Love Lies

4. Fern

Flowers are romantic. That much is accepted by everybody, whether it’s a newly engaged woman wondering about the structure of her bouquet or some sorry-assed adulterer that’s been caught with his willy out and wants to try to make amends with his missus. Everyone knows flowers are a good place to start when dealing with matters of the heart.

That’s why I’m delighted to be surrounded by them in the shop every day, especially at the moment. Adam and I are barely speaking to one another. I worked all day Saturday. He spent Sunday fixing up a gig somewhere, I forget exactly where, I’m not sure he even told me. Rationally, I know that he’d already confirmed this work before we had our row; irrationally I feel he’s avoiding me. To be accurate, we’re avoiding each other. Even when we finally fall into bed at the end of our gruelling days we do little more than exchange monosyllabic polite questions and answers, designed to learn precisely nothing about one another’s state of mind.

Since Friday night the flat has been full of stress and silences, so I’m happy to rush to work and let the fragrances which perpetually float in the air soothe me. Ben’s Bunches and Bouquets is my sanctuary. My haven. Flowers can be calming, reassuring, joyful and sexy. Currently, they provide me with everything Adam isn’t.

I never wanted to do anything other than be a florist. I started working at Ben’s B&B four years ago, just before I met Adam. I love my job. The shop is just a ten-minute walk from our flat and Ben is just a few years older than me and a fun boss who gives me plenty of creative scope and independence; he’s become more of a friend than a boss over the years. Even as a tiny tot I used to love to bury my nose in the bright roses blooming in my gran’s garden. I’d inhale the silky, sensuous scent the way some starlets inhale cocaine in the loos at China White; I couldn’t get enough. My gran had a keen creative and romantic streak. She lived before web design or adultery became acceptable conduits for these character traits and so, as she had always been especially green-fingered, she found a more genteel outlet – she arranged flowers.

Gran grew lots and lots of flowers in her garden. Mostly I remember roses and sweet peas but I know that she grew delphiniums, lavender, marigolds and nasturtiums too, to name but a few. It was my habit to trail her as she mooched around the garden. Clippers in one hand, wooden trug in the other, she’d set off in search of the most beautiful stems available. She never rushed. She’d amble along the borders, stopping from time to time to stand in front of a bush, carefully considering which bloom to choose. It was painstaking. I almost pitied the flowers that Gran overlooked, the ones that she didn’t think were quite perfect and beautiful enough for her arrangement; the ones insects had gnawed through or more devastatingly had been blighted by some plant disease. Then, finally, she would select one. Snap, the stem

I found the process at once strangely thrilling and heartbreaking; which, I’ve come to realize, is true of everything to do with flowers. A bouquet sent to a birth is definitely to celebrate but also to acknowledge that the poor mum has a bruised vag; a wreath at a funeral is sent to express extreme sorrow but sent with love and respect.

Flowers are big, you see, complex.

As a kid there was nothing I liked to do more than watch my gran arrange the flowers she’d chosen. I spent hours watching her weave her magic, trimming the leaves from the lower half of the stem (or they would rot in the water, leading to a hideous smell), fearlessly snapping off sharp thorns from roses with her hardy, plump thumb (see, a rose can be improved upon, take away the thorns), swapping honesty for baby’s breath to create balance and harmony. Her displays were always moving. Some were refined, poised and taut. Others were jolly, vibrant and wild. They all seemed wonderful to me. My advice to everyone is never underestimate the power of a bunch of sweet peas tied up with a cheerful, colourful ribbon.

I am doing my best not to think about all the things I said to Adam on Friday and I’m doing a pretty good ostrich impression by throwing myself into my work. I’ve briefly told Ben about the row but I’ve insisted that we don’t discuss and dissect the matter. Ben’s happy to follow instructions; he doesn’t really like thrashing out anything tricky. He’s always saying that all he ever wants is for everyone to be happy, preferably all the time. Sadly, it’s not a very realistic aim and he doesn’t have a magic wand

Working as a florist isn’t a bed of roses (excuse the pun). People think I spend my entire day drifting around in a soft-filter moment; in fact there are some aspects of the job which are genuinely gruelling. Early starts at the market three times a week, loading the van by myself and then driving back to the shop, through the morning rush hour, means that sometimes it feels as though I’ve done a day’s work before we’ve even opened the shop door. Adam is right, being a florist has made me strong and fit – there’s a lot of heavy lifting. Besides the physical aspect, being a florist demands tact and patience and sometimes a bit of mind reading; you wouldn’t believe how many customers seem only to know what they don’t want but have no clue as to what they do want.

Still, this week I’m grateful for the gruelling and absorbing aspects of the job. I volunteer to take Ben’s turn to go to market, I lug endless buckets of water around the shop as though I’m performing some sort of medieval penance, I rearrange the stock every day, I bone up on the life span of exotic flowers, even those we rarely sell, and I leap on customers the moment they cross the

The first customer is a slight, unassuming woman with a no-nonsense approach to organizing her wedding flowers. She compares the prices of roses and carnations for buttonholes. She dismisses lilies because the orange stamen stains. She listens as I reel off a few options for her bouquet. It takes just twenty minutes for her to make her selection. She plumps for tight white roses for everything. She places her order for her small, simple wedding: a bouquet for bride and maid of honour, half a dozen buttonholes, and a corsage for her mum and the groom’s mum. She digs out a pen and a small notebook from the bottom of her handbag. She makes a neat tick in the margin next to the word flowers and notes down the figure I gave her as an estimate. As she leaves the shop I envy her restraint and contentment.

The second bride-to-be arrives with considerably more commotion. The overly tanned and loud woman is accompanied by her mum and two friends. All four women have strong opinions on what will be ‘absolutely a must’ or ‘to die for’ and loudly express them over and over again, seemingly unaware that they often contradict each other and themselves. Ben is in the back room doing paperwork, so I alone have to deal with Bridezilla.

I realize that the woman is unlikely to be a virgin and her insistence on a ‘totally massive white do, with all the extras’ is perhaps a tad hypocritical but what the hell, who isn’t? I know it’s the way I’m going to go – floor to ceiling flowers. I’m excited for her from the moment she walks into the shop, even though I have served hundreds of brides like her in the past and I know that designing, sourcing and delivering the flowers for her wedding will cause no end of stress for me.

The bride hurtles through dozens of ideas. She shows me pictures that she has cut from glossy bridal magazines. There is a dramatic picture of red gerbera with clusters of cropped beargrass and a beautiful organza bow, and another one showing traditional pale lilies and roses draped with garlands of pearls, and a third of a bouquet of exquisite orchids which are beautifully combined with minimal foliage to create a contemporary design. She wants it all.

After several hours of bouncing from one thought to another (during which time her mum ran out for sandwiches, I served eight other customers and Ben completed the paperwork for this quarter’s VAT return), we finally settle on stunning pink tulips and exotic nerines combined to perfect effect in a stylish and contemporary bouquet. The bride orders two bouquets; one to keep (apparently you can have your bouquet mounted in a glass dome – Lord help us) and another to throw to the hungry pack of unmarried female guests, as is tradition. She orders flowers to drape around the church door, decorate windows, for the top and bottom of the aisle and for the pew ends. She orders flower pomanders, hung on pearls,

When she finally leaves the shop, I’m exhausted and Ben has a six-thousand-pound order. In an effort to stop myself screaming with delight, frustration and jealousy, I have to put my hands over my mouth. I hear the scream echo inside my gut for over an hour.