latched onto mine. ‘I had… feelings for you, Carrie, but I didn’t know if you felt the same way.’ What? ‘I was worried if I said something it might scare you off and spoil our friendship, but when you turned up, and I saw you in that dress…’ he shook his head, with a look of bemusement. ‘I wanted to kiss you there and then.’

  My head felt hot and heavy. I tried to speak, but when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a sigh.

  ‘And then you introduced me to Megan and she kind of took over, and suddenly you were leaving, and saying Megan was perfect for me, and that you were going to see your sister…’

  ‘I had feelings for you too.’ My heart was leapfrogging about, and when Hovis brushed past my legs, I almost screamed. ‘I didn’t want to bring Megan that night, but she was desperate to see the house.’

  He stared, his eyes like magnets. ‘She told me you were desperate to see the house.’

  ‘You know I wasn’t bothered about where you came from.’

  ‘It was a touchy subject,’ he said, looking wretched. ‘Girls before… they always wanted to see the house. See what my family was worth.’

  ‘I saw you kissing her.’ The words burst out, and he flinched as though I’d punched him.

  ‘She kissed me,’ he said, with conviction. ‘I didn’t plan it, I promise.’

  ‘Well, whatever she told you after I’d gone, wasn’t true.’ I was almost panting now in my haste to get the words out. ‘When I saw you together you looked so right, I convinced myself you’d never see me as girlfriend material, and after that kiss, the only way I could cope was to leave.’

  ‘Run away, you mean?’

  ‘OK, run away.’ I could hardly deny it.

  ‘Christ almighty.’ He pushed his hands through his hair. ‘So, if Megan hadn’t been there that night, we might have got together?’

  My vision blurred through a haze of tears. ‘Maybe,’ I whispered. ‘It was what I wanted, more than anything.’

  As the words left my lips, I wanted to snatch them back. It was too late for this. Ten years too late.

  ‘Carrie…’

  ‘She’s having your baby,’ I said, wiping my fingers across my lashes. ‘You’re getting married next week.’

  ‘The pregnancy wasn’t planned.’ The words sound ripped from him.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘We spent the night together, a couple of months after Mum died.’ His face was pale and tense. ‘It sounds pathetic,’ he said, ‘but Megan had helped a lot while she was ill, and my mother really liked her. She kept saying how lovely it would be if Megan and I got together, and Megan was always around, even after Mum died, because she works for my father. I think I started to see her through their eyes.’ I held my breath, while Tom’s words kept pouring out. ‘One night, she suggested a drink, and – cliché alert – one thing led to another.’ He shook his head, as if trying to order his thoughts. ‘It’s no excuse, Carrie, but I hadn’t had a relationship for ages’ – my heart did a treacherous somersault – ‘and she said she’d always loved me, but I felt terrible afterwards, like I’d led her on, because although I appreciated everything she’d done for Mum, I knew I wasn’t in love with her.’

  I was having trouble taking it in. I might have invented a boyfriend, but Megan had made up a whole relationship, based on a one-night stand. Except that it wasn’t…

  ‘You slept with her before.’ My voice sounded raw.

  ‘What?’ His gaze refocused. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘She did. She called me the day after your party.’

  He shook his head. ‘She slept in one of the spare rooms. Not with me, I can promise you that,’ he said grimly. ‘After you left, and she told me you couldn’t wait to leave Dorset, I got drunk and ended up sleeping in the stables.’

  ‘That’s not the impression she gave.’

  ‘Maybe you misunderstood?’

  ‘No.’ I’d never been more certain. ‘Even if it didn’t happen, she wanted me to believe that it had.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to call me?’

  ‘Tom, I tried, but it kept going to voicemail.’

  He looked ill. ‘I lost my phone at the party,’ he said. ‘At least, I thought I had.’ He blinked. ‘Megan brought it round to the house a few days later.’

  We stared at each other, as the scale of it all sank in.

  ‘I should have called you,’ he gave an agonised grimace, ‘but after what you said about Megan being perfect for me, and that was why you’d brought her to the party…’ he paused, and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It was stupid male pride, I suppose. I told myself I didn’t know you as well as I thought, that you were young, and I had to let you go.’ His voice had a muffled
quality. ‘I honestly can’t believe this.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a compliment really.’ I could hardly get the words past the tightness in my throat. ‘She obviously saw me as a threat, and must love you a lot to have said all those things.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He picked up a tin of dog food and put it down again. ‘I sometimes get the feeling it’s not so much me as my family name she wants.’

