The Flower Arrangement (30 page)

She looks up, hardening herself against the judgment that she knows will be in this woman's eyes. The look. But for once, it isn't there. “He must really love you,” she says, “because I don't get many teenage boys coming in here to buy their mothers flowers.”

“Really?” Sharon stares at the orchid, wanting this to be true, wondering if the woman is just softening her up to try to get her to buy it.

“No,” the woman says thoughtfully, “that's not true. I don't get
any
teenage boys coming in here to buy their mothers flowers.”

And suddenly Sharon wants the plant that she didn't let Noah give her before. Baz is in a cell in Mountjoy; she won't have to explain it to anyone. She can put it on her windowsill and look at it.

“I'll take it,” she says.

The woman looks pleased. “I'll wrap it for you.”

What am I doing? Sharon thinks, standing there like a statue, watching the woman folding a sheet of green tissue paper into a sheet of cellophane, wrapping the plant, taking her time to choose a thick silky purple ribbon, then tying it on around the cellophane and pulling it into a fat bow.

When she has finished, Sharon stands looking at it for a full minute, chewing her lip.

“Is that okay?” The woman looks worried.

Sharon nods. She puts her hand into her pocket and pulls out a twenty. The woman goes to take it, but before she can, Sharon pulls out the second twenty and then the ten.

The woman shakes her head. “It's only eighteen euros.”

Sharon takes out the four fifties and lays them on the counter. The woman looks from the pile of money to her face and then back again. But Sharon can't stop now; something has taken over. She pulls out the iPhone still in the flowery cover and puts it beside the money. Finally the woman understands, and they both stand there for a while in silence, surrounded by flowers.

Sharon holds her breath, listening to a bus drive past outside, a tap dripping from a room in the back, piano music she didn't notice before playing softly in the background. She waits for what she knows will happen next. The woman will start shouting abuse; she's going to pick up the phone, to call the guards. But, weirdly, she doesn't. Instead she just says, “Thank you.”

Sharon can't believe what she's just said. A laugh bursts out of her mouth, a harsh, hacking sound. “For what? Trying to rob you?”

“For changing your mind.” The woman picks up the plant and holds it out toward her.

“No, no, no,” Sharon says, “you don't have to do that.”

The woman nods at the pile of money on the counter, and the iPhone.

“Neither did you.”

Sharon shrugs and picks up the orchid. It gives her a thrill to hold it in her arms. Apart from Noah, she thinks, it is the most beautiful thing she has ever held.

“You'll look after it,” the woman says, “won't you?”

Sharon wonders if it's possible for a person to start growing again, the way an orchid does. “I'll try,” she says.

Spring was coming. Lara could feel it hovering at the edges of the frigid air. The world was holding its breath. She loved to think of the smallest flowers making their way up through the frozen earth. Pale yellow celandines, pink-tipped daisies, the little white stars of the chamomile, the bright yellow faces of the dandelions.

It was Saturday morning. She had spent Friday night with Ben, and Thursday night and every night this week, and she was happy. So happy that the tips of her fingers fizzed as she set aside the flowers for Zoe's dad's bouquet—Ocean Song roses, waxflower, berried eucalyptus.

The temple bells tinkled above the door of the shop. She looked up and saw a beautifully dressed man in his seventies clutching the door frame. His face was pale above the collar of his white shirt; his mouth was open in a ragged O.

Lara dropped the flowers into a heap on the counter and hurried across the shop. “Do you need help?”

He shook his head. “My wife died,” he whispered.

“I'm so sorry!”

“I need flowers.” He looked around wildly. “I have to get the flowers sorted. That's the first thing.”

Lara shifted a pot of African violets off a wrought-iron garden chair and took his arm. “You need to sit down. You've had a shock.” He crumpled into the chair and put his elbows on his knees. “Just stay there!” she told him. “I'll get you a glass of water.”

“Do you have anything stronger?”

Lara was shaking her head when she remembered an airplane miniature that Ciara had brought in once to make a hot whiskey when she had a cold. “Take some deep breaths,” she said. “I'll be right back.” She rushed into the kitchen and found the bottle in the back of the cutlery drawer. It was only a thimbleful but it was something. She hurried back.

He tipped the bottle to his lips, then clutched it in his fist, pressing his teeth against his knuckles. “It was so sudden,” he whispered. A tear dripped off his chin, ran along his bony wrist and disappeared inside the sleeve of his navy coat.

She crouched down beside the old man. “What's your name?”

He looked at her for a moment, his eyes baffled and upset. “Maurice,” he said.

“Maurice, you shouldn't be on your own.” She squeezed his arm. “Is there someone I can call for you?”

He shook his head but pulled a mobile phone out of the pocket of his coat and passed it to her. She scrolled through his recent calls. “Would you like me to call Derek?”

“My son.” Maurice looked shocked. “I haven't told my son!”

Lara's brother had been in the hospital cafeteria when their father died. Lara had waited for him outside the ward, and watched him amble along the corridor in his bike leathers, walking in and out of shafts of sunshine that streamed in through the dusty plate-glass windows. He was balancing two coffee cups in one hand and two plates of cheesecake in the other. The nurse at the station probably saw a handsome man, but Lara saw a little boy whose heart she was about to break.

She held the old man's phone in her hand and imagined his son out there somewhere, sitting on a sofa in Starbucks maybe, unfolding a crisp newspaper or walking through the sunny park on the way to brunch. She wanted Derek, whoever he was, to have another few minutes before his world fell apart. She typed out a quick text with the
address of the shop.
Please come quickly
, it said.
Your father is here and he has had a shock.

