The Little Flower Shop by the Sea

by Ali McNamara

Genres: General Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

The blossom is out in the little Cornish harbour town of St Felix

But Poppy Carmichael's spirits aren't lifted by the pretty West Country spring. Inheriting her grandmother's flower shop has forced her to return to Cornwall, a place that holds too many memories.

Poppy is determined to do her best for the sake of her adored grandmother, but she struggles with the responsibility of the more-shabby-than-chic shop. And with the added complication of Jake, the gruff but gorgeous local flower grower, Poppy is very tempted to run away...

The pretty little town has a few surprises in store for Poppy. With new friends to help her and romance blooming, it's time for Poppy to open her heart to St Felix and to the special magic of a little flower shop by the sea!

Let Ali McNamara, author of the much-loved From Notting Hill with Love...Actually, bring some sparkling sunshine into your life

Release date: July 30, 2015

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

My brother and I run through the town, weaving our way through the holidaymakers as they bustle along Harbour Street. It’s a Saturday, and the town is packed with people; some eating ice creams and pasties, some choosing souvenirs from the many busy little shops, and some simply enjoying the fantastic sunny weather.

But Will and I don’t stop to browse in the shops or eat ice cream, though I do look longingly at a lady carrying a large, white, whippy ice cream with a chocolate flake. It’s a really hot day and I’d love an ice cream, even though we’ve just had our lunch. My grandmother says my tummy is an empty pit that she can never fill up, but I can’t help it, I’m always hungry, especially when we’re here at the seaside.

Today we don’t have time to stop for ice creams, however tasty they look. Because Will and I are on our way to see one of our favourite people.

As we run along together Will clutches a paper bag and I’m holding a posy of flowers my grandmother pressed into my hand moments before we left her flower shop and headed for the bakery.

‘Say hello to Stan for me,’ she’d said in the same way she always did. ‘Send him my love, won’t you.’

‘We will!’ we’d called before rushing out of the shop and up the street.

At last we escape the hustle and bustle of Harbour Street and run to the harbour, where people are crammed on benches soaking up the sun, trying to prevent the hovering seagulls from snatching their fish and chips, or their delicious cakes bought from the lovely bakers a few doors up from my grandmother’s shop.

Mmm, I think again as I see the cakes, I could just go a custard tart.

Finally we leave the holidaymakers and their tempting food smells behind, and begin climbing the narrow path up Pengarthen Hill.

‘Here you are, my lovely young friends,’ our old mate Stan says as we find him sitting high up on the hill, looking out over a glorious view of the town and harbour. ‘And you come bearing gifts – what might they be, I wonder?’

‘A pasty, of course!’ Will says happily, handing him the bag.

‘And flowers from my grandma,’ I say, handing him the posy.

‘Ah, they always brighten up my little home so well,’ Stan says, smelling the flowers. ‘So what would you like to do today? A story, perhaps? Or straight up to the castle?’

‘Story!’ I cry, at the same time as Will says, ‘Castle.’

Stan smiles. ‘How about we do both? I’ll tell you a story as we walk up the hill to Trecarlan.’

Will and I grin with anticipation as we walk side by side with Stan, and he begins to tell us one of his strange and glamorous tales about his wonderful home.

 

It was so exciting back then. We had a friend who lived in a castle! I thought I was a fairy princess.

As I recall us all walking happily up the hill together, I wish I’d known then that those precious summers we spent in St Felix would be the happiest time of my life.

This can’t be it, surely?

I stand in front of my grandmother’s old flower shop and gaze up at the sign. The Daisy Chain it states in curly yellow writing. But the paint is beginning to peel away from the edges, so in reality the sign reads he Daisy Chai, which makes it sound more like an oriental tearoom.

I look around me at the cobbled street where as a child I’d run up and down to fetch delicious cakes and pasties from the bakery, my grandmother’s daily paper from the newsagent, and where at the start of our holidays we’d spend ages choosing a shiny new bucket and spade from the beach supply shop at the end of the road.

