The Family. Louise Jensen
then.
I rummaged through drawers stuffed with ribbon and polka dot cellophane in search of some tablets to ease my headache. Then the bell tinged as the front door opened. I glanced up. My fleeting optimism dissipated when I saw it wasn’t a paying customer, but Saffron for the third time that week.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I popped two paracetamols out of their foil cocoon. ‘I haven’t sold many.’ In truth I hadn’t sold any of the Oak Leaf Farm organic veg bags Saffron had been bringing me in to trial – offering me 20 per cent of all sales – but out of guilt I’d again bought two myself. The drawer in my fridge was stacked with limp carrots and browning parsnips.
‘That’s okay. I guess a florist isn’t the first port of call when you want to buy food.’ Briefly the corners of her mouth curved into a tense smile.
‘It’s not the first port of call when you want to buy flowers nowadays.’ I grimaced as I swallowed the tablets down dry.
‘We’ll be okay as long as Amazon doesn’t start selling bouquets.’
‘They already sell flowers.’
‘Then you’re buggered.’ Her hair, a mass of tight black spirals, sprang as her head shook with a laughter that sounded hollow. She looked as tired as I felt and I knew that despite her jokes she was as worried as I was. It was so tough being a small business owner.
‘There’s no hope for the independent retailer is there? Not when customers want everything to be available twenty-four seven,’ I said.
‘You mean it isn’t?’ She titled her chin and shielded her eyes, searching for something in the sky. ‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a delivery drone.’
I didn’t laugh.
‘Thanks for the tip you gave me last week, Laura.’ She plucked a white rose from the bucket next to the counter and inhaled. ‘That new coffee shop around the corner placed a regular order for potatoes. I do love a jacket spud.’ She patted her impossibly flat stomach. Give her another ten years and the carbs would settle around her middle, the way they had on mine when I hit thirty.
Saffron chattered on and I tried to maintain my end of the conversation. Normal. I could do normal. But my mind kept returning to the letter. Adrenaline ebbed and flowed. Saffron’s sentences fragmented. The words drifted out of my reach.
‘Laura?’ The way she said my name made me realise she’d asked a question I hadn’t answered. Her voice sounded so very far away. I tried to focus but she had taken on an odd tinge. Even then, I put my disorientation down to stress. To grief. It wasn’t until a sweet, sickly smell tickled my nostrils that it crossed my mind it was happening again, but it was impossible to think that it could, it had been so long. But I knew I was right when I was hit by a spinning sensation. Arms and legs flailing. I wasn’t aware at what stage I fell to the floor, plummeting into blackness, I only found out later that I had. Time became irrelevant. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours later before I became conscious of a distant voice. An odd rasping roared into my ears – my own panicked breath. An angel – a blur of brilliant white light. I thought I was dying.
I thought I was dying again.
But as my hazy vision focused I saw it was Saffron in her white jeans and jumper. Her concerned face loomed towards mine.
‘Are you okay?’ Her hand was on my shoulder.
I tried to speak but my mouth was full of coppery blood where I’d bitten my tongue.
‘I’m calling an ambulance.’ The panic in her voice somehow calmed me.
‘No.’ I sat up. ‘Please don’t.’ Gingerly, I pressed the back of my head where I’d hit it on the floor. I knew from experience that later I’d be sore and covered in bruises, but at the time embarrassment was my overriding emotion as I struggled to my feet. ‘It’s a seizure. I’ve had them before.’ But not for years, since before my parents disowned me. It was like after they’d thrown me out, my body had fallen into a reverse shock almost – instead of breaking further apart, it had fallen back together. Perhaps Gavan had been the cause of my seizures returning. He had been the cause of so many things. I was thinking of the letter again and it all became too much. I began to cry.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She looked stricken. ‘That looked awful. I didn’t know whether to call 999 first or try to help you. It all happened so quickly.’
Although I was fuggy and disorientated and it felt like I’d been out for hours, in reality it had likely lasted less than a minute.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked doubtfully, still gripping her phone.
Sick. Exhausted. Afraid.
‘Fine.’ I said, the bitter taste of the lie and blood on my tongue.
‘You don’t look it. Are you sure you don’t need checking over?’
‘No. Honestly, there’s nothing the hospital can do for me.’ There was a beat and I thought she’d insist on a doctor and all the implications that would bring. ‘You could fetch me some water though.’ I sat on the stool, elbows on the counter, my head in my hands. Seconds later a glass was placed in front of me and it felt like a dead weight as I lifted it to my dry lips and sipped before wiping the dribble snaking down my chin with my sleeve. ‘You can go. I’m going to lock up and head home myself.’ I was drained of energy; like I’d been powered by electricity and then unplugged.
Saffron hovered uncertainly. ‘I could give you a lift?’
I hesitated. I’d be a danger on the road, but I’d only met Saffron about a dozen times; I didn’t want to put her out. ‘I’ll ring a friend to pick me up.’
It didn’t take long to scroll through my contacts. Even if it weren’t for recent events, Gavan and I had been one of those couples who spent all our time together, so I didn’t have many friends. I hesitated at Anwyn’s name. My sister-in-law and I had been so close once, but our fractured family now barely spoke. Still, I called and it rang and rang before her voicemail kicked in. I pictured her watching my name flash up on the screen, choosing not to answer.
I didn’t leave a message.
The shop bell pealed. I raised my heavy head. Saffron had cracked open the door; I’d almost forgotten she was still here.
‘Are you sure you’re okay? I could drive your car and pick mine up later. It’s no trouble?’
I was feeling so unwell I couldn’t face getting the bus, and I certainly couldn’t afford a taxi.
‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘That would be nice.’
But it wasn’t nice at all.
Three is a power number, although I didn’t know that at the time, I came to learn it later. It took three men to witness three things; a creation, a destruction and a restoration – Noah, Daniel and Job. There were three founders of the Roman Empire. It took three decisions to destroy my life.
Sometimes when something awful happens you sift through memories afterwards, desperate to pinpoint the exact moment things went horribly, horribly wrong.
Saying yes. That was the first mistake I made.
I still had two to go.
TILLY
They’d changed the classrooms around in the six weeks I’d been off. By the time I’d located my English group I was late.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered to Mr Cranford.
And rather than snapping at me like he normally would with his stale coffee breath he said, ‘That’s okay, Tilly. It’s good to see you back.’ His words were soaked with sympathy and somehow that was harder to bear than his shouting.
All