Chapter 37
Suddenly it’s as if Enzo isn’t in Celia’s kitchen but in the house he grew up in on the coast. His parents’ house, with the old range cooker and the ceramic food storage jars lined up on the shelf and Mathilde announcing, ‘There’s a flower!
A pink flower!’ He remembers his mother’s enthusiastic response, before she moved on to more pressing matters as Mathilde cooed over the cactus.
‘What did you do?’ she asks Celia.
Celia laughs, shaking her head. ‘I should probably tell you I made up some kind of magic potion but it was a bit random, really. I just mixed up what I thought might work as a particularly nutritious fertiliser, and then he started perking up and this morning, well—’ She breaks off, eyes shining. ‘The flower appeared.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Enzo says as they all gaze at what is a perfectly ordinary cactus, standing fully upright now, on which a single tiny pink bloom has appeared.
He thinks it’s the most beautiful flower he’s ever seen in his life.
When Celia had texted him earlier, he hadn’t even dared to tell Mathilde what she’d said, in case it had been some kind of mix-up (one of the many other succulents currently residing in Celia’s plant room, perhaps?
But he can’t imagine she’d confuse one plant for another).
Anyway, he hadn’t wanted to give her false hope.
‘Celia is a miracle worker,’ Amanda announces with a note of pride.
‘Oh, stop that.’ Celia grins, shaking her head.
‘You are,’ Mathilde insists. ‘And I love your short hair. It really suits you!’
‘Thank you!’ She blushes.
‘It really does,’ Enzo agrees and now he catches Celia’s flush intensifying, and he checks his watch. ‘Well, we’d better get going, Mathilde. You know Saska’s keen on a prompt start.’
Celia looks at him, seeming to hesitate.
‘Still want to come?’ Enzo asks, not wanting to push it.
‘Yes, of course. And you’re coming too, Amanda, aren’t you? You did promise…’ Amanda pulls a face as if she’s had a change of heart. ‘Come on,’ Celia urges her. ‘It’s only an hour and a half, and we’re given rubber gloves.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ she says with a wry laugh.
So they all head out to meet the cluster of good citizens who have already gathered outside the library.
They are handed picker sticks and hi-vis vests – Enzo catches Amanda dangling hers at arm’s length, as if it had been found lying in the gutter – and off they go.
While Mathilde and Amanda are swept off by Saska and Honey, Enzo and Celia find themselves working their way along a narrow side street. ‘So, does Saska sort of run this thing?’ Celia asks, jabbing at a Mars bar wrapper in the gutter.
‘There’s no “sort of” about it,’ Enzo replies. ‘Saska basically runs the neighbourhood. And I should warn you – she set up a litter pick singles thing at her place afterwards.’
‘What’s that?’ Celia looks quizzical.
Enzo delves under a car in order to access a flattened plastic water bottle. Then – thrillingly – he spots one of those Sylvanian Families rabbits that Mathilde used to love. Filthy, though – so into the rubbish bag it goes. ‘The things you find!’ Celia smiles.
‘Never a dull moment,’ he says with a grin. ‘So, yeah – litter pick singles is a kind of mingling thing once the streets have been tidied. Y’know, while she has us all captive.’
Celia’s eyes widen. ‘You mean, like a dating thing?’
‘That’s right.’ He pulls a mock-terrified face. ‘She reckons there’s this common link. People who care about the state of the neighbourhood, who’d rather spend their Saturday mornings picking up crisp packets than having coffee in bed.’
‘Wow.’ Celia laughs. ‘You mean mad people like us?’
‘Exactly.’
He senses her studying him as, clutching their rubbish bags, they make their way farther up the street. ‘And have you been that?’ she asks.
‘I have not.’ He chuckles, aware of her considering this and possibly building up to her next question. ‘I’m single,’ he clarifies, ‘but not a litter pick single.’
‘Right!’ She laughs. ‘Why not?’
