Happy Now?

by S M Mala

  ‘Having a clear out?’ he asked, looking around.

  ‘Donations for the fundraiser at the centre.’

  ‘Erm…’ he said and then cleared his voice.

  ‘If this is about what happened the other Friday, please forget it,’ she said quickly, avoiding eye contact. ‘I hope you feel better now.’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘No explanation,’ Flora gulped, trying to catch her breath when looking at a very attractive man standing nearby. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment.’

  ‘You returned the tools to my dad on Monday, didn’t you?’

  ‘Did I forget something?’ Flora put down the books. ‘I checked all around.’

  ‘As you know ‘Creative Hands’ is my business and we pride ourselves on the quality of the work. I offered to put in the shelving and the storage, even though you didn’t ask, as an apology about Lee.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologise for him!’

  ‘But I’m really annoyed that you’ve decided to finish the work. You do know Matias wants to sign off on all this so I get the final payment.’

  ‘What?’ Even Flora wasn’t aware her ex was about to come back into her house. ‘No way! My home, my say. I’m happy. It’s a done deal.’

  ‘Flora, if he doesn’t sign off then I’m at a loss, do you understand?’ Ed replied, shaking his head. ‘Which means I won’t get paid.’

  ‘Okay, so what do you want?’

  ‘I know this sounds harsh but here.’ He held out an envelope. ‘If you don’t let me finish off the work then I’ll charge you for the work I’ve done. I don’t mean to sound rude but if people find out I’ve left a job half done-.'

  ‘It’s nearly finished.’

  ‘Exactly. Nearly finished but not completed.’ She noticed Ed wasn’t looking at her. ‘And I’ve been fair about the bill.’ Flora opened up the envelope. ‘Considering it was my time.’

  ‘Three and a half grand!’ she shouted out. ‘That much?’

  ‘That’s with a fifty percent discount,’ he said, looking right into her eyes.

  ‘I need a few days to sort it,’ she said, knowing it’d take five days to get the money out of her account where she kept secret savings for the children. ‘Jesus, no wonder you drive around in a flash car.’

  Then she laughed.

  She’d been stitched up by this man she’d not seen in twenty five years when all he wanted was to fleece her for money.

  Even she knew she’d been had.

  ‘If you let me complete the work and do it to the standard it should be…’ he began but Flora just wasn’t listening. Ed probably thought because Matias had cash she did too. ‘… you don’t pay a thing.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘I like the textures of the reclaimed wood in there and it’s a nice piece of work, even though it was poorly designed by you.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ she said, dropping the envelope. ‘It was a sketch and I never asked you to do it. I’ll pay so you can get out of my hair, okay.’

  ‘I want to finish it. It’ll take a few weeks and I won’t be in the way. Matias will ask about it and you can tell him I offered.’

  ‘And how will I explain why?’

  ‘I’m sure you can make something up,’ Ed smiled. ‘Unless you tell him you commissioned it and that’s the invoice as per the quote.’

  She picked up the envelope and looked at it again before glancing up at him.

  ‘What’s in it for you?’ Flora asked, not sure what was going on.

  ‘I can take some photos of the final work and put it in the company portfolio. I have to keep it updated for prospective and current clients.’

  Then she heard footsteps running down the stairs and noticed Lola was heading towards her.

  ‘You’re doing it on purpose,’ the child said, holding her mobile phone. ‘You know dad will refuse.’ Then she noticed Ed and went a little pink. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi,’ Ed replied and Flora noticed how his face softened when he looked at Lola. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Do you have children?’ she replied, making Flora do a double take. ‘Did you let them meet people for ice cream?’

  ‘When they were younger, they were allowed to but it depended on who and when.’

  ‘But you let them go, didn’t you?’

  ‘It was different then,’ he said softly. ‘We’re now a little but more concerned about our children.’

  ‘My mum doesn’t like this boy who likes me and he asked me out for-.'

  ‘Don’t go getting someone else involved,’ Flora hissed. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’

  ‘Just because you don’t like him!’

