Pansies

by Alexis Hall

  The newsprint was hieroglyphics, and Alfie’s heart was spinning like the waltzers were still on. His voice floated out of him weirdly. “It seems quite a long way from lighting design.”

  “Well. Yes. And I’m slightly scared of children, but they can’t all be homophobic little shits, right?”

  “Probably not all of them, no.”

  “I might not get it, but I think I have a decent shot.” Fen was talking very quickly or Alfie’s head was working very slowly. “And because it’s part-time, I’d still be able to work in the shop a bit. If . . . if you—oh God, I warned you this was crazy—if you wanted to run it with me.”

  No words were in Alfie’s mouth. At least none he could say. None that weren’t yes.

  Fen covered his face with his hands. Wriggled in a helplessly embarrassed kind of way. “It sounds even worse now I’ve said it aloud. I don’t know what I was thinking except that I did. Think it, I mean.”

  There was sandpaper in Alfie’s throat. He made a croaking sound.

  “Can you say something, Alfie. Even if it’s just . . . ‘Man, you’re nuts.’” A sound that was probably meant to be a laugh, except it came out all shrill and wobbly. “Although it’s not as nuts as . . . as well, it could be. You actually like South Shields and you seem very—to my mind, bewilderingly—interested in flower shop management.”

  “Yeah, but—” Alfie forced the words out “—what about what you want?”

  Fen gave him this smile, bright and fearless in the moonlight. “What I want? Oh, Alfie Bell. I’m head over heels in love with you.”

  Joy and sadness and pain and love collided in Alfie’s chest like some kind of terrible motorway accident. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Worse than jumping off that cliff into the icy depths of the North Sea. And Aidan’s voice was clanging his head: Don’t be selfish. Think about Fen. Do the right thing.

  “You can’t give up your whole life,” he mumbled, “and everything you want to do, for me and the memory of your mum.”

  Silence again. The whisper of the sea roaring too loud in Alfie’s ears.

  “Well.” Fen gave another of his uncertain not-quite-laughs. “Not exactly what I was hoping to hear. But I can imagine worse reactions. And you haven’t exactly said no.”

  “Come on, Fen. You know we can’t.”

  “I know it’s a bit out there. But ‘we can’t’ is pretty strong.”

  “I can’t, then.”

  “My, er, my heart’s kind of dripping blood on the floor here. I just did the emotional equivalent of putting my head down the toilet for you. Don’t you think I deserve a bit better than that?”

  “Uh. What?”

  Fen shoved him in the shoulder. “Man up, Alfie, and tell me the truth. Any truth. You don’t actually want this. You don’t love me. You like what you have in London and the whole save-your-local-florist act was bullshit.”

  There was no way he could tell Fen he didn’t love him. It was a lie so big and deep and absolute that uttering it would have been practically blasphemy. But he had to say something that would convince Fen to leave. Be who he was supposed to be. Claim all the happiness and freedom he deserved. “You’ll end up hating me. You’ll wake up one day and realise you’re living a life you never wanted.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past year and a half?” He could feel Fen trembling beside him. And, then, all of a sudden in a graceless scramble, Fen was out of the waltzer. Glaring down at him. Arms folded tightly over his chest. “It was you who taught me how to want again. And what I want is a life like this. With you. And, you know something”—Fen’s voice gentled unexpectedly—“I think you want it too.”

  He did. Of course he did. But Aidan had trusted him. Had believed in him. Thought he was a good person. How could he let him down? Betray them both, father and son. Just because he was lonely and in the wrong place. Fen deserved better than a flower shop in a town he hated and the love of a man who had spent more than half his life afraid.

  Fen kicked him lightly in the ankle. “Don’t make me beg, Alfie. But I will if you need to hear it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “cos I won’t do it. You need to get over your guilt or whatever, and stop trying to drag me into it.”

  He wasn’t sure what kind of response he was expecting. He was prepared for sharpness, at the very least, but Fen just smiled. “It was guilt that brought you here too, you know. But guilt doesn’t have the power to make someone stay or change or fall in love. Trust me, Alfie. Please. I know what I want. Now it’s . . .” his voice wavered, broke a little “. . . kind of about what you want. Which I hope is this prickly, grieving flower shop boy.”

