Chapter 22
ELIZA
Eliza stood inside Flowers For One and looked proudly out of the window, at Costa Coffee opposite, its window shining in the sunlight.
She really was a shop owner too. Now and then, she felt surprised at that, after the decades of Howard scoffing at her attempts to step out of the roles he’d defined for her: worker, washing peas all day, at a grade below him in the frozen food factory; dutiful wife; conscientious homemaker…
The list went on. All of them great roles, in the right situation, as long as the woman had the choice. Looking back, she wished…
But no. Eliza wouldn’t do that.
Regrets, recriminations, they only caused pain. She’d done the best she could at the time.
Eliza sipped her cup of tea as Douglas came in, a hard-working man who loved flowers.
He’d changed direction five years ago, left his city job and trained in floristry, exchanging tailored suits and ties for jeans and an apron.
At the end of the day, he’d often make up a stunning bunch for his wife from discarded blooms.
The shop was painted mint green inside, like the pebble-dash on its front.
A mum sat outside on the bench, rocking her pram.
A local popular music radio station played in the background.
She passed Douglas a mug and he grimaced playfully as a K-pop song came on and Eliza pulled a couple of moves, making him groan loudly, as always.
She laughed good-naturedly and he went out the back.
He knew that she’d switch stations in the afternoon to one playing his favourite country music.
Eliza was manning the shop whilst he spent the day making up a big order for a wedding tomorrow.
Friday always saw a surge in profits, with people on a high with the end of the working week, buying loved ones a bouquet, or for people they were visiting on a Saturday.
Her hands cut and arranged and tied stems, fuelled by sugar and caffeine.
Eliza had made it her mission, right from the start, to treat her staff in a way Howard never used to.
He’d bully and criticise workers at the factory to get results.
Instead Eliza would regularly treat Douglas and the weekend staff to donuts and lattes.
Aside from that, she set up a suggestions box, always talked through problems and was understanding if time off was needed.
Last year she’d kept Douglas’s job open when his dad was ill and he’d had to go to Scotland for a couple of months.
At half-past five he came through yawning. ‘All done. Any problems tomorrow, call me. The stems are well hydrated. Oh, we’re low on flower food.’
Eliza patted his shoulder. ‘Fantastic, thank you. If your normal efficiency is anything to go by, we won’t have to bother you. See you Monday and have a great weekend.’
He gave her a thumbs-up and as he left, turned the door sign around from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’.
Eliza stretched. She was meeting Carrie’s friends at seven in Reddish. She just had time to put together two little bouquets…
* * *
After driving home, Eliza put the flowers in water, then she got changed into a bright coral blouse with shoulder pads that she found at the back of Carrie’s wardrobe.
It gave her quite a silhouette! She paired it with white trousers of her own, surprised at the added confidence the outfit gave her.
As she finished touching up her make-up a loud, wailing meow came from downstairs.
Heart thumping, she hurried down. Boo must have come in through the cat flap.
What was wrong? Had he been injured? Should she have checked in on him at lunchtime?
An image of Socks came into her head. She could manage staff, manage business finances, but she should never have accepted responsibility for a cat again.
Eliza hurried into the kitchen and… Oh. The indignant meows were symptomatic of an empty food bowl.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Our relationship has moved up a level. Now you feel comfortable being demanding.’
Boo gave another meow. She bent down and tickled his head.
After feeding him, she dried off the flower stems, put the bunches carefully in a bag and headed out, on foot, saying hello to Billy next door who was washing his car.
She walked into the town, towards The Plough and Bell, chin up as she smiled at customers outside vaping in the sun.
A man held the door open for her as she went in, all shoulder pads and sass.
Amongst the bar chat and the smell of hops, Ariana and Rae were already there with three drinks. Ariana beckoned Eliza over.
‘Hi there!’ she said. ‘We ordered three cocktails. All different flavours. You get first choice.’
‘Perfect,’ Eliza replied. ‘Hope one is a Sex on the Beach.’
Two pairs of eyebrows shot up as Eliza laughed. She reached into her bag.
‘So… I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I’m a florist.’