Yes, this is definitely it; I can see the bakery a few doors up, but now it’s called The Blue Canary, not Mr Bumbles like it used to be back then. The newsagent is further up the hill that this street winds its way up, and there’s still a shop that looks like it might sell buckets and spades in the summer, but today, a wet Monday afternoon at the beginning of April, its doors are closed, and the lights are turned off.

I can’t blame them for shutting up shop early; it isn’t the best of days to be by the coast. A dank sea mist hovers over the town, making everything feel damp and lacklustre, and in the short time since I arrived in St Felix I haven’t seen many holidaymakers. Or come to think of it, many people, full stop.

It’s a strange phenomenon – the seaside wet weather effect. A resort can be packed with people out enjoying themselves in the sunshine one moment, then the next, as a changing tide brings dark showery clouds in with it, they will all suddenly disappear, back to whatever hotel, holiday cottage or caravan they are calling home that week.

When I used to stay here with my grandmother in the peak holiday seasons, I would sometimes pray for rain, just so I could wander the beaches and clifftops in total peace, away from any holidaymakers.

My eyes follow the cobbles up the winding street. Beyond the bakery, newsagent and beach shop, I can see a small supermarket, a charity shop, a chemist, and what looks like an art gallery – it’s right at the top of the street so it’s difficult to make out from here. But that’s it: a few small businesses in amongst an awful lot of empty shops with white paint covering their windows. Where have all the gift shops gone? They were always so popular when I used to come here. St Felix prided itself on the quality and variety of its souvenirs; none of that tacky seaside stuff like Kiss-Me-Quick hats, or T-shirts with rude slogans. St Felix had always been a haven for local artists and their work. What has happened?

My grandmother’s shop stands at the bottom of Harbour Street, at the point where the cobbles lead out on to the harbour. My first thought was that it looked a bit ramshackle, but having seen all the other derelict shops, I’m just glad it’s still here. Down in the harbour I can make out a few fishing boats, and a patch of pale yellow sand – the tide must be on its way out. Maybe it will take this miserable weather with it.

It’s been a long day already, with a tiring drive from my flat in north London to St Felix, the little town on the north Cornish coast where my grandmother’s shop was. My mother had hired a car for me, a brand-new black Range Rover, thinking it would help cushion the journey. But for all the car’s comfort and luxury, it hadn’t made the journey to somewhere I really didn’t want to go any easier.

My stomach grumbles as I stand looking forlornly at my slightly bedraggled reflection in the shop’s window. No wonder that guy at the service station I’d stopped at had given me a look when I’d pulled up in the Range Rover; with my long black hair dangling around my pale face, I look much younger than my thirty years. He probably thought I should be sitting in the back rather than the driver’s seat.

An elderly couple holding hands with two cute toddlers – twins, by the look of their matching outfits – pass by. The lady stops briefly to help one of the twins fasten her coat, and as she pulls the hood over the child’s face to shield her from the strong wind gusting today, she gives her a kiss on the cheek.

I feel my heart tug.

My grandmother used to do that to me when I was small… 

I turn away from them and stare up at the shop again, feeling guilty – not for the first time today. Guilty about moaning so much about returning to St Felix, and guilty I hadn’t done so sooner.

You see my grandmother has just died.

Not passed on, moved to a better place, or any other term that people use to make the obvious sound easier to accept.

She’d simply died and left us – like everyone does eventually.

Afterwards everyone had cried. Not me, though. I never cry now.

Worn black – that part was easy, I liked that.

Went to her funeral and talked about how wonderful she was; eaten all the food they could stuff inside them at her wake – again, neither of these proved difficult for me.

Her family had been summoned to a will-reading with a solicitor who had travelled up from Cornwall to meet us at a posh London hotel.

We being myself, my mother and father, Aunt Petal, and my two annoying cousins, Violet and Marigold. Actually, after the awfulness that was the funeral, the will-reading was quite amusing to begin with. The look on Violet and Marigold’s faces when my name was read out as the sole beneficiary of my grandmother’s estate was hilarious – for a few seconds. But then as everyone recovered from their shock, and my mother with tears in her eyes hugged me and proclaimed that this would be the making of me, the reality of what my grandmother had done began to envelop me in a way that made me feel so claustrophobic it was all I could do to breathe.

