The Language Of Flowers

October 1941

‘Hello, stranger. Now I know where all those lovely flowers at the hospital came from.’ He waits, smiling. ‘Alice?’ he says uncertainly, when she doesn’t reply.

Alice realises someone is talking to her, and she looks up from the stem of lilies she is tucking into a steel bucket on the display. The flowers are full-blown, shedding pollen from their trembling stamens, but she hopes they will last the night. A heady scent that makes her think of incense perfumes the cold air. When she sees it is him, the breath catches in her throat.

‘Richard?’ she says. ‘What a lovely surprise.’ Her breath plumes as she speaks, a pale cloud, and her cheeks are pink with cold. Darkness is falling, and the golden windows of the train on the platform blink out one by one as the conductor draws the blackout blinds. She runs her hand through her dark, wavy hair, smoothing it behind her ear. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

As she works in the little kiosk at the station, arranging flowers into posies and corsages for other women, other lovers, Alice’s thoughts always drift into the same, comforting pattern: A is for Alice, Alyssum, worth beyond beauty. B is for Beatrice, Bee Orchis, industry. C is for Clover, think of me…

She smiles at Richard now. I’ve thought of you, every single day. ‘We’ve missed you up at the hospital.’

‘Are you still visiting? It is good to see you.’

Daisy, she thinks. I share your sentiments. ‘Yes, I go up and read to the boys after work most days, or just chat to them.’

‘I just dropped in to the beauty shop to say hello.’ Richard tilts his RAF cap back on his head. ‘McIndoe did a fine job with me, didn’t he?’ He turns his face from side to side for her to inspect. The scars are fading now. In his restored features, she can see the full-lipped, golden boy he was before he was shot down.

I don’t know how McIndoe does it, she thinks. The members of the Guinea Pig Club, as the surgeon calls his group of wounded airmen, are unwavering in their trust of the Boss. Eglantine: I wound to heal. She unties her brown apron, and sees her nails are ringed with green from the stems. I wish I’d had time to paint them last night. ‘You look wonderful. How are you?’

‘Right as rain. In fact, I’ve been in America.’

‘America?’ Alice savours the word, the idea of the place.

‘I was supposed to be giving a series of lectures to get the Yanks to join the war, but they took one look at me and…’ He broke off. ‘I have a good face for radio now, as they say. I did a few broadcasts instead.’ She sees the wounded pride in his gaze. ‘What have you been up to?’ he says brightly. ‘Have you started training to be a nurse yet?’

‘Me?’ She raises her voice as another train pulls into the station, steam clouding the glass canopy above them. ‘No. No, I –well, I rented this kiosk hoping I could save a few bob, but I might have to put my little dream of a cottage in Kent, and nursing on hold.’ She hopes she sounds bright, carefree, like him, but her brow furrows as she pulls down the shutter of the kiosk, and locks it. She loops her handbag over her wrist and drops the key in. I wish I hadn’t worn my old tweed coat today. She knows the airmen take a raffish pride in their long hair, their scruffy nonchalance compared to the pink cheeked, polished infantry boys, but Richard looks so smart to her in his RAF uniform, she feels shabby in comparison.

‘East Grinstead,’ the conductor shouts. ‘East Grinstead…’

‘You know,’ she says, ‘sometimes I look at the trains passing through every day, and I just long to jump on one, to go and just see where it takes me.’ She glances down at her hands. ‘You must think me frightfully silly.’

‘Not at all.’ Richard shifts the brown paper parcel under his arm, and winces.

‘How are your hands now?’

‘Not so bad.’ He flexes the tan leather glove. ‘Tend to keep them covered when I’m going to town though. Don’t want to scare anyone.’

‘You’re awfully brave.’

‘McIndoe told us to just get on with it. He gave me my life back.’ Richard takes her arm and they walk along the platform. ‘Well, you all did. You’ll never know how much your visits meant.’

‘I bet you say that to all the girls who plied you with ginger beer.’

‘Of course,’ he says, smiling. ‘There was Sue, and Anne –I think I was a little in love with both of them. And then there was Bertha –’

‘Bertha?’ Alice laughs.

‘We differed in our opinions about sex. She prefers a cup of tea…’

‘You like to shock people don’t you?’

‘None of them were a patch on you.’

‘Get on with you,’ she says, nudging him with her elbow. Flax: I feel your kindness. She doesn’t want to show how this thrills her.

