Wildflowers

by Debbie Howells

  ‘You? Give up booze and run a marathon?’ She snorts with laughter and spills her drink down the front of her.

  ‘Half a marathon actually,’ I say sniffily, handing her a towel. ‘Perhaps you should try it.’

  ‘Here, have a glass of wine. How’s Greg?’ she replies, still sniggering as she pours me a glass.

  ‘I haven’t seen him. And I won’t, thanks. You’re not listening to me, Al. Wine equals booze. No. Thank you.’

  She feels my forehead, a look of fake concern on her face. ‘You feeling alright, Frankie?’ Then she thrusts the glass at me.

  Obstinately I put it down. ‘I’ll make myself some tea if that’s ok.’ Which for some reason Alice fails to understand so I wave the kettle at her then go to look for Martha.

  Martha is five, with pink cheeks and little-girl hair that’s a mass of wayward curls. She’s exactly the daughter I’d love to have myself one day - if I ever meet the right man. She also loves my stories about fairy-tale brides and evil stepmothers – all totally made up, obviously. I tell her a new one about the silly florist who ordered the wrong colour flowers and got turned into a bog fairy, which causes much hilarity.

  ‘Always look out for bog fairies, just in case. In the bog,’ I whisper as Martha giggles, just as Alice walks into the room. ‘Oops…’ I look at my sister who’s shaking her head and beckoning me out of the room.

  One of the pitfalls of having a lax parent means you overcompensate. Alice has strict views on parenting. On being an Aunt too, as she’s about to tell me – she’s looking frighteningly stern.

  ‘Frankie, please do not say bog in front of your niece. Last time you were here, I had to explain about shitfaced and the time before it was nipple piercing. Honestly – words fail me.’

  I’d believe her, only words never fail Alice.

  ‘Bog is a perfectly innocent word,’ I tell her. ‘And anyway, a girl needs to know about these things, Al. It’s my duty as her Aunt. You can’t tie her to your apron strings forever, you know.’

  ‘Wait till you have your own.’ She glares at me. ‘And she’s five, not fifteen – there’s a difference. Are you staying for supper?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ I follow her into the kitchen, feeling more like her elder, errant daughter than her sister. Then I remember she doesn’t know.

  ‘Guess what Alice! Something really exciting’s happened! I’ve got my first celebrity wedding!’

  ‘No!’ Her eyes are like saucers. My sensible, grown-up sister isn’t completely immune to gossip. ‘Who! Tell me!’

  ‘Only Maria Bristow and Pete McNamara,’ I say smugly. ‘How cool is that! I’m going to be famous!’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ll be famous, but it’s dead exciting! You must take tons of photos Frankie! And put it on your website... I know – you could get a local paper to run a feature on you…’

  ‘I can’t until after the event,’ I tell her. ‘They’ve sworn me to secrecy.’

  ‘Then what are you telling me for? Oh Frankie – I hope you’re not blabbing to everyone…’

  ‘Of course not. Anyway, I know you won’t tell.’

  As a result of massive amounts of willpower and my new regime, I’m feeling extremely virtuous. Yet again, not a drop of alcohol has passed my lips. When I awake on Monday, my precious day off, just like yesterday, I have a clear head and eyes that shine back at me as I brush my hair into a ponytail. I make my hot water and lemon but my ankle’s still puffy from yesterday so I skip the run and switch the telly on instead.

  As I watch Jeremy Kyle, I’m struggling to ignore the Mars bar which I know is in the fridge, hidden between the low fat yoghurts and the slice of cheesecake. I eat it. I eat the cheesecake too, so it’s no longer a source of temptation. And it’s hardly a problem – I’m not trying to lose weight, it just rather negates the hot water and lemon. Never mind Jeremy Kyle. What I need, I decide, is a fridge full of healthy food to fuel my new, super-fit body toward my half marathon and looming stardom.

  For a small village like Dexter’s Green, Demelza’s isn’t all bad. It sells cheap washing up liquid and that budget loo paper that isn’t budget at all because end up using twice as much of it. There’s wine too – the kind that’s strictly for emergencies only. I hobble carefully over there, heading for the grocery section, ignoring the delicious smell of hot sausage rolls and the rows of chocolate bars hurling themselves off the shelves at me.

