Mindsight. Chris Curran

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СКАЧАТЬ time to wash and dress. It didn’t matter that it was too late for breakfast, because I couldn’t have eaten anything. But my throat was bone dry, so I stuck my mouth under the tap and glugged down a few swallows of lukewarm water before setting off at a run.

      Stella had told me to come round to the back door, and I found her unloading the van, too busy, thank God, to notice I was breathless. ‘Oh, good, you’re just in time,’ she said, thrusting some trays of flowers at me.

      Harriet was already in the shop and they both talked almost non-stop as we got ready to open. They rarely seemed to expect an answer from me, so I focused on following the torrent of instructions. At nine o’clock Stella opened the shop door. ‘Harriet, sweetie, would you show Clare how we make up a simple bouquet.’ She smiled at me. ‘It’s not difficult, but best if you have a bit of a practice before you do it for real.’

      When the bell jangled half an hour later Harriet smiled at me. ‘Over to you then – your first customers.’

      The two women were poking at a large container of roses and, as I walked over, I forced a smile, very conscious of Harriet behind the counter. ‘Can I help you?’

      Without looking up, one of them began pulling roses from the vase and handing them to me. ‘Yes, can you do these up with some greenery, love?’ I knew my hands were shaking as I wrapped the bunch for her, but I managed to deal with the till without too much trouble.

      ‘Just started have you, dear?’ she said.

      Harriet answered for me. ‘This is Clare. She’s taking over when I go to uni.’ Obviously this was a regular, and they chatted for a few moments. I should have been relieved, but all the time I was aware of the woman’s friend watching me.

      ‘Local are you?’ she asked.

      I fiddled with the Sellotape dispenser, avoiding her eye. ‘I’ve just moved here.’ I could tell she wanted more, but her friend was already at the door. They stood outside for a moment, glancing back at us as they talked.

      When Harriet went into the back room to sort some orders, I leaned on the counter, my legs almost too weak to support my weight. I asked myself why I’d agreed to a job like this, where I would be constantly on show. Stella was Alice’s friend, of course, and they’d made it easy for me, but I wasn’t at all sure I was going to cope.

      I managed to deal with the next three or four customers and at last Stella shouted down that coffee was ready. Harriet ran up and brought down a mug. ‘Go and have a sit down with yours, Clare. You deserve it.’

      Stella was standing, draining her mug. ‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘No rush.’ I suspected she was going to get a progress report, but was just grateful to be able to lean back and close my eyes for a few moments; to give in to the thoughts I’d been fighting since yesterday.

      A part of me was terrified about what I had to face that night, but another part was joyful. I had spoken to my son, and – the memory was a sliver of sunlight dancing with motes of something wonderful, something amazing, something I’d thought impossible – Tommy wanted to see me.

      ‘Did Alice tell you I was out?’ I’d said when I was able to speak, cursing myself for the crass remark.

      ‘She said it was soon, but I worked that out anyway.’ There was silence, as his unspoken question hung in the air. Why didn’t you come and see me right away?

      There was no point in making excuses, no point, either, in raking up the past. The conversation, if you could call it that, faltered to a halt and I asked to speak to Alice, to arrange for her to drive me over. ‘That’s OK, I can tell her,’ he said, the edge to his voice suggesting he suspected I might try to get out of the arrangement.

      Neither of us mentioned his dad, or his granddad. Or Toby – his twin – his other half.

      Tommy had always been the more forceful, the more independent, of the twins even though he was the younger by half an hour. He hadn’t been involved in the crash because he’d been invited to his best friend’s birthday party the weekend of the wedding and he’d stayed over. Toby had been happy to come on his own: to have all our attention to himself for once.

      After I was sentenced, Alice took Tommy on and brought him up: yet another thing I had to be grateful to her for. It was agony to lose him too, but at least I knew he was with someone who loved him almost as much as I did.

      Down in the shop again, Stella said she needed Harriet to help in the back room. ‘You’ll be OK out here on your own, won’t you, Clare?’

      I was very aware of the sounds of clipping and muttering, the scrape of shifting stools and the occasional burst of running water. At least the shop was quiet, only two more customers buying flowers from the displays. Neither of them did more than glance at me and I began to tell myself that maybe it would be all right.

      By quarter to one I was almost too drained to keep standing and I found myself looking at the clock every few seconds, sure it had stopped. Finally, it crept to one o’clock and, on the dot, Stella emerged. ‘Right, I’m starving and we close for an hour now, so why don’t you pop off?’

      As I crossed to the other side of the counter, she was fiddling with her hair and frowning down at a small notebook. But, before I could escape, she spoke. ‘Oh, Clare…’ I looked into her button brown eyes. ‘Now I know I said you could start properly next week, but…’ I froze, ‘… I wonder if you could do tomorrow morning too. Saturdays are always busy and we’ve had a load of last minute orders.’

      I managed to gasp out a, ‘Yes, that’s OK.’

      ‘And if you can do Monday to Wednesday next week that would be wonderful.’

      He must have been listening for the car because he was standing on the steps of Beldon House as we pulled into the driveway. I knew, of course, that he was thirteen now: I’d pored over each new set of photographs for hours. But the shock at his height and the sharp bones replacing the soft roundness in his face jolted through me all the same. His arm rose and then fell as I climbed from the car and he took a half step towards me. But the car door was comfortingly warm and I leant back against it smoothing my dress with damp hands.

      A deep breath. ‘Hello, Tommy.’

      His eyes flickered away and his hands pulled at the sleeves of his sweatshirt, dragging them out of shape. It was a habit the twins had shared, and I swallowed, trying to move the huge lump blocking my throat. Then I pushed myself forward, hands stretched out.

      On the step he was taller than me. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’ Stupid, stupid. I didn’t blame him for turning away without a word.

      Head lowered, he led the way through the hall to the kitchen. As we’d approached the house it looked the same as always – the same as it had been when Alice and I grew up here. Inside, the hall with its black and white tiles certainly hadn’t changed. Mum’s favourite vase, a big copper thing filled today with sunflowers, still stood on the table by the stairs and Alice had put a photo of Mum and Dad next to it. But, as Tommy threw open the kitchen door, I saw that a huge and lovely space, with the sun streaming through open French windows, had replaced the clutter of little rooms I remembered. Tommy slumped down at the table twisting open a can of Coke and watching as a line of fizz foamed down the side.

      Say something, do something for God’s sake. I glanced round. ‘Shall I make some tea, Alice?’

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