‘Wow. Really? That’s amazing,’ said Ariana.
‘You also work in the shop?’ said Rae.
‘Yes. My manager Douglas runs it, but I call in most days and do a couple of shifts a week. I have Saturday staff too. It’s called Flowers For One, and it’s in Bramhall.
’ Eliza took out the first bouquet and beamed at them.
‘I don’t know you very well, but going by my impressions so far…
Ariana, I chose the most flamboyant flowers in my shop – tulips, dahlias, mums, freesias and a big sunflower in the middle – they speak about your job as a travel agent and the exotic destinations you must pitch to customers. ’
‘Wow. They are bright. Thank you, Eliza. Yes, there are so many destinations I’d love to visit one day.’
Rae raised an eyebrow as Eliza pulled out the second bouquet. Wild flowers. ‘Your bouquet isn’t just made up from my bought-in stock. I also found some of these flowers in a verge, down the road from my shop. You strike me as a bit of a wild card… and I mean that in the nicest way.’
Rae surveyed the bouquet. ‘Thanks…’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘I think.’
Eliza passed the women their individual bouquets, each with their own bag, and sat down, amused, as Rae slid over the Sex on the Beach cocktail they’d actually got.
‘I never realised so much thought went into making a bouquet,’ said Rae.
‘Oh yes. When someone comes in to buy a gift, if I’ve got time I ask them to tell me a little about the person they are giving it to.’
‘A bit like me at work,’ said Ariana. ‘Sometimes people don’t have a country in mind, they just want to get away, so I get to know them and guide them towards a style of holiday I think they’ll enjoy.’
‘It’s like with drinks,’ said Rae. ‘Often, when someone walks through the doors, I can tell straightaway by their clothes, by their manner, exactly what they are going to order.’
Eliza lifted her glass. ‘Perhaps we should toast to being unpredictable.’
‘Carrie has already won that race,’ mumbled Rae, and she sighed. She stared at the blouse Eliza was wearing. ‘Suits you.’
‘Carrie is messaging us now,’ said Ariana.
Eliza paused. ‘She sounds as if she’s doing okay, from the emails I’ve been getting.’
Rae shrugged. ‘Yeah, hooking up with some pop star, getting to know someone who runs a rescue centre… Sounds like she’s settling easily into a different life…’
A group of men in suits jostled past as Ariana spoke to Eliza brightly. ‘Anyway, how are you getting on?’
‘Or rather, how are you getting on with Jez?’ asked Rae, and she winked.
Eliza found herself suffering from a hot flush. Very odd; she was well past the menopause.
Rae’s eyes widened. ‘Eliza? Have you got… a little crush on him?’
‘Absolutely not!’ she replied briskly, and she took another mouthful of cocktail. ‘For a start Jez might not be interested in older women.’
‘Never known Jez to be ageist,’ said Ariana.
‘And there’s nothing wrong with a toyboy,’ said Rae. ‘Go for it, I say.’
Ariana looked more serious. ‘Jez is lovely. He became more like a dad than a boss to Carrie over the last year or so.’
‘What happened between you all, with Carrie?’ asked Eliza quietly, and she ran a hand over her blouse. ‘I… I don’t mean to pry but your fallout is hard to observe, because it’s obvious how much you used to care for her and vice versa.’
Rae shrugged. ‘Perhaps having fallouts, on another level, with those you’re supposed to love, runs in Carrie’s family.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, we all have disagreements, don’t we?
Dad hated it when I first cut my hair and dyed it in my teens, said no one would employ me with pink hair.
My aunt and I can’t talk about politics without getting into an argument.
Mum had to ban the subject during the last election.
But Carrie’s family… her mum fell out with her parents.
They chucked her out when she got pregnant. ’
‘No one has told me that,’ said Eliza, thinking back to conversations with Carrie, Geoff, and Jez.
‘She didn’t like talking about it,’ said Ariana. ‘But when her mum died, Carrie considered getting in touch, about the funeral. Her grandmother had an unusual name, it was—’
‘So why didn’t Carrie get in touch then?’ she asked.
