Samar answers on the third ring. ‘Hello, love,’ he says. ‘What’s up?’
‘Sammy, did you send me flowers?’
‘Nope. Why? Should I have?’
‘I had a delivery of a box of half-dead irises.’
‘Um … OK …?’
‘They were Ruby’s favourite flower,’ she says impatiently. ‘We had them on her gravestone. Today’s the anniversary …’ she hears her voice rise in distress.
‘Oh love. Oh God, I’m so sorry. But it’s a coincidence, surely? Or … maybe Stella sent them?’
‘No, definitely not, Mum would never do that. It’s so weird.’
‘Well, maybe you have a secret admirer …’
She sighs unhappily. ‘Look, I have to get back to the café. I just wanted to check it wasn’t you.’
‘Viv, wait, are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. I’ve got to go. I’ll speak to you soon.’
As she hurries back across the road, she thinks about Samar’s theory of a secret admirer and Shaun’s face flashes across her mind. But why would he send her flowers? Half-dead ones at that?
Her unease lasts for the rest of the afternoon and she barely notices when the doctor says goodbye. Perhaps Shaun was responsible. After all, he’d been hanging around her house the night before – and God knows how long he’d been doing that for. Samar might be right: the date and choice of flowers were sheer coincidence. Who else, after all, knew they were Ruby’s favourite flowers, apart from her mother and Samar? The answer trickles through her like icy water: Jack. Jack Delaney knows what Ruby’s favourite flowers were. Same as he knows the anniversary of her death. It’s a date he’d hardly be likely to forget. Nausea churns inside her. It can’t be him. It couldn’t possibly be. In one quick movement she picks up the box and throws it in the bin, then she leaves, locking the café door behind her with shaking fingers.
Her double French lesson finally over, the bell rings for lunch and Cleo rises with her classmates to head for the canteen. Surreptitiously, checking that no one’s watching her, especially sharp-eyed Layla, she reaches into her bag to check her phone. Sure enough, ‘What are you doing that for?’ Layla asks. ‘You’ll get detention if they see you, you know.’
Cleo sighs and drops the phone back into her bag, but not before she’s noticed there are no new messages from Daniel. Grumpily she rolls her eyes at her friend. ‘You’re such a bloody goody two shoes sometimes,’ she says and walks off towards the girls’ toilets, Layla staring after her in surprise.
Later, sitting in her history class, Cleo gazes distractedly out of the window. She’s going to her gran’s today after school, because her mum’s breaking in some new girl at the café and can’t leave early, and the thought does nothing to improve her mood. She used to love spending time at Stella’s, but lately things have changed. It was a few months ago that it happened. Stella had been busy with one of her guests and, feeling bored, Cleo had gone upstairs to her gran’s bedroom to find a book to read.
For a few minutes she’d browsed through Stella’s large, shell-covered jewellery box, something she used to love doing when she was little – her grandmother’s bright and shiny pieces being far more exciting than the plain silver things her mum wore. But, tiring of this too, she’d moved to the bookshelf, running her eyes along the spines, hoping to find something as racy and eye-opening as The Women’s Room, the last book she’d pilfered from her gran’s collection. Spotting one called The Female Eunuch and thinking it sounded promising, she’d reached up and pulled it from its spot, a tightly bound bundle of envelopes falling out as she did so.
She’d picked the letters up and examined them with interest. Having recently watched The Notebook she was full of hope that she’d accidentally discovered evidence of a secret passion between her grandmother and a long-lost love akin to the one between Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. She hesitated, listening out for signs that Stella might be nearby, but hearing nothing, opened one.
As her eyes scanned the words her tummy twisted in confusion. Quickly she put the first letter back in its envelope before pulling out another, and then another, her shock rising with each line she read. When she’d finished, she caught sight of her own stunned face in Stella’s dressing table mirror. Did her mother know about this? If she did, then she had been lying to Cleo her whole life. And if she didn’t, then Stella had been lying to both of them. She sank onto her grandmother’s bed, trying to make sense of it all. Her mum wouldn’t lie to her, would she? But if she hadn’t, then that made Stella the liar … and how could that be? Hearing footsteps on the stairs she hurriedly stuffed the letters back into their hiding place, but when she next saw her grandmother, she’d found it hard to meet her gaze.
After her history lesson, Cleo hurries to the girls’ toilets and pulls her mobile out, her heart lifting when she sees a new message from Daniel. Hey gorgeous, it says. What u up to?
Hey, she replies. School, what about u?
Same, hiding in loo so I can text u, lol. She smiles but feels a jolt of surprise when she reads his next message. U have a boyfriend?
Cleo hesitates. No, why?
Would u like one?
Maybe. He can’t see her, but still she goes red.
Would u be my girlfriend?
She hesitates again. OK.
U ever kissed a boy?
She stares at the question without answering. It feels as though the fairground ride she’d been enjoying has suddenly accelerated. No, she eventually types.
I’d like to kiss u.
She feels the heat in her cheeks. U don’t know me …
No, but u seem really nice, from ur picture and the things u say. But that’s OK, I no I’m not good looking, we can just be friends if u like, it’s cool.
U are good looking. Ur really handsome.
As she leaves the toilets she finds she can’t stop grinning, and the tiny flicker of doubt she’d felt has all but disappeared by the time she reaches her next class.
Viv drives the short distance to her mother’s, still thinking about the flowers. Stella’s street is almost in sight, but the traffic lights are out of order and she’s caught in the resulting gridlock. Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel in frustration, she tries to lighten her mood by thinking about her encounter with Hayley earlier. Hearing about the other women – and poor Rafferty Wolf – had been so lovely, and idly she wonders if it might be possible to organize some kind of reunion for them all, at Stella’s place perhaps.
Reluctantly, her thoughts turn to Margo. In the twenty-two years since she left Unity House, Viv had seen her only once. It had been in a supermarket in Herne Hill that Viv happened to be passing and had dived into to escape the rain. She’d been browsing magazines when she’d looked up to see an elderly black woman walking with a stick. Viv had known instantly who she was; despite the intervening years her striking features were unmistakable. The older woman had turned her head and they had locked eyes. And it was the strangest thing. Viv wasn’t sure what she’d expected: shame, perhaps – guilt, almost certainly. But the look on Margo’s face had been something else entirely, an emotion she never thought she’d see in those beautiful brown eyes. Shocked and angry, Viv had turned and left without acknowledging her and never went back to that supermarket. Whenever she thought of it she’d bristled with disgust, her sense of betrayal visceral and raw once more.