  ‘What’s there to like? He asked your friend Poppy out, who said yes, when you thought he was going to ask you. Now this little monkey wants to see you at the same time.’

  ‘He says he likes me, mum. Can’t you see?’

  ‘I can see he says that to all the other girls and he’s stringing you along,’ said Flora sharply. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘How will I get a chance if you don’t let me see him?’ asked Lola, now looking tearful.

  ‘You’re only twelve!’

  ‘Just because you don’t like boys.’

  ‘Oh, doesn’t your mum like boys?’ Ed asked and Flora glanced at him. ‘I remember at school she did.’

  ‘Ed,’ Flora said in a hushed tone. ‘This is not about me.’

  ‘But it is. Just because no-one asked you out when you were at school doesn’t mean you have to get upset when anyone asks me,’ sniffed Lola, biting her bottom lip. ‘It’s not fair!’

  ‘I see,’ Ed said again and he sat down at the kitchen table. ‘That’s not necessarily true. Lots of boys asked your mum out but she wasn’t interested.’

  Flora decided not to make eye contact with Ed and looked at her child.

  ‘Can’t you ask dad for me?’ Lola asked, now resembling a little girl which only upset Flora more. ‘Jay might not ask me again.’

  ‘Well, personally,’ Flora began. ‘I can’t say that news will break my-.'

  ‘Listen Lola,’ interrupted Ed when Flora was going to tell her daughter the little boy was no big loss. ‘I think you should ask this Jay why he really asked Poppy out. If it was to make you jealous then that’s not a good thing. If it was because he liked Poppy and now changed his mind, let him tell you so. How old is he?’

  ‘He’ll be thirteen at the beginning of the term,’ she said proudly. ‘He’s one of oldest in the year.’

  ‘Huh, well that doesn’t say much,’ blurted out Flora, shaking her head. ‘Ed was one of the oldest in his year and he spent most of the time snogging girls at the back of the sports ground. You’re not selling this boy are you?’

  Then she stopped and realised what she said, pulling a face and squirming at the same time.

  ‘Lola, call or text this guy and say you’d like to meet him but maybe Sunday because you’re going to stay with your dad on Saturday night,’ said Ed quietly. Flora turned sharply around. ‘Your mum is going to have to trust you on this.’

  ‘Am I?’ she said staring at him.

  ‘I can tell you’re a good parent,’ said Lola. ‘Not like the ones I’ve got. They’re just so strict and don’t listen. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have any!’

  Flora stopped then saw Max running to them.

  ‘Oh no! Here she blows!’ he laughed out, pretending to explode and lying dead on the floor.

  ‘Lola darling,’ Flora said, seeing the onset of a massive sob coming from her daughter. The little shoulders were shaking, the lips trembling and the big eyes were starting to fill with tears. ‘I know you didn’t mean it. You can say it again and again.’

  ‘I’m sorry mummy!’ Lola said, sobbing really loudly. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Told ya!’ grinned Max, smiling at Ed then at Flora. ‘The women in this house!’ He then got up and walked away. ‘So hormonal!’

  ‘I’ll deal with you later!’ Flor
a shouted out and rushed to hug her child. ‘Oh bubba don’t cry. I know you worry about what you say but you needn’t.’

  ‘I never want you to get ill!’ screamed Lola into Flora’s chest. She could feel the reverberation through her body. ‘I don’t want anyone to die or get hurt.’

  ‘I don’t mind if your dad gets run over by a bunch of teenage women. He’d like that,’ Flora mumbled, making the child cry harder then she caught Ed shaking his head solemnly side to side before laughing silently. ‘I didn’t mean it. I’m trying to lighten things up. Yes, Ed is right. When you come back on Sunday, you can meet. Max and I can go to the High Road and you can have your little ice cream with that boy.’ Again Ed shook his head. ‘Jay, a boy, and he can, well, bring you back home before six.’

  ‘Really?’ Lola said, tears dripping either side of her face. ‘Can he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Flora kissed her forehead and wiped her cheeks with her hand. ‘Now go and have a shower so we can watch something really romantic to wind up your little brother, okay?’

