by Jenny Colgan
‘Well,’ said Chali, measuring out two disgustingly large spoonsful of coffee from Mrs Bigelow’s private stash and ripping open a forbidden packet of bourbons with her teeth, ‘this little boy came in the shop yesterday, right, with Biggers in charge? Turned out one of his friends had been run over by a car. And he didn’t have enough money to pay the delivery charge.’
‘No way,’ I said.
‘Utterly way. So, anyhow, Biggie told him he couldn’t have the flowers, and it turns out his father owns a whole chain of conferencing suites.’
I shook my head in disbelief.
‘And?’
‘And, the dad phones my uncle and … she’s gone! Gone gone gone! See, I told you that strike was a good idea.’
‘Yes, good meaning “lucky” rather than “moral” or anything,’ I grumbled, hauling out the displays.
‘But don’t you see? My uncle’s given me the shop! It’s ours! You can run it when I’m off doing world tours!’
‘Which will be never,’ I said, straightening up. ‘Still, that’s really good, isn’t it?’
Chali nodded enthusiastically.
‘I mean, we could really make something of this place,’ I said, warming to it. After all, if my love life was over for all time, I was going to have to throw myself into my career. ‘We could start doing trendier events … try and get into, you know, Hello! magazine and stuff like that. Send free samplers off. Start a mailing list …’
‘Ah,’ said Chali, ‘actually I was rather hoping that it would mean even more slacking off for us.’
‘No, no. We could really go places with this place.’
‘Do you think the band could play here? So it could be like a flower shop-cum-gig? Kind of a place for the kids to hang out.’
‘That’, I said, ‘is just about the worst business idea I’ve ever heard.’
Her face fell.
‘OK, what about we grow opium poppies here and pretend we’re selling flowers?’
‘Actually, now I think about it, maybe you were on to a winner with that gig/flowers thing.’
‘Yeh?’
‘Yeh. It’ll be brilliant.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘And now, as a celebratory gesture, I’m going to shut the shop for a day.’
‘You’re going to shut the shop on our first day of business?’
‘I’m a very positive employer.’
‘You’re a very optimistic employer.’
‘Well, I’m an employer with a rehearsal to go to. It’s my new band, made up of tramps playing cardboard percussion instruments. Apparently MTV think it’s the new big thing.’
‘And a homeless tramp told you this, did he?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘OK. Where are you rehearsing?’
‘King’s Cross …’
She got sight of the look on my face.
‘Huh. Well you won’t be grinning when we’re playing Wembley.’
‘Not unless I’m doing the flowers.’
‘Tramps don’t like flowers. Unless there’s nothing else to eat.’
It was only eleven o’clock in the morning. What exactly did I do with myself before all this, I wondered? Maybe I knew a lot about Hollyoaks. I slalomed wearily into the hospital, carrying a copy of SFX, the magazine for lonely boys.
The smell of disinfectant seemed to be weighing me down. After the uproar of yesterday, even the corridors seemed quiet. Sighing loudly, I flounced through the doors. Addison was sitting up on the end of the bed.
I turned round and walked straight back out to find the right ward.
I stopped, smacked my head then turned around and walked in again.
My heart and my throat started fighting each other.
My throat won.
‘ADDISON!’ I screamed at the top of my voice and threw myself pell-mell towards him.
He looked up with a confused expression on his face.
‘Hey, Speedy Gonzales,’ said Stephen, deftly catching the back of my dungarees. ‘If you knock him over again I will have to kill you.’
‘Bha baha baha haha …’ I said, arms flailing. Addison continued to regard me steadily. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Stephen put a restraining hand on my arm.
‘Go gently, OK?’
‘Buh huh huh huh,’ I spluttered.
‘Cnif Yarh Bah F!!!’ I shouted as, slowly, from behind the curtain, a large – very large – figure emerged, and put a mirror-image protective hand on Addison’s arm.
‘Clahf … Clahff.’
