Page 24

23 DAVID

15 Days Until the Wedding

David was sitting behind the counter in a T-shirt, trousers and, ambitiously, sandals, looking at a folder of documents his accountant had left him to go through. He and Harry had had their latest catch-up in the hour before the florist’s opened and despite David soothing himself with a large coffee and a cinnamon roll, he had felt miserable throughout. What she laid out was stark. There were no positives, only negatives. The accountant had heard through the grapevine – the sort of pun Mark would love, but not in these circumstances – that a new café might be opening down the street and might take some of their sit-in custom too. Basically, everything she had to tell him was bad news, and there was even a small business tax hike he’d had no idea about that had come into effect from April.

He’d thought she’d be impressed with his entrepreneurial spirit: the uptake in events, the queer business network and the collaboration with the wine bar next door. He thought that would all be valuable, but she crushed his hopes.

‘Those little things, fifty quid here and there, often it’s more about community than money,’ she said. ‘Probably took you longer than it was worth. These partnerships are good, but they take such a long time to see real benefit and even then it’s usually small.’

He had never thought it was this bad. He was dreading telling Mark. He knew Mark understood how hard he tried every day to make the shop a success, but with Mark being so practical and methodical, he knew he would think he’d been too … David. Too idealistic, too creative, too focused on feeling rather than the hard reality of the numbers.

What was it he loved about Savage Lilies, and what would he miss the most? It was the ability it gave him to live his life how he liked. He did not have to sit at a desk in smart clothes anyone else made him wear, and pretending to some straight boss he wasn’t who he was. Also if it were gone, they wouldn’t be able to host the youth club anymore, and he’d have less reason to be involved in community projects. He’d feel a little less himself.

What was he without the shop?

He would hate to make Mark move out of the flat they loved too. It was their home and they had their routines. Neither of them, he knew, felt like they wanted to start again.

The accountant had advised him to wrap things up in a couple of months and, though David had kind of brushed the comment away, saying it wasn’t over till it was over, a small voice inside of him told him that was stupid. Cut your losses, the voice said. What would he say to Benji? He was coming in shortly. He’d been so happy when Benji texted telling him three people had enquired online about the subscription. He’d thought that a huge step, but the accountant had been so dismissive. Maybe Benji was the answer. Maybe children are our future, sang the voice in his head. Stupid.

It was getting way past David’s lunchtime – eleven forty-five – and there was no sign of Benji. Although he knew there’d be an innocent excuse, and that he was just a child, David wanted to feel annoyed at somebody, and until he arrived, Benji would be that person.

He came eventually, bouncing into the shop at a quarter past one, wearing a long-sleeve T-shirt and with a small bum bag worn on his front.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Sorry, man. Needed to eat. Forgot, ate, didn’t have my bike so had to walk.’

‘That’s okay,’ David said, calm after having had a sandwich. ‘These things happen. Do you want a Coke?’

‘Yes please,’ Benji said, coming behind the counter to sit next to David.

‘I thought we’d go there,’ David said, pointing to a table away from the counter.

‘Okay, whatever suits.’

Once they were sitting down, David noticed Benji was checking his phone, and when he put it back down, he began to fiddle with anything he could: the spray bottle on the table, the keys in his pocket. He hoped it wasn’t anything he had done, or any annoyance David had shown him. Often, he and Mark had seen Benji berate himself for small mistakes, and they or others had had to talk him down from real fury. It had been hard, often, to see him treat himself in that way. Today, that feeling seemed to be coming out in small tics.

‘Are you okay?’ David asked as Benji bounced his index finger on the sugar pot.

‘Yeah, man,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘You seem, I don’t know, a little worried. You don’t have to tell me anything, but do talk to someone if you need to. Jacob’s always around.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’m fine. Just my dad being … him,’ Benji said. ‘I can’t wait to move out.’

‘Oh, Benji.’

‘Or I wish I just had a proper job so I could get my own place.’

‘I know that feeling.’

‘Do you actually?’

‘Yes!’ David said. ‘Of course I do. I wasn’t always in my fifties.’

‘I just can’t imagine that,’ Benji said. ‘You at my age.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re so confident. You just do whatever you want.’

‘Doesn’t feel like that sometimes, I’ll tell you that.’ David thought about other times Benji had let him and Mark in, those times so rare. ‘You’ll be okay. Childhood doesn’t last forever. What’s your dad doing?’

