C. Williams - Flowers for the Dead

‘Evidently,’ Anvi says drily.

‘What about the Masons?’ I ask carefully. ‘What about Jacob?’

‘Yes,’ Anvi says, putting as much distaste into the one syllable as she can. ‘He is still here.’

‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ Kaitlin says as the printer starts up. ‘Yes, the Masons still live here, in the same house, too. Though it’s only Jacob now.’ She leans over the counter conspiratorially, motioning for me to come closer. ‘It’s outrageous. He sent his mother to a nursing home a couple of months ago. Barely seventy and already in a nursing home, can you believe it?’

Anvi lets out an angry snort. ‘Instead of caring for his mother at home, where she has lived all her life. It is a disgrace.’

Kaitlin just seems gleeful. ‘Isn’t it just?’ she says, sounding rather thrilled about it. Then her eyes widen. ‘You went out with Jacob for a while, didn’t you?’

‘And Miss Luca?’ I ask, avoiding her question. Anvi is narrowing her eyes at me again. As if she is seeing right through me. ‘I’m just so curious,’ I offer. ‘After so many years.’

‘’Course you are,’ Kaitlin says happily. ‘Antonia Luca’s still around, too. Has her own practice now. She lives on the outskirts of the village, on the corner of Meadowside and Foster Lane. Nice house, that. Number 32.’

As the printer whirrs away, I try to memorise what they’re telling me. I hope I can still find the Masons’ house, hope they haven’t changed it too much. Kaitlin is still fiddling with her phone, in all likelihood preparing to take a photo. They are both so shocked still. Kaitlin’s even shaking a little with excitement; Anvi’s all tense. As if I was a robber. Or worse. ‘Why didn’t Oliver come?’ she asks. ‘How is he doing?’

I will myself not to think about him. ‘Like I said. He is at a conference. Do you still have envelopes, too? Could I get, oh, I don’t know, ten, maybe?’

Anvi hands them to me, then collects my money. ‘It is just such a coincidence, isn’t it? That you and he would both come back to town?’

‘Oliver won’t be in town,’ I say, trying not to let my impatience seep through. I haven’t come here to talk about my husband. My – about Oliver.

‘I do not mean Oliver,’ Anvi says, her voice hard, even as Kaitlin’s camera clicks. ‘You know perfectly well who I am talking about.’

‘I am afraid I don’t,’ I say as I take the CVs that Kaitlin hands me. I feel the little hairs on the back of my neck rise. On my arms. As if a cold draft has come in through the door. From behind the counter.

You know perfectly well who I am talking about. Suddenly, I can’t wait to get out of there. ‘Well, it was lovely seeing you two.’

‘So chuffed that we got to see you, luv!’ Kaitlin says, walking me to the door, obviously happy to see me even if she still doesn’t quite believe it. ‘In a bit!’

Without turning back, I walk out the door. If I walk a little more quickly, nobody has to know. I might be in a hurry. Hurrying to get to the post office before it closes. When do post offices close in a place this size these days? If there’s a post office left at all. I think of where it used to be, by the car park, the back lot where we smoked in secret, and I decide that I might get the groceries tomorrow – there is enough left for a few meals, I’m sure. Anything not to think about him.

He cannot be back.

Teoman swore he would never come back.

The car returns at noon. I am upstairs in the corridor, both arms buried elbow-deep in the second wardrobe, ready to bring out the winter clothes. My summer clothes sit next to me in a pile on the floor, all freshly washed as I listen to the sound of the engine coming up the road.

It is her.

I know it is her.

The house smells like baking. It is a smell that makes me feel all loose-limbed. All happy, like it hasn’t in years. The locksmith has been by and put a new lock in. And I sent out ten applications. Surely, one of them will work out. I’m a trained florist, did some gardening work as well. Something just has to work out.

Getting ready for bed, on my first night in this house that I was so scared of, I am in the bathroom, a plate of shortbread precariously balancing on the edge of the sink next to me. No cinnamon rolls. I have earned shortbread. As I remove my makeup, I don’t think of silly Anvi and her silly allusions, but of the businesses, their sleek websites. I will have clients. Colleagues. After-work drinks. There might be promotions. There will be money.

I need to reopen my bank account. Put in the money my parents left me, the money that will tide me over in the meantime.

Once the makeup has come off, I bend over the sink and have a drink straight from the tap. The water tastes wonderful up here, clean and fresh, very different from London. I collect it in both hands, then splash it onto my face. Drying my skin off on my parents’ plush towels, I look into the mirror once more. For a moment, it doesn’t even scare me, the prospect of work, of a new job, a new life. That I will have to leave the house every day. That I will be in a place I don’t know, that I can’t navigate. That it might be loud and dirty and confusing and there will be buses with a silly numbering system. Like when Oliver and I moved to London for the first time. It was our second flat; we’d never lived on such a busy street … It was lovely though. Oliver had found it by marching straight into a local pub, getting drunk and then asking everyone in the vicinity if they knew of somewhere that was available. It got us a two-bedroom flat. Not bad. Only one set of keys, the heating working intermittently at best, and a leaky tap, but still not bad.

Now, it does not scare me, the prospect of a new place. No, it actually … it gives me a thrill. Like seeing the shock on Anvi’s and Kaitlin’s faces when I walked into their shop today. Like I couldn’t be overlooked. Like I was really there.

I haven’t felt a thrill like that in years.

It is what bolsters me as I take one last look into the mirror. Take up the plate. Straighten my shoulders.

Then I go into my parents’ bedroom.

The floorboards creak as I cross the threshold. The bed in the centre of the room is still the same, its frame of dark wood, its tall headboard, the small nightstands. The bed almost disappears under all the pillows and blankets. The wallpaper has changed, midnight blue on one wall, a wooden texture on the others. To the right of the bed is a door to the en suite I did not use – it feels too much like my parents’ bathroom still – and on its left a window overlooking the hollow, right above the roof of the front porch.

Carefully, I put the plate of shortbread onto the nightstand on the right. My nerves are fluttering. Have been ever since I decided to sleep up here tonight.

To see if it will trigger a memory.

I stare at the bed. At the spot at its foot, the wooden floorboards in front of it.

That is where I woke up.

Slowly, I pad over there. My dressing gown billows up around me as I lie down. My bare skin touches cold wood, my thighs, the sides of my legs, my panties. I put my cheek to the floor, feeling the cold seep through me, and close my eyes. Ready to remember.

The floorboards creak. Outside, the wind sneaks through the hollow, through the treetops, shaking their leaves, whispering at the edges of the old window frames. The room smells dusty. There is a hint of another scent, but they are both overshadowed by the shortbread, still warm, sitting on my nightstand.

It smells really good, that shortbread.

I sit back up.

Well, this isn’t working.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Then, out of nowhere, I feel something rise in my throat. A giggle. It comes out before I have even realised what is happening. Goodness, look at me. Crouching on the floor, hoping for some kind of revelation.