The Secrets of Flowers, page 20
She pulls her suitcase from under her bed and starts to pack. After her shoes and clothes are arranged (‘roll, don’t fold’), she pauses before adding the three magazines that one of her American passengers gave her. She believes she has earned every one of the colourful pages.
The American languished her way to New York, calling for her favourite stewardess to bear her company. She explained it was not seasickness she was suffering from – goodness, hadn’t they sailed every summer in Maine since she was a girl? – no, it was neglect of the cruellest kind that was draining her spirit. She could not say more.
But she insisted her favourite stewardess return for each instalment, sometimes requiring her to sit with her late into the night. She was charming in her requests and tearful in her thanks, a handkerchief scented with lilac pressed to her lips. Her tears traced pale lines in the powder on her exquisite face. She begged her friend to visit her in New York and personally put into her hands the magazines she had no use for.
Finding herself near to the American’s home one afternoon during shore leave in New York, she decided to visit. Curiosity and sentiment stifled her mother’s voice whispering in her ear: ‘No good wlll come of it.’
As usual, her mother was right.
She was ushered into a room filled with guests, the pale, thick carpets softening the sound of conversation and laughter like a fresh fall of snow. The American was as charming as ever and moved forward with the graceful gestures she remembered from the hours they had spent together. Her voice rose in gentle enquiry, and as she turned to introduce her dear friend to the others, her favourite stewardess knew for certain that she had no idea who she was.
She would like to throw away the magazines that smell of lilac, but she knows her mother and sister would like to look at them and will enjoy seeing how much she is valued by her passengers.
Finally, she places the bundle of well-read letters from home into her case. It is good to think she will soon be returning to the address written on the top right-hand corner of each. She frowns, thinking of the last letter. Her mother wrote to urge her to take up the new post she has been offered, and she is not sure whether to follow her advice. She likes the Olympic; she is used to it. Still, at least she would not be alone. Friends here with her on the Olympic are to change to the new ship, and they say they would like to sail with her again.
She packs the last of her belongings and reflects that her reluctance is unlikely to tip the scales when weighed against a mother who is always right. Perhaps, as her mother says, it will be an opportunity.
And, at the very least, it would mean serving on the most splendid ship the world has ever seen: the Titanic.
Chapter 56
Emma
A Bed of Roses
‘Do you have five minutes? There are some ideas I’d like to run past you both about the garden centre. I’m not trying to interfere – I just hoped I might be able to help a little.’
They are back in the Flower Cabin, sheltering from a thunderstorm, sharing coffee and a lemon cake that Emma brought in with her this morning – a better attempt than the cake she tried to make weeks ago, after she missed Les’s Titanic talk.
It occurs to her that maybe Betty hasn’t told Les she has discussed their business problems with her, and perhaps he will mind.
But Les appears to be smiling behind his beard. ‘Well, I always say, two heads are better than one.’ Then, glancing out towards the rain, he says, ‘There’s no time like the present. Just let me get something to sit on.’ He reaches behind him for a large crate, which he places beside Betty’s stool.
Despite Les’s encouragement and Betty’s smile, Emma’s voice wavers as she starts. ‘Betty explained that the main problem is the drop in numbers since the ring road was built.’
Both nod solemnly at her.
‘I was wondering … well, instead of thinking of your location as a problem, it could be a real bonus for us.’ She hopes they don’t mind her saying ‘us’. ‘Every other garden centre in the area is on a very boring industrial estate or in a shopping complex – whereas we have the most beautiful backdrop.’ She thinks of the mornings when she has sat on the bench looking across the allotments to the downs that rise up behind the garden centre. ‘The only problem is, just that: it’s the backdrop. Everything faces the wrong way. The café windows look out on to the front and the car park. I just wondered – could we turn it all around?’
Les rubs his beard. ‘You mean open up the back?’
Betty chimes in. ‘It’s only the wooden storage sheds behind the back wall.’
‘Exactly,’ Emma rushes on. ‘If you could take out some of the end section and put in French windows, the whole café would look out over the garden centre and the downs. Who wouldn’t want to look at that over coffee and cake? The café could be a venue for events too – for parties. perhaps evening classes. We could even start a book club for those interested in nature and gardens.’
‘Now, that I would really like,’ Betty exclaims.