  Mr Crowley serves me at the checkout. He’s stern and bald and has an opinion on most things, and just like Honey, likes to give me his two pennies worth.

  ‘My new healthy diet, Mr Crowley,’ I tell him proudly.

  ‘You need some meat, young lady. All those veggies aren’t no good for a growing young lass like yourself…’ He shakes his head as he painstakingly counts out every last coin of my change. Honestly, there’s no pleasing some people.

  I’m still zipping up my purse as I walk out and collide with someone coming in, then I notice it’s the same girl I bumped into yesterday. The one with the awkward pushchair, only this time she’s without it.

  ‘My fault again,’ I say to her. ‘Sorry - on your own?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says curtly. ‘He’s not that well, actually.’ She’s pale under her tan, I notice and there are dark circles under her eyes, only she still manages to look completely stunning.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I say, realising I’m blocking the doorway. ‘I really hope he’s better soon.’

  She hesitates for a split second. ‘Thanks.’

  I stroll home feeling virtuous and arrange my vegetables decoratively, admiring how much healthier I already feel. Then Honey calls me and as always, gets straight to the point.

  ‘Now Frankie, have you thought any more about the half marathon?’

  ‘I’ve done more than think about it,’ I tell her smugly. ‘I’ve started training! You, my friend, are talking to a fellow runner!’

  There’s a stunned silence at the other end.

  ‘Only snag is I bust my ankle. It’s only twisted and I’ve iced it and all that. But I think I might have overdone it the teensiest bit…’

  Cue another lecture.

  ‘You need to build it up slowly,’ says Honey bossily. ‘I can’t believe you don’t know that. Get a training schedule off the internet for God’s sake, or join a club or something. Sorry, just seen the time. I’ve got to get to a meeting.’

  Phew. Got off lightly there then. I check my emails and in among the special offers for Viagra and penis enlargements, and the one from Katyusha from Poland, who likes sex and wants to be my wife, at last is the email I’ve been waiting for.

  Dear Frankie

  I’d be grateful if you’d come to my house to discuss arrangements for my wedding flowers.

  Yours

  Maria x

  Her address is at the bottom. My heart pounds excitedly. This is it! It’s happening! My dream is about to come true…

  I indulge myself for a moment with fantasies of elaborate, towering flower arrangements and a tiny little mention in Hello magazine. However, it’s June and the thick of wedding season and there simply isn’t time to daydream. This coming weekend we have two weddings which will only happen if I plan with military precision. But when I open up my shop the next morning, there’s a problem.

  Everywhere I look, it’s like someone’s been in with a strimmer. The floor is strewn with the dead heads of flowers nipped off in their prime and after conducting a brief search, I find the perpetrator, who’s brown and furry with long ears and lurking in the dark behind the lilies.

  ‘Get out!’ I shriek, flailing my arms, which sends the little bastard into overdrive. I’d no idea how fast they can be. Eventually it ricochets off a bucket and legs it at warp speed. Which is fine – only as I don’t how it got in here in the first place, in the immortal words of Arnie, it’ll be back...

  As I stand in the doorway catching my breath, the girl with the pushchair walks up the road. She’s wearing a thin summer dress and
a pair of well-worn Converse, and looks a little happier than when I saw her yesterday. Children, I’m guessing, are a worry. Probably even more so than brides.

  ‘Hello!’ I wave to her. ‘Is he better?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you – a bit…’ She wheels the buggy over. ‘Is this your shop? I’ve been past a few times. I always wondered what goes on in here.’

  ‘Wedding flowers,’ I tell her. ‘My little emporium.’

  ‘Wow…’ She looks interested.

  ‘Right now I can assure you it’s anything but. Some horrible little rabbit has just had the gourmet weekend of its life demolishing my flowers.’

  ‘Oh. That doesn’t sound good...’

  ‘It’s not,’ I say heatedly. ‘It was only left-overs this time, but I don’t how it got in or if it’s coming back and if it gets the flowers before a wedding instead of after…’

  I take a deep breath because I’m sounding mad again. She looks amused.

