Forget Me Knot (12 page)

“I will never get used to it. Ever. I’ll take you to court if need be.”

“Go ahead. I can’t wait. Let a court hear how you used to bring Debbie home from custody visits hours after the agreed time, how you didn’t cook for her, how you forgot to give her her vitamins, how you used to keep her cooped up all day without any exercise. I shall claim you are an unfit parent and I shall win.”

“I was late bringing her back once,” Martin cried. “Once—and that’s because we were enjoying ourselves too much; I lost track of time. I always cooked for her and I never forgot her pills. You know that.”

“Then why did she catch three colds this winter? And when you weren’t neglecting her, you were spoiling her. All you did was spoil her. When you weren’t spoiling her, you were ignoring her. Whenever she needed you, you were pruning your chest or refurbishing your eyelashes.”

“Don’t you be the snotty grande dame with me, you pompous old queen. So what if I like to spend time and money on myself? Judging by the state of your pores, a bit of defoliation wouldn’t do you any harm.”

“That’s exfoliation, you ignoramus. Defoliation is what the Americans did in Vietnam with Agent Orange.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t alter the fact that I have more love in my little finger than you have in all of that dried-up husk you call a body.”

“How dare you!” Christian roared. “My body is a temple.”

“Yeah—Shirley Temple.”

“Bitch.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Oh, pluck off.”

“Pluck off, yourself,” Martin snorted. “Debbie always loved me best, and you can’t bear that. You never could.”

“OK, that’s enough!” Abby cried, striding toward the counter, but the pair ignored her and carried on lobbing insults at each other. “I said,” Abby practically roared now, “that is enough.” This time both men fell silent. The older man’s expression remained belligerent. Martin, on the other hand, looked shamefaced and shaken. He clearly hadn’t meant the argument to escalate the way it had. “Are you hell-bent on ruining my reputation and my business? Suppose a customer had come in. If you two want to brawl, you will do it in the street, on your own time.”

At that moment the door opened and in loped Debbie Harry—the hugest, furriest, floppiest-of-ear and wettest-of-nose St. Bernard you ever did see. Her cream leather-and-diamanté lead was trailing beside her. “I had her tied up outside the shop,” Christian said. “Her lead must have come loose.” He turned to the dog and allowed his face to rearrange itself into a smile. “Come here, sweetie,” he cooed. “Come on.”

Before you could say, “I think, therefore Iams,” Martin had leaped over the counter and was hugging and nuzzling Debbie Harry. “Hello, girl. Who’s a boo-diful girl, then? Who is? You is. That’s who. I have missed you. Have you missed me?” Martin glared at Christian. “Look how her tail’s wagging. You can see how glad she is to see me. Have you any idea how much she must have been pining?”

“She has not been pining,” Christian spat. “She is fine. Now leave her alone. Debbie and I need to get going.”

Martin’s expression was pure venom. He was making it perfectly clear he wasn’t about to let go of Debbie. Abby
shot him a murderous look, as if to say, “Start again and you’re fired.”

Defeat etched on his face, Martin stood up slowly and tossed Debbie Harry’s lead at Christian.

“This isn’t over, Christian,” Martin snarled as he ruffled the hair on Debbie Harry’s head one last time. “Not by a long shot.”

“Do your worst. See if I care.” Christian bent down and picked up the lead, which had landed at his feet. “Come on, Debs,” he said, patting the dog’s flank. “Let’s go.”

This had to be the third time this month that Abby had walked into the shop to find Christian and Martin tearing into each other over who should have custody of Debbie Harry. Their five-year relationship had ended the night Martin came home to find Christian in bed with a drag queen named Tequila Mockingbird.

Christian Sitwell owned Carnation Nation, the florist’s shop a couple of blocks farther along Upper Street. Christian had started out as Martin’s employer, but it wasn’t long before the two became lovers. Abby had never understood the attraction.

First there was the age gap. Christian was over fifty. Martin wasn’t yet thirty. Then there was Christian’s appearance. Despite his ruddy, drink-generated complexion, he wasn’t bad looking. When it came to matters sartorial, though, his look owed more to neatness than style. As far as Abby could tell, Christian lived in fawn or brown cords. Each trouser leg contained an immaculate, knife-edge center crease. Over these he always wore a cashmere turtle-neck. He appeared to own dozens—in a variety of colors. The sharp trouser crease was echoed along the sleeves of his sweaters. Today, his color of choice was aubergine.
Completing the outfit was his usual green quilted, sleeveless jacket.