‘You could even move the flower shop near the café, Betty – people always like to watch as we make up bouquets. It’s a bit like seeing someone cook.’ She doesn’t add that she would like to make their posies less formal. Slowly, slowly – one step at a time. ‘And we often have flowers we can’t sell but still have some life left in them, so rather than throw them away, we could make up posies for the tables, and this would remind people we sell cut flowers as well as plants. And if we do events in the café, we can always suggest that we supply the flowers for those.’ She glances down at the notes in her hand. ‘I’ve also been researching other industries, and it seems to be all about developing things people will talk to their friends about. I think a lot of it is about creating a bit of theatre. I was reading about an interior design show where they covered unexpected things in fabric – like the outside of a bath, or a beach hut. We could do it the other way round – take a sofa and instead of cushions, have flowers planted out in it. Anything that makes people stop and look.’
‘A bed of roses,’ Les says, slowly.
‘Perfect.’ Emma beams at him. ‘The other thing I know from being new to gardening is that people really need ideas. So maybe we could take some small plots – and I mean very small – plant them up and then have a display behind it selling what’s in that patch. We could have different colour themes…’
‘Or gardens that attract bees and butterflies,’ says Betty, with a glance down at her Red Admiral T-shirt.
‘Exactly. And we could support all of this kind of thing through social media.’
She is tempted to say more but decides to leave it at that.
‘Well, Emma, you’ve given us a lot of food for thought.’ Les glances at Betty, who smiles encouragingly. ‘And you would be happy to help us with this?’
‘Of course – I’d love to. For example, I could set up an Instagram account for us and run it.’
Both Les and Betty are nodding now.
‘Well, you leave it with us to mull over,’ Les says. ‘I need to get on now and see to the begonias – they won’t be liking this downpour. Give us some time to think it through.’
Emma nods, but she can already tell that they like her ideas. Maybe it’s not just about asking for the help you need; sometimes it’s also about being prepared to offer specific help. She was worried about interfering, but this doesn’t feel like that.
The moment Les steps out into the rain, Tamas comes running full pelt into the Flower Cabin, flower boxes held over his head. Tamas puts the boxes down and then stamps and shakes like a very large dog. Emma notices that both she and Betty are looking at him expectantly.
‘This is the weather the ducks like, I think,’ he booms, taking the towel Betty is offering him. He rubs it vigorously over his bald head.
He emerges from under the towel and, seeing them both still looking at him, laughs. ‘I see you look at me. You women, you always want to know. But I am not going to say anything.’ But he continues to smile.
‘You had a nice time with Berta though, love?’ Betty asks a little anxiously.
‘I think that my Greta would say to her dad that he is not always such an old fool as he appears.’ He laughs again. ‘She used to say this about her dad, he is not always a fool – often, but not always.’ With that, he hands the delivery note to Betty with a nod. Then he turns abruptly and takes Emma’s hand in his and with slow formality bends from the waist and kisses it. ‘This is for you, for reminding me that words should sometimes be written down.’
She is left astonished but smiling, hand still held out. He turns and, forgetting to pick up the empty flower boxes, throws open the door and runs back out into the storm.
Emma and Betty watch as he splashes down the path, leaping over flowerpots and making tidal waves in the puddles as he lands.
Betty gives a deep sigh. ‘Well, love, that looks very promising, I do have to say – a lot better than I had been expecting.’ She chuckles. ‘And not one mention of you looking like his cow.’ She pauses as she opens up the first flower box. ‘Now, what about you, love? What’s next for you?’
It’s not a question Emma can answer.
She is still thinking about it as she draws up outside her cottage later. Alistair said he would be in touch soon, but she really has no idea how long that will be. A few days? A week? A month? And then what?
She can’t help feeling she should go and see her mother. Not for the party – God forbid – but she has all the old family photos and documents, stretching way back. She wants to get her hands on these.
But it is not just the photos. Emma hasn’t spoken to her mother since her breakdown in Cambridge, but she increasingly feels that she needs to talk to her properly – not on the phone but face-to-face. She knows she doesn’t want to, but sometime soon, she thinks she will have to.
A trip to Paris?
Paris is where Philippe, the retired perfumier, lives, so she could kill two birds with one stone (as Les would say).
Another thought brings a genuine smile to her face: maybe Betty would like to come with her?
Chapter 57
Violet
Golden Tulips
Her friend, the bar steward, is unloading the glasses in preparation for their maiden voyage. He has asked her to tell him what she thinks of their new ship, the Titanic. He is waiting for her to answer.
