Читать книгу Chance - Alex Hines - Страница 5

Chapter One

Monday, 22 August

As she opened the door Ava could see the floor was covered in flowers: unopened peonies in tight pink balls, crisp white lilies, their stamens bristling with pollen and a bank of roses, almost mocking in their velvety glamour. Taking a deep breath to enjoy the aromatic mixture their scents made, she stepped over buckets of daisies to reach her desk. She hung up her coat, flicked the kettle on and flipped open her laptop. While the kettle boiled, she flicked through her post – the usual selection of bills and junk mail, along with a flyer for new classes at the Arts Centre. There wasn’t really anything worth opening or reading properly before she had a cup of tea on the go, so she stared absentmindedly at the flowers as the comforting sound of the kettle grew louder and louder. They were lined up according to type and colour, creating an extravagant floral carpet. Ava knew it would take her another few minutes to start to feel fully awake and was glad of some time alone with the shop.

She swirled a teabag around in the water, wondering if Rob was up yet. He had taken to staying at her house more and more lately, although whether his motivation was the prospect of cosy evenings together or being closer to his office was unclear. Either way, he had been dead to the world when she left the house – completely still and snoring lightly, despite the clatter of her Monday morning routine. Ava wondered if he was even awake yet, if he had discovered the cup of tea she left by his bedside, or if he was still curled up in her bed, leaving his imprint on her pillow.

‘Morning, Boss!’ Matt had arrived and was standing in the doorway, a bucket of flowers already under each arm. ‘Had a good weekend?’

‘Yes thanks, Matt, nothing special,’ she replied. She repeated those last two words to herself: nothing special. ‘You?’

‘Oh yeah, it was wicked!’ Matt was grinning at the memory and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Was he immune to Monday mornings? If he wasn’t a little sluggish at this point in the week, when was he? ‘We went down to the coast for a bit of surfing, had a barbecue – good times, amazing waves.’

Well over 10 years younger than her, Matt seemed to have boundless energy and an insatiable appetite for fun. Even a spare half hour would be filled with some kind of sporting activity, an impromptu burst of socialising or a quick trip somewhere. He was no sofa surfer; indeed TV seemed to hold no allure for him at all. Just hearing about his hectic social life made Ava feel slightly dizzy, but he was so good-natured it was hard to begrudge him a moment of it. Truly, he was a gift. She smiled to herself as he put the first two buckets of flowers up onto the highest bracket of the shelving unit, whistling, then immediately turned round to reach for the rest.

‘Look at these!’ he said as he picked up the roses, holding them admiringly with outstretched arms as if they were Liz Taylor herself, ready to dance. ‘They’re gorgeous today – I wonder where they’ll be ending up …’ He winked at Ava and she rolled her eyes. Relatively new to the job, he was still enthused by almost every part of his work at Dunne’s. ‘Although, you’ve got to wonder – what’s a man doing buying red roses on a Monday if he’s not a little bit guilty about something?’

‘Oh come on, so young and already such a cynic! Maybe some men are just impulsive or romantic. I wouldn’t keep ordering them for a Monday if they didn’t sell.’ She gave him a playful cuff over the head and he ducked, giggling.

‘They sell alright,’ replied Matt with a wink, ‘but to romantic men … or those in the doghouse?’

‘Stop it – that’s too depressing!’

‘Only kidding,’ he said, as he finally hung up his jacket. But Ava suspected he wasn’t. She shook herself, trying to get rid of the leaden Monday morning blues she still felt.

‘Right, you – a cup of tea?’

‘Go on, then. I reckon it’s going to be busy for a Monday.’

For the next few minutes they worked alongside each other in companionable silence. Matt knew where the usual spots for all of the flowers were and neatly moved bunches from the plastic buckets in which they had been left to the smarter tin pails they were displayed in. More delicate blooms were stacked on wooden shelves across the main sidewall of the shop and he took the smaller, almost wine-bucket size pails outside onto the street. Daffodils, sunflowers and sturdy tulips were all arranged on the pavement beneath the shop window, with Matt whistling along to the radio as he worked. Ava made his milky tea and handed it to him before checking off deliveries against the invoice left three hours earlier.