‘I’m afraid you won’t get any flowers in there today, miss,’ a voice behind me says, making me return to the present with a start.

I turn to see a very tall young policeman with a mop of black curly hair protruding from underneath his hat, standing with his hands behind his back. He nods at the window of the shop. ‘There’s no one in there on a Monday – not any more.’

‘And there is the rest of the time?’ I ask, surprised to hear this. As far as I’m aware no one has been in the shop since my grandmother became too ill to look after herself just over a year ago, and was admitted to a specialist private hospital in London which her daughters had insisted paying for.

He shrugs, and I note, from the lack of rank insignia on his shoulders, that he’s a police constable.

It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, knowing how to spot the rank of the police officer you’re dealing with, but when you’ve had as many encounters with the police as I have… let’s just say it becomes second nature.

‘Yes, there’s someone in there five days a week. Well, sort of…’

I wait for him to continue.

‘You see, the florist that was there before sadly passed on. Lovely lady she was, apparently.’

‘Apparently?’

‘Yes, I never knew her. I’m new to this patch, only been here a few months.’

‘So who runs the shop now then?’

‘The local women’s group.’ He looks about him, then lowers his voice. ‘Fierce bunch, they are. Not really suited to the gentle ways of a delicate flower, if you know what I mean. They quite scare me.’

I nod sympathetically.

‘However,’ he continues, ‘I don’t like to say a bad word about anyone. The ladies run the shop voluntarily out of the goodness of their hearts – which is never a bad thing in my book.’

‘Yes, of course.’ I smile politely at him.

‘But they close on a Monday, see. So if you’re looking for flowers, then I’m afraid you’re out of luck.’

‘Oh, never mind then,’ I say, hoping he’ll leave me alone. ‘Maybe another time.’

‘Staying in St Felix long, are you?’ he asks, obviously wanting to continue our conversation. He looks up at the sky. ‘Not the best day to see the town at its finest.’

‘I’m not sure. Hopefully not too long.’

He looks surprised at this.

‘I mean, maybe a few days.’ I look up at the sky like he had. ‘Depends on the weather…’

‘Ah, I see. Good plan. Good plan.’ He smiles. ‘Sorry about the shop, but – and I don’t mean any offence to the ladies when I say this, you understand – their ways with flowers are a bit old fashioned. If you’re in need of something more modern you could always pop up the hill to Jake. He’ll see you right.’

‘Jake being…?’ I enquire, wondering if I’ll regret asking.

‘He owns the local nursery up on Primrose Hill. They deliver flowers all round the area. Just between us –’ he leans in towards me and lowers his voice once more – ‘I always go there when I need flowers for the special lady in my life.’

‘And would that be… your mum?’ I can’t resist teasing him. This constable is completely unlike the officers of the Metropolitan Police I’ve encountered in London. Although, thinking about it, most of those encounters hadn’t exactly been amicable, I was usually being arrested. Nothing serious – my misdemeanours ranged from disturbing the peace, to drunk and disorderly, to my favourite: trying to climb on top of one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. I’d been a bit of a rebel in my younger days, that’s all. I wasn’t exactly a criminal.

‘Yes. Yes, that’s right,’ he mumbles, his cheeks reddening. ‘Flowers for my mum. Well, I must be off – things to do, you know. This town doesn’t run itself.’

I feel bad for teasing him, he seems a nice enough fella.

He gives me a quick salute. ‘Nice meeting you, miss.’

‘Yes, and you, PC…’

‘Woods,’ he says proudly. ‘But everyone around here calls me Woody. I try and stop them, but it’s kinda stuck now. I dread to think what my superiors would say if they knew – it hardly conjures up an air of authority.’

I grin. ‘I think it suits you. Well, thanks for the tip about the flowers, Wood—, I mean PC Woods. I’m sure it will come in handy.’

He nods. ‘Just doing my job, miss.’ Then he turns smartly on his shiny black shoes and sets off briskly up the cobbled street, arms swinging by his sides.

I turn and look at the shop again.

