Chapter 6
The doorbell jangled and Lara’s assistant Becky stepped into the shop.
She was a girl in her late teens with short-cropped dark hair, although currently only a few tufts of it were visible from under her black knitted hat.
She closed the door quickly to keep out the cold and started to unwind her scarf and pull off her gloves.
These were black too, as indeed was everything that Becky ever wore.
Lara was not sure whether this was because she really liked the colour or if it was simply expedient when getting dressed in the morning.
Lara would have liked to ask her and secretly thought colours like red, turquoise and bronze would look amazing on her.
But as they were not that close, and it would have been just the sort of thing her mother would have said, she kept these thoughts to herself.
Lara was also conscious that these days she was the last person to be giving anyone fashion advice.
‘You must have been in early,’ Becky remarked, taking in the tables already filled with flowers and the wooden crates brimming with plants.
Lara made an indistinct reply, her head in the bottom of a flower box.
‘What would you like me to do first?’ Becky asked, tying a sage-green apron around her with the words ‘Miss McGregor’s Garden’ embroidered across the front.
Lara pulled out her list and went through the morning’s orders with Becky, trying to make her directions as clear and precise as possible.
Lara was aware she wanted things done a certain way and she thought it best to be explicit so there was no misunderstanding.
She also knew that Becky was shy and did not seem to like to ask her questions, so Lara had started to try to cover all bases in her instructions.
Becky listened to the extensive and at times convoluted commands in silence. ‘Got it,’ she said eventually and started to gather stems of blush coloured roses and smoky hydrangeas together for her first arrangement.
Abby found she loved watching Becky work.
She moved swiftly around the shop, plucking up different stems, spinning around to find another colour and then swooping in on a piece of foliage that turned out to be the perfect fit for the posy that was growing in her hand.
After she had finished poring over lists and prices, Lara joined in.
It occurred to Abby, from her vantage point on a high stool by the workbench, that it was like watching two dancers on a stage.
The two florists moved around each other with the harmony that comes from people who are used to sharing a small space.
However it struck Abby that this was no duet.
Each florist was in her own isolated little world.
She was also surprised by how quiet the shop was.
She had not known Lara for long, but she had not found her reticent when it came to expressing herself.
Quite the opposite, she thought, remembering their conversation from the previous night.
She decided to intervene. ‘Why don’t you talk to Becky as you work? ’ she asked out loud.
‘I’m sorry?’ Lara said, startled.
‘Not a problem,’ came the quiet and slightly puzzled reply from Becky who was at the sink filling vases.
Lara glared at Abby, shaking her head. ‘Did you have a good evening last night?’ Lara asked Becky, while at the same time frowning furiously at Abby.
Becky caught the look and replied hesitantly, ‘It was all right, just Netflix… you know…’ her voice petered out.
Lara turned towards Abby, with her palms outstretched, and mouthed silently, ‘You see!’
Abby looked at Lara sternly and said even more loudly, ‘That is not an excuse for bad manners. The responsibility for instigating convivial conversation falls upon you. You are older than Becky and it is up to you to put her at her ease.’
Lara was saved from answering, or from throwing a ball of twine at the ghost – which had been her favoured option – by the phone ringing.
Lara sprinted over to the counter to pick it up.
‘Yes, Mum,’ Abby heard her say after a pause.
‘Not a good time now, Mum,’ she continued, as Abby gazed, with some significance, around the empty shop.
‘Yes, I haven’t forgotten… No, I know I forgot last year…
Yes, I know they never forget… leave it with me, Mum, all sorted.
’ Lara hung up. ‘Oh crap!’ she said to the ceiling.
And then, pointedly ignoring Abby, she walked to the back of the shop.
‘Becky?’ she called. ‘I’ve forgotten my niece’s birthday.
Yet again. She’s turning nineteen. It was your birthday last month, wasn’t it? Have you got any ideas?’
Becky, who was standing at a bench planting hyacinths into a blue and white china bowl, said in a muffled voice, ‘I really liked the manicure and pedicure you bought me. Maybe you could book one for her?’