‘My mother maintains I was well on the way to being a dreadful cad before the crash.’

‘I can see that,’ Alice teases him. ‘I remember your red pyjamas. We all called them your passion pants.’

‘Did you now? Sister Hall loathed those pyjamas. “This is a hospital not a den of iniquity, Mr Hillary,”’ he says, imitating her perfectly. ‘But even she was a sweetheart. She gave me a pot of brown makeup on my first weekend out. “Make yourself pretty for the girls,” she said.’

‘Did it work?’

‘That would be telling.’

‘Good old Sister Hall. A lot of the nurses look down on the volunteers, but she’s always kind.’

‘They think you’re all hoping to nab an officer with his defences down,’ he says, and laughs. ‘I am glad I caught you. One of the girls told me you were working at the station this afternoon.’

‘Mabel, my mother-in-law, was supposed to be covering me today. Well, she’s my fiancé’s mother, really,’ she says quickly, conscious that she is babbling, trying to cover up her feelings with chatter. ‘But she has a cold so I offered to –’

He stops walking. ‘You’re engaged?’

‘Yes,’ she says quietly, and lifts her hand. The diamond chips set in the thin gold band on her ring finger glint, weakly.

Richard takes her hand, and she feels his warmth through the supple leather. ‘It’s very pretty,’ he says, and she feels her throat tighten at his kindness.

‘Kenneth…well, he said we needed to save money for the shop.’ Her chin falls. ‘Not that it’s his money, anyway.’

‘I didn’t know you have a shop?’

‘We don’t, not yet.’ Her eyes are bright as she looks at him, and she forces a smile. ‘My parents left me a bit of money.’

‘They were killed in the Blitz, weren’t they? I remember you saying you lived with your aunt now.’

‘Mabel is a friend of my aunt’s. They all said it made sense. It does really. I’m alone, and Kenneth…’ Her voice trails off at the thought of his pale, dour face. She thinks of their stilted evenings at the pub, struggling for something to talk about, the way they dance awkwardly together. She thinks of Mabel. How her eyes gleamed with triumph when Alice mumbled ‘yes’ to Kenneth, who was on one knee on the linoleum in the front parlour that always reminds Alice of a funeral home. She had tried not to flinch as he kissed her cheek, lightly. The only kiss then, or since.

‘Should I congratulate you?’

‘It’s all happened rather suddenly. Kenneth says it makes sense to put my money into a business that we can run together.’ None of it makes sense, she thinks. God, how I loathe that word. Good, sensible Alice, is that how they all see me?

She notices Richard checking the station clock. ‘Are you catching a train?’

‘Yes, I’m going up to town.’

Geranium: expected meeting. He’s probably off to meet a girlfriend. There were always girls visiting him at the hospital. ‘I do miss London,’ Alice says.

‘Come with me, then.’

Hawthorn: hope. ‘I couldn’t. I’ve got to open the kiosk for the rush hour –’

‘What difference will one evening make?’ He turns to her. ‘Come on, live dangerously!’

London. Alice thinks of the night the bombs fell on their street in Kennington. How it seemed the sky was on fire, the black lattice of her shattered home, blazing. Iris: flame. She sees again the twin stretchers carried from the building. If I hadn’t been out dancing, there would have been three. The guilt of surviving weighs her down, again.

‘I know what you’re thinking, but you mustn’t worry. The bombings have tailed off since May. You’ll be perfectly safe with me.’

‘But you’re busy. I wouldn’t want to get in the way.’

‘Nonsense, you’d be doing me a favour. I’ve got to go and see my publisher, and I’d feel a lot braver with a pretty girl on my arm.’ Richard smiles at her. ‘It’s not so bad here. You know we all call East Grinstead “the town that never stares”? Well, it’s different in London. Everyone stares. Sometimes you forget, you know, and you wonder what everyone is looking at until you catch sight of yourself in a shop window…’ His voice trails off.

Alice longs to comfort him, but she knows how he hates sympathy, hates any pity. You dear, brave man, she thinks, old feelings stirring, rising in her. She realises she hasn’t felt this alive for months, that she has been sleepwalking through the days since she last saw him. Jonquil: I desire a return of affection.

‘Come, please. We can make an evening of it.’ He pats the parcel under his arm. ‘Once I’ve dropped this off, we can do anything you like.’

‘You’ve written a book?’

‘Yes, The Last Enemy.’

