Chapter Fifteen
The doorbell tinkled as Chloe entered Coeurs et Fleurs. The taxi had dropped her off, and the clock on the wall told her she was on time. Nine thirty, on the dot. Well, how about that?
Aunt Daisy appeared out of the back room, weighed down by a big box of yellow orchids. ‘Oh hello! Good morning! Look at these, from that new grower we saw last week.’
Chloe smiled and nodded, not meeting her godmother’s eyes. Her own were surely puffy and red.
‘How was your evening? Did you spoil yourself with goodies from the patisserie?’
An image popped into Chloe’s head, of Joel licking icing off her stomach, looking up at her with that rakish grin. ‘Yes, Aunt Daisy, I did,’ she said, then burst into tears and flapped a hand saying, ‘Sorry, just got to …’ before dashing for the little toilet out the back of the shop.
Darling Aunt Daisy didn’t pry. Presumably she thought Chloe was still traumatised by the whole one-year anniversary thing. She quietly went about her business, organising displays, making bouquets, putting cups of coffee in front of Chloe. Today her pink hair was caught up in a hairclip decorated with a yellow frangipani flower.
Finally, just before twelve, she said, ‘Are you all right now, love? I thought we might go out one night this week. How about something grand and Parisian, like the opera or the ballet? Or an art gallery?’
‘That’d be nice,’ said Chloe, trying to look enthusiastic.
‘I’ll see what’s on, send you some links. Let me know what takes your fancy.’
Chloe suddenly remembered. ‘Oh … my phone! I left it in the cemetery last night, at Jim Morrison’s tomb. I took some photos and then put it down, and by the time I realised, I was outside and the gates were shut. I’ll have to go over at lunchtime, see if it’s been handed in.’
Joel wouldn’t be fetching it. He hadn’t mentioned it again; they’d said goodbye.
‘And you’ve only just remembered?’ said Aunt Daisy. ‘I thought your generation couldn’t manage a single minute without your phones?’
‘I was …’ Chloe attempted a smile, but it threatened to turn into something else. Her bottom lip wobbled. ‘I was preoccupied.’ Aunt Daisy would think she’d been deep in her one-year wallow, too caught up in her misery to be bothering with TikTok and all the other apps her aunt rolled her eyes over. Though she did like Chloe’s Instagram photos of the shop and its flowers.
‘Chloe …’ Aunt Daisy paused in arranging a bouquet of red roses. She laid her scissors down on the worktop. ‘I was going to tell you yesterday, but you were rather distracted.’
‘Oh? What were you going to tell me?’
‘I need to go away for a while.’
Chloe’s heart sank. She’s going to send me back to Huddersfield! She went cold at the thought. And in that instant, she realised just how much she loved this place, the shop and the city, and how badly she needed to follow up on that resolve and go out and grab life by the horns.
‘Away where?’
‘There’s somewhere I need to be. Quite soon. Not for too long though – six months at the most. No – it’s nothing horrible,’ she said, as Chloe’s face fell. ‘I’m in perfect health. And I was wondering, now you’ve got plenty of experience under your belt, and you’ve picked everything up so very quickly, and I know you feel about flowers the way I do …’
‘I do, Aunt Daisy. I love it here. Please don’t–’
‘So how would you feel about running the shop for me, while I’m away? And if you wanted, you could live in my flat.’ (Aunt Daisy lived on the floor above, in a beautiful, spacious one-bedroom apartment with a normal-sized bathroom.) ‘I can let Madame Lol know she needs to find another tenant, if you decide yes. And I wouldn’t expect you to run this all by yourself, we’d advertise for another florist, just temporary, to help you.’
Chloe went to respond Yes, a million times yes! but Aunt Daisy said, ‘No need to give me an answer yet. Have a good think. A really good think.’ She winked, then got on with her orchids.
The doorbell tinkled, and Chloe, busy attempting an arrangement of lilies for imminent collection, heard a deep male voice. She couldn’t make out his words.
‘ Oui, Chloe, là bas ,’ said Aunt Daisy.
Chloe turned to see Monsieur the Security Guard, wearing his wide grin. ‘ Bonjour Madamoiselle Anglaise!’ he said. ‘ ?a va ?’
‘ ?a va bien merci ,’ she replied, her heart in her mouth.
What was French for Were you on that bridge this morning ? If she was going to run this place, she’d have to step it up when it came to learning the language.
‘I ’ave your phone!’ he said.
‘What? How …?’
He shook his head and raised a finger to his lips. She’d seen him do that before.
‘ Voilà ,’ he said, passing it over. ‘I ’ave, ’ow you say, done the charging a leetle. Was necessaire to find out its owner. It was dead. Haha! It was dead in le cemetière. C’est amusant, non ?’
‘Yes, very funny,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much. Merci .’
‘ De rien . It ees nothing. Au revoir !’ He turned to Aunt Daisy. ‘ Au revoir , Madame Daisy.’ And he winked at her. Winked? What was going on with all the winking? And his tone when speaking to her godmother had been very familiar. How did he know Aunt Daisy’s name?
