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17 DAVID

46 Days Until the Wedding

That Thursday, David had no deliveries, because he’d consolidated the weekday and weekend orders in order to save money. So, he treated himself to a small lie-in, sitting in bed listening to Radio 1 – he was keen to hear that Beyoncé song Salma kept talking about – and eating Cheerios. After a long shower, and putting on one of his favourite T-shirts, it was half-eight by the time he was downstairs and he began to whizz through the usual opening jobs in record time in order to be able to open for nine-thirty. Without the usual five o’clock wake-up, he actually felt more tired, which was perhaps because on a normal day, he would have already been on his fourth coffee, not his first.

No, that Thursday, he was all out of sorts.

A woman wearing a cap knocked on the glass of the door. ‘Are you open?’

‘Yes!’ David said. They had been for half an hour.

‘Okay,’ the woman said. She peered round for a few minutes and left pretty much immediately. David sat back behind the counter, and wondered what it was all for. All week, his mind had been taken up with what Mark had said about considering seriously the question of them marrying. He hadn’t given an ultimatum exactly, but it wasn’t fair on your partner to only respond if there was a loss of your own to be had. He knew he had to give it proper attention, but he still couldn’t work out how to work out what he felt. Would it be easier to just say yes? No, that wouldn’t be fair either.

Mark had come home late the night before and needed to vent about a new workplace initiative, which he said was about management, nothing to do with helping young people. Some of the teachers – David couldn’t help but imagine Meg’s parents among them – had complained about time and resources being taken away from teaching and being given to something as ‘extracurricular’ as counselling. While chatting, David had cooked them dinner and needed to pop down to the shop to get some basil and to set something out for the morning. By the time he remembered about calling the pub, it had been a bit late to get in touch, and having a bit of a headache, he’d gone to bed early, noting that he would phone in the morning. A few hours wouldn’t make a difference.

Then today, he hadn’t called whilst upstairs, thinking he should get his jobs going so they could open, and so he knew it was something he should do before lunch. He thought about writing it on his to-do list. He realized no music was playing so he pressed shuffle on the shop’s playlist, and ‘Roses’ by OutKast blared loudly from the speakers so he started to fiddle with the volume to make it right.

Another knock at the window, which he thought might be a customer, turned out to be Benji, Salma and Fred, who were waving vigorously, all in school uniform, which made him walk away from his list and to the front of the shop.

‘What do you all want?’ David asked. ‘So early!’

‘We’re running late for school,’ Fred said.

‘Well off you go then,’ David said. ‘Don’t get in trouble on my account.’

‘We wanted to bring you something,’ Salma said, and from her bag she produced a Tupperware box full of brownies, which seemed to have been stacked on top of each other and had all blended into one. On top, in green icing, were some words David couldn’t make out.

At the same time, Benji was walking round the shop with his phone, filming.

‘What are you doing there?’ he asked him.

‘Don’t mind me,’ Benji said. ‘It’s for your socials.’

‘More than one?’ David said. ‘I thought each person had one social media.’

‘Come on, man,’ Benji muttered.

‘We made these together last night,’ Salma said, pointing again to the brownies.

‘We appreciate you,’ Fred said. ‘Not to be intense.’

‘Oh, guys, what brought this on? You didn’t have to do this!’ David said, peering into the Tupperware and still keeping an eye on Benji bouncing around the store.

‘You always do stuff for us.’ Benji looked proud, perhaps the ringleader of this plan, as he seemed to be for so many others. ‘We wanted to do something. Hope they don’t taste bad, we’ve never made them before.’

‘I’m sure they’re great,’ David said.

‘You’ve got two hundred followers on Instagram now, by the way.’ Benji was bent down, filming some kind of reveal from the bottom of a string of nickels plant from the end of its tendrils to its pot hanging from the ceiling. He said it casually, but David could tell he was proud of himself, and seeking positive feedback.

‘What?’

