I expected to enter another garden, but instead, the door led into a sort of large summer house, what was sometimes called an orangery. Both walls stretching off either side and the roof consisted of panes of glass held in wooden frames, with square pillars down the centre. But I barely noticed that.
While most of the raised beds contained mere stems, or bare branches winding up trellises and wooden arbours spaced along the smaller aisles, I recognised them instantly.
February should have been safe. I should know; I was once a professional, after all. But the gardener standing behind me had somehow, in the humid warmth of this summer house, created an environment where my deadliest enemy could flourish even in winter.
There. A few metres away. A row of palest pink, peach, and yellow roses.
A second later, the scent hit me and with it, as always, the memories, rising like bile in the back of my throat.
I spun around, pushing past Gideon’s confusion, and fled, my chocolate-coloured shadow right behind me.
* * *
I inherited my love of flowers from my father. We spent countless hours throughout my childhood, shoulder to shoulder in the borders of the garden surrounding our grand Victorian home in Birmingham. It was our time, time that my older sister had no interest in being a part of, preferring to stay indoors with a book or Super Mario. We grew all sorts, from grumpy-looking pansies to merry sunflowers, but our favourites were the roses.
Dad used to tell me, as we planted and pruned, how he brought my mum a bunch of white roses from his garden on their first date. He’d clutched them so tightly when he first saw her that he’d bled onto the cuff of his best shirt. As she’d dabbed at the scratch with her tissue, their eyes had met and that was the moment they knew it was forever. She dreamed of tending to all of his wounds. He pictured a garden full of roses that he’d gather into bouquets on her birthdays, anniversaries and simply because he loved her.
So it was an obvious step at eighteen to get a job with a local florist. I enjoyed working in the little shop, walking to work and coming home to my family at the end of each day. But my passion was for bigger things. I spent hours poring over everything from botanical encyclopaedias to wedding magazines. Larger businesses were starting to set up websites back then, and I would hijack the family computer, searching for inspiration to fill my sketchbooks. A week before my twentieth birthday, I got an apprenticeship with an exclusive event florist, and it was the best present I could have wished for.
The only downside was that it was based in Leeds, a three-hour drive away. Leaving behind my parents, the sister who was also my best friend, and our beloved garden was a wrench, but moving into a crumbling terrace with three students was totally worth it. I spent the next two years working six, often seven days a week. When a lavish event was coming up, we toiled well into the night in order to produce the most stunning, intricate arrangements with only the freshest of blooms. I visited flower farms, and both the New Covent Garden Flower Market and the famous Royal FloraHolland in Amsterdam. I attended lectures and practical tutorials on botany, business and design, soaking it all up like a peony in the sunshine.
Occasionally, I found time to squeeze in a social life. I had a couple of relationships, one with an intern at the florist’s, another a friend of my housemates, but I was far too focussed on my career for them to last.
Life was busy and exhausting but I loved every second of it. The only downside was constantly missing my family. We spoke several times a week and visited each other whenever we could, but it wasn’t nearly often enough.
Then, to top it all off, my sister, Lilly, got engaged. And while, yes, I was happy that she was going to be married to Chris, who we all adored, and looking forward to being a bridesmaid, what kept a smile on my face for eight months straight was being asked to do her wedding flowers.
My first independent commission. I wouldn’t earn any money from it – both because it was my sister, and also my contract forbade any paid work on the side. But I would get to create the loveliest, most beautiful bouquets to grace St Gilbert’s church. I would design them to match Lilly and Chris perfectly.
And I would use white roses, grown in my family’s garden, nurtured by my father and inspired by my mother.
Until one morning, as I gathered my ideas together, every surface in my shabby kitchen piled high with flowers, the whole house drenched in the fragrance of my fondest memories, of my sister’s future, waiting for my family to arrive, so eager to show them the love I’d poured into the designs filling my sketchbook, my phone rang.
My hand gripped an Avalanche rose as I listened to the words that in one horrific, heart-shattering moment changed everything. This time, there was nobody to blot the blood that trickled down a thorn-pierced palm.
That summer, I weaved together three bouquets. I blended lilies with pink astrantia and softest baby’s breath, watered with my tears.
I laid them on three coffins.
There were no roses in St Gilbert’s church that day.
6
With a deliberate effort to keep my chin up and stride purposeful, I left the sanctuary of my bedroom and made my way to the kitchen. I’d waited until one o’clock, working on the basis that, after having breakfast at well past nine, Hattie wouldn’t be eating lunch too early. I was banking on Gideon having lunch with his mum, dreading the thought of seeing him after running away earlier. It had taken a good hour in my bedroom to shake off the panic and compose myself, forcing my mind to focus on an antiques podcast.
I made a coffee, opened the fridge and wondered about helping myself to leftover soup from the day before, but when thirty minutes later Hattie hadn’t arrived, I decided to go and look for her. After scouting around most of the downstairs, I eventually came to the office, tapping on the door before poking my head in.
Hattie was slumped over her desk, face completely hidden in the tumble of curls. I would have been alarmed, if she hadn’t immediately produced a hearty snore and Flapjack weren’t peacefully snoozing on a futon in the corner. Deciding that we weren’t well enough acquainted yet for me to wake her up in person, I employed an old trick I first used with one fiercely proud older man who found it impossible to sleep in bed after his wife passed away but seemed to find the tone of my voice perfect for dropping off to.
Moving quietly back to the kitchen, I pulled out my phone.
‘Hello?’ Hattie’s voice was croaky with sleep, but I pretended not to notice.
‘Hi, it’s Sophie. I was wondering what time you wanted to meet.’
‘Oh. Um. We said lunchtime, didn’t we?’ She stopped to clear her throat. ‘Is one okay?’
‘It’s actually almost two, now.’
