A Flower in Spring

By Emily Peters Knott

Unfulfilled in her life as a middle class housewife, a chance encounter in a wood gives Andrea the chance to free herself and play out her desires.
But is the other exactly who he claims to be, and why does he place a time limit on their relationship? Follow Andrea, as she fulfils herself in her passions, then starts to lose herself in questions which she struggles to answer, but which could prove vital to her very survival...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emily Peters Knott
• Release date: Feb 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463905470

Emily Peters Knott

Emily Peters Knott lives in Yorkshire, England. For interest about the book, please contact Emily at [e-mail].

Book preview

A Flower in Spring

By

E P Knott

Distributed by Smashwords

Copyright 2020 E P Knott

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Prologue

He savoured the cycle ride home. The day had kept much of its unseasonable heat, and hosts of midges, greenflies, and other creatures still danced in the air, catching the sunlight for a moment before disappearing into the verdant background. It lulled him into a more than usual ease, almost letting the pedals find their own way around. The day of labour behind him, his mind was free to roam, clear beyond the petty demands of his employment. He followed it where it was wont to take him, only bringing his thoughts to rest on his mother when he turned into the street where they lived. He wondered if she had taken the walk she had promised she would. Or if she was still in bed where he had left her that morning, limp and pale by the lamplight, just rousing herself to whisper her thanks for the tea. Like some nineteenth century tragic figure.

He freewheeled the final few metres, letting the sun’s rays strike him full on, a last shot of the earth’s liberal fecundity, before descending for the evening into the semi-gloaming of his house.

Even before he’d noticed the closed curtains in front of the lattice double glazing, he knew a change had occurred. An unscientific, primeval instinct told him so. He let the feeling cover him in its ambiguities as he took the bike calmly down the side passage to the rear of the house. Whatever it was, it didn’t require urgency. No shouts for help or desperate dialling for the authorities. Alert patience was needed. He wouldn’t be deterred from his daily routine, a quick glance into the garden to see if the day’s natural forces had encouraged the apples and pear trees to unfurl their blossom, before letting himself quietly in the back door.

The silence was thick, and he waited on the threshold a moment longer than usual, carefully assessing what might be amiss, though in his heart he realised he probably knew. The plastic clock issued loudly in the dim, north facing kitchen, and he resisted the urge to signal his arrival home with a shout - he had never done so previously, so why begin now. That wasn’t the family manner. Instead, he would make his way to the curtained room at the front of the house, his feet clacking on the parquet hall that connected these parts of the detached house they lived in. The only house he had ever known. Had ever wanted to know. He resented the din his feet were making, anxious not to pollute the peace which he now realised had taken hold in the house, coming from the front room, where he knew he would find her.

The glass paned door was slightly ajar and, as he nudged it gently open, he heard its hinges deliver their screeching protest. His father would never have let them get like that. As he shuffled into the room he was blinded by a shaft of sunlight lancing from a gap in the curtains. She sometimes drew them to hide from the afternoon sun’s abundance which scoured the room if left open. But beyond the beam he could make out the darkened shape of the figure in the chair, upright and poised, waiting. His mother. Only when he side-stepped the piercing light could he see her properly. Dead, quite dead. As he knew she would be. It wasn’t a surprise or shock, and he silently thanked her for not making a fuss about it. No blood, piss, vomit, breakages, contortions or pain. No rambling, confused scribblings. Just sitting there, as he often found her upon his return, in the high backed armchair. The only evidence of the change, her head turned away and leaning lazily on one head rest, the half glass of water and browny green bottle of anonymous pills on the small walnut table beside her. The whole scene so thoughtful of her, he decided. As always.

For a moment he stood unmoving, letting himself surrender to the hammering dullness which the recently shocked must go through. A brief moment of indulgence. Feeling sorry for her, for himself, for them, and how it had all ended. And then he became aware of the motes in the sunlight, bobbing and dancing around, buffeted by imperceptible currents but constantly moving, never stopping. That must be him now. It was over for them, but he still lived on, as a reminder of their love. It was his turn now, to lead, to be the head of the family. To be worthy of them.

And the first step in this process was to fix the moment, this unrepeatable point in time from which he would seek solace and strength moving forwards. He must suck as much out of it as he was able, let it flow into him, as a sponge dipped in water. He mustn’t waste this time.