‘Right, let’s see what you’ve left me, Grandma Rose,’ I say, reaching into my pocket for the key my mother had pressed into my hand this morning, just before I dropped her and my father at Heathrow ready to fly back to the States. ‘Or should I say, let’s see what you’ve left me to sell…’

 

As I warily open the shop door for the first time in fifteen years I feel my throat begin to tighten as yet again I’m cast back to the day of the funeral.

‘Why on earth has Grandma Rose left me her flower shop?’ I’d protested in the quiet of the hotel lounge. ‘I hate flowers, and she knew that. Did she really hate me that much?’

‘Poppy!’ my mother had admonished. ‘Don’t say that about your grandmother, she loved you very much, as you well know. That shop is the original link in The Daisy Chain empire, she wouldn’t have left it to you unless she thought…’ There was a pause, and I knew what she was thinking: her mother must have been losing her mind to leave her precious shop to me.

You see I’ve heard it all before, too many times – how flowers have been in my family for ever… passed down through every generation. How at least one person in every branch of the Carmichael family owns, runs, or works for a florist. It was like a broken record that never came off the turntable. But it didn’t stop there. The Daisy Chain was now international: my mother had opened a flower shop in New York, a distant cousin had a florist business in Amsterdam, and another would be opening a shop in Paris later this year. Every Carmichael loved flowers – every one except me. I may have been burdened with my family’s tradition of calling all children flower-inspired names, but that’s where the floral affinity stopped. There were no flowers in my life, and I didn’t intend for that to change any time soon.

‘Go on…’ I’d prompted. I wanted to hear my mother say it. I knew I was the black sheep of the Carmichael family; I knew I was the one they talked about in hushed tones at family parties. Maybe my grandmother had seen past that, maybe she thought by leaving me her shop it might help me. How could she be so wrong?

My mother took a deep breath. ‘She wouldn’t have left you her shop unless she thought you could do some good with it.’

‘Perhaps.’ I’d shrugged.

‘Poppy,’ my mother said, rubbing her hands comfortingly over my upper arms, ‘I know this is difficult for you, really I do. But your grandmother has given you an opportunity here. An opportunity to do something good with your life. Please, at least give it a chance.’

My father had stepped forward then. ‘Couldn’t you at least go and look at the shop, Poppy? For your mother, if not for yourself? You know what your grandmother’s shop means to her – and the whole Carmichael family.’

 

It’s begun spitting with rain, so I stop dithering on the doorstep of the shop, and dart inside, swiftly closing the door behind me. The last thing I want is for any of the other shop owners in the street to see I’m in here and come banging on the window for a chat. I’m not intending to stay long.

I resist the urge to turn on the light, so I have to try and make out the interior of the shop as best I can from what little daylight there is coming through the window.

It’s bigger than I remember. Perhaps that’s because I only ever saw it filled to the brim with flowers. When my grandmother was in here you couldn’t move without bumping into a tin pot filled with brightly coloured blooms waiting to be arranged into a bouquet and sent out into the world to brighten someone’s day.

The shop is still filled with the same long tin pots, but today they stand eerily empty, as if waiting for someone to come along and fill them with the latest buds.

I sigh. Even though I don’t like flowers or want anything to do with them, I loved my grandmother, and I can remember spending many a happy, sunshine-filled holiday here in St Felix with her. It was here that my brother and I graduated from building sandcastles on the beach, to learning to surf when we were that bit older and stronger. When the evening tide was high in St Felix, huge waves would crash down on to the Cornish sand, wiping out the day’s carefully built, but now abandoned sandcastles. My grandmother would cheer us on from her red-and-white striped deckchair, a steaming hot flask of drinking chocolate ready to warm our wet and aching bodies when we could battle the waves no longer…

I shake my head.

That’s all in the past now. I have to remain focused on what I’m here to do. So I begin to step carefully about in the dim light, trying to gauge the fixtures and fittings. I might have to sell those on separately if I put the shop up for sale and the buyer doesn’t want them. But to be honest, they don’t look like they’re worth much. Everything I can see is made of heavy dark oak. Huge dressers and cabinets all stand empty, pushed up against grimy cream walls. Who’s going to want to buy those? Shops these days opt for modern, light-coloured fixtures – to make the ‘shopping experience’ as pleasurable as possible for the consumer.