‘What’s it about?’ she says as Richard guides her towards the platform, his hand on the small of her back.

‘Do you know the line from Corinthians, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”? That’s where the title comes from. I thought it was rather good, don’t you? The book’s about the war.’ He flashes her a smile. ‘You could say it’s the story of how a cocky young chap learnt some humility.’

‘How wonderful –I mean, to write it all down in a book.’ Alice’s eyes shine as she remembers how Richard used to talk to her for hours. It wasn’t always like that though. I was terrified, at first.

Sister Hall encouraged her to talk to him. ‘Cheer the poor laddie up, Alice,’ she remembers her saying. ‘Beneath the skin he’s still a young, and vigorous man. It will do him no end of good to have a pretty girl treat him like an ordinary chap.’ She remembers approaching his bed, so nervous her hand shook as she put a fresh glass of water on his table. Within a couple of minutes she forgot his injuries. Richard’s charm shone through, and soon they were talking like old friends. I’d never talked to anyone like that, so easily. Some of the others thought he was arrogant, but I know that’s just a front. He’s sensitive, and kind. Kennedia: mental beauty. That’s what he has. Of course he was short-tempered and harsh sometimes, but who wouldn’t be when you think of the pain he was in?

Alice glances at him as they wait. Once he was beautiful outside, but now – She thinks of the change she saw in him over the months in hospital. His mother is absolutely right. It’s as if losing his looks has freed the best in him, somehow.

‘I’ll read you some of the book, on the train, if you like.’

‘I’m so impressed. I wouldn’t even know where to begin writing a book and finding a publisher –’

‘One of the volunteer nurses, Patricia, introduced me to him.’

‘Did she now?’ Alice raises an eyebrow.

‘Like I said. None of them are a patch on you.’ He nudges her, gently. ‘Dickinson, the publisher chap, he wasn’t at all sure when I pitched up and insisted on reading him the first chapter.’ Richard grins. ‘I don’t think that was the done thing at all, forcing a publisher to listen to me rattle on. But, he said if I came back with a book as good as that first chapter he’d publish it.’ He glances at Alice. ‘And here I am. I met Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in America.’

‘He’s a pilot, isn’t he? I remember reading one of his books to you.’

‘So you did. He’s been a great help. As will you be if you’ll just agree to come to town with me.’ He cocks his head, waits for her to give in.

‘I’ll come,’ she says as the train chugs into the station, steam billowing among the bare branches of the trees. Larch: audacity, boldness.

The warmth of the packed carriage and the rhythm of the train click-clacking over the tracks relaxes her. Myrrh, Alice thinks, rolling the word around her mind like a luxurious purr. Myrrh: gladness. She feels woozy with happiness, the hair at the back of her neck rising as Richard reads to her in his soft, deep voice. He reads on as the train chugs slowly through Croydon and Clapham, heading to Victoria.

‘Am I boring you?’ he says, looking up from the sheet of paper. ‘It’s good, if I say so myself, but do say if the flying bits are tedious for you.’

Narcissus: egotism, she thinks, seeing his face reflected softly in the chrome window frame. In the reflection he looks perfect still, the scars undetectable.

‘No, go on. I could listen to you all day.’ She smiles sleepily, her head lolling against the headrest as Richard reads the passage about the crash that nearly killed him, how he floated in the sea for hours, sure he would die. Oak: bravery. The book astounds her. To know that he wrote these words seems miraculous somehow.

‘Tickets, please.’ The conductor slides open the compartment door, and everyone fumbles in the pockets of their winter coats, releasing the scent of soap, stale sweat, tobacco.

Richard reaches across and hands him his ticket. ‘One more return to East Grinstead, please –’ he says, counting out some change.

‘I’ll pay,’ Alice interrupts, clicking open her handbag.

Richard touches her hand, stopping her. ‘Please, allow me.’ He takes their tickets from the conductor and they settle back in their seats.

‘Thank you,’ she says, the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘I’m not used to –’

‘Let me guess,’ Richard says quietly, his head resting near hers. ‘Good old Kenneth is a short arms, long pockets type of chap, is he?’

‘I…’ Alice realises he is teasing her, and she laughs, relieved. ‘He is rather.’

‘Then why are you marrying him? A beautiful girl like you could marry any chap she chooses.’ He looks into her dark eyes. ‘You know, you remind me of a friend in America, a movie star.’