  Oh God. There was no way out of this. Fen was too strong, too honest, too full of courage. So Alfie did what he had to do. The only thing he could. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to get back to London.”

  The world cracked. Flaked into pieces.

  After a moment, Fen nodded. “Okay. Well. Thank you for a lovely week, Alfie Bell.” Then he stepped off the waltzer stage and walked away through the empty fairground.

  24

  Alfie woke up at 5 a.m. on Monday morning feeling like he had a hangover, except it wasn’t physical. All the same, he dragged himself off his handcrafted, hypoallergenic, gazillion pocket-spring lambswool mattress and out of his Egyptian cotton sheets—in which he’d had the worst night’s sleep of his entire life—and got into his multidirectional, astonishingly powerful shower. Stood with his face turned into one of the jets that wasn’t going to explode his eyeballs, oddly disorientated by the gleaming glass and chrome, the lack of pink tidemarks and pale hair. The pristine tiled walls.

  He dressed in his best suit, the bespoke one from Savile Row that had cost him in the region of four grand and made him itch in weird places, and went to work. To the meeting with J.D. Jarndyce, where he was probably going to get fired. Which, right now, he did not give a fuck about.

  Jarndyce occupied a cubby hole on the third floor. It was where he’d started when the company had been Locklear Grayson Bayle. Before it became Locklear Jarndyce Dance, then Jarndyce & Dance, and finally J.D. Jarndyce. He said he liked to remember where he’d come from because it never took much to send you back there.

  His first question, rapped out even before Alfie’s bum had met the seat, was, “Tell me why I shouldn’t fire you.”

  It was pretty much what he’d been expecting. Which meant he should have prepared one of those polished “I’m the best at everything” type answers. Except . . . he just couldn’t be arsed. He sighed. “Look, I’ve been working here for seven years. You’ve seen what I can do. And you’re not going to decide whether to fire me based on what I say in the next ten seconds cos you’ve already decided.”

  Jarndyce was a slim, polished conker of a man, smoothed and toughened by forty years in the pocket of corporate London. The only time Alfie had ever seen him smile was in the photograph he kept on his desk: him and Dance in some green-gold Oxbridge place, arms around each other. He was the sort of person it was hard not to admire. Though nearly impossible to like. And right now, his cold, tarnished-steel eyes were stabbing Alfie.

  “I’ve always rather liked you, Bell,” he murmured. “And you’re right. I had decided to fire you.”

  “Uh. ‘Had’?”

  “I’m going to give you another week. Come back next Monday with a better answer and we’ll see.”

  Alfie shifted uncomfortably. Accidentally rammed his foot into the back of the desk and brought all the photos toppling over: the university boyfriend, the ex-wife, and the three kids, one of them apparently in the middle of an androgynous, purple-haired rebellion. “Shit, sorry. I’m just not sure I’ll have a better answer. I’m not going to come in here and start begging.”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for.”

  “Well, what do you want?”

  Jarndyce picked up one of the photos and put it back in its usual place. “Someone who wants to be here. Who will make
this their life, as I did.”

  It was dismissal. But Alfie, still sitting there, heard himself ask, “Is it worth it?”

  “It depends on your priorities. To me, yes.”

  “I don’t see why you can’t have a bit more balance.”

  “Because,” said Jarndyce impatiently, “life is conflict, disappointment is inevitable, and I prefer not to live with failure. See you next Monday.”

  Alfie went straight back to bed. There was actual sobbing involved. A bit of howling. Lots of drinking. Some clinging to his pillow.

  He just hadn’t quite realised it was possible to feel this way. It was like last week but backwards. All that joy turned into pain. These barbed-wire knots stuck inside him, impossible to dig out again unless he ripped himself to pieces.