How can she say that it makes her feel drunk, like the time he made her take a second brandy against the cold? Then she had tried to get into her cabin but the handle seemed to have been moved to the wrong side of the door and she was left foolishly rubbing her hands all over the metal painted surface to find it.
It is the same all over the Titanic. It is a ship so like the Olympic that it is almost a familiar old friend. She knows its virtues and its idiosyncrasies – but things have been moved, details changed. She expects to find a certain something around a corner only to discover it has vanished. And then she bangs her knee against a table that shouldn’t be there.
Her friend is still waiting patiently, rubbing the crystal glasses with a white cloth so new it looks like stiff card in his hands.
She remembers a trick she has learnt from her brothers, boys so full of questions they rarely have time to answer what is asked of them.
‘I would be interested to hear what you think of her?’ she says.
She diverts him as easily as the boys distract the priest when they ask him a question about the scriptures. He picks up another Champagne glass to polish while he considers the question.
‘I told my wife that we are making history. It will be something to tell the lad that his dad was on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.’
Her friend and his wife have just had their first child, and the experience is so fresh he still looks at everything through the eyes of a new father. The ice buckets are large enough ‘to bathe a baby in’, and the linen of the napkins ‘fine enough for a christening gown’.
‘So you prefer her to the Olympic?’
‘I’m not saying the Olympic wasn’t a grand ship, but this, well, this is…’ He pauses as he searches for the words. ‘… This is majestic.’
He’s right: the smart new robes of the Titanic are fine enough for a Queen. The ship may still feel like an impersonator, but she is a mimic in a splendid new cloak. Staircases sweep with gleaming banisters; etched glass partitions sparkle and shine; and the tiles of the Turkish baths shimmer in shades of turquoise and green, like jewels from under the sea.
But she thinks it is the fabrics within the ship that impress her most: the golden and red tulips woven into the first-class chairs, the softness of the wool carpets. And she has never seen lacework like the covers on the beds in the staterooms – lace so delicate it could be made from, well … from babies’ hair.
She smiles at the thought and promises her friend she will come back and see him when she next has the chance. She still has half her cabins to prepare before the passengers arrive, and time is sailing on.
Chapter 58
Emma
Gardenia & Wisteria
They catch the Eurostar with a minute to spare. Emma had forgotten how long security could take, the thought of simply boarding a train lulling her into a false sense of having plenty of time. Betty picked up on Emma’s growing anxiety as they waited to get their bags screened and as a consequence hasn’t stopped talking since.
‘… and here we are and no bones broken,’ she finishes as the train pulls out.
Emma is in urgent need of a coffee. She also thinks she had better call her mother. She has avoided making this call – better to ring when she’s on her way and there is no way of backing out. Beyond asking to see old photo albums and documents, she really has no clear idea what she wants to say to her mother – she just has a vague feeling it will come to her when they meet. She does her best to ignore a small voice in her head that keeps whispering: ‘Forty years of not saying how you really feel and now you think it’s going to be different?’
She WhatsApps the information on the small hotel she has booked for them to Betty and leaves her studying this as she goes to find a quiet spot to make her call.
Her mother picks up on the second ring.
‘Mum, I’m on my way to Paris. I’m hoping we can catch up over supper tomorrow or the next day. Or lunch, or maybe breakfast if you’re busy.’ She has at least got the words out but despairs that her voice has already taken on a conciliatory tone.
‘What are you talking about, Emma? Paris?’
‘I said, I’m on my way. I’m on the Eurostar,’ she declares, feeling foolish.
‘But what on earth were you thinking?’
‘I’m coming to Paris for a few days,’ Emma repeats. Is it really that hard to grasp? Or is her mother punishing her for their last call?
‘But you can’t.’
So, she is still angry she won’t come to the chateau in October.
‘Well I am,’ she says boldly, bravely.
‘But no one is in Paris in August.’
Emma stands by the baggage rack of the swaying train and closes her eyes. How can she have forgotten?
‘Emma, are you still there? Paris in August?’
Emma can hear her mother turning to someone else, and a muffled, ‘Emma’s going to Paris – I have no idea what’s got into to her.’
Her voice comes back more clearly into Emma’s ear. ‘No one is in Paris in August.’ She says this as though to suggest otherwise would be a personal affront.
