Page 153 of Pansies

“I really will make it up to you.”

Fen managed something like his old smile—toothy and crooked and wicked. “I expect no less.”

Hand in hand, they made for the side door. Then Alfie stopped.

“What’s wrong?” asked Fen, warily.

Before Alfie quite knew what he was doing, he was on one knee on the pavement—which was really hard and a bit painful, jabbing right into him.

“Oh my God, what are you doing?”

“I’m not proposing,” he said quickly. “I just realised…I was sort of hoping that maybe one day, it’s okay if I do?”

“Wow.” Fen gave an odd sort of laugh. Tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. Wriggled his bare toes. “Not to fall back on cliché, but this is so unexpected.”

“Can’t be that unexpected. You know how I feel about you and about stuff.”

“I really shouldn’t be into this.”

“Are you, though?”

A telltale flush stole across the arch of Fen’s cheekbones. “I…I think I might be. But only because it’s you.”7

“Well, you can look forward to me doing it properly, then.”

“Is that a promise?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Though I haven’t got anything to make it official like.”

“I do.”

And, with that, Fen unwound the green wire from his finger. Dropped it into Alfie’s outstretched palm, where it landed as lightly as a butterfly.

Epilogue

He had to get a train, then a metro, then a bus, and then he walked.1 It was a porcelain-pale day on the furthest edge of winter, and after only a few weeks inland, he had somehow forgotten how cold it got this close to the coast. The way the wind had teeth, and how it came at you, as though it wanted to peel the skin from your bones and unhouse your soul to fly wide and wild with the ever-shrieking gulls. He’d never liked it much or seen much beauty in this rough, forgotten corner of the world. He would never have imagined he would one day want to call it home.

Ahead of him, in a rush of colour, spilling across the pavement, flowers, so many flowers. Spring hues mainly, fiery pink and buttercup yellow interspersed with terracotta pots of purple pansies, their intent little faces turned up in search of sun.

The sign had been repainted too. It gleamed like a smile.

He pushed open the door. The bell was just the same.

Shelley glanced up from some monstrosity she was tending. “Hi.”

“Hi.” It was always better not to ask, but he couldn’t help himself. “What in God’s name is that?”

She contemplated it sombrely. “I call itWoe.”

He flinched fromWoe. “That seems about right. How are you, Shelley?”

“I bleed inside for the untrammelled misery of the human condition.” She grinned. “So, basically I’m ducky.”

There was movement from the cold room, and Straighty emerged, his arms full of greenery. “Is there any more of the alstroemeria? Another order came in for the Flowerati Bouquet.”

“That sounds new.”

“It is.” Straighty preened behind his foliage. “One of mine, actually. A scintillating fusion of fashion and floristry that I call…horticouture.”

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