Nomance (15 page)

But Carla had been
playing a dangerous game. Juliet patronised
Romance
in the
hope that she might one day snatch Porchester. However, if Carla
had locked the baby up in total safety then Juliet would not have
any reason to visit the shop. Carla, therefore, had positioned
Porchester, in his buggy, on a spot behind the counter where Juliet
could see, but not reach him. Even so, she had added a stockade of
selected cacti after a close call – maternal craving had once got
the better of Juliet and she had jumped the counter. That’s when
Gwynne had stepped in and got her into an arm lock before marching
her out of the shop. He would defend that kid to the death, he
said.

With a twenty per cent
stake in the final sale of Porchester for adoption, who
wouldn’t?

Except, true to form,
Gwynne hadn’t died trying to protect Porchester. He had married
Louisa instead, and gone to live in Billericay. Carla wasn’t saying
he’d taken easy way out, but it did mean she might have to die
instead of him . . .

Juliet was still
groping around in her bag. Perhaps she couldn’t get her finger
round the trigger. Meanwhile the corner of her red-rimmed eye was
fixed on the empty spot where the buggy used to stand.

Carla swallowed.
Perhaps she had already pushed Juliet too far.

Today the kid was out
of sight, under lock and key in her bedroom. Juliet would need to
gun her way into the shop to get him. But perhaps that was the
plan, because she still didn’t know that Gwynne was gone, and Carla
had to concede that a sawn-off shot gun would be her weapon of
choice if Gwynne was the obstacle.

The sweat burned on
Carla’s skin. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move.

Juliet’s arm jerked out
of the boho bag and a silvery object flashed in her hand.

Carla shrieked.

‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’
Juliet grated. She was holding a designer purse made of metal.
‘Exclusive to
Chrysalis
.’

Carla didn’t understand
what this meant, but that didn’t matter – she could see it didn’t
fire bullets and that was the main thing.

Now that she was not
definitely
going to die, Carla asked, ‘Is there anything I
can get you?’

The monotonous, grating
voice began at once.

‘I’ll have a pot mum,
the red. A tray of pansies. A Busy Lizzie. A can of flyspray,
Pine Fresh
. No, make that
Jasmine
. Okay,
Lily of
the Valley
. A tub of petunias and a . . . ’ Juliet was speaking
faster and faster. Carla got into a flurry as she piled the stuff
up on the counter. ‘ . . . and a geranium. That one there. And
another pot mum. The yellow this time. The purple rather. No both.
Carla!’ Juliet’s sudden exclamation brought Carla to a dead stop.
Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the pot mum.

‘Yes?’

‘A bunch of cut
dahlias.’ Juliet blubbered. Eyes welling over with tears. Carla
hurried to the bucket of dahlias. ‘And, by the way . . . ’ Juliet’s
voice became tiny and squeaky, ‘may I see Porchester, please?’

‘Oh Gawd!’ Carla
grabbed a bunch of dahlias and stomped back to the counter. ‘I knew
this would happen!’

‘Why not?’ Juliet
wailed.

‘He has to stay in my
room,’ Carla said, slapping the dahlias down onto the wrapping
paper that she had spread over the counter. ‘He’s got a big day
tomorrow.’

Juliet’s features
writhed around for a bit. ‘Why’s that?’

Carla began to wrap the
flowers.

‘Oh, I’m taking him
shopping first.’ She paused to look at Juliet. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m
sure you understand that I can’t tell you where.’ Juliet nodded,
her lower lip trembling. Carla went on, ‘What I want to do is get
him a complete new outfit. Something nice. Not too dainty though,
because he’s a little man. After that, we’ll go to the park for a
lovely, lovely couple of hours in the sunshine, where we can listen
to the birds singing in the trees and the little kiddies laughing
and splashing in the paddling pool . . . ’ Juliet’s face developed
a crippled smile and Carla assumed she had calmed the situation
down. She sellotaped the wrapping paper around the dahlias and, to
promote the happy vibe still further, added, ‘And then after the
park we have a really, really important appointment – we’re off to
Richmond-upon-Thames.’

‘Such a lovely place!’
Juliet’s voice cracked.