‘Do you need a paper bag to breathe into?’ asked Stephen.
I struggled to regain control of myself.
‘That’s … that’s Claudia!’ I announced, panting desperately.
‘Claudia Finkelman; yes. Apparently so,’ said Stephen. ‘She arrived about three o’clock this morning, sat with him, and … well.’
‘Oh God!’ I said. ‘That’s … that is so unfair!’
‘Do you want to hear how he is or not?’
‘Oh God,’ I said again. ‘Yes. Of course. I hate myself.’
‘Put a brave face on it,’ said Stephen. ‘The physio and the neurologist have both checked him over, and it’s not too bad. He’ll have a bit of short-term memory loss, and his muscles will need to get used to not being asleep, but, on the whole, it’s looking pretty good.’
As we were talking, I was taking little baby steps closer to the bed. Now I was close enough to speak.
‘So, be brave,’ Stephen whispered in my ear.
‘Hey,’ I said bravely.
‘Hello,’ said Claudia. And not in a friendly way either. In real life she was, if anything, freakier than on the computer. She was that big way only Americans get: so heavy it’s as if your legs are pointing in the wrong direction from the knees downwards. Her hair was pinned back with two kirby grips, and her spectacles were huge, Deirdre Barlow-style. She was wearing an outsized Red Dwarf T-shirt.
‘Hey,’ said Addison, turning his big brown eyes on me.
I took another step towards him. Claudia hovered protectively.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, trying to control my quavery voice.
‘Sticky,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Here – I brought you this.’ And handed him SFX, not knowing quite what else to do.
‘Oh, great – I love this. Look, Claudia, there’s an article on number science.’
‘Is it an imaginary one?’ she replied, and they both sniggered for some reason. I held on to the back of a chair for support.
‘So …’ I said. ‘I mean, what happened?’
‘I couldn’t … you know,’ said Claudia, ‘just stand by while no one did anything for Add.’
I nodded my head gravely.
‘You know, this is my first time out of the house in six years. And I made it to a different country.’
‘You were very brave,’ I said, through gritted teeth.
‘I know.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Well, I flew over, and arrived last night, and they let me in.’
I wouldn’t keep out a monster that arrived at three o’clock in the morning, would you? I tried to quell such uncharitable thoughts, but it was impossible. My whole body felt hollowed out by misery. I wanted to take Addison’s place on the bed and lose consciousness for a few months or so. It would definitely be easier than dealing with this. Hook me up, and wake me in time for one of those lovely global-warming summers we’re always being promised.
‘And I sang you your favourite song, didn’t I, sweetheart?’
Addison looked faintly bashful.
‘Which is?’ I asked politely.
‘Oh, a wunnerful British band called Take That. They’ve got a little song called “Back for Good”? I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.’
‘No, I’ve never heard of it,’ I said quietly.
‘Well, it’s our song, isn’t it, sweet pea?’
Addison shrugged and nodded.
‘When
you were … asleep,’ I said, taking a deep breath, ‘did you … did you know anything that was going on around you?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, no. They told me you came to see me a lot.’
‘Oh well, I popped in now and again. It’s just as well you didn’t hear me, really. Usually I was telling you how big your nose was.’
‘She was vicious,’ said Stephen, backing me up.
‘When’s Magda getting back from the phone? Does she have to inform every single one of your Croatian relatives?’ asked Claudia. ‘We’re moving,’ she informed me.
‘Where?’ I said, my Misery fears resurfacing.
‘I can’t walk very well,’ said Addison. ‘Claudia’s putting me in a private hospital to rehabilitate.’
‘I figured the food in here was probably bad enough through a tube without having to stick it in your mouth for four weeks,’ said Claudia. ‘And they need the bed here.’
‘That’s good of you,’ I said, because it was.
‘Well, he’s my problem now,’ she said, trying to make a joke out of it. ‘And it saves on hotel costs if they’ll let me stay in the room.’
