The Flower Shop on Foxley Street by Rachel Dove

Author:Rachel Dove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Irvin had been driving round the village for what had seemed like hours, and had not seen hide nor hair of Lizzie or her car. He was hungry and miserable, and had a crick in his neck that grinded like a pestle and mortar when he rotated his head. He couldn’t very well ask their friends in the village if they had seen her. In a town like this, people talked. A man looking for his wife tended to make the parish newsletter on a slow week, and he didn’t want people looking at him in pity.

They were supposed to be blissfully retired, but Irvin was lost, and Lizzie had turned into a manic-depressive combination of Martha Stewart and Delia Smith. It scared him, and he really didn’t like change too much. He had sulked for a week when he found Quorn in the freezer, and realized that Lizzie had been feeding it to him for months without him even realizing. He hated Quorn. Who ate that muck? It was enough to moult the hairs on your chest.

He cracked his knuckles against the steering wheel, intending to turn for home, when he saw a flash of neon Lycra in a window nearby. He flicked his indicator off, turning quickly at the crossroads in a rush to check what he had seen. What he didn’t see, however, was Mrs Burdock, who was out walking her cat, Sinatra, a creature she tortured with her adoring love on a daily basis.

‘Irvin, ya daft pillock!’ she screamed, shaking her fist at him as she pulled hard on Sinatra’s lead with her other hand, making his eyes bulge temporarily like a bush baby. He recovered, returning to his normal ‘kill me now’ look as he sniffed the pavement.

‘Sorry, Mrs Burdock,’ he shouted from his open window as he spun the wheel wildly to go round her.

‘I should bloody think so too – my poor Sinatra!’ she screamed after him with an accompanying look that could pucker a cat’s bottom at twenty paces.

He drove towards his goal, putting a hand up again in apology as he gunned the engine.

Poor bloody Sinatra indeed, he thought to himself. She will stuff him when his time comes, the poor bugger, then he will never be rid of her.

Pulling closer, he realized the window was attached to the community centre. He wondered what was going on. It can’t have been her, he thought, his heart sinking, but then he saw a DayGlo orange bottom flash in the same window. It looked like someone was having a spasm, or an electric shock. He pulled the car into the entrance, driving slowly round to the car park at the back.

As he passed the window, he slowed down, covering his face as best he could with his arm propped up against the window frame. He could hear the low thump of music, and he recognized the beat from what Lizzie had been blaring out in the kitchen. He flicked his eyes to the car park, and tucked in the corner was Lizzie’s car.

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