Along with his unfashionable cords and sweaters, Christian also had receding hair, which he was savvy enough to have cut into a crop, but his facial hair was always way too long to be classified as designer stubble. He reminded Abby of a garden gnome who’d had an unfortunate encounter with an army barber.

Martin always said he had never been in love with Christian. Nor had their relationship ever been one of equals. Martin was a working-class lad from Liverpool 8. Christian, like Toby, was the son of wealthy landowners. He didn’t really need to work. That being said, it was clear to everybody who knew Christian that running Carnation Nation was far more than a hobby. It was his reason for living—along with Debbie—and it consumed him completely.

“You see, for me London was all about sophistication and glamour,” Martin had once explained to Abby. “I was young and I’d just arrived from Liverpool. It’s changed a lot now, but until recently the pigeons flew upside down because there was nothing to shit on. Suddenly I’m working for this educated, cultured guy who can teach me about the arts, food, wine, politics. I couldn’t believe somebody like Christian was showing an interest in me. Where I come from, they think Siegfried Sassoon is a posh hairdresser’s and Iraq is where you keep yer CDs. Christian could be bullying, controlling and unpleasant, but he was a brilliant mentor. I’ve also seen a caring, loving side to him. He doesn’t show it very often, because he thinks it makes him look weak. A few months after we became a couple, I got double pneumonia and was in the hospital for a month.
Christian found somebody to mind the shop so that he could spend each day at the hospital with me. He would sit for hours reading
Harry Potter
aloud. He loathed those books, but he knew I loved them, so he read them just for me. Right now I despise Christian, but part of me will always be grateful to him.”

It wasn’t just Martin who was constantly at loggerheads with Christian. Abby had issues with him, too. From the moment she’d opened Fabulous Flowers, Christian had made it clear he didn’t welcome the competition and had done his best to make life difficult for her. She had no idea why he felt so threatened, since the shop that Fabulous Flowers occupied had been a florist’s since the sixties. Christian didn’t open Carnation Nation until 1980. Technically, if anybody was trespassing, it was him.

Not that Abby would have pressed that point. She wasn’t one to split hairs. Her argument was that Upper Street was a busy shopping street and, even though the shops were only a couple of blocks apart, there was more than ample business to go round.

Christian’s business was by no stretch of the imagination unsuccessful. Although his bouquets and floral arrangements weren’t nearly as contemporary as Abby’s and were less suited to edgy Islington flats and lofts, he maintained a loyal and not inconsiderable client list among the more conservative, middle-aged residents who still lived thereabouts. These people tended to turn their noses up at Abby’s—or, rather, Martin’s—Christmas centerpieces made of Brussels sprouts in favor of Christian’s snowmen topiaries and lavish floral combos of silk roses, wax berries and gold-sprayed pinecones.

Abby knew that, back in the eighties, Christian had
been one of London’s top florists. Then, in the mid-to-late nineties, floristry design experienced a grand renaissance and Christian failed to keep up. Suddenly flower arranging, like knitting and cooking, was trendy and cool. Styles of floral design changed almost overnight, but Christian seemed to think that the minimalist displays of birds-of-paradise combined with long grasses would be a one-minute wonder. “The fact that the shop is still called Carnation Nation kinda says it all, really,” Martin had once mused to Abby. “I mean, when was the last time you saw a bunch of carnations other than in a supermarket or gas station?”

Martin said that the only reason Christian had refused to move with the times was pigheaded stubbornness. The upshot was that his loyal clients stayed loyal, but he wasn’t acquiring new ones. Unlike Abby. The more successful Abby became, the more Christian’s anger and loathing increased.

Since Christian was chair of the local retailers’ association and had the ear of the local council, he was able to act on his loathing while at the same time disguising it as public duty.

His first attack on Abby came less than three weeks after she opened Fabulous Flowers. Christian put in a complaint to the highways committee, saying that the vans delivering flowers to her shop were causing severe traffic congestion on Upper Street.