  Nodding furiously, Lola ran away and up the stairs.

  She realised Ed was smiling.

  ‘Does she usually get that upset over a boy?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Lola’s had it a little rough. She was the same age as Max when I was diagnosed and had the operations. Her family then split up in a matter of weeks. We moved out and it’s hard for a little girl to take on,’ Flora replied, trying not to betray the upset she felt for her daughter. ‘And then when she says something mean, which I don’t really mind, it upsets her, makes her scared. She was close to my mum so when she passed away, poor Lola was at a loss on what to do.’

  ‘It’s pretty rough for children. They don’t want to upset you but you know they’re hurting inside.’

  Flora looked at him, deep in thought and realised he had his own problems to deal with.

  ‘Okay, where were we?’ she asked, trying to think how she was going to deal with Flora and Ed. ‘The money. You want-.'

  ‘That’s not true about me being at the back of the sports ground all the time,’ he said and Flora noticed he looked pissed off. ‘It’s a place where I hung out.’

  ‘Okay but I was just trying to tell her to beware,’ Flora replied, walking to the fridge and taking a bottle of wine out. ‘Do you want a glass? No, you’re probably in a rush to go.’

  She realised her lips were very loose and bit them, hoping she wouldn’t say anything else.

  ‘Thank you, that would be lovely,’ he replied as her back stiffened.

  ‘Small or large?’

  ‘Same as you.’

  ‘Large then,’ she replied and poured him out a glass before walking back to the kitchen table.

  Flora put the glass in front of him, went to get the envelope and sat opposite. They were in the same places they had been on Friday.

  ‘He could like Lola and was testing the waters with this other girl,’ he said, sipping his wine. ‘He’s only twelve so-.'

  ‘You lost your virginity when you were fifteen which means that kid is only a couple of years away from trying to get hold of my daughter. What am I supposed to do? What if she has inherited Faith’s DNA and is a nymphomaniac? Then what?’ She was met with a large laugh. It had been years since she’d heard it. ‘Boys are just horrible creatures.’

  Ed stared and Flora wasn’t going to look away, so stared back.

  ‘I didn’t come and see you that night because Diane turned up at my house and told me she was pregnant, about four months pregnant and she was carrying twins. It wasn’t planned, it was a mistake.’

  Flora held her breath.

  ‘And I know I left you waiting in the pub but I didn’t know what to do. It was getting heated so mum and dad took us out for a bit of fresh air so I could think. I did. I had no choice and you know my parents are very traditional. They wanted me to serve the time for the crime.’

  ‘I see,’ she replied, not knowing what to say. ‘You could have at least called and told me why.’

  ‘What was the point? I was going to have two kids and thought it was best to do the right thing. You did nothing wrong, Flora, nothing at all.’

  Sitting there, she watched him look down at his glass and let out a little sigh.

  ‘But you see, I must have,’ she quietly replied, thinking it over. ‘If you cared about me, which I thought you did, then you would have told me and I would have stood by you.’

  ‘That’s not the case,’ he said, smiling and shaking his head.

  ‘How do you know?’

  Ed stopped and looked up at her.

  ‘How do you know what I would have done?’ she asked quietly. ‘You didn’t even give me a chance. To you the decision was made and I was no longer part of your life. So I’m right in so many ways. You abandoned me because you didn’t care.’

  ‘Only a woman could come up with that rationale,’

  … he said, not believing what she just said. ‘I just told you what happened.’

  ‘You told me what you did and why. You still haven’t explained why you never told me.’

  ‘Flo!’

  ‘Jesus,’ she said and he noticed her cheeks were getting pink. ‘I only found out a few weeks ago you had grown up children. I then came to the conclusion that you wanted to settle down and were planning to do so but I was the last leg over.’

  ‘You know that’s not true,’ he replied, getting agitated. ‘You’re now twisting it.’

  ‘I’m a woman, what else do I do?’ she whispered, giving him a challenging stare. ‘You don’t know what I would have done.’

  ‘You would have run a mile!’

  ‘But you never gave me a chance to make a choice.’

