My advice to everyone is never underestimate the power of a bunch of sweet peas tied up with a cheerful, colourful ribbon.
I am doing my best not to think about all the things I said to Adam on Friday and I’m doing a pretty good ostrich impression by throwing myself into my work. I’ve briefly told Ben about the row but I’ve insisted that we don’t discuss and dissect the matter. Ben’s happy to follow instructions; he doesn’t really like thrashing out anything tricky. He’s always saying that all he ever wants is for everyone to be happy, preferably all the time. Sadly, it’s not a very realistic aim and he doesn’t have a magic wand or an especially clear grasp on how that might be achieved (who does?). He’s a good businessman though. Precisely because he knows the value of dreams and the comfort of luxury, he is able to make a decent profit on both at Ben’s B&B. It’s a busy flower shop. Ben has carved out a nice little market in a chi-chi part of Clapham just off Narbonne Avenue. There are lots of yummy mummies who think that spending forty quid on a big bunch of lilies is essential shopping on a par with having milk in the fridge.
Working as a florist isn’t a bed of roses (excuse the pun). People think I spend my entire day drifting around in a soft-filter moment; in fact there are some aspects of the job which are genuinely gruelling. Early starts at the market three times a week, loading the van by myself and then driving back to the shop, through the morning rush hour, means that sometimes it feels as though I’ve done a day’s work before we’ve even opened the shop door. Adam is right, being a florist has made me strong and fit – there’s a lot of heavy lifting. Besides the physical aspect, being a florist demands tact and patience and sometimes a bit of mind reading; you wouldn’t believe how many customers seem only to know what they don’t want but have no clue as to what they do want.
Still, this week I’m grateful for the gruelling and absorbing aspects of the job. I volunteer to take Ben’s turn to go to market, I lug endless buckets of water around the shop as though I’m performing some sort of medieval penance, I rearrange the stock every day, I bone up on the life span of exotic flowers, even those we rarely sell, and I leap on customers the moment they cross the threshold. I’d rather do anything than dwell on the impending birthday and the ultimatum I issued. Ben has been joking that he might as well retire somewhere sunny; his secret ambition is to have a year-round tan. I do a pretty good job of avoiding any form of brooding until Wednesday, when not one, but two brides-to-be visit the shop to place orders for wedding flowers. That’s God’s zany sense of humour.
The first customer is a slight, unassuming woman with a no-nonsense approach to organizing her wedding flowers. She compares the prices of roses and carnations for buttonholes. She dismisses lilies because the orange stamen stains. She listens as I reel off a few options for her bouquet. It takes just twenty minutes for her to make her selection. She plumps for tight white roses for everything. She places her order for her small, simple wedding: a bouquet for bride and maid of honour, half a dozen buttonholes, and a corsage for her mum and the groom’s mum. She digs out a pen and a small notebook from the bottom of her handbag. She makes a neat tick in the margin next to the word flowers and notes down the figure I gave her as an estimate. As she leaves the shop I envy her restraint and contentment.
The second bride-to-be arrives with considerably more commotion. The overly tanned and loud woman is accompanied by her mum and two friends. All four women have strong opinions on what will be ‘absolutely a must’ or ‘to die for’ and loudly express them over and over again, seemingly unaware that they often contradict each other and themselves. Ben is in the back room doing paperwork, so I alone have to deal with Bridezilla.
I realize that the woman is unlikely to be a virgin and her insistence on a ‘totally massive white do, with all the extras’ is perhaps a tad hypocritical but what the hell,