  ‘I could help you look?’ she volunteers.

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly ask you to.’

  ‘Seriously. I’m not doing anything. And I’d love to see inside…’

  ‘It doesn’t ever look like this,’ I tell her as she comes to the door and looks in. ‘Let me sweep it up quickly, only I’m finding this physically painful just looking at it. Just give me a minute…’

  When it’s sufficiently tidy, I let her in.

  ‘I think that’s your problem,’ she points straight away to a small mound of earth along a back wall. Sure enough, on closer inspection, I can see it’s the end of a veritable tunnel. ‘It dug its way in. It won’t be hard to keep it out. Or you could always get a cat…’ She kicks the earth back into the hole, then dusts off her shoe. ‘You just need something heavy – like a paving slab over the top.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say gratefully. ‘That’s such a good idea. Would you like some coffee, while you’re here?’

  ‘That would be great.’

  I hold out my hand. ‘I’m Frankie. Frankie Valentine.’

  Taking it, she smiles back properly for the first time. ‘Lulubelle. And this is Cosmo.’

  I look down at her son and suddenly get a funny feeling inside that something’s not right. Nothing obvious, just an instinct.

  ‘Is he okay?’ But like last time, his eyes are blank as I smile at him and I notice his hair is thin and tufty. Then as he turns to look at me, in spite of his fragility, I see he’s much older than I thought.

  ‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I really hope he’s better soon. They pick up everything at this age, don’t they? My sister says that anyway, about my niece. She’s five…’ I babble on.

  She smiles again, but it’s a tight smile which doesn’t reach her eyes. Then it’s like someone’s dunked my head in an ice bucket as her next words chill me to the bone.

  ‘I wish it was that simple - only the trouble is…’ She hesitates. ‘I may as well tell you. You see, Cosmo has leukaemia.’

  4

  As conversation stoppers go, it’s right up there, isn’t it? Telling someone your child is seriously ill… As I look at Cosmo, his eyes close and his breathing slows. I feel a flicker of panic, but he’s only sleeping. Lulubelle must have moments like this all the time.

  ‘Oh my God…’

  ‘Sorry. I don’t usually tell people quite so bluntly. I forget it can be a shock,’ says Lulubelle, suddenly looking weary.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I tell her, still trying to get my head round it. ‘I mean, don’t worry. I’m glad you did - tell me, I mean.’

  So then she told me the rest and my head emptied of thoughts of anything else. Apparently he has acute myeloid leukaemia and he’s just finished a course of chemotherapy. Alien words I don’t fully understand the implication of. How the chemo always wipes him out, but how slowly, he should start feeling more like himself again. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘You know, right up until they tell you, you have hope. That you, the doctors, everyone… you’re all wrong. Then they tell you.’ She hesitates. ‘That’s the hard bit. Everything changes – everything. And all you can think about is cancer.’

  I can’t believe she’s telling me this. I watch her wander over to a vase of roses and lean forward to inhale their scent.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t plan on telling you all this. They’re beautiful,’ she says quietly, while I just stand there.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say in the end. ‘I know it’s not like flu or anything – but I hope he feels better really soon.’

  It’s painfully inadequate, only as I’m finding, there simply aren’t the words.

  ‘Thanks.’ Then she changes the subject.

  ‘So, how long have you had this place?’

  ‘About three years. Which in some ways, feels like yesterday. All completely accidental, of course. I mean, I had this dream about doing wedding flowers. Only I can tell you, I hadn’t a clue. Not a clue…’ I shake my head, because it’s true. ‘Honestly. You wouldn’t believe what weddings do to people…’

  I’m rambling. Brides are an occupational hazard of my life – I need them, though there are times I really wish I didn’t.

  ‘I suppose it’s a big day,’ she shrugs.

  ‘Mail order,’ I hear myself mutter. ‘It’s the only answer.’ You know, I might be on to something.

  I watch Lulubelle go, deep in thought. BC, as she puts it – before Cosmo – she was footloose and fancy-free and halfway round the world with a vague plan to come back and study. Of course, when she found out she was pregnant, she decided she’d have her baby, then study. Then she had Cosmo – and he was ill.