  Suddenly a whole bunch of movies were making a lot more sense. He’d always rolled his eyes when characters got all heartbroken and boring, letting their lives go off the rails or the plot slow right down while they got to grips with their emotions. It had seemed like a bit of an overreaction, considering the world went on, other people existed in it, and sometimes there were terrorists to catch, or supervillains to stop, or spaceships to blow up.

  But right now, Alfie couldn’t have saved the day if his life depended on it. Laurence Fishburne could have turned up on his doorstep, blue pill in hand, and Alfie would have told him, “Sorry, too sad.” And, wow, now that he thought about it, it had been fucking forever since he’d been to the cinema.

  As he lay there, among the takeaway boxes and empty bottles, he realised that maybe part of the problem was the fact all this was new to him. He’d broken up with people before, of course, but it had never mattered because he’d never cared. So he’d had no practice. He’d never fallen in love. Never been wrecked by it. And built up no calluses on his heart.

  This was basically his adolescence. Every boy he should have pined for and been with and moved on from. Except for the fact he was thirty years old and had never felt so alone or broken.

  By Thursday he’d come to the conclusion that you couldn’t actually die of being miserable. He’d also decided he wasn’t going back to work for J.D. Jarndyce. He had no idea what he was going to do instead, but at least he’d made some kind of decision. And he’d made it for himself. Not for Fen or his friends or his parents. Or even the ugly little seaside town that was the only place he’d ever really been happy. Probably he wouldn’t go back there—once he would have been too scared, and now it would be too full of Fen—but there had to be some other place in England he liked. With a coastline and a job for someone with a BA in maths, a master’s in econometrics and mathematical economics, and seven years in the city behind him.

  He could even get a dog. In this fantasy future where he would have enough time to care for one. Make lasagne a lot. Learn to make something that wasn’t lasagne. Presumably at some point, he’d stop hurting. Stop dreaming of silver-gold hair and long legs tangled round his. And stop feeling like the best of his life would always be a single week.

  So when an email from Greg arrived, suggesting (apparently in all seriousness) that they spend their Friday in a cabaret and cocktails club that was previously a Victorian toilet, Alfie decided he might as well take advantage of having nothing to do and invited everyone to come round for dinner instead. Responses ranged from Do what? to Can you even cook? but eventually they agreed to the experiment. Kitty even asked to bring her new relationship prospect. Her exact words.

  By the time his friends turned up, Alfie was running only slightly late and hadn’t turned Canary Wharf into a smoking ruin, so he was calling it a win.

  “I was going to bring you a bottle of something,” was Greg’s greeting. “But then I realised you’d only sneer at the vintage, so my gift to you—” flourish “—is me.”

  Alfie gave him a one-armed hug because the other hand had an oven glove on it. “I don’t suppose you come with a receipt?”

  “How very dare you, Alfredo. You should want to put me in pride of place and treasure me forever.”

  Kitty’s new relationship prospect turned out to be a tallish, handsomish man in his early forties, with brown hair, brown eyes, and an air of studied normality. His name was Charles Randall (he was one of those men who did not lightly bear diminutives—definitely a Charles, not a Charlie) and when Greg—rather naughtily—asked him what he did, he said he was attached to the diplomatic service.

  “Oh my God!” Greg gazed at him entranced. “You are a spy!”

  He smiled pleasantly. “Well, if I was, I’d probably have to kill you now.”

  “It would be the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  Kitty sat down at the table where Alfie had never dined. “You said that about Burning Man.”

  “That was more of an intense sexual-spiritual experience.”

  “I don’t think I know you well enough for that,” murmured Charles, as he slipped into a chair next to Kitty.

  Greg smiled at nobody in particular. “Give yourself another five minutes or so. It’s probably as long as you’ll need.”

  Alfie glanced up from his saucepan. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “He’s decided he’s shallow,” sighed Kitty, in mingled sympathy and exasperation. “Because you and I both met people we didn’t completely hate the prospect of being with.”

  “About that—” Alfie began.

  But Greg cut him off. “It’s true. I don’t do anything and I don’t have to do anything . . . which means I probably won’t do anything. And nothing bad or interesting has ever happened to me. So while I’m fun to flirt with, what’s going to happen to me when my arse droops and I’m not hot anymore?”