‘Something’s missing,’ said Matt, as he nodded to thank Ava for the mug she had just passed him.

‘The sweet peas are late.’

Unlike the more exotic flowers that Dunne’s stocked, the sweet peas were not imported from abroad, but delivered sporadically by a local farm. They tended to swing by and drop off a supply whenever they felt the shop needed them, paying little heed to such trivialities as whether or not Ava actually needed them, or had indeed ordered them. But Ava couldn’t bring herself to start ordering them from elsewhere. She loved the area, having grown up just outside of Salisbury, and stocking local flowers was important to her. It made no sense to have spent her childhood playing in the fields of the West Country and then to import absolutely everything from elsewhere once she had her own business in the area.

When she left college and headed off to London with dreams of a career arranging cutting-edge displays for celebrity events and society weddings, she had wanted little to do with the gentler countryside flowers such as blowsy roses, peonies and sweet peas. After over a decade of providing breath-taking arrangements for corporate receptions only to watch city brokers and their nonchalant PAs walk past completely oblivious to their beauty, she began to tire of wasting her best work on an audience who cared so little. The breaking point had been the week when she worked her fingers raw on a series of jaw-dropping displays for the awards ceremony of a glossy magazine. Held in an echoing warehouse somewhere near the Docklands, she had led a team spending 18-hour days to transform the imposing concrete structure into a venue where pop princesses, rock icons and supermodels alike would be happy to pose and party against a backdrop befitting them. Exhausted, but aglow with the satisfaction of a job well done, Ava had left the building only to wake to a series of charmless tabloid photographs of a well-oiled soap starlet flicking her cigarette into one of her red ginger and anthurium arrangements before collapsing into another – apparently fuelled by a lethal combination of four-inch fluoro heels and limitless free fizz.

‘At least your work has been in the papers,’ was her ever-pragmatic younger sister Lauren’s response. ‘Other florists would kill for that kind of exposure.’ Ava was convinced Lauren herself would probably be first in the queue, but still wondered if her fee for the work could ever make up for the body blow that seeing those pictures had provided. And then came the second punch: later that very same day Ava received an email from a woman in which she explained that she had been having a six-month affair with Mick, the darkly handsome but elusive and unreliable boyfriend with whom Ava had just spent the last three years of her life. Already living together, they had been saving to buy a property while making do in a tiny one-bedroom in East London, above a bone-shaking noisy main road. Devastated by the way her dreams of urbane adulthood had panned out, Ava decided to leave London for a year and spend some time in the area where she had grown up in, trying to decide her next move. Initially concerned months spent within ‘popping by for a quick cup of tea’ distance of both her parents and Lauren would leave her suffering a nasty dose of claustrophobia, Ava soon realised the opposite had happened. Now she breathed a deep sigh of relief at being away from the capital’s eternal hamster wheel of marriage-career-babies, even if those possibilities still preoccupied her mother. Slowly, the pain of soured romance faded, as did the stress of working for her dictatorial former boss, Nigel, Bespoke Florist to the Stars. Of course she missed some of her friends and occasionally daydreamed about walks along the river or shopping in department stores with proper cosmetics departments but largely, she realised, she was not a Londoner.

When that first year of working at the charming little garden centre in the grounds of a local stately home ended, she knew she couldn’t go back to her old life. Instead, she chose to invest her savings in buying a small place in Salisbury and setting up a business of her own. If the ‘finding eternal love’ column on her life plan was to take a little longer than planned, she was damned if she would waste time on the ‘enjoy your work, and be the very best at it’ column. Thus, Dunne’s of Salisbury, her pride and joy, was born and quickly became a fixture in the market town. Ava soon found she was far more quickly integrated into the local community than she had ever been in London, where the idea of borrowing a cup of sugar always remained a faintly ridiculous fantasy. So what if life was quieter, less glamorous and or dramatic in Salisbury? It was the path she had chosen and what would make her happy. Just like Robin, with whom she had now been for five years. Lovely dependable Rob – he would never let her down, of that she was sure.