‘You do shoot a line, honestly.’ Peach, she thinks. Qualities, like your charm, unequalled. ‘Is she a girlfriend? Would I know her?’

‘I’m sure you would. It’s rather complicated. She’s married,’ he says, looking thoughtfully at Alice. ‘Perhaps she reminded me of you. The same heart-shaped face and dark, almond eyes.’

Alice glances away. Quince: temptation.

‘I make a habit of falling for unavailable women,’ he says quietly. ‘The first girl I really fell for still carried a torch for my best friend, and the girl I’ve been seeing lately, well she’s married too. And now, you…’ His words are drowned out by the train’s whistle.

‘Look,’ she says, gathering up her bag and standing. ‘We’re here.’ Richard stands beside her, and as the train brakes she lurches into his arms.

‘Perhaps,’ he says, so close to her she feels his warm breath against her cheek, ‘it’s not too late for me to sweep you off your feet after all.’

Alice stirs her cup of tea, remembering their conversation as they walked across Trafalgar Square, roosting pigeons cooing from the roof of the National Gallery nearby.

‘Where are we heading?’ she’d said to him.

‘St Martin’s Street.’

‘Would you like me to wait?’

‘Why don’t I meet you in that Lyons’ Corner House?’ Richard had pointed across the street. ‘You’ll be frightfully bored sitting in some stuffy publishers’ reception. Warm up, I won’t be long.’

She thrills at the thought of him striding through the tea shop towards her, how people’s heads will turn to see who the tall, dashing pilot is meeting. He’s meeting me, she thinks, treasuring it like a jewel. I can’t believe I’m here, with him. She settles back in her chair, a secret smile on her lips.

Alice wonders how it would feel to kiss him. She imagines a softly lit hotel room, a wide and welcoming bed. The possibility of one, glorious night before she settles for second best. Oh, it’s hopeless, you fool. He’s not interested in someone like me, not really. I’m just one of the ‘little people’ he’s always talking about. She smiles sadly. No wonder people think he’s arrogant. Alice purses her lips, sips her tea. He’s probably seeing someone terribly sophisticated, and worldly, and me, I’m… She tots up her faults. I’m eighteen years old, an orphan. I don’t –

‘There you are,’ he says, walking towards her, his warm blue gaze fixed on her. He tucks his cap under his arm and smoothes down his golden hair.

‘How did it go?’

‘I think I talked him round.’

Ranunculus: radiant with charm. ‘I’m sure you did.’

‘Mind you, I practically had to chase the chap down the street.’

‘Determined, aren’t you?’

‘Always, if it’s something I want. Or someone.’ The moment, the possibility hangs between them. Alice feels the noise of the coffee shop fall away as she holds his gaze.

‘Did you win, this time?’

‘Dickinson was babbling on about locking up the office, that I should come back another day. When he spotted the manuscript I think he was terrified I was going to start reading at him again in the middle of the street.’

Alice laughs, and the tension fades. ‘So he’s taken it? Well done.’ She raises her cup in a toast. ‘To the next bestseller.’

‘Listen,’ he says, ‘do you have to dash back home? Why don’t we go on for a bite to eat? Let’s go to The Ritz. We should celebrate with a dozen oysters and a bottle of Pol Roger –’

‘I couldn’t.’ The thought of the hotel room comes back to her, thrilling and terrifying. ‘I’m not dressed for The Ritz.’

‘You look perfectly lovely to me.’ Richard tosses some coins down on the table. ‘Very well, why don’t we just see where the night takes us?’

‘Why do you want to nurse?’ he says, as they walk arm in arm towards Kennington Park.

‘It’s not so much wanting to,’ she says, struggling to explain. ‘I feel I have to.’

‘It’s the same with flying.’

‘Can you fly? I mean, with your hands.’

He pulls his glove off with his teeth. His hand is clenched, twisted. ‘I’m damn well going to try.’

‘What about the headaches? You don’t need to prove anything, Dick. You’ve done enough.’

‘You know, some silly girl said I only want to go back out of vanity.’

She hears the pain in his voice. ‘From what you’ve told me, I’d say you’re only at peace when you’re with your squadron.’ They turn the corner into Alice’s street, and pause. ‘It’s over there,’ she says, pointing at a gap in the terrace of houses, clean and vacant as a missing tooth.

‘Do you want to do this?’

‘Yes. I haven’t had the nerve to come back. I wanted to, many times,’ she says, shivering.