‘He just gets home from work and it’s always like I’ve done something wrong, like something’s dirty or we’ve run out of something. I’m just a kid. I don’t know what he wants.’

Benji looked at him and, perhaps done with this outpouring, got out his phone.

‘Well I’m always here if you need to talk, and—’

Benji spun round in his chair, as if that was the end of it, and he wanted to move on. Sometimes, if David mentioned their relationship, or the idea of being helped, Benji would switch off, and he knew he’d done it again.

‘Shall I show you what I’ve done?’

‘Yes please, Benji,’ David said patiently. ‘If you’re ready.’

David sipped at his cup of tea, impressed as Benji quickly scrolled and swiped and showed him videos and photos he had posted of the shop, clever captions (he must have stolen some puns from Mark) and a follower list of nearly three hundred and forty people. His presentation skills could be improved, since he dashed wildly between different topics, but his eye for making everything look great was remarkable. This was some of the best advertising David had ever had for the company.

‘You’ve done amazingly.’

‘It’s only been a couple of weeks,’ he replied. ‘But I have so many ideas for what’s next.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘You could do a competition, get other businesses involved,’ he said, scrolling through his phone to find an example. ‘Maybe find someone through your gay network. See, look at this. If you ask people to share something, then their followers see it, and theirs, and so on. It’s all an incentive. Like a pyramid scheme.’

‘I think pyramid schemes are supposed to be bad.’

‘Okay, then this is like that but good.’

‘But what if we run that competition and then nobody posts?’

‘Then people feel like they have a higher chance,’ Benji said. ‘And anyway, somebody always posts.’

David had to excuse himself quickly to help a customer. The shop was nicely busy for once – he wished the accountant had stayed to see this – and he was keeping his eye on the groups of people taking a look. He had rejigged the shop’s front slightly and it seemed to be bringing a few more people in, curious about the subscription service and the events schedule that were now posted on the window.

‘Do you enjoy this?’ David asked, coming back to sit with Benji. ‘Social media?’

‘Yeah, man,’ Benji said. ‘I see businesses post stuff that’s like, completely stupid. Sometimes stuff that actively makes you not wanna go there or whatever. I don’t know how they get it so wrong.’

‘That’s right,’ David said. ‘You are good with that; you’re good with people.’

‘I don’t feel like I’m good with people,’ Benji said, in a way that broke David’s heart.

‘You are,’ David said. ‘Benji! Come on! That time you made sure Salma was okay when she came in and wouldn’t tell anyone what was wrong? You made Ailie and Meg feel really welcome at the drawing class? I’m sorry, by the way, that I told anyone you went on a date. Maybe I’m not that good with people. I can keep a secret; I just didn’t realize you wanted that to be private.’

‘Nothing’s secret forever,’ Benji said. ‘I know that. I just don’t want anyone finding out yet.’

‘All right.’

David knew when not to push, and so he kept silent.

‘That’s Meg’s mum there,’ Benji said suddenly.

‘What?’

‘Mrs Kirby.’

David twisted to look behind him, and walking into the shop was an older woman. She was wearing a matching top and skirt, in a dark yellow colour, and her hair, noticeably greying, was pinned up haphazardly on top of her head. She was methodically going through every shelf and display in the front window. David looked back to the table quickly.

‘How do you know that?’

‘She’s my English teacher,’ he said. After a minute, he added: ‘She looks miserable.’

‘You’d better get going. Thanks for all your work on the shop,’ David said. ‘Let’s give it another couple of weeks then let’s talk about handing it back to me.’

He was desperate to pay Benji, to show him how brilliant this was, how he could make this his job if he wanted, but knowing what he knew about Lilies’ accounts, there was nothing he could do. Instead, Benji fist-bumped him (David had learned what to do now) and left the shop, greeting Meg’s mum as he left, who looked startled. He noticed gladly Benji didn’t try to fist-bump her. Back behind the counter, David was sitting, heart pounding, pretending not to look.

It was ten minutes of her walking round, inspecting things, somewhat anonymously amongst the eight or so people who were in, until she was standing near the counter. David was so confused. Did she know whose this shop was, and was she here to spy on him? This was where they were supposed to meet so she must know at least that Meg had planned to get flowers from him. He thought she and Meg hadn’t spoken in weeks. Did this mean she was coming? Or could she be planning to send flowers to apologize for not coming?