  For a brief moment in my shop thinking about something else, her troubles had melted away, but not for long. No wonder she’s exhausted. It’s her life. You don’t get a break from cancer. And once it’s there, normal doesn’t exist.

  5

  I’m four days into my new, healthy life when I hit a pothole. You see, I’ve arranged to meet Charlie and Nina at the pub in the next village and they’ve no idea about the new, teetotal – well, almost teetotal - me. And if I know my friends, they’ll laugh just like Alice did, so I decide my best hope is to keep it quiet. If I have just one glass of wine and make it last, with any luck, by the time they’ve had a few, they won’t even notice how abstemious I’m being. Needless to say, it doesn’t work quite the way I planned.

  The three of us have been friends since school and though our lives have taken us in different directions, whenever we meet up, it’s just like the old days, except now, Charlie’s a stewardess with a hedonistic lifestyle of which I’m jealous as hell. She stays in swish hotels and tops up her tan on idyllic sandy beaches, with lots of shopping in between times. She also has an enviable turnover of hot men. When I arrive, she’s already there, in Jackie Onassis shades and a tiny mini dress, carefully positioned to catch the evening sun.

  ‘Frankie! Over here!’ There’s a bottle and three glasses on the table and as she waves a slim, tanned arm in my direction, every male head in the place turns to stare at her.

  She hugs me tight. I know as all her friends do, that the femme fatale is a façade; underneath, she’s the most fiercely loyal of friends. Nina joins us only a few minutes later. Pretty, in a studious, tidy kind of way, Nina’s gentle and extremely clever – she’s a doctor.

  ‘Hope you’ve been behaving yourself,’ she says to Charlie as she kisses us on the cheek. ‘And no drunken orgies like the last time.’ Which is only a slight exaggeration of the room parties Charlie’s always telling us about.

  ‘I’ve been the epitome of good behaviour! No drinking, early nights…’ She winks at me as she pours us a glass of wine. ‘I can’t say the same for everyone though. And the Captain flew inter-island stark bollock naked for a bet!’ she giggles. Her long fair hair is sun-bleached and her eyes sparkle wickedly. ‘Honest! All he was wearing was a smile… We sent a newbie in with the coffee – you could hear her screams in econ
omy!’

  ‘You are a mean and wicked woman,’ I tell her, shaking my head, secretly envious of yet another outrageous story. ‘You were new once, only you’re such an old hag, you’ve probably forgotten.’

  ‘True, sweetie,’ she says cheerfully. ‘But it’s character-building. Anyone for champagne? And while I think of it, give me your shopping lists – I’m in LA again next trip – it’ll give me something to do when I’m not sunbathing.’

  I gasp with envy as she uses shopping and sunbathing in the same sentence and take a large gulp of deliciously cold champagne. This is going to be harder than I imagined.

  ‘Fab,’ says Nina, who effortlessly exercises saintly self-restraint and will have two glasses and two glasses only, but then she does have a professional reputation to uphold.

  They both turn to me. ‘So, Frankie? Anything we should know?’

  ‘No-er-yes.’ It comes out as one word, as I throw up my hands in surrender. It’s hopeless trying to hide anything from these two. ‘One of Honey’s dinner parties, girls. Only I got just a tiny bit carried away…’ I wince at the memory, ‘…and she’s just a little bit cross with me...’

  ‘Trout,’ says Charlie, who can’t stand Honey. It’s mutual – Honey thinks trolley dollies don’t have brains and actually told Charlie that once. Big, big mistake. ‘She doesn’t get enough, that’s her trouble.’

  ‘She does have a point, you know,’ says Nina more kindly. ‘Your poor liver can only take so much abuse. Yours too,’ she says to Charlie, more sternly. ‘And I don’t believe a word about the good behaviour.’

  ‘Spoilsport. I’ll get another, shall I?’ says Charlie, meaning bottle. ‘I’m parched.’

  One turns to two but no more, though without Nina’s steadying influence, I dread to think what might have happened. When it comes to wine, something happens to my willpower. But then we get on to business.

  ‘So, men, Charlotte. And naked airline Captains don’t count.’

  ‘Wouldn’t touch them.’ She looks at us from under lowered lashes.