Dead in Time

Chapter Two

August 28th 1976

“How much? You’re joking! She is… it’s a bloody laugh. Jan… Jan, she wants three pounds for the wreath,” Caro complained, nodding at the woman behind the counter who stood, implacable, her arms folded.

Jan rolled her eyes. She had been peering through the florist’s grubby window, trying to catch sight of Gail. Her view was cramped, restricted by the peeling white lettering that, from outside, read Wedding Flowers by Irene and the cork noticeboard with assorted small ads and leaflets pinned to it that sat on the sill, leaning against the glass. With relief she finally made out the figure of her friend, asking directions from someone outside the grocer’s.

“Caro, no.” Jan turned to her sister, shaking her head. “We can’t spend that. We’ll need money to get home, then there’s food, drink… we’re going to need to think about somewhere to stay, as well.” She turned to the woman, presumably the Irene of the wedding flowers, though she seemed to lack the joie de vivre for the job. “What else have you got, please?”

The florist nodded to a display stand of plastic buckets, bottle green and filled with tired gerberas, hanging their orange heads between slightly off-white sprigs of gypsophila. A few spiky dahlias, their petals drying up at the ends, sat in the end bucket, together with a ragged bunch of pom-pom-headed chrysanthemums, already starting to shade from white to brown and giving off a distinctly sour smell.

“No.” Caro shook her head. “Jan…!”

Jan sighed.

“Nothing else?”

Presumably-Irene sniffed and folded her arms.

“Well, it’s on account of the increased costs, isn’t it? You’ve no idea, my girl, what it’s like keeping this lot fresh. We’ve had standpipes, you know, water rationing. The lot. Have you seen the trees round by the hospital? Worse for the flowers. I’ve lost whole loads of stock, thanks to this bloody weather… not to mention growers’ crops failing. Entire market’s facing ruin, you mark my words. Now, do you want them or not?”

Caro gave an exasperated growl, and it looked to Jan like she might cry again, so she pulled her purse from her pocket.

“At least the chrysanths are white. How much?”

“Sixty pence a bunch. I’ll do you a nice big one, with some gyp.”

Jan took her sister’s arm as Caro mumbled something about gyp being bloody well right and nodded.

“Fifty a bunch, and we’ll take three.”

Presumably-Irene pressed her narrow lips together.

“Fifty-five.”

“Fine.” Jan ignored Caro’s squeak of protest and handed over the money. “Thank you,” she said as Presumably-Irene came out from behind the barricade of her counter to haul the flowers from their stagnant bucket.

The girls watched her make up three generous bunches, wrapped tight in waxed blue paper and held with red elastic bands. Jan gave the flowers to Caro and hustled her back outside before she could cause an incident. Gail met them by the door, sweltering in a long seersucker skirt and short-sleeved blouse, freckles standing out like beacons from her forehead to her fingertips. She stared at the flowers.

“Oh, no… was that it?”

“I know.” Caro glanced over her shoulder. “Bloody bitch in the florist wanted three pound—”

“Look,” Jan cut in, “we’ve got the flowers. That’s the important thing.”

“Yeah, but,” Caro began, the threat of tears clouding her eyes again.