Gilliflowers Read Online Free Page A

her. She was furious and demanded to know why she hadn’t been told about it or invited to attend.
    Shane explained there had been no slight intended. They had not wanted a public declaration. It was legal paperwork and no big deal.
    Leo, in what Shane described as a cack-handed attempt at pouring oil on troubled waters told her they’d also done it on the quick and quiet so as not to upset me. It was like pouring petrol on an open fire. She was even more furious.
    Shane told me to keep calm and carry on. Penny would get over it. He would have a quiet word with her. He spoke truth about having a quiet word, too quiet. I couldn’t hear a syllable through the closed lounge door, not even with my ear pressed up against it. I was considering getting a drinking glass to try and magnify sound when Dick appeared and used my free ear as a handy lever to detach me from the door and lead me away from it, admonishing me for being a snoopy houseboy.
    After a hearty breakfast Penny commandeered the Muppet and dragged him out shopping with her when it was clear he’d rather stay in cosily tucked up by the fire. I got on with washing up, but without enthusiasm. I felt depressed and thoroughly out of kilter. Bits and pieces of the conversations I’d had with my mother and Penny flitted through my mind.
    I lifted a plate from the water to put on the drainer. I’d overdone the Fairy Liquid and it was covered in soapsuds. Thin winter sunshine poked through the kitchen window making the soapy bubbles coruscate. I blinked and then froze as a silken thread trailed my cheek. Oh thank you Father Christmas! Most people got visits from the Christmas elf at this time of year while I was lumbered with a drop in by an invisible spider.
    Paralysis passed and the hand holding the plate began to tremble causing the soapsuds to slide from it faster. If I lost my job as housekeeper I could hire myself out as a novel and environmentally friendly dish dryer. The tremors receded leaving waves of unfounded fear in their wake. Comfort lay close at hand. I needed only to call and Dick and Shane would come to me, but with comfort would come questions about the origins of the episode. I wasn’t in the mood for them and nor did I want to be packed off to bed to sleep the day away leaving Penny to take over my duties. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
    Opening the back door I walked outside willing the cold air to chase away all vestiges of the episode and keep me alert. On some odd impulse I kept on walking, down the side path to the front of the house, across the drive and out through the gates onto the avenue. I felt locked inside my head, trapped with a whirl of jumbled thoughts and sharp emotions. The world around me moved into soft focus. From a distance I could hear footsteps, but they didn’t feel as if they belonged to me.
    A flash of yellow penetrated my foggy brain, bringing me to a stop. I found myself standing outside a greengrocer, one of a small row of individual shops some distance from where I live. I sometimes go there to buy fresh eggs and vegetables instead of patronising the bigger supermarkets. The yellow was daffodils, bunches of them in a black plastic bucket standing on the chill pavement. Stooping I picked a posy from the bucket. The flowers were tiny, the stems short, thin and delicate, a hint of spring forced for the Christmas market. I had an idea they’d make a pretty decoration for the party buffet table. The jaunty yellow would be a contrast to festive greens and reds. I had enough change in my pocket to buy some.
    I took them inside to pay for them, standing in the short queue. There was a radio playing behind the counter. Don McLean’s beautiful but melancholy Vincent haunted the shop interior. In my heightened state of emotion the song was as painful as salt in a wound. It made me want to cry. I felt I knew the subject personally, tapping into the sorrow and loneliness that had marred his life. There’s a theory that