Chloe woke up her phone, wondering how Monsieur Le Security Guard had known it was hers. Up came the home screen, with a photo of Chloe and Aunt Daisy at the Eiffel Tower. Ah.
And there was a notification. A text message:
Oscar Wilde, noon. Bring sunflowers. X
The number was unknown.
He was waiting for her by Oscar’s guardian angel. She broke into a run – not very respectful behaviour for this place but she needed to cover that stretch of cobbled path between them very quickly.
He wrapped her in a two-armed hug and lifted her off her feet, then put her down and kissed her, and it went on for quite some time.
‘My phone,’ she said, when they finally broke apart. ‘Who fetched it, you or Monsieur Le Security Guard?’
‘Well, that’s the strange thing,’ he said. ‘Or maybe it’s not that strange, bearing in mind recent happenings. I got to the hotel, told the guys I was back … shit, Chloe, the state of them. They were barely capable of understanding what I was telling them. Then I remembered your phone, so I caught a cab to the cemetery to get it – I promised, right? I was going to drop it off at your shop, just somehow get it in there without you seeing me, cos I couldn’t face another goodbye.’
He kissed her again. ‘I still can’t face that. But anyway, at Jim’s tomb, there was the security guy. He saw me and said, “Are you ’ere for zees?” and he was holding up your phone. I said it belonged to a friend who lost it yesterday. He said, “ Oui , Madamoiselle Anglaise. I ’ave put some power in, and now –” I swear to you Chloe, he said this: “Monsieur Anglais, it is time for you to give zis story its ’appy ever after.”’
‘How did he know? Because he saw us on the bridge?’
‘It must have been him, right?’
‘Joel–’
‘And his words … they did something. It was like suddenly I was seeing clearly, like a fog had lifted. In that moment I knew I couldn’t marry her, Chloe.’ He pulled her close again. ‘I would have done – like I said, I wanted to do right for a wrong, for Monty …’ He looked over at Oscar’s tomb. ‘But then I met you. Yesterday changed everything.’
Chloe had started crying again. He wasn’t marrying Zara. He wasn’t marrying Zara because he’d met her.
‘Hey, don’t cry, this is the happy ending, right?’
‘But you don’t believe in those.’
‘ Didn’t .’
‘What about Zara?’
He heaved a breath. ‘Been thinking on that. I’ll tell Zara the wedding’s off, but that I’ll make sure she’s okay, help her with everything she needs for a fresh start. No arranged marriage, no shit from Rohan.’
‘But how–’
‘Been thinking on that, too. Remember I mentioned the family business was shipping?’ Chloe nodded. ‘I have access to their company database, for my job. A month or two ago I spotted a few anomalies – paper trails that led nowhere – and did a bit of digging. I’d take a guess Rohan’s father’s unaware of some of the stuff his son’s been slipping into those containers. I’m sure a police investigation would yield interesting results.’
‘Smuggling!’ said Chloe. ‘So data analysis isn’t so boring after all.’ She gave him a squeeze.
Joel chuckled. ‘True. I intend to let Rohan know that if he doesn’t back off; if he harms a single hair on Zara’s head, his father – and very possibly the authorities – will be receiving some fairly incriminating data. Which, luckily, I already have on a USB safely stashed away.’
Chloe’s smile grew wider as everything fell into place. It was almost as if someone had planned it.
‘Joel … I know of a flat becoming available in Paris. The bathroom’s a bit bijou, but it’s very nice. The tenant’s been offered a bigger apartment, above a flower shop. A shop she’s going to be managing for the next six months while the owner’s away. And she’ll need an assistant. Is Zara any good with flowers? Could she learn French?’
‘The sunflowers,’ said Joel, when Chloe told him she really ought to be getting back to work and reminded him he had a plane to catch.
She’d brought ten, in an enormous, flamboyant bunch, tied with a big yellow ribbon. ‘Oscar’s favourites,’ she said, passing them over.
Joel propped them up against the glass barrier, then took a small card out of his shirt pocket.
‘I like your shirt,’ she said. It was yellow and flowery and probably a little too loud.
‘I chose it for Monty. Bought it ages ago, before the idiots decided we should dress up instead.’
He placed the card with the flowers, then bowed his head for a moment, closing his eyes. ‘Rest in peace Oscar,’ he said, quietly. ‘And Monty.’
‘Please can I read it?’ she asked.
‘Go ahead.’
She bent down.
Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
For a moment she couldn’t speak. ‘Oscar Wilde?’
‘Yes. And now I have a plane to catch. And a wedding to cancel.’
She could only nod.
He pulled her close. ‘I’ll be back soon. Maybe I’ll do as you suggested, rent that house out, chuck in my boring-as-fuck job, go see the world for a year. I’ll probably need about six months first, to get everything sorted. Hey, Chloe – how do you fancy an adventure?’