Chapter 12
Mathilde, darling, I have something to tell you.
No, that won’t do. She’ll think someone’s died.
Someone has died! Enzo reminds himself. He and Saska have just left Celia’s house and he’s still cringing about how strident she was there.
Listen, sweetheart, something’s happened to Spike. I’m sorry, but sometimes things die and he had a good, long, happy life, and we should cherish that… No, that’s terrible. Mathilde is a smart kid and won’t tolerate being patronised.
We’ll get you a new one. We’ll go out together and you can choose any cactus you like.
Enzo continues in this vein, running through his lines as if rehearsing a play.
Now he pictures his audience of one pinging a hard sweet at his head, as happened when he was roped into performing in the teacher pantomime.
Meanwhile Saska, who likes things to go according to her plans, is ranting on about the ‘misrepresenting of services’ they’d just witnessed.
‘Claire said she’s really good,’ she announces. ‘A plant genius, she said. Completely rescued her maidenhair fern when it had gone all brown and crispy. It wouldn’t have taken much, would it, for her to at least offer us a bit of advice?’
‘Well, we did just turn up unannounced,’ Enzo reasons. ‘She actually looked upset, did you notice? Like she’d been crying?’
‘And that other woman?’ Saska goes on, ignoring this. ‘The forceful one? Basically shooing us away!’
‘We don’t know what they were dealing with, do we?
’ Exasperated, Enzo glances at her. He wishes he hadn’t answered the door when she’d buzzed, and involved her in this Spike situation.
But then Saska is the kind of person who makes things happen, and it had seemed hopeful that Celia could make everything all right.
As there’s no chance of that happening, he thanks Saska for her help, and carries Spike back into his flat, figuring that he still has time to fix things if he gets a move on.
Alone this time, he sets off, crossing his leafy street of creamy sandstone tenement flats and striding towards the main shopping area of his neighbourhood.
Once offering little more than vape shops and a scattering of decrepit old barbers, it’s now the hub of Glasgow’s hipster Southside.
The main street is awash with Italian cannoli, New York bagels and French patisseries.
Enzo’s mouth waters at the sight of a window filled with honey-soaked Syrian baklawa shaped like little nests.
If he weren’t on a mission, he’d buy some for Mathilde coming home later as they’re her favourites.
But the queue is long and so, inhaling the aroma of baking and excellent coffee, he marches onwards to where the bustling street meets the park.
Here, he remembers, there’s a plant shop.
He’s passed it with Mathilde and they’d marvelled at how cool it looked, all exposed red brick and leafy greenery, with young people coming out brandishing all manner of plants for their shared flats.
Students buying houseplants? He wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with one at twenty years old.
Hasn’t a clue what to do with one now, clearly, at forty-two. So a substitute Spike must be found.
Enzo isn’t exactly a fashion man or a follower of trends.
Mathilde has teased him for not knowing what chia pudding is.
But he does know that cacti are – or were?
– ‘having a moment’, and even if that moment has passed, surely he can find the right kind somewhere.
As challenges go, he cannot believe that this one is insurmountable.
After all, he has managed to haul an extremely rabbly bunch of first years through the conjugation of the twenty most common irregular verbs.
Already, Enzo is feeling more hopeful. He steps into the shop, registering a couple of young women in baggy jeans and T-shirts debating whether to go for the big bushy thing or the spindly twiggy one.
‘Hi, can I help?’ A smiley pink-cheeked woman, her fringe secured back from her forehead with a glittery clip, is clutching a tray of miniature cacti— Yes-there-are-cacti-here!
‘Erm, I’m actually after a cactus,’ he announces.
‘You’ve come to the right place.’ She beams at him.
‘D’you, uh, have any bigger varieties?’ Four hours he has now until the coach pulls up outside Mathilde’s school. Four hours in which to locate an acceptable substitute, get it potted in Spike’s pot and redeem himself.
‘A bigger cactus? Hang on a sec…’ More studenty types wander in, clutching coffees, discussing ‘which one Marla would go for’ and whether that trailing plant would ‘work on our fireplace?’ When Enzo was a student, the only thing growing in his apartment was fuzzy mould in coffee cups.
What’s happening to young people? Not the kids he teaches – they’re not yet in the plant-buying demographic – but these twentysomethings cooing over greenery.
They seem so much more sorted than he was as they browse the plants in this beautifully arranged shop (‘curated’, that would be the word).
Now the smiley woman is showing Enzo a selection of cacti on a shelf.
‘There are lovely ones here,’ she enthuses, lurching into another language.
