Florence

"Were you badly in love with him?" Florence asked.

Her aunt heaved a deep sigh. "I was," she said. "Never met anyone remotely as nice since..." She remained silent for a long time again. "Life's been lonesome," she said eventually. "I hope you can make something of yours still, now you're free to follow your heart... I'll try and come to visit you soon, Flo!"

They said their goodbyes and rang off.

Florence sat looking at the diary in her hand as if she'd never seen it before. Then she put it down on the table. To her dismay she felt some big tears trickle down her cheeks. Forty-seven... Most of her years spent caring for a mother who didn't care one jot for her, with no chance of meeting anyone nice. Follow your heart - but she didn't even know where her heart would direct her, if anywhere. The years to come a waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind? She didn't know. She didn't know what to do to turn life into something worth living. Her mother's life couldn't have been too much of a good thing...

She took her drink, got up out of her chair and walked into the hall. She gave the place a very critical look-over. It really was a good house. It didn't breathe the atmosphere of her mother's joyless existence. She had often complained about the size of the house, and the way the rooms were laid out, but Florence didn't see anything amiss there. On the contrary.

Where her hands had been stayed by a feeling of loyalty, that was fully gone now. She would eradicate any signs that were left of her mother's presence from the house, her house, and she would turn it into a place where she could feel entirely contented, if not happy. It had been one of her heart's desires - she'd pursue that dream with a vengeance. She poured a third drink and went upstairs, glass in hand, and went into the rooms her mother had occupied. She subjected them to a deep scrutiny. Everything that might have been her father's would be saved at first. When aunt Martha came she would ask her to help her out there, and she could have her pick, if there was anything she wanted. She didn't want any possessions of her mother's to remain about the place, that much was clear...

She restrained an urge to take one of the ugliest knickknacks and throw it on the tiles in the hall. Maybe it could brighten someone else's life. There really was nothing left she wanted to retain in either room, nor did there seem to be any unpleasant surprises left, unless there were anything hidden behind the cupboards or wardrobe, which seemed rather unlikely.

She went back downstairs and finished her drink listening to a Mozart piano sonata. Then she went to bed. She lay thinking about the diary for a long time. To her surprise she almost envied her mother the sex-life she'd had. She'd effectively stolen whatever chances she could have had from her. Damn her! She realised that she would love to lie here with a man she really loved - like aunt Martha had loved James... She put two fingers inside and tried to imagine it was her boyfriend, and not her own hand, and she brought herself to a thundering orgasm.

Then she went downstairs and had a drink at the kitchen table. She surveyed her existence, but stopped before it would end in a good cry. She returned to bed, and she was almost asleep before she hit the pillow.

The Heart Foundation arrived fairly early the next morning. Florence showed them into the rooms she wanted to be dismantled, and the quality of the goods apparently was better than the volunteers had expected; they said they'd gladly take care of the full contents. Florence lent them a hand to get everything downstairs and into the van; she left the bigger pieces of furniture to the men. It took them the better part of the morning; it was almost twelve o'clock before the rooms were empty.

When everything had been stowed she wished them success and went back into the house. The empty rooms were a satisfying sight. Nothing unpleasant anymore, no reminder of those awful years... She would move the computer out of the living room and turn one of these rooms into a study. When she knew the amount of money left after the duties on the house had been paid she would make a plan to refurbish the place to her own tastes. A nice prospect indeed! Maybe there would be enough to buy a new dinner service as well...

She went into the kitchen for an early lunch, but her preparations were interrupted by the doorbell. To her surprise she found aunt Martha on the doorstep, smiling at her. Her small red Nissan was parked in the drive, and she had an envelope in her hand.

"You know," she said, "I remembered that you don't have any pictures or anything of my sweet James... So I took you copies of what I have. If you want to, I can show you Robert, too, by the way."

Florence helped her aunt with her coat. "I don't think so," she said. "I don't think I'm ready for that... But I'd love to see the pictures of my father. You were right. I did quite some thinking about it; he, at least, was a father to me. Poor man. Do I look like Robert?"

