he first started coming into the shop just over a year ago. He looked so tired, so worn down. Her mother had always made conversation with him, chatting away the silences when he came in twice a week. All nothings, every time. They discussed the weather, the politics of the day, the X Factor results.
Over time, he had gotten brighter. He looked less drawn, more at ease. His eyes were different though. Was it the darkness, the depth of the brown they were? He had sad eyes that never quite matched his lopsided half-smile. They looked at odds with everything in the world, and she found herself counting the days in between her seeing them.
It had become somewhat of a puzzle to her, a conundrum to solve. She found herself punctuating her working week with his visits. She almost wrote them in her diary, like a girl would record her secret thoughts. She wished that she did write them in her diary to be honest, if only to have something to jot down in there at all. The only thing she wrote in there lately were changes to deliveries, and the usual birthdays and anniversaries that everyone writes in a journal.
She often daydreamed about him, like now, when she had washed her hair three times. What his story was, the places he had seen. What work did he do? He sometimes came dressed up; sometimes he wore scruffy jeans, ratty T-shirts. He often had the telltale sign of dirt under his fingernails, so she knew he worked with his hands, out in the open.
Sometimes, when she was daydreaming, or reading one of her romance novels, she thought about what kind of job he did. Farmer? Builder? Did he live local? Westfield was a pretty close-knit place. Everyone knew the colour of your pants on the line, or so the saying went. Not that she dare ask around about him, of course. She just knew she wouldn’t be able to ask casually. Roger was already on to her.
Stuart worked outside for the most part, but he didn’t have hands like him. His hands were smooth, moisturized, not a callus in sight. In fact, you would think he was a hand model the way he went on sometimes. She had once asked him to put a few shelves up in the shop and he had looked at her as though she had asked him to hack someone’s head off. In the end, Roger had done it, Stuart ‘supervising’ from a distance. Lily was still amazed to this day that Roger hadn’t nailed him to the wall by his thumbs.
After that, she hadn’t bothered to ask him again. She still had some plans for the shop DIY wise, but she was determined to wait till she had more money in the bank, then at least she could hire a handyman. Simon from the village often did the odd job or two on a weekend, when he wasn’t busy working at the greengrocer’s with his dad, or chasing down new clients for his own business. He had been busy though lately in other ways, wining and dining the new girl who was working at the boutique. She seemed nice, not that Lily had spoken to her in person yet.
Lily didn’t have many friends, not really. She was popular at school, being a kind girl who loved flowers. People liked her – it was easy. Who didn’t like a girl obsessed with flowers?
The thing was, she was left behind. Because Westfield was a small village, people moved on. Few moved in, though the ones who did tended to stick, once they fell in love with the countryside. After school, there was college, university, travelling. The next steps in life that people took, when they left the nest. Lily had waved off every one of her friends, one by one, and watched them fly off, while she clung to the sticks of her parental home. The point was, until yesterday, she had never really minded. Even Simon had left, but now he was back, called to his roots. Eager to set down some of his own.
Until Roger had spoken those words. Take a chance, for once in your life. The sentence haunted her. For once in your life. That was just the thing. She never had taken a chance. Sure, she had her own business now, but the truth was, she had been destined to have the shop since she was born. Her parents helped her save up her deposit, guaranteed her loan. The pampered princess way of earning a living, really.
The shop thrived, had for years, and it was a pretty safe investment. She knew the shop by heart, having had many of her first milestones either here or in the house she had lived in all her life. Even when she went to college, she was a short bus ride away, and her dad had ferried her in half the time, on his way to a delivery. She had been sheltered like a bird born in captivity, happy with its lot in life, till they heard the songs from the forests nearby. That sentence was a song in the forest, and now Lily couldn’t block out the noise it had produced.
Stepping out of the shower, she slung on her robe and dashed into her bedroom to get ready. She wanted to get to work early, to compose herself for her morning coffee date/meeting/awkward experience. Stuart hadn’t even called last night, since she put the phone down on him, and she knew he was either letting her cool off or still scratching his head trying to work out what had gone on. Either way, she just hoped he remembered she was busy today. She would deal with him later. Once she had worked out in her own mind just what she was doing.
Downstairs, Irvin was sitting at the kitchen island, spreading damson jam onto hot buttered toast. Lily smiled at her dad, who looked a little like Danny DeVito, with the wit of Ricky Gervais. Her mother, in comparison, looked more like Glenn Close. Beautiful, tall, and thin with an elegance to her that you didn’t learn from any magazines. Lily was an odd combination of the two: having inherited her mother’s good bone structure and body proportions, and her father’s odd sense of humour and general lack of grace.
Stuart had taken her golfing once, early on in their dating life. She thought it had gone quite well, but she hadn’t been asked back. She was too embarrassed to ask the reason why. She assumed that her hitting the duck in the pond with a stray shot wasn’t a factor. Or the dent she had put into Stuart’s prized chariot.
Whatever the reason, she never went to the golf club any more, and Stuart seemed reluctant to have her there again. A shame really, because with a bit of work on the gardens, it would be a fantastic wedding venue. Not that she had mentioned that to him, of course. She was starting to realize that Stuart wasn’t big on talking about wedding plans, but which guy was? It was a badly kept secret that the groom just pretty much turned up on the day, and had no clue about what a centrepiece was, let alone what type of flowers were involved. Why would Stuart be different?
She kissed her dad on the top of his head, and he patted her arm.
‘Morning, darling, sleep well?’
Lily nodded. ‘Not bad, I have an early start today so I need to get cracking. Where’s Mum?’
She saw her dad’s face drop a little. ‘Still asleep I think. You know she moved into the spare room, don’t you?’
Lily nodded. ‘Judging from the amount of face creams in my bathroom, I gather she means to stay there too.’
Irvin winced, and her heart went out to him.
‘I know, I know. Your mother is a stubborn woman. She always has been.’
Lily rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t see you trying to sort things out either, Dad. It’s been a while since you two have even talked, you know?’
He nodded and seemed to be about to say something when his wife walked into the room. She looked tired, and a little gaunt, and Lily saw that her dad seemed taken aback.
‘Talking about me, were you?’ she said sniffily. ‘I do live here too you know.’
Lily groaned. ‘Mum, we weren’t talking about you, not like that. It’s just that you seem so unhappy.’
‘Me unhappy!’ Lizzie proclaimed. ‘I’m fine!’
Irvin shook his head. ‘No, Lizzie, you’re not.’
Lily looked from one parent to the other, wishing herself from the room. It was looking like another breakfast from the fruit bowl dash.
Lizzie sighed, looking all the more tired, and straightened up her dressing gown.
‘Well, Irvin, whose fault is that, eh?’
***
They both looked at each other, lost in what they wanted to say and what they felt the other wanted to hear.
‘Let’s face it, Irvin, we are not getting on.’