Had I been a better person, I would have offered her Addison’s room. I’m not.
Stephen insisted he was taking me to the pub for a brandy when he came off shift at lunchtime, so I had to stand back and wait while they packed everything up, trying desperately to hold on to my tears until they had all gone. ‘I have a flower shop,’ I told myself fiercely.
Magda was a different person, laughing and crying simultaneously, covering Addison in kisses every time he blinked. She and Claudia went on ahead with the carefully packed Star Wars miniatures, whilst a porter loaded Add into a wheelchair and began to transfer him to what was presumably a luxury ambulance.
‘Well, I guess we’ll see you soon,’ I muttered.
‘We?’ said Addison, turning round.
‘Uhm … yeah, me and Han Solo.’ I took the figure out of my bag. ‘We’ve been working together on this one.’
Addison hesitated.
‘I didn’t want to say this in front of Claudia,’ he began, slowly reversing his wheelchair until he was next to me, ‘but sometimes, when I was … asleep … things swam in and out … It was like diving very deep down in the ocean, down further than the fish and the submarines.’
‘Like in The Abyss?’ I suggested.
‘The director’s cut?’
‘But of course.’
He half smiled, then took a deep breath and went on:
‘And occasionally, I surfaced. And when I surfaced, you were always there.’ He paused and looked away. ‘And I did call out to you.’
I leaned over him and stroked his hair.
‘Not loudly enough,’ I said, the tears welling up.
‘You were too far away,’ he said, his own eyes watering. He kept his face turned away and rubbed his forehead fiercely. ‘You were swimming in a different sea.’
I hugged him and let my tears run through his hair.
‘Oh, Add,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘No, I am,’ he said.
‘No, I am.’
He shook his head, and for a time we couldn’t speak.
‘I think Moby Dick’s waiting for you,’ I said finally, swallowing hard and glancing towards the door.
He followed my gaze, then took my hand.
‘It’s … it’s hard to explain,’ he said.
‘Same sea?’
He shrugged. ‘Same universe, maybe.’
I handed him Han Solo. ‘Well, better take him with you. He’s very good for people in sticky spots.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ he said.
‘Ehm, sorry but, like, the meter’s running,’ said the porter.
‘Sure,’ I choked, and let Add go. Behind me, the nurses were already expertly stripping the bed, wheeling away the tubes and the wires. I waited till they’d finished, then sat on the bed to wait for Stephen, feeling the springs under my hands. I still wanted to curl up on it. It felt like all I had left.
‘We’re going to be needing that bed,’ warned Dr Hitler, flitting past me.
‘God?’ I whispered.
There was no answer.
‘God? Really, I could do with a bit of spiritual guidance right now.’
There was a snorty sound from the next bed.
‘God?’
God was lying flat out on the bed with an oxygen mask on. He was very grey and shrunken.
‘God?’
He feebly motioned for me to take his oxygen mask off. I checked around for Dr Hitler, then, when she was nowhere to be seen, did so.
‘How are you?’
‘God is dead,’ he said, every syllable coming with a very nasty rattle.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Come on, do a miracle.’
‘I did one,’ he said laboriously. ‘Sorry it didn’t make you happy.’
‘Oh that,’ I said. ‘Never mind, eh? Just make yourself better.’
‘Not a lot of point in that,’ he said. ‘The world’s a pile of shit.’
‘Well, that’s true,’ I reflected. ‘But still …’
‘Neh,’ he said. ‘I tell you what I’d love, though …’
Fuck it, I thought, and opened his locker. Sure enough, there was a half-bottle of old-looking Scotch inside.
‘I’m not putting it down your feeding tube, though,’ I warned him. ‘I may be a disaster area, but I’m not a murderer.’
‘No, that’ll be fine. Just lift me up a little … that’s it. Would you like some?’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
So I took a swig, then very carefully held up his head and let God sip a few drops, which he did with a bit of coughing, but eventually he managed to get some down.