  ‘Or just to be part of a family.’

  He looked pensive. ‘Maybe. She’s not close to her mother, and her father’s pretty useless.’

  ‘And now she’s pregnant.’

  He rubbed his face with both hands. ‘She told me after we… that she hadn’t taken her Pill, and when she said she’d missed a period…’ his words trailed off. ‘I can’t… I don’t want to let them down.’ He sounded distraught. ‘She said she couldn’t go through with the pregnancy if we didn’t get married. She doesn’t want to be a single parent.’

  My stomach turned over.

  ‘But wouldn’t it better to be a happy single parent than a miserable married one?’ I could hardly believe I was suggesting their child would be better off without him. ‘Actually, scrap that,’ I said, holding my hands up. ‘I would probably like you a lot less if you were the sort of man to run out on his pregnant fiancée.’ I was lying, but hopefully he couldn’t tell.

  ‘Christ, what a mess.’ He released a shaky breath. ‘I’m so sorry, Carrie, for… everything.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, though it sort of was, and as if he was thinking the same thing, he gave a tight little smile that ripped at my heart.

  ‘You were probably better off without me.’

  ‘That’s not for you to decide.’

  We looked at each other for a long moment, the air between us heavy with all the things we couldn’t say, and I thought how much I wanted to touch him – to take away the anguish in his eyes.

  ‘Tom, could I have a word?’

  We turned to see Mr Hudson peering round the door, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. For a second I thought I was hallucinating, and Tom appeared similarly frozen.

  ‘Sorry,’ Mr Hudson said, holding up a hand. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

  As I jerked backwards, I bashed my ankle on Hovis’s chair, and he fired off a torrent of barks. Mr Hudson looked from the dog, to Tom, to me, and back to Tom. He seemed in the grip of an emotion he couldn’t express, his jaw working.

  ‘Dad…’ Tom began.

  ‘I’ll call you.’ His father’s tone was difficult to interpret, and before either of us could speak he’d vanished, leaving behind a waft of expensive cologne.

  ‘Do you think he’ll tell Megan I was here?’ I said, heart hammering.

  Tom closed his eyes briefly. ‘We weren’t doing anything wrong.’ He sounded resigned. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it.’

  Reality seeped back in. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Carrie.’ He reached for my fingers. ‘I wish I knew what to say.’

  ‘I think we’ve said it all.’ I stared at him, miserably. ‘Would you mind driving me home?’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Tom dropped me off after a tense, wordless journey, and I suggested we forget about everything we’d discussed.

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ he said, with such sadness in his voice that my heart seemed to twist out of shape. ‘I don’t love her.’

  ‘Maybe your feelings will grow.’ I looked at him squarely, determined not to waver. ‘Whatever her faults, Megan definitely loves you, and more importantly, she’s having your child.’ I knew I was contradicting what I’d said earlier, but I couldn’t be the person who broke up a family before it had even begun.

  When he tried to speak again I held up a hand, knowing if he said anything else I would come undone. ‘You have to give it a chance, or I’ll never forgive myself.’

  He looked at his hands. ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ll be going back to Manchester soon, so let’s carry on as normal until then. Please, Tom.’

  I wanted so badly to hurl myself at him and never let go that I didn’t wait for his reply. I jumped out of the car, slammed the door without saying goodbye, and ran up to the flat.

  ‘I was getting worried about you.’

  Ruby was in the kitchen, smearing a chunk of cheese with peanut butter.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said dully. ‘I ended up going for a drive and my car broke down. I lost track of time.’ I edged past her to the sink and washed my hands.

  ‘Your car broke down?’ Ruby put the piece of cheese on a plate. ‘Why didn’t you call?’

  ‘What could you have done?’ I hadn’t meant to sound accusing, but guilt about going to see Peter was eating away at me, and trying to get my head around my conversation with Tom was playing havoc with my nerves. ‘You don’t even have your own transport.’

  Ruby pulled her chin in. ‘No, but it would have stopped me worrying and I could have called Calum…’

  ‘It’s not fair to rely on him all the time,’ I said, drying my hands on the tea towel.

  ‘I was going to say’ – Ruby nudged me with her hip – ‘I could have called Calum to tell him I was coming to get the van, and picked you up myself.’