Ava’s two cups of tea had hit the spot by the time she followed Matt outside with the large wooden A-board. It had ‘Dunne’s’ written across the top of it, in the classic typeface she had chosen five years ago and still loved as much today. The bottom half was blackboard, upon which Ava leant forward to write ‘Peonies – 6 for £5’, and beneath that ‘Rosemary – £6’ in her wide loopy font. After brushing the white chalk off her fingertips, she stood back to check her handwriting and then admired the pavement display.

‘Looking lovely,’ she told Matt, who was just tweaking some of the last bunches to make sure none were squashed too tightly together. Ava stooped and rubbed a stem of young, oily rosemary between her fingers. She held one hand to her nose and inhaled the fresh scent of clothes and roast dinners.

‘As are you, boss,’ replied Matt, with a cheeky wink. He held the door open for her and as it closed behind them both, she turned the ‘closed’ shop sign over. As the beeps of the 9 o’clock news began on the radio, Ava rested one hand against the sign hanging on her glass door. Open. Smiling to herself, she headed back to her desk.

She hadn’t even reached it before the bell on the door tinkled, announcing the first customer of the day. But it wasn’t immediately clear who it was for they appeared to be entering backwards. It took a moment and a commanding ‘EDMUND!’ before Ava realised that it was a woman reversing a double buggy into the shop. Readying herself for the potential chaos, she brushed a stray hair away from her face. Matt immediately left the worktop of foliage he had been separating and went to help the customer. As she swung the buggy round, a ruddy-cheeked toddler leant out of his seat towards the brightly coloured strands hanging from reels of twine fixed to the wall. He was wearing a pair of bright blue trousers and a rugby shirt that would have fitted one of Ava’s childhood teddies. His hair was soft, with a hint of a curl, and his dimpled cheeks and knuckles gave the impression that he was made entirely from uncooked pastry dough. His sister was asleep in the other seat, wearing a huge overcoat. Her legs, in a pair of bright pink tights with patent leather shoes on the end, were limp; her head was thrown back and she was drooling.

Their mother had the kind of haughty glamour only gained by living in the countryside in a house so big you don’t always know who is in it. Almost impossibly thin for someone with such young children, she had long dark, slightly wavy hair, falling around a face that was horsey and beautiful in equal measure. She too was wearing a rugby shirt, only hers was clearly a women’s cut – deep pink, with a pale pink collar. On her feet were flat Converse All-Star Plimsolls but even so, she was as tall as Matt. Entranced by the twine, little Edmund clambered out of his seat and toddled off, causing the entire buggy to lurch forward. Dangling from the handles were an enormous Mulberry handbag and several carrier bags of groceries from the wildly over-priced delicatessen across the square, their weight clearly greater than that of the sleeping youngster now jolted from her sleep. All three adults leapt to support the buggy as organic baby food and Dorset Knobs tumbled. The child woke with a start, looked around her and then settled back down again once the buggy was secured.

‘Hiiiiii,’ the woman said, lifting her chin. ‘I need some flowers.’ Ava wondered why else she might have come in, but smiled patiently. Meanwhile, Matt busied himself back at the worktop.

‘Great,’ said Ava, brushing her hands on her jeans in readiness. ‘What are you after?’

‘Dinner party, this weekend, but I’ll need them delivered – there just isn’t going to be time.’

‘That’s fine, we do local deliveries.’

The woman seemed neither surprised nor grateful, apparently used to living in a world where she knew she would get her own way, on account of knowing she could afford to.