The phone buzzed back immediately. “He's on his way,” Lara told the old man. “He'll be here in ten minutes.”

“It was so quick,” Maurice said.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

He stared down at his feet. He was wearing Nike trainers that looked odd with his cashmere coat and his dark wool trousers. “It was an accident.” He pressed his lips together. “The driver lost control.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“She died instantly.”

“She didn't suffer, then.” Lara took his hand. That was the thing that comforted her about her dad's death. If it had been a stroke instead of cancer, he might have lived longer, might even still be alive now. But he wouldn't have been able to drive or play golf or look after his garden. He would have hated that.

“The flowers!” Maurice looked up, suddenly agitated again. “What am I going to do about the flowers?”

“Were you thinking of a wreath?”

“I hate those things.” He shuddered.

Lara felt the same way. She had tucked a bunch of pansies into her father's coffin. They had always reminded him of her mother.

“What did your wife like?” she asked Maurice. “Did she have a favorite flower?”

Maurice rubbed the silver prickles of his stubble with his palm. “I don't know.” He stared around helplessly, then pointed at a bucket of white tulips. “Those,” he said. “She grew those in the garden.” He pulled two ten-euro notes out of his pocket and put them on the counter. “Is that enough?”

“More than enough,” Lara said.

He fell into a trance as she worked with the tulips, watching her hands as if he was hypnotized. She talked to him quietly, telling him the names of the greenery she was adding—evergreen viburnum for
the primary foliage at the bottom, eucalyptus to fill out the gaps in the middle, tall bells of Ireland to add texture at the top.

As she was tying the flowers up with a white satin ribbon the door opened and a man in his thirties came in. He was wearing a mac that flapped open over a dark shirt and jeans and holding a little girl by the hand.

“Jesus, Dad!” the man said sharply. “What are you doing here?” Maurice blinked up at him and covered his eyes with his hands. The younger man sighed. “Go and look at the flowers, Molly!” He turned to Lara. “How long has he been here?”

“About fifteen minutes,” she said, wanting to sit him down to prepare him for what was coming. “I think he's in shock.”

“Really?” The younger man looked skeptical.

Lara glanced at Maurice, but she could see he was in no state to break the news. “I'm so sorry.” There was no easy way to say this. “There was an accident.” She lowered her voice so that the little girl wouldn't hear. “A bad one. I'm afraid your mother is—”

“Dead?” He sounded exasperated instead of upset. “Yeah, I know.”

Lara stared at him, confused.

He rubbed his face hard with his fingertips. “He told you that it just happened, right?” She nodded. “Mum died six years ago.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets defensively, but she saw his jaw clench.

“It's the Alzheimer's,” he muttered. “It's a nightmare. You probably think I'm callous, but you try living with him. Explaining to him every morning who you are.” He shook his head. “Explaining who
he
is.”

“That must be hard,” Lara said.

“Half the time he doesn't even know his own granddaughter.”

Lara looked at the little girl. She had collected a handful of pink gerbera petals from the floor and she was counting them out onto her grandad's knee. The old man was staring absently into space.

“You feel sorry for him, don't you?” His son was looking at Lara.

“Of course.”

“Really.” His eyes narrowed and his fists dug deeper into his pockets. “Did he tell you how my mother died?”

“He said she was killed by a driver who lost control of his car.”

“Did he mention”—his mouth was set in a hard line—“that he was that driver?”

Lara shook her head slowly.

“It's convenient, isn't it, that he forgot just that part. It's not him you should feel sorry for. He'd just been diagnosed, the doctor had banned him from driving. She begged him not to, but he wouldn't listen to her—he never did. And now she's gone, and so is some poor eighteen-year-old kid, a boy who was cycling home from school.”

“I'm sorry!” she said again.

He was fighting tears. She saw his Adam's apple jerk above the collar of his dark shirt. “I'm sorry too,” he said when he could speak again. “That was rude. I should be thanking you, not giving you my sob story. I'm just having a bad morning.” He walked over and put his hand on Maurice's shoulder. “Come on, Dad,” he said gently. “Time to go.”

Maurice looked up at him. “David?” he said.

“Derek.”

Maurice stood up obediently, brushing the gerbera petals to the floor.

“Grandad!” the little girl sighed. “You ruined everything!”

It was only after they had gone that Lara turned back to the counter and saw the tulip bouquet. She stared at it for a moment, then picked it up and dashed after them, not bothering to lock the shop.

At first she couldn't see them, then she caught a flash of the vivid green stem of the little girl's dress as she climbed into the backseat of a blue Volvo. Lara ran along Camden Street. “Derek! Wait!” she called. He looked up as he opened the driver's door. “Your father forgot something.”

He gave a short laugh. “That's an understatement!”

Lara put the tulips on the roof of the car as she caught her breath. “He asked me to make up this bouquet for your mother.”

“You know, he never bought her flowers,” Derek said bitterly. “Not once in the thirty years they were married. Not on Mother's Day, not on her birthday, not on their anniversary.”

“Well, he bought flowers for her today,” Lara said firmly. “He said she used to grow white tulips in the garden.”

“Really?” Derek glanced down at the flowers, and when he looked back up at Lara, his eyes had softened. “He remembered that?”

*   *   *

It was a miracle, Ciara said later, that someone hadn't tried to rob the shop again when Lara left it unattended. But Ben saw the real miracle straight away. That a man who could not remember his own name had remembered the flowers that his wife had once loved.