Stories of the Street - Eighteen

Less than a week to go before she opens the shop properly. She has been frantic with the work that needs to be finished and has been on the ‘phone to so many people that she is suffering from a sore throat. Despite everything she could not be happier.

One year ago she was in the middle of a growing crisis and she had not known it. She sits down at the old wooden kitchen table she has adopted as her desk and drinks some herbal tea while her mind sifts through her route to where she is today.

A year ago today was her boss’s birthday (probably is his birthday again, she realises, but she has no inclination to wish him many happy returns). That day, her attempt to give him a small celebration had fallen flat in this very room. She had sent her assistant out to collect the cake she had ordered and she had put some candles on it herself.

Her boss, the once owner of this florist shop, had barged in to the back room quite drunk, grumbled that there was a customer waiting front of shop and opened the safe that stood where her “desk” now stood. He removed the bag which held the day’s taking up to that time, stuffed it in his jacket pocket and left without saying another word or even looking at the cake.

Admittedly, he had been acting in an increasingly erratic way for several weeks before this event but she had been finding different ways of excusing his behaviour - right up to that point. The look on her assistant’s face was merely a reflection of her own expression and, after she had served that final customer, she had closed up the shop and treated them both to the cake and the fizzy wine she had been keeping in the ‘fridge.

It had taken another five months for the whole thing to fall apart as he continued to neglect the business, remove the takings and let all of the debts accumulate. He managed to keep the truth from her for some time, despite her role as manager of the florists (a recent role for her). He had been the one who had opened the post and he had been the one who had supposedly been paying the bills. It was not until she started to field the ‘phone calls heralding default notices and had begun to really struggle with suppliers to get stock that the truth had taken hold.

If it had been another sort of job she would have just left but she had fallen in love with the work, the business and even the premises. She did not want the whole thing flushed down the toilet with the rest of his life. So she took rearguard action.

As he prepared to disappear (he had been putting everything away in various accounts and had finally gone abroad with everything he could steal, borrow and sell), she had been preparing to pick up the pieces.

She sent him into a series of furies as she started to invite the key suppliers ‘round to the shop in the late afternoon to pay them amounts in lieu from the day’s takings. She was showing them her good faith in the face of adversity and had tried to keep the place going while he was trying to bleed it dry.

It was interesting, because he could not sack her (she eventually had to let her assistant, Muriel, go because the wages were becoming more and more erratic) and she was determined to stay, even if she lived on the last of her savings and on what little she felt she could extract from the takings.

When he finally disappeared it was just before all sorts of “heavies” landed on the doorstep. Through some luck and a lot of hard work she was prepared for the fight. Her solicitor was there, with her and she eventually was allowed to do more than just pick up the pieces.

Even then, it had taken months but she had the shop now, with its new name and a business loan and she would be bringing Muriel back on board next week.

All she had to do was get the place ready and make sure that everything, absolutely everything, was sorted to her satisfaction.

For days now, she has been smiling uncontrollably. There are muscles on her face that are beginning to ache with that smile and she could not have cared less. “I deserve this!” she thinks. And she is absolutely right.