‘Well, I will be,’ and Emma starts to laugh, ‘Oh, and Betty will be too.’
‘Betty? What are you talking about, Emma? You know I always go to Antibes in August.’ Her mother’s voice grows querulous, then muffled once more, ‘Mathias, I have no idea what she’s talking about.’
Emma is still laughing when she sits back down opposite Betty. Her overwhelming feeling is one of relief. She is going to Paris, and she doesn’t have to see her mother. The decision to face her has been taken out of her hands. She knows the concierge at her mother’s apartment building will let her in to collect the old photographs and papers, and before ending their call, her bemused mother agreed that she could borrow them. Besides, she has received an email from Philippe (who is still in Paris), saying that he would be delighted to meet her. She has no idea what she hopes to achieve by this visit, but he had encouraged her to reach out if she were ever in Paris, and he is certainly a man who knows a lot about scent and flowers.
With this in mind, she is still grinning to herself when Betty says, ‘I’ve ordered us two glasses of Champagne, as my treat.’ Then she adds, ‘So your mum won’t be there?’
‘Nope.’
‘And you don’t mind?’ Betty sounds confused.
‘Nope.’ Emma grins. ‘I know I should – it’s half of why we’re going – but I don’t.’
‘But I thought you had things you wanted to talk to her about?’
Instead of answering a question that is likely to tie them up in knots for hours, she asks, ‘What was your mum like, Betty?’
Betty settles back in her seat. ‘Oh, she was a wonder – so talented. She’d been a seamstress for the designer Norman Hartnell in London and worked her way up to be an embroiderer. My mum once showed me a photo of a white evening dress they had made for the late Queen – it was covered in the tiniest, hand-embroidered gardenias. My mum was working there when she met my dad. He was an accountant—’
‘So was mine!’ Emma smiles. ‘Well, that’s how he started – he ended up in the City. He had one of those brains that see patterns in figures.’
‘A bit like mine,’ says Betty. ‘Well, my dad ended up in Glossop and that didn’t suit my mum at all. But what could she do? In those days, a wife had to go with her husband.’ Betty sips her Champagne.
‘Did your mum keep working when they moved?’
‘Yes, first in a dress shop and then she took on some private customers making their clothes. But, well, it wouldn’t have been the same, would it?’
The American languished her way to New York, calling for her favourite stewardess to bear her company. She explained it was not seasickness she was suffering from – goodness, hadn’t they sailed every summer in Maine since she was a girl? – no, it was neglect of the cruellest kind that was draining her spirit. She could not say more.
But she insisted her favourite stewardess return for each instalment, sometimes requiring her to sit with her late into the night. She was charming in her requests and tearful in her thanks, a handkerchief scented with lilac pressed to her lips. Her tears traced pale lines in the powder on her exquisite face. She begged her friend to visit her in New York and personally put into her hands the magazines she had no use for.
Finding herself near to the American’s home one afternoon during shore leave in New York, she decided to visit. Curiosity and sentiment stifled her mother’s voice whispering in her ear: ‘No good wlll come of it.’
As usual, her mother was right.
She was ushered into a room filled with guests, the pale, thick carpets softening the sound of conversation and laughter like a fresh fall of snow. The American was as charming as ever and moved forward with the graceful gestures she remembered from the hours they had spent together. Her voice rose in gentle enquiry, and as she turned to introduce her dear friend to the others, her favourite stewardess knew for certain that she had no idea who she was.
She would like to throw away the magazines that smell of lilac, but she knows her mother and sister would like to look at them and will enjoy seeing how much she is valued by her passengers.
Finally, she places the bundle of well-read letters from home into her case. It is good to think she will soon be returning to the address written on the top right-hand corner of each. She frowns, thinking of the last letter. Her mother wrote to urge her to take up the new post she has been offered, and she is not sure whether to follow her advice. She likes the Olympic; she is used to it. Still, at least she would not be alone. Friends here with her on the Olympic are to change to the new ship, and they say they would like to sail with her again.
She packs the last of her belongings and reflects that her reluctance is unlikely to tip the scales when weighed against a mother who is always right. Perhaps, as her mother says, it will be an opportunity.
And, at the very least, it would mean serving on the most splendid ship the world has ever seen: the Titanic.