‘Gorgeous, gorgeous.
And the clinic is right on the river. Brilliant views. I’m sure
Porchester won’t kick up a fuss when they give him the MMR jab –
’

Carla fell silent as
Juliet’s expression became riven with horror. Her eyes were
ablaze.

‘You fucking bitch!’
Juliet jabbed at her with stiletto fingers. Carla stepped back and
raised the dahlias like a club. Juliet screeched, ‘You’re going
down!’

Carla shook her head in
perplexity. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’re not
going to do it. You’re not!’

‘You’ll wake the baby!’
Carla remonstrated in desperation.

‘You don’t care about
my child,’ Juliet hissed.

‘Of course I care,’
Carla said with feeling. After all, Porchester was worth twenty
thousand quid in the States. ‘And anyway, he’s
my
child,
remember?’

Juliet pressed her
fists to her eyes and shuddered. ‘Don’t do it,’ she begged, her
voice drained of emotion – that was reassuring in a way. ‘Don’t
give him the MMR. I’ll pay for the separate jabs,’ She dropped her
hands to reveal dulled eyes.

Carla looked into these
with a throb of regret. There was fifteen quid’s worth of stuff on
the counter. If she didn’t agree with her, Juliet might not buy.
Carla had recourse to cajolery.

‘Now that’s silly. You
don’t want to waste your money on doctor’s fees, do you Juliet? Not
when the doctors themselves say MMR is as safe as houses.’

‘No it’s
not
,’
Juliet intoned.

‘But they should know.
And anyway, he’d have to have three jabs otherwise. He’s not a pin
cushion, is he?’ She gave Juliet a coaxing smile. ‘Come on, what’s
wrong with getting it all over with in one?’ At this Juliet’s eyes
began to well up again. ‘Oh fuck,’ Carla said, in lieu of
please
don’t cry
. Glancing around she noticed a can of deluxe
weedkiller. She picked it up. ‘Look, Juliet, it’s the same thing.’
She read from the can. ‘”Perfectly safe for lawns, while
counteracting dandelions, nettles
and
squitch.” See? Three
in One. Like the MMR jab. Measles, Mumps and Rubella. It’s progress
– that’s all.’

Seemingly lifeless,
Juliet stared at the can of weedkiller for a moment.

Suddenly, shockingly,
she came alive again.

She leaned forward and
using the whole of her arm she swept the pot plants off the
counter.

They hit the floor with
a collective smash.

Carla flourished the
dahlias. ‘Right.’ She directed her voice to the doorway behind her.
‘Gwynne!’

‘Gwynne!’ Juliet
sneered. ‘Gwynne’s busy picking his nose in a Billericay semi.’

‘No he’s not,’ Carla
said, without a trace of conviction.

Juliet emitted a
cheerless laugh. ’Check it out in the
Daily Telegraph
’s
special announcements.’ She glanced down at the floor. ‘I’ll leave
you to clean the mess up.’ She turned and started towards the
door.

‘Hey! You should pay
for these,’ Carla hollered after her. Juliet kept walking and
Carla’s hollering took on a wounded undertone. ‘I was hurt too, you
snotty cow. I loved David . . . I didn’t make him run off with your
damned husband!’

Juliet stopped, turned
and gave her a chilling look. Carla closed her mouth and was
silent. Juliet produced a smile – a thing of pure malice and
sauntered out of the shop.

With a juddering sigh,
Carla threw the dahlias and the can of weedkiller to one side and
raised the counter. She hesitated for a second and then hurried
straight to the shop door. The street was adorned now by its usual
quota of pointless pedestrians. Juliet had disappeared. Carla
debated for a moment whether she should close the shop for the rest
of the day . . .

She started in surprise
and wondered at herself.

Running
Romance
for all these years had left her with a cavalier attitude to mere
death, and yet here she was, fretting like she had something to
live for after all! Then she remembered that she had a hardware
franchise waiting for her in Milton Keynes.

Oh yeah,
that
’s
why she wanted to go on living.

Or was it?

All of a sudden Carla
needed to check on the baby, and to check it right
now
.

She hurried back behind
the counter and through into the house. Upstairs, in her bedroom,
she found Porchester fast asleep. For the merest instant she saw
something other than a bag of cash lying in the cot and before she
knew what she was doing she gave him a tender little caress.