I once spent a ghastly few months working on the tills in a large supermarket during the run-up to Christmas. I nearly went insane passing people’s huge festive shops over the barcode scanner hour after hour. It got so bad I began having nightmares about ‘3 for 2’ and ‘BOGOF’ offers, until it reached the point where I leapt on to the checkout conveyor belt in the middle of one of my shifts and used it like a treadmill, shouting to anyone that would listen that greed would kill us, and we should all – staff and customers alike – be ashamed of ourselves.

If that incident had only been a dream like so many others about the shop, it wouldn’t have been so bad… But I was dragged down from the checkout by two security guards who thought I was marvellous for giving them something to do other than look at security screens all day, then escorted to the manager’s office where I was fired on the spot and banned from every branch of this particular chain within a fifty-mile radius.

It was one more item on the ever-growing list entitled: Unsuccessful jobs Poppy has had.

Would this shop – my grandmother’s pride and joy – turn out to be yet another?

 

‘The rest of us would have jumped at the chance of taking on Grandma’s shop,’ Marigold had piped up at the will-reading. ‘It would be an honour. Goodness knows why she left it to you, Poppy.’

‘I know…’ Violet joined in whining. ‘You of all people. I mean, can you cope with that sort of thing these days?’ She’d tipped her head to one side and regarded me with fake pity. ‘I heard you were still taking medication.’

‘The only medication I’m taking is a pill to help me deal with annoying and ignorant cousins,’ I’d told her as she’d glowered at me. ‘I’ve been fine for some time, Violet, as you well know. Perhaps Mum’s right, perhaps Grandma Rose knew that and she wanted to give me a chance. Unlike some people.’

Violet had then stuck her tongue out at me like a petulant child.

‘I’m really not sure about this, Flora,’ said Aunt Petal, turning to my mother with a look of concern. ‘The Daisy Chain is such an important part of our heritage. Should we allow Poppy to be put in charge of it with her… history.’ She’d whispered the last word as if it was poison.

‘I am here, you know,’ I’d reminded her.

‘Poppy,’ my mother had put her hand up to quieten me, ‘let me deal with this.’ She’d turned back to Petal. ‘Poppy may have had her issues in the past, we all know that. Just as we all know,’ she’d added pointedly, ‘what caused them.’

The others had all looked slightly ashamed, and I’d closed my eyes; I couldn’t bear people pitying me.

‘But she’s a changed person now, aren’t you, Poppy. How long were you at your last job?’ my mother asked, nodding with encouragement.

‘Six months,’ I’d mumbled.

‘See!’ Marigold shrieked. ‘She can’t stick at anything.’

‘It wasn’t my fault this time. I thought the guy was coming on to me in the hotel room, what was I supposed to do?’

In my last job I’d been quite content working as a maid in a 5-star hotel in Mayfair. It was hard work, but not taxing, and I hadn’t minded it anywhere near as much as I thought I would. In fact I’d stuck it longer than any job I’d had before. That was until one evening a guest had got a little too frisky for my liking when I knocked to turn his bed down one night – a pointless part of the job, if you ask me. I mean, who can’t pull their own sheets back? However, it was part of my job description, and every evening at around six o’clock I’d begin knocking on doors. On this particular occasion I was told I’d over-reacted by tipping a jug of water over the guest’s head after he’d suggested from his bed that I might like to help him ‘test his equipment to see if it was working’. How was I to know that five minutes earlier he’d called down to reception to ask if someone could come and sort out his room’s surround-sound system, which didn’t appear to be working?

So I’d been asked to leave yet another job…

Ignoring the interruption, my mother had fixed her smile and continued:

‘Well, however long it was, it’s an improvement, and that’s all we want to see.’ She’d nodded at the others, hoping to gain their approval. ‘I think we need to give Poppy a chance to prove herself to us, and to herself. I know you can do this, Poppy,’ she’d said, turning to me. ‘And Grandma Rose knew it too.’

 

I peer through the gloom towards the back of the shop to see if the old wooden counter that I remember my grandmother serving behind still remains. To my surprise it does, so I make my way carefully across the shop towards it. As I do, I knock into one of the empty tin buckets standing on the floor and it crashes to the ground. I quickly stand it upright again and continue on my way.

