Page 94 of My Kind of Happy

I popped the last morsel of chicken in my mouth and collected their empty plates. We just had time for a quick bowl of raspberries which Delphine had brought into the shop for me as a thank you for helping her arrange some sweet peas.

‘Cream?’ I said, handing round the jug.

I say ‘quick’ because Laura and I couldn’t hang around for long; the florist’s van was outside loaded with flowers and equipment and as soon as we’d finished eating, we were setting off to do as much work tonight as we could, ready for the Edelweiss event tomorrow. Laura bit into a plump raspberry and sighed with pleasure.

‘Let’s talk about this rationally,’ she said. ‘The wife sounds awful, so you could well have done him a favour.’

‘That’s true,’ I agreed. ‘Listening to her humiliating Sam like that made me so angry that I couldn’t stop myself. Before I knew it, I was interfering.’

‘Reading between the lines,’ said Hamish, pouring cream into his bowl, ‘Pandora may have been using Sam to get the house ready for sale. Perhaps she was planning on divorcing him anyway. At worst, all you’ve done is escalated things.’

I chewed my lip. ‘Those poor children. I feel so sorry for them.’

Hamish nodded. ‘How confusing for them: their father moved out, then reappearing and presumably going again.’

‘We don’t know that for sure, they may have kissed and made up.’ I shuddered at the thought. ‘Although I doubt that. He knows she doesn’t love him, he knows she’s been lying to him; even for the sake of his kids, I don’t think he’d put up with that.’

‘It’s enough to put you off marriage for life, isn’t it?’ Laura glanced at Hamish.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. ‘No. But if you ever tell me you’re starting a yoga course, I might start worrying.’

‘Ha, no chance of that,’ she giggled. ‘I don’t know my downward dog from sun salutation.’

A well of affection rose up inside me for these two lovebirds. After witnessing a relationship gone bad, sitting here in the reflected glow of their happiness restored my faith in love.

‘Pandora’s probably never even been to yoga,’ I said crossly. A thought struck me. ‘Gareth Weaver is going to be furious when he finds out.’

Hamish topped up my water glass. ‘Hmm. Technically it was a breach of confidentiality.’

‘Technically,’ I argued, ‘we don’t say “don’t worry, we won’t tell a soul that you’re sleeping with someone else’s wife”.’

He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Two words: data protection.’

I wrinkled my nose. ‘Yeah, I know, and anyway it’s implied that we wouldn’t reveal personal information about customers. Nina wouldn’t.’

‘You’re overthinking it,’ said Laura, stacking our bowls. ‘Pandora’s lover knew she was married, he knew the risks. He’ll have a lot more on his mind than what the local florist’s role in this sordid affair was.’

I wasn’t convinced. ‘Imagine if he sues us? That’ll be a nice homecoming present for Nina: here are your shop keys, oh, and by the way, you’re due in court next week.’

Nina had phoned this morning and I hadn’t mentioned any of this to her. It would only worry her and what could she do about it anyway? However, I had told her how much money we made on Saturday night, and that one of the cricket girlfriends had phoned to book a workshop for her hen party. Nina had been full of praise for me, which made me feel even more guilty.

‘Look, it’s very unlikely,’ said Hamish. ‘There’s so much more going on here than that one act of yours.’

‘Agreed. You were careless,’ said Laura, never one to beat about the bush. ‘But it wasn’t intentional, got it?’

I went bright red. ‘Well. I suppose I could have just had the book open at a random page and it was just bad luck that Sam happened to spot the message written to his wife from another man.’

Hamish grinned. ‘So just stick to that and you’ll be fine. She was having an affair and she lied to her husband about where she was; Pandora is in the wrong, no question. How and why that information about the flower delivery got out is pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.’

Laura sniggered. ‘Did he really call himself sexy tiger?’

My lips twitched. ‘Really.’

Hamish leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘While you two are out I might come up with a macho name for myself.’

Laura pouted. ‘What’s wrong with Mr Snuggle Bunny?’

‘Shush!’ Hamish laughed.