It doesn’t take me long to find out where You work or what You do. Your phone gives it all away without me even having to look through your messages. Your screensaver photo is a close-up of a single red rose lying flat on a work surface made of stone. You must have leant over to point the lens directly into the head of the rose, your body folding – supple and tense.
The image of the rose is my screensaver now too. At its bulbous base, where the flower meets the stem, the petals are velvety smooth and lined with tiny vessels, bulging and soft. At the head, the diminishing circles of rose petals – curling, pulsing and falling away into a black hole – are like an invitation.
Each time I look at my phone, I can almost smell the fragrance of You. Is that what You intended?
Of course, I know that a lot of women have screensaver photos of flowers that have nothing to do with their jobs, but it’s your tag that gives it away: #seventhheaven
My first thought is a restaurant or bar. Is this a favourite haunt? – for in my heart of hearts, I know You are too delicate and refined to be a waitress.
It’s the work of seconds to google the words ‘seventh heaven’. There are lots of entries – but one, in particular, catches my eye – a local business address.
I can guess You cycle to work, because when I paid You a visit last night, I saw a battered bicycle (with your initials scratched into the paintwork) locked up inside the dingy hallway. (As if anyone would want to steal that bike!) So, I reason that your workplace can’t be too far away.
It doesn’t take me long to click, and link to the @seventhheaven Instagram account, and then to find a publicity shot of a woman standing at a table, preparing a bouquet of flowers.
It isn’t You.
But a quick zoom-in on the shot shows the worktop surface to be identical in texture and hue to the sandstone background I see on your screensaver. Et voilà! QED. Problem solved!
‘Seventh Heaven Pimlico – home of exquisite blooms and celestial bouquets.’
The sweetest flower in the shop. That’s where You are hiding!
*
Icy raindrops lashed Celeste’s face as she flirted with death cycling through the rush hour traffic to the florist where she worked four days a week in the heart of Pimlico. She was relieved to turn off the busy road and into the side street where Seventh Heaven was located among a small cluster of businesses including an upmarket Italian café and deli, a fashionable shabby chic British restaurant and jazz club, and three quirky boutiques selling lots of fancy things nobody really needed. This bitter February morning the shop’s crimson window display provided a welcome splash of vibrant colour against the relentless grey of the pavement. On any other day the street was picturesque and charming with its handsome white stucco terraces made up of residential properties adorned with black wrought-iron balconies and freshly painted front doors. But today under a stormy sky it felt as if the whole of London was in mourning.
Celeste had overslept. Being so distressed and distracted by the chance sighting at the club followed by the message on her phone the previous night, she had forgotten to set her alarm. She’d had no time for breakfast or coffee and due to sleep deprivation and caffeine withdrawal on top of the hangover, a migraine was brewing in her head. She was wrecked.
Celeste knew she was going to be in big trouble when she got to work. She’d promised her boss, Meghan, the owner and manager of Seventh Heaven, that she’d be in by 6am. Meghan had warned her it was going to be hectic. Valentine’s Day – one of the busiest days in a florist’s calendar. She knew that Meghan was counting on good sales today to make up for the dismal takings since Christmas. Even in the upscale residential area of SW1V, austerity in Britain was biting. Everyone was cutting back on life’s little luxuries and flowers were one of the first things to go.
After locking her bike to a nearby lamp post, she glanced at her phone – 8.50am. Only ten minutes to opening time.
‘She’s going to kill me!’ she muttered to herself. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she sacks me on the spot!’ It wasn’t the first time Celeste had overslept and she knew she must have been at least on her third ‘final warning’.
Meghan had her back to Celeste when she slipped in through the back door. Her sleeves were rolled up as she stood over a large china sink full of cold water. She was surrounded by steel buckets filled with red roses. Celeste could tell just by looking at the rigid set of her shoulders and neck and the jerky movements of her hands that she was angry.
‘What’s your excuse this time?’ said Meghan without turning around. She carried on stripping the thorns and snipping and tying the roses into fat red bouquets. Celeste noticed that Meghan’s hands were already chapped and raw from the cold water. ‘You promised to get in early. You’ve let me down again.’
Celeste said nothing. Getting drunk with her girlfriends to celebrate her birthday wouldn’t cut it as an excuse.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Celeste as she hung up her coat. She put on her ‘Seventh Heaven’ apron and reached for one of the steel buckets from the bench. ‘I’ll work through my lunch break.’
At last Meghan turned to look at her. She seemed to have forgotten the tragic significance of the 14th February date, which for Celeste was anything but a festival of love.
‘You’ve got to stop behaving like a reckless teenager, Celeste.’ Her eyes were hard and unforgiving. ‘We’ve all been cutting you slack for the last seven years but it’s time you started facing up to your responsibilities. Grow up. Quit the victim mentality. This is a business, not a charity. I gave you a chance, but I haven’t got space for passengers.’
Celeste shrank visibly. Meghan had never spoken to her in such harsh terms before.
Her boss must be really seriously hacked off, to have given her such a dressing-down, on Valentine’s Day of all days.
*
There was no time to mope or feel sorry for herself. Celeste worked straight through the morning, preparing bouquets of roses in the cold room at the back while Meghan resolutely blanked her and remained engrossed in making up the orders for all the more exotic hand-tied creations, dealing with last-minute telephone orders and serving the steady stream of customers coming through the door. Celeste didn’t dare break off mid-morning as was her normal routine to get an almond milk latte from the deli next door and when it got to her usual lunchtime, she was faint with hunger and a pounding headache.
When Meghan took a late lunch break in the early afternoon, she called Celeste to come front of shop and serve. Although Celeste had been working flat out in order to prepare enough bouquets for an anticipated surge in customers stopping to buy flowers on their way home from work at the end of the day, so far, the sales had been disappointing. It was so cold and grey that there were fewer people than usual out on the streets – those who didn’t have to venture outside were sheltering at home. And as Meghan lamented on her way out the door, it wasn’t only the footfall that was down but also the spend. Even the rich were watching their pennies – the more extravagant arrangements remained stubbornly on the shelves.
The flow of customers into the shop had now slowed to a trickle. With Meghan out of the way, at last Celeste was able to make herself a drink. She stood behind the counter sipping her tea, warming her cold, scratched hands on the china mug and staring at the shop window as if hypnotised by the driving rain running down the misted panes. There were only one or two pedestrians passing by – a woman in a long raincoat struggling with shopping bags in one hand and a screaming child in the other; an elderly man walking an elderly dog.
As she stared out vacantly, a young man in leathers approached the shop front and paused for a few seconds on the pavement in front of the Valentine’s display. His face was shielded from the rain by a black umbrella. She retreated to the doorway of the cold room. For some reason, his presence outside made her feel vulnerable and exposed. He seemed to hesitate by the door, as if considering coming in to buy one of the bouquets of red roses, before changing his mind and going on his way. A fleeting thought of the mystery biker from the night before crossed her mind before she cast it away.
Suddenly she felt lost and very much alone. The reality of working in a flower shop on Valentine’s Day was so much less romantic than people might imagine. It was only mid-afternoon, but she’d been on her feet for hours – prepping the flowers and smiling and exchanging anecdotes with strangers buying gifts for their loved ones. Right now, it seemed like she was the only person in the world forgotten, unlovable and unloved. There was no one to take her out on a date at the end of the day. There was no one waiting for her at home. There was no one special person in her life who would be giving her a card, or chocolates, or a single red rose.
All the love had drained from her heart on that Valentine’s night seven years ago.