Chapter 56
Emma
A Bed of Roses
‘Do you have five minutes? There are some ideas I’d like to run past you both about the garden centre. I’m not trying to interfere – I just hoped I might be able to help a little.’
They are back in the Flower Cabin, sheltering from a thunderstorm, sharing coffee and a lemon cake that Emma brought in with her this morning – a better attempt than the cake she tried to make weeks ago, after she missed Les’s Titanic talk.
It occurs to her that maybe Betty hasn’t told Les she has discussed their business problems with her, and perhaps he will mind.
But Les appears to be smiling behind his beard. ‘Well, I always say, two heads are better than one.’ Then, glancing out towards the rain, he says, ‘There’s no time like the present. Just let me get something to sit on.’ He reaches behind him for a large crate, which he places beside Betty’s stool.
Despite Les’s encouragement and Betty’s smile, Emma’s voice wavers as she starts. ‘Betty explained that the main problem is the drop in numbers since the ring road was built.’
Both nod solemnly at her.
‘I was wondering … well, instead of thinking of your location as a problem, it could be a real bonus for us.’ She hopes they don’t mind her saying ‘us’. ‘Every other garden centre in the area is on a very boring industrial estate or in a shopping complex – whereas we have the most beautiful backdrop.’ She thinks of the mornings when she has sat on the bench looking across the allotments to the downs that rise up behind the garden centre. ‘The only problem is, just that: it’s the backdrop. Everything faces the wrong way. The café windows look out on to the front and the car park. I just wondered – could we turn it all around?’
Les rubs his beard. ‘You mean open up the back?’
Betty chimes in. ‘It’s only the wooden storage sheds behind the back wall.’
‘Exactly,’ Emma rushes on. ‘If you could take out some of the end section and put in French windows, the whole café would look out over the garden centre and the downs. Who wouldn’t want to look at that over coffee and cake? The café could be a venue for events too – for parties. perhaps evening classes. We could even start a book club for those interested in nature and gardens.’
‘Now, that I would really like,’ Betty exclaims.
‘You could even move the flower shop near the café, Betty – people always like to watch as we make up bouquets. It’s a bit like seeing someone cook.’ She doesn’t add that she would like to make their posies less formal. Slowly, slowly – one step at a time. ‘And we often have flowers we can’t sell but still have some life left in them, so rather than throw them away, we could make up posies for the tables, and this would remind people we sell cut flowers as well as plants. And if we do events in the café, we can always suggest that we supply the flowers for those.’ She glances down at the notes in her hand. ‘I’ve also been researching other industries, and it seems to be all about developing things people will talk to their friends about. I think a lot of it is about creating a bit of theatre. I was reading about an interior design show where they covered unexpected things in fabric – like the outside of a bath, or a beach hut. We could do it the other way round – take a sofa and instead of cushions, have flowers planted out in it. Anything that makes people stop and look.’
‘A bed of roses,’ Les says, slowly.
‘Perfect.’ Emma beams at him. ‘The other thing I know from being new to gardening is that people really need ideas. So maybe we could take some small plots – and I mean very small – plant them up and then have a display behind it selling what’s in that patch. We could have different colour themes…’
‘Or gardens that attract bees and butterflies,’ says Betty, with a glance down at her Red Admiral T-shirt.
‘Exactly. And we could support all of this kind of thing through social media.’
She is tempted to say more but decides to leave it at that.
‘Well, Emma, you’ve given us a lot of food for thought.’ Les glances at Betty, who smiles encouragingly. ‘And you would be happy to help us with this?’
‘Of course – I’d love to. For example, I could set up an Instagram account for us and run it.’
Both Les and Betty are nodding now.
‘Well, you leave it with us to mull over,’ Les says. ‘I need to get on now and see to the begonias – they won’t be liking this downpour. Give us some time to think it through.’
Emma nods, but she can already tell that they like her ideas. Maybe it’s not just about asking for the help you need; sometimes it’s also about being prepared to offer specific help. She was worried about interfering, but this doesn’t feel like that.
The moment Les steps out into the rain, Tamas comes running full pelt into the Flower Cabin, flower boxes held over his head. Tamas puts the boxes down and then stamps and shakes like a very large dog. Emma notices that both she and Betty are looking at him expectantly.
‘This is the weather the ducks like, I think,’ he booms, taking the towel Betty is offering him. He rubs it vigorously over his bald head.