So, he started just beyond the lank, greying wisps of his mother’s hair, to the flat pack bookshelf his father had reinforced with extra screws after becoming aware that the stacks of books were becoming ever higher and heavier. Best prevent the catastrophe of a collapse. So, drilling had taken place, books taken down, reordered and replaced. Yet now, the vertical rows of neatly ordered books at the rear were masked by the horizontal strata of more recently acquired novels and reference books, piled haphazardly on the lip of the shelves. Mother would swivel in the armchair and reach up to re-read a favourite passage, or check a historical date. Closest to the chair were the wire bound notebooks, her records of flora sightings and seasons.

At one of the extremes of the highest shelf were a few family photos. They had been pushed to one side by the deluge of literature, and he knew that they had all developed a thin coating of dust, as though their presence was one born of expectation, a nod to societal norms, rather than a deliberate remembering. His parents must have felt some level of conformity, though intuitively he knew they had never experienced the need to validate themselves, as other families did. They were different like that, always living too much in the here and now to look back longingly at the past.

He looked afresh at his primary school photo. Even then his young smile was unable to hide the uneasiness he felt when dealing with the world beyond his tight family. Another one, of his parents, younger and more vital, relaxed on foreign shores with a place name he could never fully master. And then a slightly larger photo, on the Isle of Wight, the lifeguard station in the background, all three of them gay and unworried in their bubble of life and love. He remembered the day well, a bank holiday jaunt which his father had announced at breakfast, as though it had occurred to him over his boiled egg, but which years later he realised must have been carefully planned. For there was a car which already had his bucket, spade and blue Spiderman swimming trunks in. A ferry was involved somewhere as well. His father was always doing things like that, delighting him, and causing his mother to collapse in faux exasperation. He smiled now as he remembered that lovely day when they had ended up at Bembridge, on the east of the island. The smell from the thick strands of seaweed were forever to become associated in his mind with beaches. He thought of the damp sand which had tortured his immature body, only to be amazed come evening time when he saw the mass of collected grains at the bottom of the bath before his mother rinsed them down the plughole.

Pulling his gaze further to his mother’s left, he saw the large music system, complete with turn table and tape player. It had been acquired new in the late seventies. With its darkened plastic lid, it looked like something from a spacecraft. But his parents had no sense of irony, and it had always suited their needs. Occasional plays of the collection of LPs from their youth. And the Archers. That was a staple for all three, and he had thought it the most normal thing in the world to be sheltered under the protective wing of his mother on the sofa, listening to tales from Ambridge, while his father sat like a king in the high backed armchair, looking thoughtfully into the distance, and occasionally diverting benevolent glances in their direction. Only slowly did he become aware that not all families were like his, and when he did so, he found that he really didn’t care. He could do without television and computer games quite easily.

And when the radio programme finished, his father would leap up, rush over to the heavy wooden trunk under the curtains, its lid thick with deeply carved swags of soft round fruit, and open it with glee, asking with boyish enthusiasm, ‘What shall we play tonight?’ Then might follow a few minutes of foolish debate before a final choice was played till bed time, him squealing with delight in victory, surly in defeat. Then the game was carefully packed away and returned to the dark casket which his father swore blind had once contained Aztec treasure.

To his immediate left was the fireplace, theirs centred by a modest log burner whose winter time heat had long since left the paint on surrounding walls in tearful flakes. It had been their only source of heating in the colder seasons, all of them migrating to that room in search of warmth. He would often be sent to the wood shed to fill up the basket with fresh logs. ‘Such a good boy,’ his mum would murmur when he returned. That was enough payment, even as he got older. He would do it for them. Without revolt. He would have done anything for them. He could never understand the antagonism with which the other children at school referred to their parents. More as obstacles to happiness than conduits to it.

He stepped further into the room and closer to his mother. A faint smile played on her lips, one sweet impression remembered as she slowly slipped away. He wondered what it would have been, but then thought better of prying on his mother’s passing wishes. Suffice that she had obtained some solace, denied her ever since their father had gone. Her outstretched hand lay easily on the pale blue, almost grey, boards of a book. Almost caressing it. He didn’t need to see the gilt lettering on the side to know the title. His father had given her the Collins Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers many years before he was born, and she returned to it time after time, like a bedrock religious text. He never knew if it had been new or second hand when handed over. It didn’t matter, really.

