Page 133 of Pansies

Alfie reached for Fen’s hand. “We could—”

“No, no,” came Gothshelley’s outside voice, “you keep soul-searching and snogging in there. I’ll keep serving all the customers all by myself.”

“Hold that thought.”

Fen darted away. Leaving Alfie cringing a little. Because it hadn’t exactly been the sort of thought you could hold. He did sort of hope they could talk about it later, but as it turned out, there wasn’t really an opportunity. They’d just finished closing up and he was helping Fen pull down the grille when—

“‘With one star awake, as the swan in the evening moved over the lake.’”

“I think,” Alfie said warily, “your pocket’s singing.”

“Oh shit.” Fen wriggled his phone out of his jeans and swiped at it to answer. “Hi, Dad… Oh God… Yes. Sorry… I’m on my way right now… Um… Yeah… Stuck at the shop… Okay. Bye.” He hung up. Hooked his thumbs over his pockets the way he always did when he was self-conscious. “Um. That was my dad.”

“Yeah, I got that when you said ‘Hi, Dad.’”

“Sorry.”

“I’m teasing, pet. What’s up?”

“I…I’m such an idiot. I usually see him every Friday. I can’t believe I forgot. Even though my head is full of the fact it’s Friday.”

“It’s okay.” Alfie caught his hands, kissed them lightly, and calmed their fretting. “Of course you should go be with your da. Want me to drive you over?”

Fen nodded. “Or”—he stared at the ground—“you could come. If you wanted. If it wouldn’t be weird.”

“Would he think it was weird? If I just turned up?”

“Honestly, Alfie? There’s not much my dad thinks is weird. He’s got me for a son.”

The truth was, Alfie couldn’t quite figure out what he thought about meeting Fen’s dad. While he didn’t want to miss out on an evening with Fen—not when they only had two left—parents were scary. He was sure it should have made a difference that he was a grown-up in his own right. That he had a job and a car and a penthouse. But he still felt as nervy as a teenager. And as supplicant as he ever had turning up on some girl’s doorstep, promising he’d have her back by midnight.Please let me date your son. And please don’t remember I bullied him for years and hate me.

“Great,” he said aloud. “Let’s do it. Do we need to bring anything?”

“Just flowers.” Fen hurried into the workroom and emerged a few minutes later with a paper-wrapped bundle, in shades of rusty orange and sunshine yellow and deep dark pink. “Some of Mum’s favourites.”

“Not pansies?”

“Oh, she loved pansies best of all, but not in bouquets. She said they were freedom flowers. We sell them mainly in pots and window boxes during the spring and summer. And we used to have lots in the garden, but they’re probably all dead now.”

Alfie took the…he had no idea what they were, gerberas and carnations maybe…as Fen turned off the lights and locked upthe shop, and they made their way to the car. “You don’t really see pansies much down south, do you? But they get everywhere up here. All over the parks and in the fields come spring. Wild as weeds.”

Fen gasped. “Don’t say that. Mum always said there’s no such thing as a weed.”

“Um, what are weeds, then?”

“Flowers where you don’t expect them.”

Fen’s dad lived on Laburnum Grove, which, despite the fancy name, turned out to be a housing estate. Without any laburnums. Or groves. It wasn’t awful, but it had been a long time since such places were an everyday part of Alfie’s life. Inside, the house was cleanish and incredibly cluttered, as if the occupant was still working out how to live in it. Not at all like his mam’s pristine home.

Fen greeted his dad with a hug. And for some reason that weirded Alfie out. His mam was cuddly, but his own dad was kind of unassailable. If men touched each other—and Alfie and Billy had always wanted to be treated as men—it rarely went further than a clasp of the shoulder. Which Alfie’s body still remembered sometimes: a ghost of warmth, his father’s hand. And, as he stood there in an unfamiliar hallway, clutching a bunch of flowers in slightly sweaty hands, watching two men embrace like it was completely normal, completely easy, he was freshly shocked by how deeply so much of his childhood he had taken for granted. As if its truths were universal.

“Oh, and Dadaí?” At last, Fen stepped away. “This is my, um, friend Alfie. I hope you don’t mind that I brought him?”

“Of course not.” Alfie’s ability to gauge age was basically restricted to his own current bracket, but Aidan O’Donaghue was probably in his early sixties, lean and vigorous, a little bittaller than his son. His hair was mostly grey but for a few deep buried coppery-gold streaks, and his eyes were very bright, though Alfie couldn’t have said exactly what colour they were. Right now they were narrowed at Alfie like they could see every shitty thing he’d ever done in his entire life. “You’re very welcome, Alfie.”

They shook hands, and Alfie chanted,I’m a grown-up, I’m a grown-up, I’m a grown-up, in his head, hoping it would help.3

It didn’t.

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