Nomance, T Price [bookreader .TXT] 📗

not even in Kew. And in any case, this mystery ran fardeeper than a poseur not buying flowers. Oh no, there was so muchmore to Serena than a designer lifestyle, clothes from Paris and aneternal fringe. Even if between them they did absorb more moneythan Carla saw in a month of Sundays.

Oh no, above and beyondall these ingredients there was . . . the nose.

Serena had this gianthooter. A whopping monster of gristle and bone with well buttressedand capacious nostrils that looked like they could suspend abowling ball by vacuum suction alone. Carla had almost dropped toher knees in gratitude the first time Serena had stepped intoRomance, a decade or so ago.

But it was a joy alltoo soon to be supplanted by bitter disappointment.

Her new customer hadquickly failed to realise any of her vast potential. Serena mightrun her eyes appreciatively over the wide selection of blooms forsale at Romance, but her purchases never went further than a packetof slug pellets and a can of fly spray. Furthermore, not once hadshe ever referred to the fragrances that filled the shop. She waseven reluctant to keep up her end of the conversation when Carlaapologised for the reek of the new fertiliser. In her darkermoments, Carla sometimes believed the solution to the mystery wasthe precise one which offered Romance least hope for the future –that the biggest nose on the block was a dud.

‘Oh Carla, theblossom!’

In reply, Carla smiledever so faintly. It was best to humour them. Like any othercustomer, Serena could get right under your skin if you let her andCarla had learned the lesson of the fifty-pound-fringe-trim well.It stood to reason she was never going to actually ask Serena whyshe didn’t buy any flowers. Carla would just as rather assume thenose was stuffed on a permanent basis. Anything was better thanhearing that the nose wasn’t a dud after all, and that in factSerena spent thousands of pounds a week at a florist’s on theChamps Elysees.

Yes by God, Carla wascertainly grateful to Serena for never volunteering informationlike that. Other customers who, like Serena, floated more oftenthan they walked, were far too free and easy with the sparklingdetails of their scintillating lives. Indeed, they were so expertat making Carla feel dowdy and dull that even the reverses anddisappointments they complained about were more textured andvibrant than all of Carla’s birthdays and Christmases rolled intoone. What had never occurred to Carla, as yet, was that if theseuppity women had to make some pathetic little florist feel bad inorder to make themselves feel better, then they must hate their ownlives even more than Carla hated hers . . .

. . . Serena wasgone.

She had bought a can offlyspray. Apart from the rare pack of slug pellets, she only everbought flyspray – the cheap Pine Fresh variety.

Oh, if it were up toSerena and her likes, Carla would be dead on her feet here.

However, as luck wouldhave it, Romance was just about kept afloat by customers who werethemselves pretty well dead on their feet. I.e. the really, reallyold ones.

There were about eightor nine of them at any one time and, unlike Serena’s, their everyvisit was a delight and a joy – in that they were always a littlebit more frail and decrepit than before. Carla was amazed at justhow frail and decrepit old people could get before they popped off.They had her dangling on tenterhooks for months on end. After all,a funeral for her and Romance could spell the differencebetween survival and bankruptcy. That’s why Carla was forever onthe lookout for new ways to support the elderly. She did greatdiscounts for pensioners and always made sure they got the specialprice list, the one with the fancy black border and the discreetlittle advertisement for Rupert Nodes: Undertakers since1884.

Carla had a lucrativeagreement with Rupert, and a good funeral jacked up the profits noend. If this makes Carla seem insensitive then one must recall thatRomance had only just about scraped through the lastfinancial year. That put death into some kind of perspective. Shewasn’t being morbid. She didn’t want them all to die. Justtwo, or three every twelve months. Any more than that and she wouldhave to cough up more tax. Besides, she wasn’t 100 per cent immuneto grief. These bereavements took time to recover from. But recovershe did, because in time other customers became old and decrepit intheir turn, replacing those who had gone before. Why, one day evenSerena would be old enough to need a funeral.

So then, who said Carladidn’t have anything nice to look forward to?

And Carla was such anoptimist in respect to death in all its many guises. Reading aboutfatal car crashes, heart attacks and tragic suicides in the localnewspaper invariably provided her with a certain thrill ofanticipation.

And here was adelicious daydream for you – a fatal car crash, a lethal heartattack and a case of tragic suicide all within a fortnight(assuming the relatives chose Rupert Nodes and his excellentservice) and she wouldn’t have to get pregnant!

The door banged openand Kitty, the young assistant, clumped in.

Carla started from herreverie and found herself back in the mundane, everyday world wherethree Rupert Nodes funerals within a fortnight was just anotherwild and crazy dream.

She eyed Kitty, a greatbig tall, thickset girl of eighteen, and said, ‘Fill all thebuckets, like I showed you. I’m going to talk to Gwynne. He’sstopped off work to help you out. Come through if you need me foranything.’

Kitty leaned towardsCarla as she spoke and stared hard at her lips, as if she weretrying to read them. There was an interval before she nodded incomprehension, or what passed for it.

Kitty was built on analmost gross scale. One of the latest generations of kids, sopumped up by the chemical nutriments in fast food that they werealmost deformed. There was no chance of Kitty getting lots offlowers from lovesick gentlemen. A pound of beefsteak, possibly . .. and no doubt she’d appreciate it more, too. The pity was, nogentlemen were waiting in the wings. The girl could already lugbags of peat around with ease, so who knew what she’d