Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Emma

Cerise Bougainvillea

‘Now this is nice. A day out, just the two of us. Not that I don't love a bit of time with Les, but it's not the same, is it? Men. They don't always want to chat about the same things. I must say this is a very comfortable car. I had to give up my Mini when we bought the garden centre. Not practical really, although I once got a seven-foot Christmas tree in the back. I did laugh, and you should have seen Les's face. But as he said, ‘Betsy, you need the right tools for the right job'. That was true, of course and the van is just the ticket. But quite hard on the backside when you've been driving for a while. I suppose it's the suspension– it doesn't have the give– not like these modern cars…'

They have only been driving for ten minutes, and Emma is already regretting asking Betty to come with her. It will be another two hours before they get to Stamford, which is where she has arranged to meet Tamas's contact, Jane. She cannot think what has got into Betty.

‘Now, what music have you got here? It's nice to have a bit of music when you're driving. It's one of the few times I sing: church at Christmas, the shower and in the van. You can really belt out a song driving along on your own. When I'm coming back from my sister's, I put a bit of Elvis on. After all, there's no one to hear me and it makes the journey go in a flash. Let's have a look … um … I've never heard of them. Ah, Adele, you can't go wrong with Adele. Even Les doesn't mind me playing her in the bungalow…'

In the garden centre, Betty's conversation flows gently like a stream. Now, trapped in the car, it swirls and buffets Emma until she opens her window just to hear the rush of air passing by.

‘You might want to put the window up, love– you won't feel the benefit of the air-conditioning.' Betty's newly ironed hummingbird T-shirt is starting to wilt in the heat.

As they pass Northampton, Betty moves on to firing questions at her instead, and Emma starts to miss the monologue. Betty asks about where she grew up, about her previous work. ‘Fancy that, a scientist and a linguist. And you spent two years in Italy and France, you say…'

Then she progresses to family: does she have any brothers or sisters? Emma tells her about Guy in Singapore. She can sense what is coming next– parents. And sure enough, this is Betty's next question. Emma has no desire to talk about her mother, but she does tell Betty about her dad and his love of gardening.

‘So you two were close, then?'

‘Yes, but we didn't spend hours talking. I don't know. It just worked– if that makes any sense?' Emma knows she is not expressing herself very well, but smiles, remembering. ‘When I helped him in the garden, we could go for hours without talking.'

‘Well, no one could ever say that about me.'

‘No, they certainly couldn't,' Emma interjects with a laugh.

The car falls silent, and Emma knows without having to look that Betty will be startled and blinking. She meant it as a friendly joke– but words that were gentle and funny in her head spewed out as bitchy. Why hadn't she paused and thought in Spanish? She glances at Betty but cannot see her face; she is turned away looking out of the passenger window.

And then, as if Emma hadn't spoken, Betty starts up again, chatting about this and that– non-stop. She thinks of apologising, but the chatter runs up and down between them like a wall. Instead, she puts Adele on softly in the background and hopes Betty knows she is sorry.

As Emma turns into the car park in Stamford, Betty falls silent, but as she opens her door she remarks quietly, ‘Don't mind me, love.'

They have arranged to meet Jane in an Italian café off the High Street. Emma lingers near the door for a while, speaking a few words in Italian to the owner, and feels the enormous pleasure of stretching a much underused muscle. On the walls are photographs of the rooftops of Florence and in the entrance to a conservatory sits a large terracotta pot containing a huge, cerise bougainvillea. Emma thinks Les would be impressed.

When Emma joins Betty at a small table in the conservatory, she is deep in conversation with a tiny woman who looks about Betty's age. Everything about her is small and neat. She has the tiniest feet Emma has ever seen. She reminds Emma of an illustration from a children's book she once read: Mrs Pepperpot .

Betty briefly introduces her to Jane and the two women return to discussing their families. Despite just meeting her, it seems Betty already knows all about Jane's son, who grows daffodils but is now thinking of expanding into peonies, and also his wife (teacher, but would like a change) and children (Daniel, who loves Manchester United; and Ruby, who is a minx and too knowing by half). In turn, Emma learns that Betty's mother died six months ago and that she is finding it hard without her and that Les has been tested for prostate cancer and got the all-clear, ‘thanks be to God'– just getting old, the specialist said. Although he is still ‘piddling like a leaky tap every few hours at night'.