He emerges from under the towel and, seeing them both still looking at him, laughs. ‘I see you look at me. You women, you always want to know. But I am not going to say anything.’ But he continues to smile.
‘You had a nice time with Berta though, love?’ Betty asks a little anxiously.
‘I think that my Greta would say to her dad that he is not always such an old fool as he appears.’ He laughs again. ‘She used to say this about her dad, he is not always a fool – often, but not always.’ With that, he hands the delivery note to Betty with a nod. Then he turns abruptly and takes Emma’s hand in his and with slow formality bends from the waist and kisses it. ‘This is for you, for reminding me that words should sometimes be written down.’
She is left astonished but smiling, hand still held out. He turns and, forgetting to pick up the empty flower boxes, throws open the door and runs back out into the storm.
Emma and Betty watch as he splashes down the path, leaping over flowerpots and making tidal waves in the puddles as he lands.
Betty gives a deep sigh. ‘Well, love, that looks very promising, I do have to say – a lot better than I had been expecting.’ She chuckles. ‘And not one mention of you looking like his cow.’ She pauses as she opens up the first flower box. ‘Now, what about you, love? What’s next for you?’
It’s not a question Emma can answer.
She is still thinking about it as she draws up outside her cottage later. Alistair said he would be in touch soon, but she really has no idea how long that will be. A few days? A week? A month? And then what?
She can’t help feeling she should go and see her mother. Not for the party – God forbid – but she has all the old family photos and documents, stretching way back. She wants to get her hands on these.
But it is not just the photos. Emma hasn’t spoken to her mother since her breakdown in Cambridge, but she increasingly feels that she needs to talk to her properly – not on the phone but face-to-face. She knows she doesn’t want to, but sometime soon, she thinks she will have to.
A trip to Paris?
Paris is where Philippe, the retired perfumier, lives, so she could kill two birds with one stone (as Les would say).
Another thought brings a genuine smile to her face: maybe Betty would like to come with her?
Chapter 57
Violet
Golden Tulips
Her friend, the bar steward, is unloading the glasses in preparation for their maiden voyage. He has asked her to tell him what she thinks of their new ship, the Titanic. He is waiting for her to answer.
How can she say that it makes her feel drunk, like the time he made her take a second brandy against the cold? Then she had tried to get into her cabin but the handle seemed to have been moved to the wrong side of the door and she was left foolishly rubbing her hands all over the metal painted surface to find it.
It is the same all over the Titanic. It is a ship so like the Olympic that it is almost a familiar old friend. She knows its virtues and its idiosyncrasies – but things have been moved, details changed. She expects to find a certain something around a corner only to discover it has vanished. And then she bangs her knee against a table that shouldn’t be there.
Her friend is still waiting patiently, rubbing the crystal glasses with a white cloth so new it looks like stiff card in his hands.
She remembers a trick she has learnt from her brothers, boys so full of questions they rarely have time to answer what is asked of them.
‘I would be interested to hear what you think of her?’ she says.
She diverts him as easily as the boys distract the priest when they ask him a question about the scriptures. He picks up another Champagne glass to polish while he considers the question.
‘I told my wife that we are making history. It will be something to tell the lad that his dad was on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.’
Her friend and his wife have just had their first child, and the experience is so fresh he still looks at everything through the eyes of a new father. The ice buckets are large enough ‘to bathe a baby in’, and the linen of the napkins ‘fine enough for a christening gown’.
‘So you prefer her to the Olympic?’
‘I’m not saying the Olympic wasn’t a grand ship, but this, well, this is…’ He pauses as he searches for the words. ‘… This is majestic.’
He’s right: the smart new robes of the Titanic are fine enough for a Queen. The ship may still feel like an impersonator, but she is a mimic in a splendid new cloak. Staircases sweep with gleaming banisters; etched glass partitions sparkle and shine; and the tiles of the Turkish baths shimmer in shades of turquoise and green, like jewels from under the sea.
But she thinks it is the fabrics within the ship that impress her most: the golden and red tulips woven into the first-class chairs, the softness of the wool carpets. And she has never seen lacework like the covers on the beds in the staterooms – lace so delicate it could be made from, well … from babies’ hair.
She smiles at the thought and promises her friend she will come back and see him when she next has the chance. She still has half her cabins to prepare before the passengers arrive, and time is sailing on.