‘Followers are like, when …’

‘I know what followers are!’ David said. ‘I’m not one hundred and fifty. I mean, that’s great, surely, Benji? Not great, but amazing. If two hundred people came and used the florist’s, I’d love it.’

‘There’s three hundred thousand people in Milton Keynes,’ Fred said. ‘That was in a geography test.’

‘So a few more people to go then?’ David said.

‘It’s not bad,’ Salma said. ‘But it’s nowhere near … I mean Taylor Swift has two hundred and eighty-four million.’

‘Shut up, Salma,’ Benji said.

‘Hey, guys—’

‘David Beckham has seventy-one million,’ Fred added.

‘Well I don’t think we’re competing with them, thankfully.’

‘Anyway,’ Benji said. ‘I’ve got ideas. I’ll come in one day and film some stuff. Not tonight though.’

‘He’s going on a date,’ Salma said.

‘A date! Who with?’

‘I don’t know!’ Fred said.

Salma crossed her arms. ‘He won’t tell us.’

‘It’s just the cinema,’ Benji said. ‘I mean …’

‘Which cinema?’ Salma said.

‘That’s okay,’ David said. ‘You don’t have to share.’

‘I’ll tell people sometime …’ Benji said. ‘If it goes well.’

‘Well it won’t go well if you have a detention and can’t go, so why don’t you all get to school?’

‘Thanks, David,’ Fred said.

‘Thanks for the cakes!’

‘Bye, Dave man … don’t eat them all, they’re for Mark too!’ Benji said.

‘Hurry up,’ shouted David, laughing. ‘You’re making me feel like I’m late!’

Later, David was sitting behind the counter and he knew he wasn’t even going to be able to get through a page of the book. He was distracted by the thought that ideally he wouldn’t be reading because there’d be customers, and whether there was anything else he should be doing to get more custom. Should he be planning more events? Should he be standing outside the shop shouting at people to come in? They usually did the wreath-making classes at Christmas but maybe he should do more than one, since it always sold out. Was there something he could do for New Year’s? What was the Halloween equivalent? Would he even make it to the end of the year? Why were there no obvious summer events?

At that moment, his phone rang, Mark calling.

‘Hey, honey,’ Mark said.

‘Hello, you,’ David said.

‘All okay?’

‘I’m okay, a little bored, bit sleepy, but what can you do?’

‘The post-lunch slump. Did you eat that cheese and Marmite thing again? I told you … Anyway, many people in?’ Mark’s voice sounded strained asking about the shop’s business, as if he’d made it sound deliberately hopeful. ‘I had a spare ten minutes; thought I’d call.’

‘Not this afternoon.’ David fiddled with a pen in his hand. ‘Hey, I was thinking, maybe the flower-arranging classes should be monthly. Rather than just around a holiday, they could also be generally about learning the skill, you know, or maybe hen dos?’

‘Hen dos is a good idea,’ Mark said. ‘Though you can’t discriminate. Maybe some manly stags would like a flower class.’ He sighed on the other end of the line. ‘It takes so much to make this a success, doesn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It just feels like you’re pouring so much of yourself and your time into this. When you started … It never used to be this hard. It’s not a job, it’s a life.’

‘I know, Mark, but I love it.’

‘I know, I do too.’

There was silence for a minute.

‘You feeling okay about the pub yesterday?’

‘Yeah,’ David said. ‘I was being silly.’

‘No, you weren’t.’

‘Well, not silly, but … it was a small thing.’’

‘If it’s not small to you, then it’s not small to me, David.’

‘I appreciate that, but I am okay.’

At that moment, a delivery man knocked on the door, and was waving at David.

‘Sorry, I’ve got to let someone in.’

‘That’s okay, see you this evening,’ Mark said. ‘Are we still having sausage and mash?’

‘Yeah, if you want.’

‘The perfect dinner,’ he said, before hanging up.