‘Well, apart from how horribly awkward I imagine it’d be…’
‘Maybe it’d be fine?’ she offers with a shrug.
‘You think so?’ He smiles.
‘I… I really don’t know.’
Enzo jabs at a discarded Chupa Chups lollipop – these things are a devil to pick up – and drops it into his bag. ‘Well, I think we should skip it.’
‘Oh, me too.’ She chuckles, seeming relieved, and then they settle into easy chatter about Celia’s days at the shop, and Enzo’s week at school, until they glimpse Amanda, Saska and Mathilde in the distance. ‘So you and Amanda have been close since your schooldays?’ he says.
She seems to hesitate and they stop. ‘Not exactly. It’s quite…
well, it’s a bit odd, actually.’ And she tells him how, late last year, the invitation to Amanda’s wedding had dropped into her inbox and she’d been surprised to be invited at all.
‘Geoff wouldn’t come,’ she explains, ‘and of course now I know why. And I was so nervous, you know? It sounds silly, I realise that?—’
‘It doesn’t at all,’ he cuts in. ‘Walking into a big event on my own isn’t my favourite thing either.’
‘Really?’ She seems surprised.
‘Not at all,’ Enzo says. ‘No one enjoys that, do they? At least, that’s what I always tell myself…’
‘And it was in London,’ Celia continues. ‘Honestly, the way I’d studied the Tube map beforehand, you’d have thought I was going to be tested on it.’
‘It’s complicated!’ he agrees. ‘When I took Mathilde to Paris, she was better at navigating the system than I was.’
‘She’s a smart girl,’ Celia says with a smile.
‘She is.’ He nods. ‘But she was only seven then.’
Celia chuckles, and her green eyes glint in the cool morning sun. ‘I’d actually thought about making an excuse,’ she adds, ‘not to go to the wedding. You know, feigning an illness or a domestic disaster. An exploding boiler or plumbing emergency or something like that.’
Enzo laughs. There’s many a social situation he’s been at pains to wriggle out of.
‘I must’ve been the only person in Glasgow willing the pipes to freeze last winter,’ Celia adds.
‘It never happens when you want it to.’ He smiles, wanting this conversation to continue, but is then summonsed by Mathilde calling from the end of the street.
‘Dad, we’re all done!’
How quickly time has sped by , he thinks as they join Mathilde and Amanda and make their way back to the meeting point. Hi-vis jackets and picker sticks are gathered efficiently by Claire, whom Enzo thinks of as Saska’s second-in-command. ‘Fancy coming back for a coffee?’ Celia asks him.
Enzo smiles, surprised but pleased. ‘Yes, that’d be lovely.’ How different Celia seems now, he decides. More relaxed and at ease as they all make their way back to her flat.
‘I think Mathilde won the prize for the most bizarre litter item today,’ Amanda announces as Celia lets them in.
‘Oh, what was that?’ Enzo asks.
Mathilde looks at him and grins. ‘False teeth!’
‘What, a whole set?’ Celia asks.
‘Yep, upper and lower,’ Amanda announces, then busies herself making coffee. She’s clearly at home here, Enzo notices, in the way that she flits about, knowing where everything is.
‘I like what you said to Saska,’ Mathilde announces, fixing her dad with a grin.
‘That you had something to go to?’ Celia says, seeming unsure whether she should elaborate. But Mathilde knows about the singles thing and, although she’s agreed with her mother that Enzo should ‘meet someone’, she found the concept hilarious.
‘Well, I did,’ Enzo says with a shrug. He looks around Celia’s neat and tidy kitchen, deciding that she obviously likes things this way. Calm and orderly and just so. Then Celia’s phone pings with a notification and she checks it and smiles.
‘Terri’s coming down,’ she says.
‘The cake lady?’ Mathilde looks delighted by this.
‘That’s right,’ Celia tells her. ‘So if you’re not in a hurry to get to that something you’ve got to go to…’
Enzo laughs, shaking his head. Right now he’s in no hurry to go anywhere at all.