The Light of Day: A Novel Read Free

place, Jackson’s, I’m always expecting it to go, the way shops suddenly vanish, but it hasn’t. Whole shops full of flowers. How come it hasn’t been scrapped long ago, this daft soft urge to go and buy flowers ?
    And he was actually called Rose—the florist next to my dad’s. Charlie Rose. As if he’d never had a choice: a whole life in a name. But no choice in any case, according to him: “You think of all the reasons why people buy flowers, and you tell me if there’s a better thing to sell.” Charlie and Kate Rose (her name should have been Daisy or Violet at least).
    “And shall I tell you the biggest reason? What they’re really for. Conscience. That’s what they’re for.”
    Why haven’t we all become florists? And, yes, if I could arrange it, this place wouldn’t even be here, on this side of the street, it would be below my office. What presentation, what planning. They’d have to come up almost right through a florist’s.
    Though what I have is special enough: a tanning studio, a “Tanning Centre.” Under my office—but I don’t think about it much—naked women stretch themselves out. I’ve said to Rita, “Why don’t you give it a go? You could pop down for an hour, pop back up. My treat.” But she never has. It’s full of young girls. I think she thinks at her age it only shows up the lines.
    “Why don’t
you
?”
    A tanning studio. Flowers, suntans in winter. We have it easy, a place for every need.
    The girl steps through the light again as if she’s passing through some screen. She’s wearing one of those puffy sleeveless jackets, over an apron, a polo neck sweater. A loose strand of hair. You can picture her breath steaming not so long ago as she unloaded a van.
    I don’t have to dither. I go for the tried and true. Anyway, I have my commission. I point to the red roses, the flowers still thick half-buds, the outer petals, in the shadows of the shop, sooty-dark.
    “A dozen, please.”
    The girl counts out the stems, holds them up for me to approve. I nod. She smiles. You can’t help the obvious thought: a flower as well. I smile back. She turns into a silhouette again, then goes to the table in the corner and spreads out a sheet of wrapping-paper.
    There’s a cold draught from the back and a woman bustles in: the owner. She’s wearing a thick coat, undone, the collar turned up, and boots that show an edge of fleecy lining. I know her, she knows me. She knows what I do. Could she even know what day it is today? Put two and two together?
    A quick nodding smile. She’s thinking of other things. A pair of scissors in her hands. Perhaps all she’ll say to the girl, after I’m gone, is: “He’s a private detective, and he buys flowers.”
    Roses, blood-red roses. The same as last year. What else could it be?
    The girl hands me the bunch and I reach for my wallet. Half-past ten. It’s a short drive. I get a sudden black bitter taste.
    In my father’s studio there’d always be—easily restocked—a big vase of flowers. A prop, if required, or just an encouragement, a prod. I can hear his routine (one of many):
    “Look at the flowers . . . now look at the camera . . . but think of the flowers. Smile!”

4
    Two years ago and a little more. October still, but a day like today, blue and clear and crisp. Rita opened my door and said, “Mrs. Nash.”
    I was already on my feet, buttoning my jacket. Most of them have no comparisons to go on—it’s their first time. It must feel like coming to a doctor. They expected something shabbier, seedier, more shaming. The tidy atmosphere, Rita’s doing, surprises and reassures them. And the vase of flowers.
    White chrysanthemums, I recall.
    “Mrs. Nash, please have a seat.”
    I could be some high-street solicitor. A fountain-pen in my fingers. Doctor, solicitor—marriage guidance counsellor. You have to be a bit of all three.
    The usual look of plucked-up courage, swallowed-back hesitation, of being somewhere they’d rather not