‘Damn, it’s starting to rain. Are you cold?’ He shrugs off his overcoat, and drapes it around her shoulders, squeezing her arm. ‘There. We shall be brave together,’ he says, and takes her hand.

Sweet William: gallantry, she thinks, settling into the warmth of the coat like an embrace. ‘Thank you.’

The sky above them has darkened, pinprick stars and a crescent moon peeping between the clouds, sparkling above the silver barrage balloons. The windows of the houses nearby are taped and dark with blackout curtains, sandbags are shored up against the walls. It feels as if we are the last couple on earth, she thinks, walking along the silent street.

‘Not much left to see.’ They gaze at the pile of rubble. ‘You know, every time a chap doesn’t make it back from a flight, there’s no time for grieving. We just keep going. That’s what you need to do too, Alice.’

‘I can’t believe how a home, how…how a life can just disappear,’ she says, and realises she is standing where the front door once was. She closes her eyes, recalls the old brass bell ringing and bobbing, the scent of flowers that embraced you the moment you walked into her parents’ shop. She remembers it all –every creak of the wooden stairs up to their cosy flat, the sound of the radio in the front room, the view of the park from her bedroom window. ‘It was beautiful.’

‘Not as beautiful as you.’ He is standing close behind her. Alice feels the warmth of him, and she turns, raises her face to him.

‘Dick –’

He kisses her, their lips slick and cold with rain.

‘I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,’ he says quietly. Their breath mingles on the air, hazing the moon above them.

‘Then why didn’t you?’

‘I wasn’t sure if you just felt sorry for me. I couldn’t bear that.’

‘You’re very important to me, you must know that?’ Tulip, red: declaration of love, she thinks, fighting to stop the words from spilling from her lips. I love you, she wants to say, I love you, I love you –

The low, mournful wail of an air-raid siren cuts through the night.

‘Is it a raid?’ Fear courses through her elation, cold as an anaesthetic.

‘Who knows. Maybe it’s just a drill? Let’s not take any chances.’

‘Oi! You there!’ a warden shouts. The beam from a torch flashes across the dark street, illuminating their legs, criss-crossing, dazzling Alice’s eyes. ‘Get down the shelters.’

Richard takes her hand and they begin to run.

‘Where are we going?’ she says, breathless, as they race through the back streets.

‘You’ll see.’ After a few minutes, Richard stops beside a brick and stucco house. He swings open the metal gate and jogs down the steps to the basement. ‘Wait there.’

Alice hears him unlock the door, and waits, pacing nervously on the pavement. The garden square is dark, wind and rain lashing the trees. She reads the street sign above her: albert square. The bolts on the main door slide back and it opens.

‘Come in,’ he says, shaking the rain from his hair. He takes his heavy wool coat from her shoulders and hangs it on the hooks in the hall.

‘We can’t! How did you –’

‘This is my friend’s place; I know where he hides his key. Don’t worry, they’ve bailed out to the country.’

Alice’s footsteps echo through the house, her heels clicking on the black and white tiles. She gazes up at the staircase, sweeping around the entrance hall. It feels like the house is sleeping, like a fairy tale. Vervain: she thinks, enchantment.

‘The heating and electric is off,’ Richard says, pushing open double doors to the drawing room, ‘but with any luck they’ll have left a spot of brandy and some firewood.’ He checks the blackout curtains are drawn before stooping down in front of the fire. ‘At least the sirens have stopped. Must be a false alarm.’ He lights the kindling in the grate, golden flames illuminating his face. Alice’s heart contracts as she imagines him, trapped inside his burning plane, and she has to look away, her eyes welling up. ‘There, we’ll be warm in no time. Why don’t you see if there are any bottles in that Chinese cabinet over there,’ he says. ‘Glasses are on the top shelf.’ Alice sorts through the dusty bottles of sherry and gin, and finds some brandy. She pours them both a glass, and takes a sip, fighting back the fear she feels for him.

‘Richard?’ she says, handing a glass to him, the drink glowing warm in the firelight. ‘Must you really fly again? There are so many other useful things you can do. You could write, or give more talks. I couldn’t bear it if, after all this, after –’ She balls her fist against her eyes.

Richard takes her glass from her and places it on the marble mantelpiece. ‘Please don’t cry.’ He holds her, lays his cheek against her head.

‘I don’t believe you want to die.’

‘Of course I don’t. But it’s kill or be killed.’

