you smoke your fags outside?’ she snaps.
‘Come again?’
His arrogant, handsome face is repulsive to her now. ‘I saw you. Hanging around outside my house last night. What do you think you’re playing at?’
‘Free country, ain’t it?’
‘Was it you who sent me flowers?’
He bursts out laughing. ‘Me, send you flowers? Off your head, you are!’
And all at once she knows with absolute certainty that the irises hadn’t come from him. ‘Leave me alone,’ she says, turning away to hide her mortification. ‘Next time I see you in my street, I’ll call the police.’
‘Yeah, you do that, love.’ He blows out a long stream of smoke and laughs. ‘Fucking nutjob.’
Her mother’s in the kitchen when she goes in. ‘Where’s Cleo?’ she asks, looking around for her daughter.
‘Hmm? Oh, not sure. Maybe she went to the loo.’
She thinks of Cleo wandering around upstairs, where Shaun could happen by at any moment, and says crossly, ‘For God’s sake Mum, don’t you know?’
Going out into the hall, she calls her daughter’s name. ‘I’m in the bathroom!’ is the response, and Vivienne waits in the hall, trying to regain her composure. She shouldn’t have spoken to her mother like that, today of all days.
When she goes back she touches Stella’s shoulder. ‘Sorry for snapping. How are you?’
‘Oh … you know …’ she replies with a sigh.
‘Yeah.’ Viv nods. ‘I know.’
When Cleo comes back in, Stella says tartly, ‘There you are. Thought you’d fallen in. Expect you took your phone up there, did you?’
‘Oh, give it a rest, Gran,’ Cleo says. ‘Stop hassling me.’
Her voice is sharper than Viv has ever heard it and she looks at her daughter in surprise. ‘Cleo!’ she says. ‘Don’t speak to your gran like that!’
Her daughter sighs and shrugs, before flouncing out of the room.
Vivienne stands there, watching her mother stir something on the stove. And then, unable to keep it to herself any longer, says to her back, ‘Someone sent a bunch of irises to the café today.’ She waits anxiously for Stella’s reaction.
Stella stops what she’s doing, but doesn’t look at her daughter.
‘I don’t know who sent them,’ Viv goes on. ‘It’s freaked me out a bit, to be honest, especially today …’
Finally her mum turns to face her. ‘It must be a coincidence. Who might have sent them to you?’
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