In fact, the chap who delivered Abby’s flowers parked on a side street and never caused a moment’s congestion— unlike the van driver who delivered Christian’s flowers. He insisted on parking on the main road and always caused a holdup.

The highways committee took Christian’s complaint seriously, and Abby was visited by two council members who took some convincing that Christian had made a “mistake” and that the van delivering her flowers did not cause traffic problems.

Once the council was satisfied that Abby’s delivery van wasn’t a traffic hazard, Christian tried to convince them that her shop waste was a health hazard. He accused her of dumping piles of rubbish in the alleyway behind the shop and maintained that it was attracting rats. Abby insisted that the rubbish was entirely plant waste, which held no interest for rats. Plus, it was properly wrapped in heavy-duty rubbish bags, which were collected—as Christian knew full well—by the garbagemen every Thursday.

The health inspectors duly descended on the back alley, found a couple of empty take-out containers that had somehow gotten mixed up with the shop rubbish, and Abby was issued an official warning.

In the end, Christian seemed to run out of plausible accusations and the complaints died down. For a few months Christian and Abby managed to get along, although if they came upon each other in the street, Christian would refuse to make eye contact.

Then Christian and Martin broke up. If that wasn’t enough, Martin had the audacity to apply for a job as Abby’s assistant. From the moment Martin started working at Fabulous Flowers, Christian declared outright war on both of them. He went back on his promise to let Martin have access to Debbie, and at the same time he banged off letters to the council, complaining about Abby’s slipping roof tiles, leaking gutters and stinking sewage pipes. The council wrote to Abby demanding she fix said defects. They
made it clear that failure to comply could result in the closure of Fabulous Flowers.

Abby couldn’t believe that the council was taking Christian’s side this time without even bothering to investigate. Then she imagined him marching into the council offices and using his position as chairman of the local retailers’ association to intimidate some junior official who wouldn’t have dared challenge him.

Abby wrote back to the council, saying there were no defects and, even if there were, they weren’t her responsibility since she rented the shop and her flat and any structural problems were the responsibility of the landlord.

The council ignored her letter and carried on demanding she fix the roof, gutters and pipes. Abby tried making contact with the landlord, but he was out of the country. She invited the council to come and inspect the building for themselves, but nobody came. All that came were more letters, which, as time passed, became increasingly intimidating. In the end, Abby simply called in a builder and asked him to provide a written assurance that there were no problems with the building. Naturally, this cost her time, effort and a not inconsiderable amount of money. When the landlord returned from abroad, she tried to get him to reimburse her the money she had paid the builder, but he refused on the grounds that she had no legal obligation to give in to the council and, now that she had, it wasn’t his problem. She argued, but in the end she let the matter drop. Loath as she was to admit it, she knew she shouldn’t have given in to the council so easily.

Christian and Debbie had almost reached the door when Christian stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot the real reason I came.” He had turned round and was looking at
Abby. “I wanted to let you know that the council has received complaints about the amount of pavement space you take up with your bouquets and plant displays. They take complaints like this very seriously, and as chairman of the retailers’ association, it’s my duty to warn you that you might well face a fine.”

“And may I ask who made the complaints?”

“Just members of the public.”

“Is that so?” The question carried more freight than an aircraft missile launcher.

Abby then made the point that all the local cafés kept tables and chairs on the pavement, even in the winter, thanks to outdoor heaters. By comparison, her plants and flowers took up hardly any space.

“Yes, but this isn’t simply about space. The members of the health-and-safety committee are of the opinion—as am I—that people cannot trip over tables and chairs, which are perfectly visible. They can, on the other hand, trip over plants and buckets full of bouquets, which are at ground level.”

“This is utter rubbish and you know it.”

“The council doesn’t think so. I suggest you remove your display from the pavement forthwith.”

Abby said she would do no such thing.

“Suit yourself,” Christian said airily. “If you can afford to keep paying the fines, then good luck to you.” His attempt at a haughty exit was sabotaged by his having to cajole a stubborn Debbie Harry from the shop. The poor animal couldn’t take her eyes off Martin and clearly didn’t want to leave him.