Willow, French: bravery and humanity. She hears the conviction in his voice. His fatalism scares her. ‘Dick, you have so much to live for.’ She decides then, that he will be the first. She wants him to feel her love, to keep him in this world a moment longer. Slowly, she undoes the stiff buttons of her coat.

‘Alice, lovely Alice.’ He kisses her eyes, her cheek, her neck. ‘Don’t waste your tears on me.’

‘I want to help you.’

‘Love me, then, Alice. Could you pretend, just for tonight?’

‘Yes,’ she says, with all her heart.

‘I wish you’d told me,’ he says later as they lay by the fire. ‘Your first time should be more memorable than this.’

‘No, this was perfect,’ she says, curling against him, the firelight playing over their skin. ‘I’ll never forget it, or you.’

‘I can’t even send you flowers. It would be like sending coals to Newcastle,’ he says. ‘Tell me something. Do you still play that ABC game? What’s it called? The Language of Flowers?’

Alice looks up at him, lays her chin on his chest. ‘Did I tell you about that?’

‘You would be surprised what I remember about you, Alice Beatrice Clover. You were chatting away to me after one of the operations. I think you thought I was still knocked out.’

She tilts her head, kisses his chest, feels his heart beating strong against her cheek. ‘It’s a habit, really. Mum taught me all the meanings. I suppose –’ Her voice catches. ‘It’s a way of keeping her close.’ Alice glances at her watch. ‘Lord, is that the time? I must catch the last train.’

‘You don’t have to go.’

‘I do. They’re expecting me.’

Richard brushes a strand of hair away from her face, tucks it behind her ear. ‘If you had to choose a flower for this moment, what would it be?’

‘Xeranthemum,’ she says. ‘Cheerfulness under adversity.’

On the street, Richard hails a cab. ‘Victoria Station, please.’ He settles into the back seat beside her. He laces her fingers between his gloved hands, and kisses them. ‘I can’t tell you what tonight means to me,’ he says quietly. ‘It’s been such a comfort to see you.’

‘I’ll never see you again, will I?’

‘I wish it were different. The times we are living through, one night is like ten, twenty years together. We could have had a lifetime…’

‘You don’t need to be kind,’ she says, determined not to cry. A lifetime, she thinks, her heart spare and taut with longing. Yew: sorrow. ‘We needed one another tonight, it’s as simple as that. I shall go back to Kenneth –’

‘The hell you will. You’re better than that, Alice.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m going to fly again if it kills me.’ Richard pauses. ‘I expect it shall.’

‘Don’t,’ she says, leaning her head on his shoulder.

‘I’m not afraid, you know,’ he says, his words muffled by her hair. ‘Promise me something?’

‘Anything.’ She looks up at him with bright eyes.

‘Don’t go back to that ghastly fiancé of yours. Buy yourself that little cottage in Kent, and damn well train to be a nurse if that’s what you really want.’

‘I –’

‘Don’t you dare say I can’t.’ He holds her face between his hands. ‘You can do anything, Alice, be anything.’ He stems the tear trickling down her cheek with his thumb.

‘’Scuse me sir, we’re here,’ the taxi driver says, pulling into the station.

‘Be happy, darling, for us both,’ Richard says, and kisses her goodbye.

Alice walks slowly towards the teeming platforms, waiting, hoping that she will hear him call her name, the sound of his feet running towards her, but when she glances back another taxi has already supplanted theirs, a man in evening dress stepping out.

She fumbles in her handbag for her ticket, and her eyes are blurred as she looks up at the departures board. I’ll just make it, she thinks, dreading the explanations she will have to come up with for her aunt and Mabel. Mabel. At the thought of all the years stretching ahead with that woman bossing her around, her shoulders sink.

You can do anything, Alice, be anything. That’s what Richard said.

Alice scans the departure boards, clearer, more determined now. Canterbury, she thinks. That’s as good a place as any to start. I can find a B&B somewhere, find out about training at the hospital.

Alice’s future lights up with weeks full of purpose, weekends exploring country lanes, fields golden with corn and poppies. She dares to imagine someone at her side, someone tall and fair, like Richard. Someone who loves her. Alice glances at her watch. She has ten minutes before the Canterbury train leaves. She looks around at the people rushing for the trains, feels the air vibrate with noise and colour. She feels alive for the first time in months.

Zephyr flower, she thinks, as she runs. Expectation.