Ava. That was her name. Of course. He remembered Hannah mentioning it one of the times they had all discussed the situation together. She was Ava; he was George. From afar, she seemed exactly how David expected. Even from a few feet away, he could smell a flowery rose perfume, and a sense of purpose carried around with her, in a way that felt intimidating.

‘Could you help me for a second?’ she said.

Suddenly they were interacting, and David stood up to come next to her. ‘Of course.’

‘I’m looking for flowers, something for my daughter’s wedding.’

‘Oh,’ David said in shock. ‘Congratulations. To you and … them.’

‘Thank you.’ Ava walked slightly away towards the front windows and David followed. He noticed she passed quickly past the queer bouquets, their pride-flag wrapping his own personal victory.

‘So what does she want?’ David asked, without waiting for Ava to steer the conversation. He wondered if he should say he knew who she was, but she spoke so quickly, he didn’t have time to think clearly about how to navigate the situation.

‘Just your usual wedding flowers,’ Ava said. ‘I like these.’ She gestured towards today’s mixed bouquets, which had pink roses but also a mix of white and red flowers of different varieties squeezed in amongst spring-style twigs and foliage. ‘The roses, not the rest.’

‘We can certainly do white roses,’ David said. ‘We do bouquets, arrangements, table features, arches even.’

‘Okay, great.’

There was another pause, and David could suddenly understand how Meg found it hard to go against her parents. Ava was someone you wanted to please, or at least not disappoint. She had a sharp edge you wanted to get away from. What was she doing here, anyway? Should he break the artifice of whatever game they were each playing?

‘Again,’ he asked. ‘What exactly is your daughter after?’

What would Meg want him to do in this situation?

‘It’s more for me to look,’ she said, defensively. ‘And then I’ll tell her what I see.’

‘Okay.’

‘She’s at work,’ Ava added quickly, as some sort of decoy. David, of course, knew she wasn’t, but he imagined this woman wouldn’t respond well to being challenged.

‘I’m not sure on these. Do you have them in a more … subtle colour?’ she said, pointing at some of the buckets of flowers on the floor by the window.

‘Not really,’ David said. ‘A lot of couples now …’ He couldn’t work out how to say it, but these were the flowers and colours Hannah had chosen. He knew they would be at the wedding and he felt he must defend them. ‘They like a burst of colour, untraditional mixes, you know. People don’t generally only have roses anymore.’

Ava pursed her lips in a way that made David feel uncomfortable. Was she testing him?

‘It’s true, of loads of things,’ he continued. ‘I mean, being a florist’s … I’ve really had to move with the times.’ Maybe this would change her mind, an admission of everybody having to bend with the changes in society. He gestured towards the photo booth, the cakes, the houseplants hanging from baskets above the door. He was aware his hands were shaking slightly. ‘That,’ he said, pointing to the coffee machine. ‘Never thought I’d be a barista, but here we are.’

He waited for her to respond but she didn’t.

‘All the events, the weddings, funerals, any celebration isn’t what it used to be, which I guess is good. As long as people can do what they want, they come in and we see how we can work together. I’ve done the flowers differently for all sorts of things, which makes it exciting.’

‘I think we’d probably want to stick with roses and nothing other than pink and white. That’s what I had at my wedding. My daughter always loved roses.’

David wasn’t sure if this was true. Meg had barely mentioned roses and been open to much more interesting options. If it had been true at some point, it showed how much she didn’t know her daughter, and it discounted Hannah’s opinions, perhaps on purpose.

‘I went to a wedding recently,’ David persisted. ‘Where they just had massive sunflowers.’ He was thinking back to Carl and Matty’s wedding, which admittedly had been nearly ten years ago. ‘That wasn’t traditional at all, but it was so them. Sunflowers meant so much to them and their story. You have to follow the couple, I find, as a florist.’

‘Sometimes a couple doesn’t know everything,’ Ava said. ‘I say that as a parent. Why have an older generation if you’re just going to ignore them?’

‘The world’s changing all the time.’

‘Right.’

He wanted to mention the grooms at the wedding he was thinking of but felt like he couldn’t.

‘You could always have a think and come back,’ David said. ‘Here’s a flyer about our new subscription service as well.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. At least she took the flyer. She seemed to pause, looking at it for a second, and he wondered if she might recognize Meg’s new illustrations. Suddenly, she seemed very small in the shop; an old woman, who perhaps David had been too harsh with. Perhaps he had brought too much of himself to the conversation. ‘When I’ve spoken to her and her … partner, I’ll be in touch.’