It turned out the man was delivering the takeaway coffee cups they normally used, but with more than usual still left in the shop, David was going to have to find somewhere for them to go. He wondered if this was more than he normally ordered, or whether coffee sales were now down on top of everything else, and so when the man had left, he sat on the computer and went back through his invoices and called the company to see what they could do. They couldn’t let him order ad-hoc (well, they would but it would cost more) and so he reduced his monthly deliveries, assuring them he’d ring to increase them again if needs be. When that was done, he realized he hadn’t changed the water for the lilies behind the till, and so he did that too.

It was half-five before he sat down again, after a flurry of anniversaries and birthdays people were coming in for. At the moment he was considering what to do first to shut down, Meg came into the front of the store. She was wearing a big fluffy pink jumper and jeans. Her shoes were white, with big metallic silver stars on. Seeing her, David instantly realized that he hadn’t phoned the pub to confirm the wedding date.

‘Hello,’ he said, his mind spiralling.

‘Hi,’ Meg replied. ‘Just you?’

‘Just me for now,’ David said. ‘How was your day?’

‘Good, I went to work from that café, Marcus’s – you can get to it on the bus?’

‘Oh, I know the place,’ David said. ‘There’s no Marcus though; that’s just the name.’

‘Is it? Oh that’s boring.’

‘I think he’s called Kevin.’

‘Doesn’t have the same ring.’

‘I suppose we’re just as bad. Lily’s not here either.’ He sighed, pointing to the sign in the window, hoping she might leave and he could call the pub or head down there. ‘Anyway, what can I help with? We didn’t have anything planned today did we?’

‘No, I just wanted to check all was okay when you called the pub?’

‘Oh Meg!’ David said. A shiver ran down his back. ‘Sorry, I kept meaning to do it today and I forgot! I just remembered as soon as you came in. Let me call now. I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

‘I can just do it,’ Meg said. She was talking slowly. ‘Hopefully they’re not booked up.’

‘No, I can. Let me do it, Meg. One sec.’

He grabbed the phone and walked into the back room to avoid the sting of annoyance he could tell Meg was, willingly or not, directing at him.

‘Hey, hi, it’s David Fenton calling. We spoke earlier this week about a wedding.’

‘Yes, on the …’

‘Oh, well that’s …’

‘Is there any … ?’

‘Okay, I understand, anyway, have a nice day.’

He came back slowly into the front of the shop.

‘Meg, I’m so sorry, I … they’ve given the day away. They must have had somebody else waiting. I’m so sorry, but we’ll sort it out. I’ll do anything we need. We …’

Meg stared at him. She wasn’t saying anything, but David noticed her nostrils flare slightly. It was almost worse that she wasn’t reacting. If only he’d not been so busy this morning, or not let himself have a lie-in, maybe he would have done it, and this wouldn’t be happening.

‘I can call Rod and check the other one’s still free?’ David asked. ‘I genuinely think it will be. That would be too unlucky.’

Meg was silent for a moment, before adding: ‘Sure.’

David looked at his phone and realized he didn’t know the number to The Old Oak, or for Rod.

‘Do you have the number?’

There was a pause.

‘I’ll just do it,’ Meg said.

‘No, I don’t mind speaking to Rod.’

‘I know, but I can’t let you do that.’

‘Well I want to—’

‘Well I don’t want you to. I’ll just call, honestly!’

He didn’t know what to say, and he realized, perhaps, he hadn’t said anything back to her for quite a while.

‘I’m going to go,’ Meg said.

‘Are you sure?’

Before he knew it, Meg had walked out of the door and it was swinging shut. First not knowing what to say to Mark, then the shop’s cashflow problems, and now he’d messed everything up with Meg. Why couldn’t things ever just go well? David sat down behind the counter and threw his book to the floor and imagined what would happen next, probably Meg uninviting him from the wedding, and saying she never wanted to see him again, because he had one job, and he’d screwed it up. He’d disappointed and failed her, just like everybody else who was supposed to be helping.