Carla jerked her hand
away and backed off, disorientated.

What the hell?

She clawed her hair
away from her sweaty forehead.

‘Too hot,’ she murmured
to herself.

Trouble was, she had to
keep the heat up in the shop for the palms, ferns and other exotic
greenery. It was tough to work in there now. On the other hand, she
had noticed some of her older customers almost swooned in the
torrid atmosphere and she glimpsed the tantalising possibility that
one or two might pass away through heat exhaustion, thus providing
Romance
with gratifying funeral orders.

She would keep the heat
up.

Turning, she went to
the bathroom to douse her face in cold water. Then she stood by the
opened window to luxuriate in the breeze. Feeling fresher, she went
downstairs and took the secateurs from the cutlery draw before
going back into the shop.

First she cleared the
mess away that Juliet had caused, and then she set about pruning
the miniature roses on their trestle opposite the
Green
.

From time to time she
would go to the door to check on the street. Her anxiety about
Juliet nagged her, yet she refused to give into the temptation of
closing the shop. She had to admit locking up would give her nerves
a rest, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. If an old
customer couldn’t get in and die of heat exhaustion she would never
be able to forgive herself.

Oh no, Carla had let
too many glittering prizes slip through her fingers before now. The
shop must stay open.

A half hour passed
quicky, as it always did when she dwelt on her customers’ funerals
. . .

She couldn’t remember
when she’d stopped pruning, but she found herself staring into
space, her secateurs poised, inactive in her hand.

Somehow, a dreamlike
longing to go upstairs and look at Porchester had stolen over her.
Carla fought the impulse, but it refused to let her alone. At last,
she banged the secateurs down on the trestle and galumphed back up
to her bedroom. She was beginning worry about the state of her
mind. No doubt about it, Juliet’s persecution was taking its
toll.

Porchester was
asleep.

And now Carla was
afraid.

She had been
disappointed that he wasn’t awake!

But having the kid
unconscious should have been ideal. It meant she didn’t have to go
through the motions of paying it any attention.

What the fuck’s going
on?

She went up to the cot
and looked down at the child. Her heart shot into her mouth.

It had happened again –
that unaccountable shift in reality, when for a second or two the
little fellow didn’t look like a bag of cash.

She shrank away and
stood for a while, uncertain about what to do next. Glancing at the
clock on her bedside table she saw that soon Porchester would need
feeding. That was something to grab onto. When the kid started
screaming to be fed she would soon get back to wanting to sell
it.

She went downstairs to
the kitchen and put the kettle on. Still troubled, she returned to
the shop, so as to finish the pruning.

She came to an abrupt
halt in front of the trestle.

The secateurs were
gone!

Carla stifled a scream,
whirled round and backed against the trestle, making it scrape over
the tiled floor.

The shop was profoundly
quiet. The thick, glossy foliage of the
Green
drooped before
her in slumbering menace. One sinister shape laid over another to
create a dark, feral core. Juliet was in there, she knew –
watching.

Sweat stung Carla’s
skin like needles. She threw the shop door a glance and judged she
could reach it in a couple of bounds. The cluster of palms at the
window were too thick to allow an easy ambush. She could just make
it. With any luck.

Carla, snorting ragged
breaths through her nostrils, forced herself to move. She began to
shuffle, one foot after the other, edging bit by bit towards . . .
the counter!

She almost wept at her
stupidity. Some nightmarish and perverse instinct was driving her
to protect Porchester. The rational part of her mind was begging
her to forget the money and save her life instead. To no avail. She
kept going, back and back and back – into the jaws of death. At
every step she expected the steel blades to flash out of the green
and sink themselves into her exposed and helpless flesh. As she
neared the last of the larger palms, where concealment was still
possible, the attack seemed inevitable. By then, Carla could only
just about stand up, let alone walk.

A palm frond shook. She
screeched. All at once she could move again. She broke for the
counter.

Where Juliet was
waiting for her.

The madwoman leapt from
behind the cash register, one arm scything through the air with the
secateurs. Carla felt a deep, electric shock of pain pierce her
left shoulder and she screamed. Juliet raised the secateurs again.
Carla pushed herself away from the counter and staggered backwards,
coming to a stop as terror and shock drained the last of her will
power.