‘Super. Well, we need a couple of large arrangements for the table …’

‘The dinner table?’

‘Yah. Like, centrepieces.’

From the corner of one eye Ava spotted the reels of twine spinning wildly as Edmund turned round and round, wrapping himself in coloured strands. She tried not to wince. What good would that do?

‘Okay.’

‘And then, I want, like, something romantic. Something that looks as if, like …’ the woman paused, a flash of uncertainty crossing her face for the first time.

‘Yes?’ Ava continued to concentrate on focusing on the customer, not her son. ‘Well, something that will seem …’ Gazing heavenwards, she held her hands out in front of her, thinking. It was impossible for Ava not to notice her stunning engagement ring. A huge diamond, surrounded entirely by several other tiny diamonds, it was breathtakingly beautiful. Ava imagined her husband choosing it for her. Someone, somewhere, adored this woman enough to pick out a fabulous piece like that for her. To him, she was adorable, not formidable or brittle as she seemed today.

‘What I’m after is something that will look as if my husband has bought it for me. Like I said, I need something romantic.’

Ava blinked, momentarily baffled by such a curious statement. Was the woman buying something that she wanted her guests to believe she had had bought for her? The way that she was now avoiding her gaze suggested this was exactly what she was doing. For a second, the awkwardness hung in the air between them. Then, just as suddenly, the tension left. Ava thought no more of it – if she were to spent her life trying to second-guess people’s reasons for buying flowers, she would be quite mad by now.

‘Edmund, do stop that!’ the woman said with resignation, leaning to take her child’s chubby hand. Squealing, he ran across the shop, where he hid behind Matt’s legs. ‘Darling, behave!’

After rummaging around in her handbag for a scrap of paper and a pen, the woman glanced up at Ava. Leaning on the back of an expensive-looking navy blue wallet, she wrote a name and number.

‘Super. It’s very charming in here so I’m sure you’ll do something appropriate. Why don’t you call the house later and talk to Mary about delivery and sorting out payment.’ She half-handed, half-threw the piece of paper to Ava, while grabbing her son and attempting to strap him wriggling into his buggy seat.

‘No problem,’ said Ava. ‘So, two dining table centrepieces and something romantic, and I’ll speak to – Mary, was it?’

‘Yah, Mary.’

Once again the woman avoided eye contact and then, at twice the speed they had arrived, the family were gone.

As the door closed behind them, Matt looked up with a smile.

‘Told you,’ he said.

‘Told me what?’

‘Roses on a Monday – they never go anywhere happy.’

‘Oh, you are such a cynic!’

But deep down, Ava felt a prickle of uneasiness as she wondered what was going on in the woman’s life. Seemingly she had it all, yet she was bristling with tension.

‘Just you wait, we’ll have a romantic in before long!’ she added lightly, causing Matt to roll his eyes at her.

She walked over to the twine and started rolling.

As Ava returned to her heap of Monday morning paperwork, Matt put together some of the arrangements that they created for local businesses, occasionally stopping to take payment from some passing trade. Ava noticed that he was selecting some elegant lilies and arranging them with some of the greenery he had prepared earlier. It was for Ruston’s then – the hairdresser on the corner of the high street. Ava was very fond of Sarah the manageress there and the two would sometimes go for a glass of wine after work to discuss business (and end up talking about anything but).

She still felt slightly unsettled by the brittle woman who had been in earlier. Though she had been treated far worse in the past, especially in London while working for Nigel, there was something about the pure invisibility that the woman had caused her to feel: she was so sure of her place in life, so glossy and confident. Ava imagined how sophisticated her dinner party that weekend would be, and imagined her husband thanking her for it afterwards, before they headed upstairs. Someone like Ava was of no interest at all to this woman – there was barely any respect there at all, and certainly no admiration.