"No, you don't. Not in the least. "

They went into the kitchen together, and Florence offered her aunt a bite to eat, but she declined, insisting that Florence have her lunch anyway. They sat pleasantly talking while Florence had a piece of vegetable pie with some salad.

After lunch Florence took her aunt to the room where she'd put the things that she thought might have been her father's. Martha had a good look through them. She removed a couple of items that, she said, had most probably been Carrie's rather than James's. Then she selected a few items to keep. There was a watercolour that she specifically liked.

"You don't mind if I take this, do you?" she said.

"Not at all," Florence said. "Just take whatever you want."

Martha nodded. She had tears in her eyes. "Gladly," she said. "It's nice to know James handled these."

Then she shook her head. "I wish things would have been different," she said. "I could see you were unhappy, and there was nothing I could do about it... Carrie had always been difficult and self-centred, and when she got married she became even more so. When we, as sisters, found she apparently didn't like you around too much, we offered to take you off her hands... I would have been very happy to raise you, Flo."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh well," she said. "All that's past now. What are you going to do? Will you move?"

"No," Florence said. "I seem to have quite enough money to keep the house, and I love the place. I'll remove all traces of mother, though. You see, father left me quite a lot. I just found out; mother must have kept it from me."

"She was probably afraid you'd leave. It seems just like her... I really cannot find it in me to like her, sister or no sister. I've tried hard enough. By the way, did you finish that diary?"

"Not yet. I don't know if I should... It isn't very edifying. I'd rather spend my time on doing the house up my way.

"Fair enough. Will you destroy it?"

"Er... No, I don't think so. I'll just put it in a drawer so I can finish it if I should change my mind. Would you want to read it?"

"No, thank you. It'd be bad for my blood pressure... Even the little you read to me gave me palpitations."

It was clear it wasn't meant as a figure of speech, and she changed the subject.

"Would you mind having a look with me at mother's jewellery? It's a very strange collection."

"Not at all. James once bought her a Berber necklace - really beautiful, and quite precious, but she disliked it. I expect she refused to wear it... Did she still have it?"

"Is that the one with the amber beads? It's still there, yes."

Aunt Martha could tell her a lot about the various items that had been brought into the household by James; they were the ones that Florence liked, and that her mother obviously had not wanted to wear. When they had sorted them out they went into the living room for a cup of tea, and aunt Martha left again at four. She kissed Florence on the cheek and drove off.

Florence stood in the drive, waving and watching until the car disappeared round a bend in the road. Then she shook her head and went in.

II. Chance meeting

Notwithstanding all the red tape involved it didn't take Mrs Chaigne too long to make up a full inventory of all assets left her client. The contents of the house were valued in accordance with the estimate made by the official valuer, and the lawyer made up all the documents necessary to round off the business.

Florence was pleasurably surprised by the amount of money her father had left her. Mrs Chaigne had retrieved a copy of the letter that originally been sent in the matter, and Florence now had access to the account the money was in. She felt it was better not to touch any of it until she knew how much she had to pay the taxman, but she was quite certain there must be quite enough to carry out her plans concerning the house.

As soon as the death duties had been paid life became very busy. She had her regular work to do, and she really did a good job on the house. She had a couple of painters in to redecorate the rooms, starting with those her mother used to occupy. Within a couple of days even her mother wouldn't have recognised her former sitting room - it had been turned into a small sanctuary for her outside contacts with her computer and a fast printer, and she'd made a small rack on the wall with hooks for the simpler necklaces; she'd bought a chest of drawers with a lot of low drawers in which she laid out the larger and more expensive ones. As she hadn't know anything about ethnographical jewellery she'd done quite some reading about it, and it had really triggered her interest.

She was very careful with money; she didn't know what she wanted to do with the lot that was left, but she certainly was not going to spend it all on art. Not yet. She'd bought a couple of items herself, small ones as the price was a little prohibitive, and she sometimes wore one of the less costly items to work. Her colleagues reactions varied, but she didn't care. She liked them and that was what counted.