  “I don’t know.” Alfie thought about it. “Maybe you could get a cat.”

  Greg made a distressed noise. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. I mean, not about the cat. But serious that you’re being stupid. You’re, what, twenty-four?”

  “Nearly twenty-five.”

  “Not exactly over the hill, then. And you don’t like relationships anyway.”

  “I don’t know what I think about relationships anymore.” Greg was staring at the wall. “Mainly I feel that I’ve failed at them—which could become relevant if I decide I want one and don’t know how to get it.”

  Kitty gave him a look. “Yes, Greg, that’s called life. Wanting things, and not being able to figure out how to get them.”

  “Urgh.” Alfie pulled some newly bought plates off the drying rack. “Tell me about it.”

  She turned a little ruefully to Charles. “So, yes, these are my friends. You must be so happy to be here.”

  He chuckled. Ran his thumb lightly over her knuckles, the touch hopeful and gentle at the same time. Making Alfie a little wistful for the simple magic of another person’s skin. “It’s fine. I am happy to be here.”

  Meanwhile, Greg—instead of sitting down like a normal person—had gone prowling around Alfie’s flat. “There’s something weird about this place. Wait. What the hell, Alfie?”

  He looked at where Greg was pointing. “Oh, they’re called flowers. They grow in green places.”

  “Yes, I know what flowers are. I just don’t know what they’re doing here.”

  “Just fancied getting them, I guess.” Alfie shrugged. “They’re ornamental cabbages.”

  Greg leaned over them, inhaled, and immediately jerked away. “Eew. Rank.”

  “I like them,” offered Kitty. “Compost chic.”

  Alfie nodded. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”

  “What are you cooking anyway?” Greg had now infiltrated the kitchen area and was peeping over Alfie’s shoulder into the pot.

  “It’s a vegetable tagine, with almond couscous.”

  Greg was staring at him like he had no idea who Alfie was. “Alfredo, how do you even know what couscous is, let alone how to make it?”

  “I’m expanding my horizons.”

  “Into vegetarianism?”


  “You never know. Might come in handy someday.”

  Suddenly Greg screamed. “Oh my God, you’ve murdered someone!”

  “What? No. I told you, it’s vegetarian. Have you been binge-watching Hannibal again?”

  “There’s blood in your oven! You’re like . . . Sweeney Todd. You’re feeding us people.”

  “That would be Mrs. Lovett.” Alfie wagged his spoon vaguely. “And I’ve tasted this, and it’s not the worst tagine in London.”

  Kitty and Charles had come over to investigate the blood in Alfie’s oven. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I would never have pegged you as the musicals type.”

  “I’m—”

  “I know. Expanding your horizons.”

  Greg seemed less impressed. “I think you’re a Cylon. Or you’ve got a parasite in your brain. What the hell happened to you, Alfie?”

  “I fell in love, okay?”

  There was a long silence.

  Charles cleared his throat. “It’s definitely not blood. I’d say it’s probably berry juice.”

  “Cherry juice specifically.” Alfie winced. “There was going to be cherry pie for afterwards, but . . . it . . . well . . . it exploded. Nobody told me pies do that.”

  “Pies explode?” Greg looked horrified.

  “You’re meant to put little holes in the pastry or something. But, yeah, we’re having ice cream for pudding. Anyway—” Alfie turned off the gas “—I think we’re done here.”

  He was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a single-minded cook, which meant he hadn’t given much thought to actually serving the food. But his friends were happy enough to grab plates and cutlery for themselves, and he dished up direct from the pan which he plonked on a chopping board in the middle of the table.

  “Oh, and there’s a chardonnay in the fridge,” he said, as he forked through the couscous to make it fluffy.

  Greg jumped up from the table and went to get it. “Um, I’m seeing . . . bottles.”

  “The 2010?”

  “Still seeing bottles.”

  “The Kongsgaard?” Alfie sighed. “It’s got a picture of two blokes carrying enormous grapes. In a sort of stained glass effect?”