Ava made a start on the invoicing, while making sure that her suppliers in Holland and London, as well as locally were paid, and checking that she had invoiced her clients in the nearby hotels, restaurants and private homes. These were the jobs that brought her financial security, but it was the passing trade that interested her most. She enjoyed feeling like an agent for romance, helping men to make that special gesture, or creating bouquets to celebrate births and weddings. So often it was up to her to sprinkle the magic on a situation, or to encourage communication at moments of extreme emotion for those who otherwise said little of importance to each other. She pushed Matt’s conviction that a percentage of her flowers were merely props for cheating hearts to the back of her mind. Yes, she was an agent for romance not an aide to the unfaithful.

The filing complete, she shuffled through the junk mail that had gathered over the weekend. Pizza delivery, cheap cable TV deals and local taxi companies … She shoved it all into the recycling bins beneath her feet, thinking of the weekend she had bought the bins with Rob, shortly before the shop opened. They had still been friends then, yet to turn their relationship into a romantic one. Not that they were a particularly romantic couple these days. After all, a courtship spent hunting for recycling bins would never lead to too many sparks flying. But Ava loved Rob – kind and consistent, he might be attractive in a catalogue kind of a way but he was everything Mick hadn’t been. She looked down at the recycling bins again and saw that in with the pizza leaflets was a flyer for the local arts centre. Sarah had mentioned it the last time they met – she was thinking of taking some classes.

‘You all right down there?’ asked Matt.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she replied, absentmindedly. ‘What time would you like to take lunch?’

‘Ooh, I don’t mind, whenever suits. Soon?’

‘No problem, and while I remember – I don’t have to get to the supermarket tonight as Rob’s said he’ll cook at mine, so I can lock up.’

‘You’re kidding? That would be great – I offered to give Amy another driving lesson tonight.’

Ava forced herself not to flinch at the mention of Matt’s airily optimistic plans to teach his girlfriend to drive.

‘Yeah, it’s fine. Honestly.’

‘Great stuff, we’re both happy! Amy gets her lesson and you get a romantic dinner for two.’

Ava smiled at the memory of Rob promising to make her favourite pasta dish tonight. She had been very proud of the roast she put on yesterday, but hadn’t expected him to make such a sweet gesture in return. Cooking wasn’t a strong point for him, so she knew the offer was heartfelt and was secretly a little smug about it. Romance didn’t have to be all champagne and roses. An image of herself pointing in a mirror and mouthing ‘You’ve still got it, gal’ floated through her mind. Obviously there was the mild anxiety about what he might do to her kitchen, left unattended, but she had chosen to overlook this and focus on the loveliness of a meal cooked for her.

‘Look at you – all flushed with excitement!’

‘Oh, behave,’ she muttered, blushing at having been caught out in her daydream. ‘Go for your lunch now then, or I might change my mind about tonight.’

Within minutes of Matt heading out to get his sandwich there was a sudden lunchtime flurry: a cheerful woman of a certain age who spent 10 minutes looking at each of the bunches of Dutch tulips to check she had chosen the best, a retired gentleman after a bay tree for his garden, an unnervingly over-familiar woman who seemed to relish telling Ava exactly how much she knew about each and every one of the bunches on offer and a brisk, housewifely type who seemed furious that daffodils were no longer in season and out on the pavement for a pound a bunch. Ava did her best to keep everyone happy, while leaning back once or twice to take the odd phone call. Just as she said goodbye to the final customer, she heard the shop door go again. She turned around, mildly frustrated that a Monday lunchtime had turned so chaotic, and saw the back of a man’s head already bent over the lowest row of flowers.

‘Hi there, can I help?’ Fake it till you make it, she told herself. He’ll be gone in a minute.