She often wondered how life would have been if James hadn't committed suicide. She had had one of his pictures framed; it was in an inauspicious place on the living room wall. It took her some time to realise that the reason of her interest in James Kingscote lay partly in the fact that he'd really been interested in her - her mother had thought of her as cheap staff, it seemed. All in all she apparently should not have been there, it seemed. It was a very unnerving thought.

Apart from refurbishing the house she'd taken cat. Tuttle was a furry, lazy animal that spent most of her day sleeping on a chair in the living room, but when Florence came home she would acknowledge her and come over to brush against her ankles, purring loudly and expecting to be stroked or tickled. It was nice to have her around, and Florence had wanted a cat for a long time. Her mother's aversion to cats - or any other pets, for that matter - had stopped her from taking one earlier.

Being more or less alone in the world was hard at times. Aunt Martha was a dear; her two other aunts were getting so vague and forgetful it was difficult to exchange the time of day, let alone hold a conversation. They'd all of them remained single all their lives. Florence wondered whether an inclination for spinsterhood was congenital - she'd certainly not inherited her mother's way of doing things. Aunt Martha, at least, had been very much in love - so much so that it had rendered her incapable of forming another attachment.

Florence had been attracted to boys. But she didn't think any of her few childhood loves had been deep. Certainly not like aunt Martha's - not by a long chalk. Women... she didn't dislike them but she certainly did not feel attracted to them as lovers, either. She smiled at herself. Lovers... Big chance of her meeting one here, was there?

She often thought of aunt Martha's words, now you're free to follow your heart. Perhaps there was something wrong with her heart? She didn't think so, but you never knew. She wasn't going to be like Mary Turner and snare the first man she met. The main problem was that you didn't meet any men around here, apart from those that you already knew, and those weren't to her liking...

She finally decided to go and try if a dating site would at least be fun. She visited a couple of them and eventually started reading some of the profiles on a site for educated people. There seemed to be a lot of chaff about; a lot of them were much too short, in most other profiles there was something not quite to her taste. She read them with raised eyebrows. There were only four that might just be alright, really. She reread all four of them again and shook her head. No. None of them felt really right; and chances were that the men who wrote them were not even completely sincere. She closed her laptop and went into the kitchen to get herself a drink.

Dating... She didn't miss it, really, so why bother? If it were her lot to meet someone, ok - and if not? She felt dazed enough anyway.

Still, something kept nagging at the back of her mind, and it raised its head when she listened to some particular songs, or came across a passage of a novel... It was the hour after love, for example. She didn't know and she wondered what it was like. It always took a little time to regain her composure after such moments.

She had her social contacts at work, and now and then in the pub. She had worked in the same firm for a long time, and she knew everybody fairly well. She had two good friends there, Joan, who was of her own age, and Mr Bartlett, who was about ten years her senior. He was a very unostentatious homosexual - he was really nice, Florence thought. He loved art, and books, and he always commented favourably on the jewellery Florence wore; he obviously knew a lot about it, and sometimes gave her rather helpful information. She once had a necklace on approval, and as she wasn't quite certain she took it to office and showed it to him. He studied it carefully and then showed her what there was about it to show it was fake - which saved her a lot of money and annoyance.

To thank him she'd invited him over for dinner with his friend. It turned out to be a strange dinner party; Jim, the friend, was about fifteen years his junior, and where Mr Bartlett looked if anything a little Victorian, Jim was all dressed in leather, wearing a couple of piercings and a very conspicuous tattoo across his knuckles. He liked loud music and clearly belonged to a different sphere altogether.

Florence had taken to going to the George on pub quiz nights, in a team that consisted of people living in or near her street. Brett Dawson was on it; he was an expert on sports - very practical on the team indeed - and so were Janet and Bill, the people next door. They were an elderly couple who proved to be quite friendly but who had kept themselves to themselves when her mother was still alive. Florence had not been long in finding out that Carrie had not been too popular, to put it mildly. It didn't really come as a surprise...