‘Okay, thank you!’ David said, smiling. ‘Have a good day.’

He watched her walk away and down the high street, before getting in a car and driving off, and David stood stunned, not noticing a couple at the till waiting to pay, because he was too consumed trying to work out what type of interaction he’d just had, and whether he’d helped at all, or made everything much worse.

They were eating stir-fry again. Of course it was easy, but Mark’s work had been really busy the last few weeks with late-afternoon appointments, and David was comforted by some sort of routine and similarity every day, with all he had going on too.

‘I can tell what you’re thinking,’ Mark said, chopping spring onions into much finer slices than David ever could.

‘What?’

‘You’re thinking we’ve had this a lot.’ Mark raised his eyebrows as David smiled.

‘Well we have,’ David said. ‘But that’s fine!’

‘There are much more harmful things to be addicted to!’

As soon as David had got home, he had discussed with Mark how odd it was to see Meg’s mum in his own space. Mark kept checking he was okay and that it hadn’t upset him too much, but it felt more like he finally had insight into how Meg might be feeling.

Since then, they had begun to cook. David felt like he did understand Ava a little better, in a way others might not be able to. He still did not condone her behaviour, and thought it genuinely shocking as a parent, but she was conveying thoughts and feelings he recognized from his own life. It was easy to shut away homophobia as something happening far away, or something that was a belief held by people who weren’t in your life, but that was very rarely the case. It was much harder to think about the concept with people you knew, or loved.

While Mark and Hannah had been happier to write the parents off, David felt more in line with Meg, who understood the fear of a parent. Like his own mum and dad had implied that one horrible day, Ava didn’t want Meg to face barriers, discrimination or to not be able to do certain things. Both David and Meg’s parents knew, and it was true, that life could be harder if you were gay, but what David couldn’t understand was Ava and George making the burden heavier. What mattered was having more people on your side, than against you.

To give in and admit you must be wrong took a lot of strength, and would mean admitting you didn’t know as much as you thought about the world. David could see, even from their brief interaction, how Ava’s world view was built on the foundations of tradition and respect for your elders. It was hard to let that go.

Perhaps if his own parents had lived longer, the world would have changed enough that they’d have seen that too. You couldn’t think thoughts like that though, David always reminded himself, whenever his mind strayed into what-ifs and maybes. Nothing could be done.

‘Do you mind if I mention the “C” word?’ Mark said, as he dished up the meal.

‘You never swear.’

‘Christmas.’

‘Even worse,’ David joked, nudging Mark out of the way so he could get into the cutlery drawer and lay the table. He had always felt slightly left out of Christmas, and joining Mark’s family’s festivities still felt like being a plus-one, even all these years later. It was worse when people tried really hard to make him feel like part of the family. David preferred for nobody to notice him or how he was feeling at all. New Year’s was more his sort of thing, spent with the friends who were his real family, and looking to the future.

‘My parents think we should do it at my sister’s,’ he said. ‘They think it’s too much to host everyone now, now there’s grandkids and with how old they are.’

‘Isn’t it so incredibly early to even be thinking about this?’

‘Yes,’ Mark said. ‘It is, but they think you and I should stay at a hotel nearby, and they don’t want it to fill up so they suggested we book.’

David kept quiet; this was his best-case scenario, having a little bit of distance from Mark’s family. He usually had the excuse of the shop to avoid the longest stretches of a family Christmas, but what if he didn’t even have that this year? He couldn’t face telling Mark yet what the accountant had said. He’d forgotten all about that with Ava coming in.

‘Okay, if that works,’ he said. ‘I guess.’

‘I can see you’re smiling.’

‘Well you know how I feel about Christmas.’

‘Well it’s win-win then I guess,’ Mark said. ‘You get a hotel room with a bath and the breakfast is rated nine out of ten. Are you happy if I book? When’s the shop closing?’

‘Oh don’t worry, we can always get someone to cover.’

‘Are you sure? You don’t normally—’

‘Yes,’ David said, interrupting. ‘It’ll be nice to have a break.’

After the day he’d had, David wished he could just sit in silence or maybe zone out in front of the television, but that wasn’t something they did so instead he sat, watching Mark eat, struggling to think of what to say that wasn’t about the two main things in his brain: Meg’s parents, and the fact that downstairs could be something entirely different by Christmas.