Emma is appalled to find she knows so little about Betty. She had no idea Les was worried about his health– all this on top of money worries. She feels her skin growing hot and clammy as she thinks of the past two hours. She didn't ask Betty a single question about herself and smiled inwardly when she saw her hummingbird T-shirt.

‘I'm sorry to hear about your mum,' Emma says, cutting across the women's conversation. ‘How old was she?'

Betty looks round in surprise. ‘Eighty-six, but you would never have guessed it. She was always dressed just so. Even at the end she wore nice, tailored skirts and jackets.' Betty laughs. ‘I think she despaired of me,' she says, with a smile down at her hummingbird. She blinks out through her glasses at Emma. For the first time, Emma notices she has on a new pair, a special pair for their day out.

‘I always think you look nice. I like your wildlife T-shirts,' Emma says, and means it.

‘Well, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and that's a fact.'

One of Les's sayings.

‘I'm sure Les doesn't think that. I always get the impression he's very proud to have you by his side.' It is only as she says it that Emma recalls the sideways glances Les sometimes gives his wife.

‘Now you'll make me blush,' Betty replies. ‘Do you know, one New Year's Eve we played this game, and he was asked to describe me in three words. Do you know what he said? "Small, ship-shape and sexy." He'd been drinking of course.' But Betty is clearly delighted by the memory. Mrs Pepperpot laughs along with her.

Emma feels the room tilt.

‘Emma, what is it, love?' Betty stretches her hand out impulsively towards her.

Oh God, how could Will have got it so wrong? Brave, Bossy and Beautiful. How could she have got it so wrong?

‘I, I … don't know, nothing. Nothing.'

Both women are now staring at her.

‘What is it, love?' Betty repeats, softly.

Emma tries to blink her tears away and concentrate on Betty. ‘No, sorry, nothing. Just a sudden memory. I know that game.'

The owner approaches the table, and Betty launches into an animated discussion with him about their order, drawing Mrs Pepperpot's attention away from Emma. By the time Betty has decided on her choice– having changed her mind three times– Emma is able to meet her eye across the table. She knows Betty has been buying her time and wonders how she could possibly have been rude to this wonderful, kind woman.

Betty pauses as if she is going to say something to her, but appears to think better of it. Instead she turns to Mrs Pepperpot, saying briskly, ‘Now down to business, Jane, what can you tell Emma here about Bealing's?'

Mrs Pepperpot pulls a large brown envelope from her bag and places it on the table, her beautifully manicured nails just touching the flap.

‘As I said on the phone, I've made it a bit of a hobby finding out about the families who worked at Covent Garden, like my Tony's.' Mrs Pepperpot fixes remarkably blue eyes on Emma. There is something in her look that gives her the impression Mrs Pepperpot doesn't quite approve of her.

‘Since Tony died, I've had a bit more time for my scrapbooks, and the ancestry websites have been a boon. They make investigation so much easier.'

Emma nods her agreement. She has spent the last couple of evenings signing up to similar websites in an attempt to find out more about her family. It seems her research has now divided into two parts: finding The Florist; and trying to understand the connection she feels with The Nurse. Her mother's family have been easy to trace, having lived in Kent for many years and France before that. But, so far, she can find no conceivable link with the ship or The Nurse. She has yet to start on her father's family.

Mrs Pepperpot continues, ‘Sometimes I start with a photograph I come across and just go from there.'

‘Like a treasure hunt?' Betty suggests.

‘Yes, just like that, and it's led me far and wide, discovering the history of markets and nurseries all over the country.' Mrs Pepperpot pulls a sepia photograph from the envelope.

‘And this, is F.G. Bealing,' she says, laying the photograph in front of them. ‘Francis George Bealing.'

Emma and Betty simultaneously let out a long breath.

The young man staring back at them has a narrow neck and broad forehead. His ears stand out slightly from his head and he has a serious look on his face.

Betty glances briefly at Emma.

‘Francis, or Frank Senior, as he became known, was born in Gillingham in Dorset in 1865. By the 1890s, Frank Senior and his wife Harriet had moved from Dorset to Southampton, where they had started a plant nursery. Business was going well and they provided many of the ocean liners that docked there with plants and flowers, and as you know they supplied the Titanic . It was very much a family business– their son, Frank Junior, worked alongside his father.'

