Page 61 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
‘A plunger. Oh, what do you call it in America? Like a rubber thing with a wooden handle – you use it to suck stuff out of sinks.’
‘Yeah, we call that a plunger too.’
‘Do we have one?’
Amber shrugs. ‘Haven’t seen one about the place.’
The shop bell rings. ‘What seems to be the trouble, ladies?’ Jake calls, coming round the desk to the back room. ‘Do you need a man’s help?
‘Not unless you have a plunger on you,’ I answer, riled as always by Jake’s often old-fashioned attitude.
‘Well…’ Jake grins, and Amber laughs.
‘We could maybe borrow one?’ Amber suggests.
‘Or I could pop back to my house and get one for you?’ Jake says. ‘Take me a few minutes. But we definitely have one – I used it not so long ago in our bathroom.’
‘No, it’s quite all right, thank you. I’ll take a look underneath. It might be the pipe that’s blocked. I’ve seen my dad do this loads of times.’
‘I can do that for you,’ Jake offers as I get down on my hands and knees. ‘Save you getting dirty.’
‘Thanks, Jake, but I don’t have my crinolines on today. I’m sure I’ll be fine.’
‘OK…’ Jake says, and I see him and Amber exchange a look as I slide myself under the sink. ‘Whatever you say, Mrs Pankhurst.’
‘All right, I’m sorry,’ I say, squinting up at him from under the sink. ‘But a woman can do plumbing, you know.’
‘She was like this when I wanted to buy her a drink,’ I hear Jake tell Amber while I try to unscrew the pipe that leads up to the sink. I’m quite confident I know what I’m doing, even though these pipes are slightly different and somewhat older than the ones I’d seen my father loosening. ‘Quite antsy.’
I know Jake is only trying to wind me up, so I choose to remain silent and deal with my pipe.
‘That’s our Poppy,’ Amber says. ‘Soft and sweet on the inside, hard and crisp on her outer layer. Like a lovely M&M candy.’
‘Or a really nasty zit,’ Jake adds. ‘The kind that just explodes everywhere when you squeeze it!’
‘Oi!’ I snap, trying to sit up but forgetting I’m under the sink. ‘Ow!’ I cry as my head hits the white porcelain, and rebounds back against the pipe I’ve just loosened. ‘Blah!’ I cry, as the pipe falls away from the waste outlet, and filthy, smelly water flows down on to my head.
Jake’s face appears under the sink as I’m pushing my dirty, stinky hair away from my face.
‘You were right,’ he says, obviously trying not to laugh, ‘about women plumbers. You’ve cleared that blockage a treat, the sink is completely empty now!’
Twenty-one
Striped Carnation – I Cannot Be with You
I dry myself as best I can with the few small towels we have at the shop, then Jake insists on walking me back to the cottage, leaving Miley happily tying ribbons into Amber’s long hair.
‘I’ll be back in a bit,’ he tells Amber, ‘once we’ve got Mario here – or is it Luigi who’s the plumber? – into some dry clothes.’
Amber laughs. ‘I believe it’s both!’ she says. ‘My brother and I used to play those video games all the time back in the States.’
‘When you two have quite finished mocking me!’ I protest. ‘I’ll be perfectly fine walking back to the cottage myself.’ I don’t want Jake to see, or smell me like this for a moment longer than necessary.
But Jake insists. ‘I feel partly responsible,’ he says as we walk back to the cottage together. ‘Something similar happened to me once when I was unblocking a sink. I probably should have warned you.’
‘What happened to you?’ I ask, surprised to hear this. Jake has always seemed so capable.
‘Bronte helpfully emptied a bucket of floor cleaner down the sink while I was underneath it!’