I approach my grandmother’s desk slowly; my brother and I had spent many fun-filled hours hiding under here when customers came into the shop; for a laugh, sometimes we would leap out from our hiding place to make them jump. Well, I did; Will was always too polite and well mannered to go through with it and scare someone.

I run my hand gently along the soft, warm, now heavily worn wooden surface, and recollections of the three of us fill the room as I do. It’s as if I’ve rubbed a magic lantern and released a genie made up of memories.

I wonder? 

I crouch down behind the desk and pull out my phone, activating the torch on the back. The underside of the desk is suddenly filled with light, and I direct the beam into a corner.

It’s still there. 

In the upper left-hand corner of the desk is an inscription. It had been carved roughly with a pair of my grandmother’s floral shears in a moment of madness; it might well have been a dare – from me.

 

W & P was ’ere July 1995

That’s what Will had written. I smile at his correct use of an apostrophe to represent the missing h. Even graffiti had to be grammatically correct with Will.

 

Rebels together forever…

That’s what I had scribbled underneath.

Except we weren’t really rebels; we were good children, if sometimes a bit mischievous. I was ten when we wrote that, Will was twelve.

I never thought I’d still be rebellious twenty years later. 

 

‘I… I don’t know,’ I’d stuttered to my expectant family as they had awaited my decision. ‘I hate flowers – you all know that, and I don’t like responsibility either, it’s just not my thing. Maybe I should sell the shop?’

There had been gasps from all round the room.

My mother had sighed heavily. ‘Give me a minute,’ she’d told the others before they could all jump on me. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hotel foyer.

‘Poppy, Poppy, Poppy,’ she’d said sadly, shaking her head, ‘what am I going to do with you?’

‘Well, I’m a bit too old to be spanked,’ I’d joked, my usual defence mechanism when faced with a serious situation. ‘You don’t see many thirty-year-olds being spanked with a hairbrush – well, not in the foyer of fancy hotels like this. Perhaps in the rooms…?’

My mother looked at me reprovingly. ‘This –’ she’d placed her finger gently on my mouth – ‘will get you into very big trouble one day. You’re feisty, Poppy, feisty with a sharp wit and a quick temper. It’s a dangerous combination.’

I’d smiled ruefully. ‘Already has, on a number of occasions.’

My mother had stepped back to look at me. ‘You probably get it from her, you know,’ she’d said reflectively, ‘your temperament. I remember your grandmother keeping my father in check with her sharp tongue. She never meant anything by it though, it was always in jest – same as with you.’ Then she’d reached out to stroke my hair. ‘When she was younger, your grandmother had a mane of raven hair just like yours. I remember spending ages combing it for her in front of her dressing-table mirror. In those days, she didn’t have the joy of straighteners to keep it tamed the way yours is – I guess that’s why I remember her wearing it up most of the time.’ She’d sighed as her pleasant memories made way for present concerns, which as usual involved me. ‘I don’t know what my mother was thinking of, leaving her precious shop to you, Poppy, really I don’t. She was under no illusions about what you’re like. But knowing Mum she had her reasons… and although I would never admit it when I was younger, she tended to be right about most things.’

She’d looked at me then; her dark eyes imploring me to change my mind.

‘OK, OK – I’ll go,’ I mumbled quietly, looking down at my Doc Marten-clad feet. There was an unusual gleam to them today because I’d polished them up especially for the funeral.

‘Really?’ Her face had lit up, like I’d just told her she’d won the lottery. ‘That’s wonderful news.’

‘But here’s the deal. I’ll go to St Felix and check the shop out, but if it’s not for me or I have any… problems while I’m there, then I’m selling it. OK? No guilt trip.’

My mother had flinched slightly, then nodded. ‘Sure, Poppy, you have a deal. I just hope St Felix can work its magic on you like it used to when you were small.’ Then she did something she hadn’t done in a long time: pulled me into her arms and held on to me tightly. ‘Maybe it can bring back my old Poppy. I do miss her.’

As I’d returned my mother’s embrace, I knew that, unless St Felix could turn back time,. . .