Lara was taken aback. She had had no idea if Becky had really liked her gift and recalled the rather awkward drink they had had to celebrate her birthday with some embarrassment. ‘Thanks, Becky,’ she said. ‘I tell you what, I’ll do the deliveries this morning. You stay in the warm.’
‘Are you sure?’ Becky replied gratefully.
‘Yes,’ said Lara decisively, looking directly at Abby who had taken to dancing around the flower shop in a kind of slow waltz. ‘There’s someone I need to talk to while I’m out.’
Lara brought the van around to the front of the shop and started loading the bouquets and arrangements that made up the day’s deliveries.
This turned out to be a protracted business as Lara kept popping back into the shop with more instructions for Becky.
Just when Abby thought they must finally be on their way, customers started appearing and Lara darted back, saying in an aside to Abby, ‘That’s Mrs Sutton, back again, she can be quite tricky, I’d better go and see if Becky needs help. ’
Abby, who had been watching Becky deal with customers through the shop window, privately thought she was well able to cope on her own. However, she kept these reflections to herself and took the opportunity to look around the square in which the flower shop was situated.
It was bordered on three sides by well-proportioned buildings in warm yellow stone and on the fourth there was a small park edged with white railings.
Most of the buildings were shops with double frontages and a central door, all of which were painted in muted blues or greens.
Some, like the wine shop and Honeybourne Antiques had bow-fronted windows but Abby found it difficult to see into these, as they were still misty with condensation from the crisp morning air.
The remaining buildings appeared to be houses, their doors painted a variety of shades, as if the residents had decided to introduce a splash of colour into the life of the square.
In the centre of the square stood an old pump and a cattle trough that was planted with burgundy skimmia, white heather and the palest of peach cyclamens.
Lara’s work, she thought. Abby found she was nodding to herself in approval and the accompanying memory made her suddenly smile.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Lara, emerging once more from the shop doorway.
‘I’ll drive,’ she said automatically as she approached the van.
She caught sight of Abby’s raised eyebrow and laughed.
‘What were you smiling about when I came out of the shop?’ Lara asked, as she started the engine, forgetting she was cross with her Kindred Spirit.
‘I found myself nodding in just the way my mother did when she was pleased by something. She had a particular way of tilting her head and nodding twice in quick succession. She was not a woman who was fulsome in her praise so it did not happen very often,’ Abby smiled a little sadly.
‘However,’ she continued more positively, ‘I did discover that through our mutual love of certain flowers I could, on occasion, make her smile.’
‘What flowers were those?’ Lara asked.
‘We both had a great appreciation of peonies and together we studied the many varieties grown by the Prince Regent. I believe he was an eminently unsatisfactory man in many ways, but he certainly loved his flowers. When we moved to the Dower House after my father died my mother had a glass house constructed in which we cultivated some of the more delicate hybrids.’
Lara paused, concentrating on the road ahead, trying to frame her next question. ‘Was it your father who you thought had been murdered?’ she asked.
‘Oh no,’ said Abby quite cheerfully, ‘he caught himself on a nail climbing over a fence and his leg became infected. He was dead within three days. It was extraordinary really when you consider that he had lived through two military campaigns and yet something as simple as a rusty nail was his undoing.’
Lara cast her a puzzled glance and Abby elaborated, ‘Of course at the time it was a great shock to us all and I don’t think my mother ever got over it – they were very close you know. But he was a distant, although kindly father, and,’ she added pensively, ‘it was a very long time ago.’
Lara pulled up outside a long stone house and reached into the back for a posy of white and lemon flowers. She decided to go for a more direct approach. ‘So who was it you thought was murdered?’ she asked.
‘That was my husband Miles,’ said Abby without a trace of a smile, ‘and that does still feel like it was yesterday.’
Lara gathered Mrs Mullen’s wedding anniversary bouquet to her, burying her nose briefly in the sweet scent of freesias.
‘I am so sorry, Abby,’ she said. ‘Look, I have to go and deliver this but I won’t be long.
As she climbed out of the van she added, ‘If you don’t mind, would you tell me about it? ’