Mrs Pepperpot reaches into the envelope and pulls out another black and white photograph showing two men standing alongside a cold frame of carnations.

‘F.G. Bealing & Son,' Emma remarks.

Mrs Pepperpot just stares at her. Emma can't think for the life of her what she has done to upset the tiny woman opposite her. Surely it can't be that she is simply too big?

‘By what has been written about the family I gather that Frank Senior was bit of a tough taskmaster. A driving force.' Mrs Pepperpot looks up, and says with meaning, ‘Men like that aren't always easy to be with.'

Emma wonders what Mr Pepperpot had been like. Had he been a driving force? Was he a man who overruled his wife– cut across her when she was speaking? She thinks of their conversation when she sat down. She barely said hello and then interrupted Mrs Pepperpot to speak to Betty. She feels dismayed and exhausted by her continued ineptitude.

She tries to make amends. She phrases the words in Spanish in her head, then speaks in English. ‘This research is so thorough, Jane. It must have taken you a lot of work and it's extremely kind of you to take the time to share everything you've learnt with us, isn't it, Betty?'

Betty joins in the praise. ‘It certainly is. A real professional job– you can tell you're an old hand at this. We would never have been able to find out all of this on our own, would we, love?'

‘No, never.'

Emma has the satisfaction of seeing Mrs Pepperpot's back straighten slightly. She doesn't exactly smile at Emma, but her look loses some of its frost as she says, ‘Now, as I said, Frank Senior seemed very much to be the boss, but it was his grandson who recorded what went on the night before the Titanic sailed. He was the third generation to run the business, until Bealing's ceased trading in the 1960s. I guess they went out of business.'

‘That's why you couldn't find them, Emma,' Betty comments.

Mrs Pepperpot continues. ‘When the Titanic set off from Southampton on its maiden voyage, Frank Senior would have been forty-seven, Frank Junior twenty-two. Together they drove the cart of plants and flowers to the ship the evening before it sailed.'

‘The night of the ninth of April 1912,' Emma murmurs, imagining the scrape of metal wheels over stone and the bulk of the Titanic looming out of the darkness.

‘They took tarpaulins into the foyer and spread them out there. Then they unloaded the plants– about three to four hundred of them– plus all the flowers they would need for the journey. Then they started the job of arranging the plants around the ship. I get the feeling that the Titanic stewards had a say in where they went but Frank Senior was very much to the fore.'

‘A driving force,' Betty mutters.

‘Then they put the cut flowers into storage for later,' Mrs Pepperpot adds.

Emma pictures the father and son trundling away on the empty cart.

It seems Mrs Pepperpot is following her train of thought. ‘I wonder who arranged them, then?' she says. By now she is leaning forward, a gleam in her eye.

‘I've been researching stewardesses who might have had a background in floristry,' Emma tells her, ‘but I haven't found anyone yet.'

‘Well,' Mrs Pepperpot says slowly, ‘you might want to look for anyone with a background in gardening as well. The first florists were gardeners, after all.' She looks from Betty to Emma. ‘They were the ones who learnt the trade from working in the big houses, making up bouquets, buttonholes, corsages and arranging the house flowers. When the railways spread, it was gardeners who started the nurseries and provided their floristry skills as a service.' She looks intently at Emma. ‘I see now what you're saying– those flowers needed arranging, and you're wondering who was the florist on board ?'

Emma smiles to herself. Maybe a recruit to the Recently Obsessed?

The small woman sits back in her chair. ‘Well, that really is fascinating. A proper mystery.' She glances at Emma, who smiles encouragingly, feeling there is more Mrs Pepperpot wants to say. She is right.

‘There is one thing I found out that might interest you. The Bealings were famous for their floral buttonholes. They provided them for the first-class male passengers. They were known as "Bealing Buttonholes".'

Emma wants to say, I know, they made them from clove carnations , but she isn't sure what she thinks anymore. So much of what she has been dwelling on has been in her imagination.

She feels she has taken a big step forward in meeting Mrs Pepperpot. It has shed light on so much and made her investigation feel real. But she can't help feeling there is still someone out there, hiding in the shadows.

Or perhaps there are two people? The Florist and The Nurse.