‘Oh, better,’ he said. ‘Well, I think it’s just about time I was popping off.’
‘Don’t you have any family you want me to contact?’ I asked, stupefied.
‘Every living thing is my family,’ he said. ‘Besides, they all fucked off to Australia.’
He snuffled a bit more and settled down in the pillows. I sat with him and let him have sips of whisky as often as he could manage them.
‘You should go now, lass,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve a life to be getting on with.’
‘I’m not sure I feel like it at the moment.’
‘No. But do you want a last bit of advice from the mouth of the creator himself?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Hmm.’ He appeared to fall asleep for a second, then woke up with a grunt.
‘Hmm … advice. Right. Ehm, wear sunscreen?’
‘I think that’s been done.’
‘No, really? Hmm.’ He launched into one of his deathly coughing fits. ‘How about – love they neighbour?’
‘I adored your neighbour,’ I said sadly. ‘Didn’t help me much.’
‘Yes, right, right, I see.’
He paused again.
‘Goodbye,’ he said quietly. And suddenly, the terrible wheezing stopped. An instant later, one of his machines let out an alarm.
‘DOCTOR!’ I yelled, leaping up.
‘Are you squatting here?’ asked Dr Hitler, throwing herself up the ward behind the crash cart.
‘No …’
‘Well, please, could you leave? I’m not sure you’re a good influence. But if you see that fat girl again, could you send her back in?’
I ran out of the ward, blinded. Stephen wasn’t around, but I had to get out. I stumbled through the corridors, realizing that people were looking after me with concern. I pushed past them all.
‘Hey!’ shouted a familiar voice. I ran on.
‘Hey!’
‘Leave me alone,’ I shouted and ran on. It quickly became obvious that someone faster than me was chasing me. I made it as far as the bicycle but couldn’t undo the lock in time.
‘Physically chasing women,’ said Finn, out of breath, leaning his hand on the wall in front of me, ‘there’s a new macho ex
perience for me. Would you like me to go and wrestle a bear now?’
I straightened up slowly and shook my head.
‘What’s the matter? Magda phoned Kate at work … Oh.’
I welled up.
‘It was that other girl, wasn’t it?’
‘It’s fine,’ I said chokingly. ‘It’s better than fine, actually. It’s great. I mean, he’s alive. He’s OK. At least … well, at least I won’t be going to prison for manslaughter.’
He nodded. ‘Always something, I suppose.’
I bent down again to try and unlock my bike.
‘Where are you going now?’
‘I don’t know,’ I confessed.
‘Huh,’ he said. Then, after a pause: ‘Would you like to come with me?’
‘Where are you going?’ I asked timidly.
‘Well, it’s a beautiful day, so how about staying inside and reading improving captions?’
‘That sounds all right,’ I said.
‘The Science Museum?’
I nodded.
He held out his hand and I took it.
The Science Museum was practically deserted, and eerily, stunningly beautiful. I wandered through the massive atrium, hitting knobs at random and fiddling with things. Finn regarded me calmly.
‘Did Madeleine get you in cheap for this too?’ I asked, in what I thought was a deeply casual manner.
He laughed. ‘I don’t really see her …’
I looked at him. ‘Were you ever seeing her?’
He shrugged. ‘Not … maybe not as much as I mentioned her in your company.’
I stared at him in consternation.
‘Sorry … sorry, am I getting this straight? Were you using a cell mitosis biologist to try and make me jealous??’
‘Did it work?’ he asked.
‘Well, you know … yeah.’
He twisted slightly nervously.
‘Holl, I don’t … I mean … if you’re still in love with Addison, I wouldn’t want to ask you out or anything …’
I pushed a big red button that made lots of lights twinkle on and off behind us.
‘I think …’ I said shyly – examining my reasons for doing things was never one of my favourite jobs – ‘I think, maybe I was just in love with an idea of him.’
‘I think so too,’ said Finn, doing something very clever to the machine, so the lights made pretty sparkling patterns.