  ‘I take it, you’d have approved of me moving in with Diane?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have. You’d have had me.’

  Ed realised Flora was deadly serious.

  ‘And what about me? Did you care at all? All those things you told me, they were just a pack of lies. Have you any idea the effect it had on the rest of my life?’ Flora was staring right at him, the beautiful amber brown eyes he’d thought about for years. All Ed could do was shake his head from side to side. He was totally captivated. ‘I couldn’t trust any man for a long time. Even if they told me things I thought to be true, I knew they were probably lying. I spent a lot of my life like that.’ She sipped her wine, still looking at him. ‘I know I’m being silly.’ Her tone was now hushed. ‘I can’t pin it on you but don’t you see? You should have let me know, one way or the other, not just leave me like I didn’t matter. That hurt me so much.’

  ‘Flo, I never meant to hurt you. I wasn’t lying and-.'

  ‘Why didn’t you come to my house? I waited for three days just in case you turned up. I saw you, you see, that night. I came back from the pub and you were with your woman and I knew. But I thought you’d tell me. I thought you were honest.’

  Ed was shocked by how he was feeling.

  It never occurred to him that she would support him let alone witness him with Diane.

  ‘But you weren’t were you?’ she continued. ‘You hadn’t broken up with her, you just weren’t seeing her.’

  ‘That’s unfair.’

  ‘If you like someone so much, you do stupid things. Your expectations are high so when they let you down, it’s too monumental to cope with. I was only nineteen and not the most streetwise. That time with you, I thought I’d found true happiness.’ Flora then took a deep breath and looked down at the table. ‘I’ve always wanted to know what happened to you. I heard snippets through my mum but not too much. Just enough to know you’d found it.’ Then her eyes darted up at him. ‘At least one of us got some of it.’

  Sitting back in his chair, he just didn’t know what to say. Flora started to laugh.

  ‘You think I’m pathetic, don’t you? Talking about something that happened nearly quarter of a century ago.’ She started to giggle and put her hand over her mouth. Just then, she was the girl he’d been besott
ed with. ‘You know what they say about us women festering over things.’

  ‘I found happiness in my children,’ he said quietly, feeling a surge of love for Amelia and Eddie. ‘To me, they were my focus. My life went on hold for a decade until they were old enough to know their mother and I had to split. Diane is a lovely woman. She was happy in the set up but I never was. When I moved out, not far, I saw my kids every day. I try to see them… I tried to see them as much as they’d let me.’ He stopped, feeling the loss of his son. ‘And I’ve fallen in love a few times, got married once which didn’t last long and in the process, the only thing that mattered were my kids. When Eddie passed away, it was too hard for me to cope with and still is.’

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ Flora said quietly. ‘It’s a horrible thing, truly horrible.’

  Half smiling, he looked up at her. There was something soothing about sitting opposite this girl woman he had known for such a long time and equally knew nothing about.

  ‘I’ll come a few hours a week to finish off the work. Do we agree?’ he asked. Flora nodded. ‘And I’d like to take some photos of this place as part of the portfolio. Is that all right?’ Again she agreed. ‘But I want to know everything about you, what happened since I saw you last and… Lee.’

  She closed her eyes for a moment then looked at him.

  This time they were pained.

  ‘I always thought he was a little creepy,’ she said quietly. ‘I never told him what happened with you. Only recently I decided to tell Priti and Gaynor. They said they’d figured it out but didn’t want to ask.’

  ‘You’re both not saying something. Why would Lisa say about punching him?’

  ‘She has a violent streak,’ Flora replied. ‘Want a refill?’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But me not turning up at the pub does?’

  ‘To me, it does or did, maybe not to you. Look forget about it. I now know what happened and I won’t dwell on it again. Why did you get divorced?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, watching her walk to the fridge. ‘I married someone totally unsuitable. Jessica was a lovely girl but it only lasted a few weeks. Whirlwind romance or, as my mother put it, bloody stupid.’ He heard Flora laugh with her back turned to him. ‘She was twenty years younger.’ He heard her laugh out loud. ‘She was very mature for her age.’