  It was so difficult to envisage Ruby anywhere but in front of me, swaddled in a dressing gown, I could only blink at her. ‘I didn’t realise you could drive.’

  ‘Oh, Carrie,’ she said on a deep sigh. ‘I know I haven’t presented myself in the best light so far, but I’m normally quite good in a crisis.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Like I said, it’s been good for me having you here.’ She screwed the lid back on the jar of peanut butter. ‘It’s given me a reason to cook again for a start.’ She nodded at the worktop, where a batch of scones was cooling on a wire rack. ‘I was going to make us a crab linguine for dinner,’ she added, and I noticed she’d spread the ingredients out, and placed a shallow pan on the hob. ‘I was waiting for you to come home.’

  It was the word home that did it. ‘Oh, Ruby,’ I said, and burst into sobs.

  ‘Carrie, what on earth is it?’ Placing a solid arm around my waist, she steered me to the sofa and pressed me down. Settling beside me she took both my hands in hers. ‘Talk to me, sweetheart.’

  ‘I… I…’ I sobbed, incoherently. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried properly. It felt like several years’ worth of tears were sluicing down my face. I couldn’t tell her about going to see Peter, or that she had another grandchild – I just couldn’t. I would have to pray that Peter wouldn’t take things any further, and that nothing bad would come of it.

  Instead, I told her about Tom.

  ‘My darling, I had no idea you even knew the Hudsons,’ she said when I’d finished, and it wasn’t without irony that I accepted a tissue from her, and blew my nose. ‘No wonder you seemed a bit funny about me doing the flowers for his wedding.’ I hadn’t mentioned the other major player in the sorry saga – Megan, the ex-best-friend.

  ‘It came as a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

  ‘I can always change my mind,’ Ruby said, as I scrubbed away another spurt of tears. ‘About doing the flowers, I mean. I don’t need the business that badly.’

  ‘Yes, you do, and it’s fine, really.’ I dredged up a watery smile. ‘I have it from the horse’s mouth that Mr Hudson really wants you to do them.’

  Her eyebrows shifted. ‘He does?’ She looked quietly pleased, and my stomach tightened. The wedding had to go ahead, if only so Ruby could get her business back on track, and pay her bills. ‘But are you sure it’s what you both want? It sounds to me like this Tom was in love with you, and still is.’

  Her words provoked a thrill that died as fast as it flared. I’d have given a lot to have heard it once, but it hardly mattered now. ‘He wants to be a good dad, and that means marrying the mother of his child,’ I said. It came out a bit snarly from all the crying, and Ruby pursed her lips.

  ‘Well, that’s noble of him, I suppose.’ She
sounded unsure, and it struck me that this was the first time I’d seen her concerned about something apart from her own situation. It was a shame it had to involve me and my stupid heartbreak.

  Not heartbreak, I rebuked myself. It was an unexpected blip that was all. I’d got over Tom before and I’d do it again, just as soon as I was back in Manchester.

  ‘Will you still be up to helping me with the flowers?’ She gave my arm a squeeze before standing up. ‘There might not be time to do everything on my own before Jane gets back.’

  If only Jane hadn’t planned a pervy holiday, none of this would have happened.

  ‘I’m positive. I am a fully grown adult,’ I sniffed. ‘Could I please have a scone with strawberry jam, to keep me going until dinner?’

  She beamed at me, her first proper beam, and the sight of it lightened my mood ever so slightly. ‘Of course you can,’ she said. ‘And after dinner, we can make a flower animal together. Anything you like.’

  ‘So, tell me all about it.’

  I flumped on my bed and positioned my phone against the wall, so I could still see Jasmine while I plumped up my sleep-flattened pillow. She was wearing pyjamas with dachshunds on them, and her hair was all mussed up.

  ‘About what?’ I said, not really in the mood for talking any more.

  ‘The history of Shipley and its residents,’ she said, flipping her eyes up. ‘Your date with Toby, of course.’

  ‘Oh, him.’ I flopped my head on the still-flat pillow and pulled my knees into a foetal position. Not easy, when I’d eaten enough to stretch my stomach to its limits. ‘It was OK.’ I sighed.

  Jasmine grimaced. ‘That bad, eh?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Actually, he was really nice,’ I amended, remembering the art puns, his athletic good looks, and him piggy-backing me to Ruby’s. It felt like light years ago. ‘But he’s still in love with his wife, and just wants us to be friends.’