Not that Enzo isn’t multilingual – as well as being fluent in English, he also speaks Italian and Spanish and he knows a little Greek.
But the language she’s speaking isn’t one that’s in modern usage.
‘So we have the echinocereus rigidissimus , that’s the in thing right now, the kids are wild for these – and the epiphyllum anguliger looks good anywhere.
And this is a favourite of mine, the rebutia minuscula . Isn’t it a darling?’
‘Er, yes. It is.’ But it’s not what he wants! On she goes, as if advising him on accessories, while Enzo stares at the spiky orbs and fuzzy sausages and a spine-free variety with zig-zag-edged leaves. Right now a spike-free cactus seems as useful as a wheel-less bicycle.
The woman looks at him expectantly. ‘Anything you like?’
He fishes his phone from his pocket and brings up his photo of the collapsed Spike. ‘I’m actually looking for one like this. I mean, before I killed it, obviously.’
‘Oh dear, that does look bad.’ She peers at the photo and presses her lips together.
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.’ She looks genuinely regretful, like a doctor who has just imparted bad news.
‘I find that people are going more for the compact little spherical varieties right now,’ she adds.
And so, as if informed that the cut of his jeans is all wrong, Enzo thanks her and edges past a bunch of hipster girls admiring a tiny garden in a glass dome, and he mooches home.
* * *
It’s only a plant , he reminds himself later as he smiles and nods in recognition to several mums and dads who are making their way to school.
Even his parents weren’t that bothered about it.
Hardly gave the thing a second glance, as far as he could make out.
One visit, Mathilde exclaimed, ‘ Regarde, le cactus fleurit! ’ Her grandparents hadn’t even noticed the exuberant pink blooms. ‘ Ah, c’est joli ,’ his mum had said with a shrug.
Besides, Mathilde will be too full of tales of the Scarborough trip to be worried about anything else.
She mightn’t even care, Enzo tells himself.
Outside the school, parents have gathered in clusters. He spots Saska in the distance, chattering loudly with a group of women, and deliberately hangs back. Although she’s promised not to mention Spike’s demise to Honey or Mathilde, he’s had quite enough interaction with her for one day.
The vision of deceased Spike shimmers into Enzo’s brain. Then the coach appears around the corner, and his chest seems to compress as if it’s being sat on as it pulls up to a halt.
The doors open and a teacher steps down, calling out, ‘Okay, everyone! Nice and slowly, no pushing please…’ And out they come, chatting excitedly as if four days together haven’t quite been enough.
Enzo senses himself tensing as Mathilde’s friend Mo jumps out, then the curly blonde-headed friend whose name he can never remember.
Several more follow, and now here come Honey and Mathilde.
The pair are so engrossed in chatting that it takes his daughter a moment to pause and look around.
Then she spots him and a smile lights up her face.
‘Dad!’ She hurries towards him and squeezes him in a hug.
‘Hi, darling! Did you have a good time?’
‘It was amazing!’
‘Great. I’ve missed you. It’s been so quiet around here!’
She laughs and he smiles and takes her hand. ‘Can Honey come home with us?’ she asks.
‘Oh, love, you’ve just had a whole four days together. I think she’ll want some time with her mum.’
‘Aw, okay.’ Her face falls briefly then brightens again as she starts to rattle off the many, many highlights of the trip. The fairground. Races on the beach. A sandcastle contest which she and Honey won. She stops suddenly. ‘I didn’t say bye to Honey!’
‘Let’s just get home,’ he says. The sooner it’s dealt with, the better, he reckons. Do it quickly, like ripping a plaster off a wound.
He senses her looking up at him as they fall into step. ‘You’re being weird, Dad.’
‘Am I?’ He forces a chuckle. ‘Maybe I’m weird all the time and you’d just forgotten.’
She smiles, and they fall into a comfortable silence for a few moments until a voice calls out behind them. ‘Enzo! Enzo!’
He swings round to see Saska clutching Honey’s rucksack, and her daughter pelting towards them. ‘Mum says it’s okay!’ Honey announces.
Enzo and Mathilde stop. ‘Hey, Honey,’ Enzo says. ‘What’s okay?’
‘Mathilde can stay over tonight with us. Keep the holiday going!’ Honey’s eyes are bright, her reddish hair springing around her flushed cheeks.
‘I think everyone probably wants a quiet night tonight,’ Enzo starts, turning to Mathilde. ‘We’ll get your stuff unpacked, maybe watch a movie together. I’ve got pizzas in…’
‘Please, Dad,’ Mathilde implores.