The Nanny by Tess Stimson Page B

discrepancies.
    For heaven’s sake.
You offered her the extra time off, even if you didn’t mean her to take you up on it
quite
so soon. But that’s not her fault. She wasn’t
to know. And she can’t be expected to work morning, noon and night, can she?
    ‘Yes, yes, of course, that’s fine. Are you going anywhere nice?’
    ‘There’s a new club opened in Stockwell, thought I’d give it a go.’
    ‘Sounds . . . fun.’
    ‘I’ll be back to start at seven tomorrow, usual time. Don’t worry if I don’t come home before then, though.’
    I smile awkwardly. ‘I don’t know how you can stay up all night and then work all day. I don’t think I could do it.’
    ‘Guess it’s easier when you’re young,’ Jenna shrugs. ‘Right, I’d better get on. I don’t want to end up behind today.’
    Ouch. I’ve been thinking of myself as more or less Jenna’s age, but of course she doesn’t. I suppose thirty-seven seems ancient to her.
    Davina is right, as usual. We’re never going to be friends.
    ‘Do I look old to you?’ I ask Craig.
    He hefts a bucket of early pink cherry blossom out of the way of the fire door. ‘Darling girl, when you get to my age, Elizabeth Taylor seems young.’
    ‘That’s not terribly helpful,’ I sigh.
    ‘Sweets, you’re ageless. Helen of Troy. If I didn’t bat for the other side, I’d have put the moves on you long ago. Why the mirror-mirror soul-searching now?’
    I’ve never quite figured out why Craig affects an outrageously camp persona at work, when he’s actually happily married with three gorgeous daughters and another baby on the way.
Perhaps he thinks it’s expected of a man who works with flowers, like hairdressers.
    ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I say disconsolately. ‘Just feeling a bit sorry for myself.’
    ‘You saw Davina last week?’
    ‘Well, yes—’
    ‘And your nanny is young, free and single?’
    ‘Not quite single, but yes—’
    ‘There you are, then. Asked and answered.’
    I’ve never been a great one for nightclubs and parties. I’m not very good at dancing, and I hate getting drunk and out of control. I can’t think of anything worse than
schlepping across London to some cold warehouse playing music that makes my head hurt, and then having to get up the next day to work. I’d hate to be back in the dating pond, kissing toads. I
love being married, being settled. There’s absolutely no reason to feel jealous of Jenna—
    ‘Craig,’ I say, suddenly distracted, ‘is that baby’s-breath over there?’
    He dodges in front of a bench of bleeding hearts. ‘No.’
    ‘Yes it is – wait. Are those
ferns
?’
    ‘Of course not— Oh all right. Yes.’ He flings his arms wide in dramatic fashion. ‘Yes, I bought in baby’s-breath and leather-leaf ferns, I’ve bulk-ordered
forced roses, I’ve been selling ’mums, I’ve sinned,
mea culpa
, shoot me now!’
    I gape in astonishment. ‘Craig, what on earth is going on?’
    He deflates and plops on to the ripped stool behind the till. ‘Look, darling, I know it’s blasphemy, it goes against everything we believe in, but we’ve been losing money hand
over fist recently. It’s not just the odd discrepancy, it’s by the bucket. I didn’t want to worry you while you were on leave, so I’ve been cutting the odd teeny corner here
and there.’
    ‘What kind of corner?’ I demand.
    ‘Chartreuse flowers and ornamental amaranths are divine, of course, but it’s such a niche market. People
like
baby’s-breath and ferns and roses—’
    ‘The niche market is what we
do
!’ I exclaim. ‘Craig, you
know
that.’
    We’ve never built our inventory around workhorses like carnations and ’mums. We have an aesthetic; either our customer base buys in to that, or they go elsewhere.
    I glance around the shop. This is where PetalPushers started; of all my shops, this tiny Fulham one is my favourite. Little more than a grown-up kiosk, it’s filled with interesting,
quirky, old-fashioned flowers