When the team had just been formed, Brett had made a pass at her. She'd felt flattered, and they had gone to a concert together; but although she really liked him she did not feel romantically inclined towards him, and the concert didn't change things at all. Brett had taken it in good spirits, and their pleasant contacts weren't affected.

The team was mildly successful; they often came in third, once second, but it was great fun, and that was what counted. She usually had a cider or two, or a G&T when it was really cold. There was a quiz about once every three weeks; she seldom went to the pub on other nights. She was busy enough at home, doing the garden or getting her lovely house shipshape, not to feel the need to see people to talk with. She spent the first Christmas after her mother died at aunt Martha's, and the first New Year's Eve with Joan at her own place, and everything was cosy and pleasant.

Now, though, the second holiday season was not very far away. Aunt Martha would spend the days in France with an old friend of hers, to return on the 29th, and Joan had been invited by her son for a week on the Isle of Wight. Florence had bought herself a small Christmas tree and a couple of candles, and she'd ordered a turkey for Christmas, when suddenly the idea of being at home all Christmas and into the new year made her feel extremely lonely. The Christmas tree sat in a corner of the living room like a strange, intrusive kind of lamp, and she'd lost her taste for turkey altogether. She briefly considered buying a last minute holiday to the sun, but that, too, seemed rather stale.

December 22, and the radio playing nothing but schmaltz, schmaltz on every TV station... She couldn't stomach the idea of watching "The Sound of Music" again, and having to go through the next cinematographic edition of "A Christmas Carol" felt positively obnoxious. She shuddered, took her coat, locked the door and went to the George. She was only just in time to have a meal still, and the pub was packed. She ordered breaded haddock - her favourite meal had already been crossed out - and a G&T and looked around for a place to sit.

In a corner there was a small table occupied by a solitary gentleman who sat sipping a drink and writing something into a notebook. His glasses were lying on the table. He had dark blonde hair and he wore a dark sweater over a greenish shirt. There was an empty chair left, and she walked over and asked if it was free.

The man put down his pen and smiled. "Please do sit down," he said as he put on his glasses.

Florence smiled back at him and sat down.

The man made a little bow, and said, "Andrew Nowell."

Florence nodded. "Florence Kingscote," she said. "Pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you," Andrew said. "Do you live here?"

Florence nodded. "Yes," she said. "I live close by. I don't think I've seen you before?"

"No. I live in Glasgow; work there. I'll be visiting Cambridge from the 28th to the 30th. I came down here to escape the festive season. Much better where no one knows you." He smiled a little. "It's a beautiful village, this," he said. "They had a room free, so I'm here until the 28th, and I'll come back for New Year's Eve. Suffolk's new to me, so there's enough to do and keep me occupied - Ipswich, and Bury St Edmunds... They say Felixstowe and Lowestoft aren't worth while, though."

Florence gave him a wry smile. "I think they're rather dismal - unless you love slot machines... I wish you could escape Christmas and the lot," she said. "But I guess you can't. No fun to be had up north?"

Andrew explained that Glasgow was alright, but that there were too many ghosts there to like Christmas on his own. "I keep seeing people under the circumstances," he said, "and rerunning scraps of conversation in my mind, and so I've come here to avoid self pity - and moodiness, hopefully."

"You look cheerful enough," Florence said.

"I usually am, I expect... But not at Christmas. It's your typical family affair; and I have no family to speak of. My one surviving relative is completely demented." He considered it for a moment. "He's a liability, really - I take care of his wellbeing."

"No brothers and sisters?"

"None. My sister died ten years ago, together with my wife and son. Oh well - no topic for now. What is this pub like?"

Florence told him. She gradually became animated, but she was cut short when her dinner was announced. She got up and went to the bar. Andrew looked at her as she walked. Wow - she was beautiful! She had a nicely curved bottom, and good bearings. He wondered briefly if she had had ballet lessons in her youth.