Page 43 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
‘Ah yes. So I’d had the bakery open a while, and I was doing OK. I was enjoying living here by the sea. Brighton had been by the sea, of course, but it wasn’t like this. St Felix is…’ He thinks about this. ‘St Felix is different. I hate to use the same word again, but it’s special. You don’t know it is until you’ve lived here a while, but it really is. People say the sea air is healing; well, St Felix’s sea air is super healing, whatever is wrong with you. Anyway,’ he says, when only Ant acknowledges this, ‘even though I was happy, I still felt a bit lonely. I wasn’t really into flowers, but occasionally when the bakery was quiet I’d wander down and talk to your grandmother. She’d always have a kind word to say, or some friendly advice to give. But she never made you feel like she was preaching.’
I nod. I remembered that about her.
‘One day I came down to the shop for a chat – it was a Monday afternoon in late April, never the busiest of times for either of us. Your grandmother sensed something was wrong, even though I didn’t really let on what it was, and before I left she presented me with some flowers to take back to my shop.’
‘Ooh, which ones?’ Amber asks excitedly.
‘A single peony, a long stem of verbascum, and a spray of freesia, all bound together with a white ribbon. That became her trademark – the ribbon, didn’t it, Ant?’
Ant nods. ‘If ever you saw someone leaving Rose’s shop with flowers bound together with a white ribbon, you just knew.’
‘Knew what?’ I ask impatiently.
‘Knew something special was about to happen to them, like it did to me. To us,’ Dec says, taking hold of Ant’s hand.
‘Come on, guys!’ pleads Amber. ‘I wanna know what happens next.’
Dec smiles. ‘Patience, my American friend, all is about to be revealed. So, I took the spray of flowers back to my shop and put them in a vase of water. I didn’t give them another thought until about three days later when Ant appeared at my door asking if we sold – of all the things you could have asked for,’ he says, waggling his finger at Ant, ‘cream horns. It was one of the few recipes of my uncle’s I hadn’t tried out yet.’
‘I was holidaying in Cornwall with my then boyfriend,’ Ant explains. ‘We hadn’t meant to stop in St Felix, but our hire car had broken down because I hadn’t remembered to put petrol in it that morning, and boy was hemadat me! He loved cream horns – the cake, you understand!’ Ant reassures us with a wink. ‘And I thought if I got him one it might pacify him until the garage filled us up and got us on our way.’
‘And did it?’ I ask, not really understanding where this story is going.
‘No, that’s the point, isn’t it? Dec didn’t have any.’
‘So…?’
‘I found myself explaining to Dec why I was so stressed over a cream horn, why I needed one so badly. And do you know what he said?’
I shake my head. This story, far from telling me anything about my grandmother and her old shop, is fast veering into the realms of something you see advertised on the front ofTake-a-Breakmagazine.
‘I know! I know!’ Amber shouts, her hands in the air like she’s answering a question in class. ‘I bet Dec said, “If it’s that important to you, I’ll bake some cream horns for you right now!”’
Ant looks at Dec reprovingly. ‘Amber’s right. That’s exactly what youshouldhave said, Declan!’
Dec tuts. ‘I couldn’t, could I? I was on my own in the shop back then, I couldn’t go out back and start baking a load ofpuffpastry for an angrypoof!’
The two of them smile good-naturedly at each other.
‘So whatdidDec say?’ I ask. ‘You still haven’t said.’
‘Go on, you tell them,’ Ant says, flashing his blue eyes at Dec.
Dec blushes. ‘I said he shouldn’t worry about filling the guy’s car up. If he was going to get mad over something as silly as that, then he wasn’t worth it.’
Amber nods approvingly.
‘Go on…’ Ant says, nudging him. ‘Tell them the rest.’
I get the feeling that it’s not just in looks that Ant is larger than Dec. His personality is much bigger and more boisterous than Dec’s too. Dec, I think, likes to keep something in reserve.
‘And I also said,’ Dec swallows hard, ‘that if he ever felt like popping back to sample my cream horn, then he’d be most welcome.’
‘Nooo!’ Amber and I cry at once. ‘You didn’t?’
Dec is bright red now.
‘He did indeed,’ Ant says proudly. ‘And I’m pleased to inform you that I most definitely did come back, and I sampled many of Dec’s splendid cream horns. And –’ he pats his tummy – ‘a few too many other fine cakes in the process.’
