can tell a daisy from a buttercup.’
‘Honestly, Rose, you know what I mean.’ He wished she would not grin at him in that way, it always made him want to kiss her. ‘I’m talking about notelets, the usual, ten to the box and packaged nicely.’
‘It’s been done to death.’
‘Yes but they’re popular and I was thinking of a different angle.’
‘Go on then.’
‘This time with an appropriate background, something simple, say a cliff or a disused tin mine, something which shows where the plant can be found with the location printed on the bottom. Take a look at this.’ He slid a sheet of paper across the table and pointed at it with a thin finger. ‘See, like this. Western Gorse, common enough down here and in Wales, I believe, but rare elsewhere and there’s –’
‘All right, all right, I get the drift. You’ve obviously done your homework,’ Rose interrupted before he could get too carried away, as he tended to with new projects. ‘But isn’t it a bit late in the year to be starting on something like this?’
‘Aha, that’s where you’re right. I have done my homework. Most of the plants on the list flower until October. If you’re not too tied up with other work you could make a start and finish the rest in the spring.’
Rose was impressed. Scrawled in Barry’s untidy hand were the names and locations of over twenty wild flowers. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Usual rate?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh.’ Rose chewed her lip thoughtfully. ‘October? I might get wet feet.’
‘Honestly, woman. Okay, plus five per cent.’
‘It’s a deal. Now I can’t sit around all day drinking, I’ve got to go. Things to do, you know.’
Barry shook his head, grinning at her cheek. He rarely indulged in more than one or two pints, Rose enjoyed a drink far more than he did. The smile faded as she walked away and he was left to wonder if Jack Pearce was on her agenda.
Since the time Fred Meecham had taken over the shop in Hayle he had spent an hour or so with Dorothy Pengelly at least once a week. But that was before Marigold’s illness had taken hold and he had discovered his secret might not be safe. Despite the difference in their ages they got on well. It had started when Dorothy had given up the car and begun sending in an order for heavy goods such as a case of cat or dog food which he delivered free of charge. A strange kind of friendship had developed. He knew she did not buy everything from him but he did not resent it. He understood how much she enjoyed her trips to Camborne or even Truro with Jobber Hicks.
It was Dorothy to whom he had confessed that his wife had run off with a rep from a biscuit company who used to call at the shop. ‘She took all she could carry,’ he had told her, ‘but she didn’t take the boy.’ Fred had been left to bring Justin up as best he could. Five years later, at the age of sixteen, Justin, too, had left home.
‘Where did they go?’ Dorothy had wanted to know.
‘To hell as far as I care.’ Fred had left it at that. He had tried hard to make the marriage work. Divorce was against his religious principles but Rita had gone away, waited the stipulated period and filed the papers without any resort to him.
He thought about what Dorothy had said a few years afterwards, when Marigold had moved in. ‘Time you took over your own destiny, Fred. It’s all very well your sister running your home and helping out in the shop but a man like you needs a wife.’
He had nodded and smiled and gone on to talk about the chrysanthemums he grew in the small garden behind the shop. Dorothy had made a joke about them being the wrong sort of flower, they ought to have been Marigolds.
She had been deeply sad when he came to say that Marigold had been diagnosed as having cancer. ‘It’s so unfair, she’s so young.’
‘I’d spend every penny I’ve got to find a cure,’ Fred had continued. ‘Every bloody penny. I want the best treatment money can buy.’
Dorothy had reassured him that she was probably getting it anyway and that he would be wasting his time by paying for private care.
But Fred had not been able to let the matter go. ‘I could send her to America. You read about people who get