‘Apart from the fact the gran sounded like a right cold-hearted so-and-so… I mean, she was Mel’s mum, for God’s sake, but didn’t support her at a very difficult time, with something that could happen to any woman…
Apart from that, Carrie believed it would be disloyal to Mel who’d had to work so hard to manage alone.
She held down three jobs at one point, to give Carrie as much as she could. ’
‘Mel was great,’ said Rae quietly. ‘She always had time for us two and I miss her. I was feeling really ill on the contraceptive pill once, and didn’t want to bother my mum as she was off work with stress. Mel made me a coffee and we talked it through. She convinced me to see the doctor.’
They drank in silence, then Ariana put down her drink and turned to Eliza, who was stirring her drink with the straw.
‘Carrie created a fake Instagram account. Photoshopped us out of it. Made up a second life that none of us knew anything about. One where she had a fancy lifestyle, an expensive car, holidays, designer clothes…’
Ariana and Rae talked about Darcy in the nightclub, back in April, the woman Carrie and Rae used to work with, who’d hooked up again with Carrie online. They explained how Darcy had revealed Carrie’s secret life.
‘Was this account set up in the aftermath of her mum’s death?’
Carrie’s two friends nodded.
‘Probably not a coincidence. Emotionally, she must have been all over the place.’
Ariana and Rae squirmed uncomfortably until Ariana’s jaw set in a firm line.
‘It’s no excuse to erase your best friends out of some fancy new life, as if they aren’t good enough.
I’ve got my differences with my family. They don’t approve of everything I do.
But my parents always drilled into me that honesty is paramount, that even if we don’t always agree, communicating is the way we stay close. ’
‘But that online life was only fictional. You pair were her real life,’ said Eliza.
Rae fiddled with her plaited leather bracelet. ‘She wants to build new bridges, as if we can forget what’s happened.’
‘I wish I’d tried to build bridges years ago,’ said Eliza. ‘It takes guts. I suffered a rift with someone I loved dearly. The longer time went on, the guiltier I felt and then it was too late.’
‘What happened?’ asked Ariana.
Eliza slowly sipped her drink and then put it down.
‘I had an abusive husband. It was years before I could say that out loud. The shame. The self-blaming. Therapy helped, and starting up the business kept me busy and rebuilt my confidence, reminding me of the girl I used to be before I met him, who wanted to be a ballerina and live in a world full of beauty.’
The others sat in silence and then Rae, to Eliza’s surprise, was the one who got up and went to her side. She gave her a quick hug before returning to her seat.
‘I’m sorry you went through that,’ she said gruffly.
Ariana squeezed Eliza’s hand under the table.
‘Our child did something he couldn’t forgive,’ she continued.
‘He said if I supported them he’d throw me out on the streets.
I had no job back then, no qualifications, and he had such a hold over me.
’ She wrinkled her nose as if the past were a bad smell.
‘I should have put my child first. My child made a mistake. I did too, in not standing up to my husband. None of us are perfect. Who knows what mistakes lie ahead of us? Surely your history with Carrie is worth more than one argument?’
Eliza insisted on buying the next round.
Normally one drink would have been enough for her but she also ordered a second cocktail for herself.
As the barman put together the three drinks, she stared vacantly ahead at the upturned bottles of alcohol behind him, thinking about the secret reason she’d bought Carrie’s life.
One bottle had a gold crown on the label.
Howard had thrown out their child because they didn’t fit in with his perfect image of what a family should be.
He’d always liked Eliza’s full name Elizabeth, because of the royal connotation, and boy, did he have highfalutin aspirations.
From the off, he’d insisted on calling her an even more royal version of it, a name he used to introduce her to colleagues and neighbours.
It became how she was known to friends and family.
Her parents had found it sweet and agreed with Howard.
In the beginning, young Eliza had been flattered and believed it showed how much he loved her.
But by the end, Eliza hated her new name that represented everything wrong with her arrogant, swaggering husband.
The first thing she did when striking out on her own was to drop her married surname, Fletcher, to go back to Woods, and change her first name back to Eliza.
‘Queenie’ was no more.