Chapter 58
Emma
Gardenia & Wisteria
They catch the Eurostar with a minute to spare. Emma had forgotten how long security could take, the thought of simply boarding a train lulling her into a false sense of having plenty of time. Betty picked up on Emma’s growing anxiety as they waited to get their bags screened and as a consequence hasn’t stopped talking since.
‘… and here we are and no bones broken,’ she finishes as the train pulls out.
Emma is in urgent need of a coffee. She also thinks she had better call her mother. She has avoided making this call – better to ring when she’s on her way and there is no way of backing out. Beyond asking to see old photo albums and documents, she really has no clear idea what she wants to say to her mother – she just has a vague feeling it will come to her when they meet. She does her best to ignore a small voice in her head that keeps whispering: ‘Forty years of not saying how you really feel and now you think it’s going to be different?’
She WhatsApps the information on the small hotel she has booked for them to Betty and leaves her studying this as she goes to find a quiet spot to make her call.
Her mother picks up on the second ring.
‘Mum, I’m on my way to Paris. I’m hoping we can catch up over supper tomorrow or the next day. Or lunch, or maybe breakfast if you’re busy.’ She has at least got the words out but despairs that her voice has already taken on a conciliatory tone.
‘What are you talking about, Emma? Paris?’
‘I said, I’m on my way. I’m on the Eurostar,’ she declares, feeling foolish.
‘But what on earth were you thinking?’
‘I’m coming to Paris for a few days,’ Emma repeats. Is it really that hard to grasp? Or is her mother punishing her for their last call?
‘But you can’t.’
So, she is still angry she won’t come to the chateau in October.
‘Well I am,’ she says boldly, bravely.
‘But no one is in Paris in August.’
Emma stands by the baggage rack of the swaying train and closes her eyes. How can she have forgotten?
‘Emma, are you still there? Paris in August?’
Emma can hear her mother turning to someone else, and a muffled, ‘Emma’s going to Paris – I have no idea what’s got into to her.’
Her voice comes back more clearly into Emma’s ear. ‘No one is in Paris in August.’ She says this as though to suggest otherwise would be a personal affront.
‘Well, I will be,’ and Emma starts to laugh, ‘Oh, and Betty will be too.’
‘Betty? What are you talking about, Emma? You know I always go to Antibes in August.’ Her mother’s voice grows querulous, then muffled once more, ‘Mathias, I have no idea what she’s talking about.’
Emma is still laughing when she sits back down opposite Betty. Her overwhelming feeling is one of relief. She is going to Paris, and she doesn’t have to see her mother. The decision to face her has been taken out of her hands. She knows the concierge at her mother’s apartment building will let her in to collect the old photographs and papers, and before ending their call, her bemused mother agreed that she could borrow them. Besides, she has received an email from Philippe (who is still in Paris), saying that he would be delighted to meet her. She has no idea what she hopes to achieve by this visit, but he had encouraged her to reach out if she were ever in Paris, and he is certainly a man who knows a lot about scent and flowers.
With this in mind, she is still grinning to herself when Betty says, ‘I’ve ordered us two glasses of Champagne, as my treat.’ Then she adds, ‘So your mum won’t be there?’
‘Nope.’
‘And you don’t mind?’ Betty sounds confused.
‘Nope.’ Emma grins. ‘I know I should – it’s half of why we’re going – but I don’t.’
‘But I thought you had things you wanted to talk to her about?’
Instead of answering a question that is likely to tie them up in knots for hours, she asks, ‘What was your mum like, Betty?’
Betty settles back in her seat. ‘Oh, she was a wonder – so talented. She’d been a seamstress for the designer Norman Hartnell in London and worked her way up to be an embroiderer. My mum once showed me a photo of a white evening dress they had made for the late Queen – it was covered in the tiniest, hand-embroidered gardenias. My mum was working there when she met my dad. He was an accountant—’
‘So was mine!’ Emma smiles. ‘Well, that’s how he started – he ended up in the City. He had one of those brains that see patterns in figures.’
‘A bit like mine,’ says Betty. ‘Well, my dad ended up in Glossop and that didn’t suit my mum at all. But what could she do? In those days, a wife had to go with her husband.’ Betty sips her Champagne.
‘Did your mum keep working when they moved?’
‘Yes, first in a dress shop and then she took on some private customers making their clothes. But, well, it wouldn’t have been the same, would it?’