‘Yes, please – I’d like some roses, please. The most gorgeous you’ve got …’

Smiling, he turned to face her. His eyes naturally turned down on the outer corners, lending them an air of gentle sadness despite his broad smile. Dark brown, the irises melting into the pupils, they were hard to look away from. He was wearing a cornflower blue shirt – un-ironed, but expensive-looking – and navy blue trousers; he also had on a smart pair of brown brogues, well worn but good quality. Ava walked towards him, one hand held to her lips in thought. Once she was standing next to him she realised even over the scent of the flowers in the shop he smelled of a combination of leather, expensive soap and perhaps a hint of vetiver. She took a deep breath.

‘Well, we have some wonderful ones in today,’ she began, pointing at the red roses Matt had been discussing earlier.

‘No, red’s a little … Well, it’s a little Argentine Tango for me.’

Ava blinked. She knew exactly what he meant. For an inexplicable reason she suddenly imagined herself, her fair hair mysteriously dark, tied back in an elaborate, glistening bun. She was wearing a dress the same deep red as the roses, split to the thigh. In between her rouged lips was one of the roses.

‘What else do you have?’ he asked, staring at her curiously.

‘What else do I have?’ Ava nodded seriously, playing for time. Wake up woman, you’re serving a customer!

‘Well, we have all sorts.’

‘What would you recommend?’

‘Me ? Well …’

‘Yes, you don’t look like you really do tacky bouquets …’

‘Thank you.’ Blushing. Again.

‘So why don’t you put together something you’d like to receive.’

‘Me ?’

‘Well, I don’t know what I’m doing and clearly you do, so why don’t you choose something you think someone like you would love to receive.’

The thought of this man bringing her flowers made Ava bite her lip very hard.

‘But it’s my job – no one brings me flowers. Bit of a busman’s holiday, I suppose.’

‘Oh, come on! Surely someone presents you with a bouquet from time to time?’

‘Not really.’ She was blushing again, remembering the delicate and awkward conversation that she had once had with Rob, where he firmly explained that he could never buy her flowers as she would always know better than him what she liked – and get a better price. Suddenly being an agent for the romance of others seemed less enchanting.

‘In that case I’m going to have to rely on your imagination.’

All Ava wanted was for her imagination to slow down a little …

‘Okay, what’s your budget?’

‘Ooh, £40?’

‘I’d choose something less formal than roses – perhaps more rural, local flowers?’

‘That sounds perfect.’

‘Softer …’ Ava’s eyes seemed to have locked with his again.

‘Perfect.’

She smiled, then began making up the bouquet. The man stood against the wall opposite her and watched as she plucked a selection of gentle late season tulips and sweet peas, some of the gorgeous cabbage roses that had arrived earlier in the day, then various foliage and tied them together with plain, straw coloured twine. Both were silent during this process, Ava doing her best to concentrate on her task, all the while conscious of his gaze on her hands and the back of her neck. He seemed comfortable in the quiet, unlike a lot of her customers who so often wanted to talk about the weather, the latest celebrity gossip or how business was going. When she was finished, Ava lifted up the bouquet to show him.

‘It really is perfect, I can’t thank you enough.’

‘It was nothing – I’m so glad you like it.’ She glanced at him again, then quickly dropped her gaze to the floor, suddenly shy. The man took two £20 notes from his wallet and passed them to her. She put them in the till before presenting him with the flowers.

‘I do hope you receive the bouquet you deserve soon,’ he told her.

‘Honestly, I’m more of a chocolates girl,’ she replied, suddenly tiring of his constant gaze on her, flustered by his assumptions about her life. ‘I am surrounded by flowers all day.’

‘It’s not so much the flowers as the gesture, though, is it?’

He was at the door now and turned as he said this, before winking and heading outside.

Smug, thought Ava. She wondered what sort of man goes to buy romantic flowers and can’t help but flirt with the florist? As for the assumptions he had made about her lack of romance … Charmless. She reminded herself of her romantic Monday-night dinner as she swiped the trimmings from his flowers into the bin: Flowers aren’t the only way to express yourself. As she slammed the bin lid shut, the image of herself dressed for the Argentine Tango once again flashed before her.