Page 30 of Pansies

Half an hour later, Alfie was flinging a suitcase into the boot of the Sagaris and heading north, nudging impatiently at the speed limit all the way. The landscape shifted as he drove, but he couldn’t track the point it changed, when the yellowy fields started rucking up around him, and the sky grew grey and heavy. He got his first glimpse of the Tyne as he skirted the edge of Jarrow, where it was curled around an oily jumble of run-down shipyards and closed-down docks. The ugliness of it was comforting.1 Before he’d seen other towns, he hadn’t even known it was ugly. It was just stuff that was there. Salt-pitted, algae-smeared concrete pressed against the edges of the river like the teeth of a comb.

He’d been back barely a handful of times since he’d started working for J.D. Jarndyce, but he still knew where to go without having to think about it, without even having to remember. Somehow, though, always in a rush or preoccupied or on the road well after dark, he’d forgotten how green it was. Even at the edge of winter. Or maybe it was just the way the sky made everything vivid. Like Fen’s eyes, so fierce in his pale, narrow face.

As he approached the town centre, he was struck by the way everything had become familiar and alien at the same time. London was a hodgepodge of centuries, banging elbows like drunks at a bar, but South Shields was barely built up at all. Everything was as scattered as Lego bricks. There were posh bits,like the town hall with its famous ship-shaped weather vane, but mostly it was like being stuck in the seventies. Right now, he was driving between a disused office block with mirrored windows and a Sofa Carpet Specialist warehouse made of brick and corrugated plastic. Then came the town hall itself, with its never-on fountains and the podgy statue of Queen Victoria, flanked by a pair of naked, torch-holding blokes.

From there, it wasn’t far. Past the Morrisons that used to be Asda that used to be Safeway, and he was turning onto Ocean Road. The club on the corner had changed its name, but he couldn’t remember from what, only a jumble of nights in a hot, wet basement, drenched in blue light and noise. Other names had changed too, but somehow it still looked exactly the same as it always had: a faded row of curry houses, pawnbrokers, newsagents, off-licences, and bookies. At the place where the road fell into the horizon, the sky gleamed with the reflection of the unseen sea.2

Turning onto a side road, Alfie slid the Sagaris into a space against the kerb. Then he grabbed his suitcase and went to find himself a B&B. It didn’t take long because it was out of season and there were lots along here. Grand old Victorian houses with bay windows and the occasional dodgy turret. He took a room at a place called the Atlantis, which didn’t strike him as the best name for a guesthouse in a seaside town, dumped his stuff, went back to his car, and drove to Pansies.

Trying not to think too hard about what he was doing. Or had done. Or if this had really cost him his job. Or what he was going to say to Fen. Or if Fen was going to cover him in plant juice again.

He found somewhere to park on the Prince Edward Road and raced into the shop before common sense got in the way of action. The bell jangled, announcing him.

Fen was standing with a customer over by the main flower display. Just like at the Rattler, he had his back to Alfie, his weight resting lightly on one leg, and Alfie found it just as enticing. He hardly knew the man Fen had grown into, and yet it seemed like him, somehow, this carelessly tempting pose.

“I’ll be with you”—Fen’s head turned slightly, and Alfie caught the flash of his eyes, the sudden tightening of his mouth—“in a moment.”

The customer, a broad-shouldered bloke in his late fifties, was leaning slightly, but visibly, away from Fen. “Look, I’ll just tek the roses, mate.”

“But Wendy doesn’t like roses. You haven’t bought her roses in the last twenty-five years.”

“Nora used to sort it oot fer us.”

“Well, my mother isn’t here,” snapped Fen who, whatever his other skills, seemed to be struggling with the basics of customer service, “and I am, and I know what flowers your wife wants on her birthday.”

“Aye, but Nora—”

“Still isn’t here.”

“Let us choose fer mesel. And I’ll tek the roses.”

Fen didn’t quite sigh aloud, but his irritation was obvious in every line of his body. “You can’t buy a woman red roses for her birthday. You might as well just tell her you don’t have a clue who she is.”

“Ah reet.” Fen’s customer folded his arms and glared at him. “And wha’ do ye knaa aboot wimmin?”3

“Oh for God’s sake. Enough to be able to make up a bouquet for one.”

Alfie stepped forward quickly. “Me mam likes them tulips. Ha’ ye got any o’ them?”

He told himself it hadn’t been deliberate, but his voice had roughened to match the other man’s, his accent sliding into the familiar grooves of his childhood. He was, once again, the Alfie Bell everybody liked. And, sure enough, the customer, who could have been Alfie’s dad or any of his dad’s friends, was looking at him with approval. Instinctive friendliness. Like he saw something he recognised. When the reality was that Alfie probably had more in common with Fen. It gave him a sudden sense of seasickness almost, not being able to tell who he was letting down or lying to.

“Yes.” Fen cut coldly into the silence. “I do have tulips.”

“They’re bonny, aren’t they?” offered Alfie. “Do ye think your missus would like ’em?”

“Nae bloody clue, mate.”

“You could get the red uns, like the roses. That’s the colour for love, isn’t it?”

“Actually,” put in Fen, “white is love. Red is passion.”

“Oh aye. Reckon that’ll do nicely.” Alfie elbowed the stranger, earning a grin.

Fen pushed between them and carefully lifted a selection of ruby-red tulips from their bucket, the flowers bright in his pale hands. “Anything else?”

“Well, yeah. He can’t just give his wife a bunch of tulips on her birthday.”

Fen gave Alfie a sardonic look. “Of course he can’t.”

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