He went over and took her hand away from the book, holding the sallow skin between his for the last time. He felt the emptiness grow inside, until he’d forgotten about her hand, about her. Ending it would be easy, sweet almost. But as he looked down into the uncovered gloom of the medicine bottle, he drew back, and in its place came a clear, cold rationality, which surprised him with its vehemence. Like discovering something new in a remote drawer of the self. With clarity came the capacity for plans, nothing in detail yet, just the pressing notion that he must act, do something. They had left him no other choice. The story wasn’t over. A final act was called for. One he knew he would have to write, act, and direct in. With the satisfaction of a decision reached, he allowed himself a brief smile. He let go of his mother’s cold hand and went to phone the doctor.

Chapter 1

Friday 1 May

She drew the iron smartly over the pillow case, folded it once, before sweeping it back over the item. The neat, creaseless square she ended up with pleased her, and she placed it with care onto the pile which she had already done. She couldn’t explain the sense of satisfaction from a full pile of ironing, but she again thought with relief at having convinced Chris that they didn’t need to get someone in to do it for them, that she was more than capable of that domestic task. She was happy to have someone take away the drudgery of window cleaning, weeding and house cleaning, but she drew the line at ironing. It wasn’t a question of money. They had enough of that. She just didn’t want to end up becoming a pampered princess in her own home. A sound at the doorway made her turn away from the ironing board.

‘I’m ready to go, Mum.’

She turned to see her adolescent daughter, or someone masquerading as her lovely, spirited baby girl. Someone whose torso was split by a tight fitting tube which gave form to the low swell of nascent breasts. Below the swathe of material, bare flesh was perfectly centred by a pert bellybutton. She looked like some country’s flag. The creature’s legs rose high and creamy before they finally reached the material at the hem of a dress. It was all wrong, and Andrea wished she was anywhere but where she was. She paused, steadying herself for what was to come. For a brief moment, she wondered if she should try tact. ‘Do you think that is appropriate, Paula?’ That might throw her daughter. Force her into emollient reflection on her choice of clothes. But the annoyance at her daughter’s crassness was too strong to resist.

‘You’re not going like that, Paula.’

‘Like what?’

All their conversations followed a similar path. The signs with Paula had been coming from an early age, but rebellion really took hold with the advent of secondary school. The war was now into its fourth year. It affected everyone in the family. Leaving them all wilting.

‘Do you really think that’s appropriate for Zoe’s family?’

‘We’re only going out to dinner, Mum.’

‘Exactly. What you’re wearing is more appropriate for a nightclub.’

‘Yeah, as if you’d let me.’

‘You went to Sarah’s party last week.’

‘Not the same as a nightclub though, is it?’

‘You can go when you’re Lauren’s age.’

‘Oh, great.’

She waited in the doorway. Defiant. Andrea wanted to tell her that she looked like a prostitute, but could never work out a way to say so without abasing herself at the same time. She wished she could transfuse her life experience into the fourteen year old’s brain. She didn’t want her daughter exposed to the ugly attentions her thoughtless self-showcasing might bring.

‘Why don’t you put on that top I bought you last week? The blue one. That was nice.’

‘I looked like an old woman.’

‘Paula, you’re only going out to dinner with Zoe and her parents. Nobody is going to see you.’

‘That’s not the point.’

It was an impasse often reached. Sometimes Chris would be around to back her up. This was often enough to get her daughter to relent. But Chris had slipped in from work in a hurry, was now in the shower, and a taxi was arriving imminently. He would be of no use. She would just have to trade in a finality.

‘Paula, you’re not going out dressed like that, and that’s the end of it.’

‘But they’ll be here in a minute,’ Paula whined.

‘I don’t care. You’re not going unless you put on something a little more decent.’

‘Ah, Mum, I really can’t believe you sometimes.’ Paula turned smartly on her heels and stomped away, drawing with her the cloud of exasperation and disappointment.

Andrea reached down and picked up one of Chris’s shirts, put it onto the ironing board and turned back to the TV host, who was now talking confidently straight towards the camera. She wondered if she had been too harsh with her daughter. Wasn’t there a time for flexibility? What had she been like at the same age? How had she dressed? She couldn’t remember having any fiery confrontations with her mother, but Andrea wasn’t the type, and her mother had always preferred an aggrieved, frosty silence, to battling anything out.

‘Have you seen my green jacket, Mum?’

It was Lauren. Softer, and without the hard edges of her sister. Andrea recognised the baggy grey sweatshirt with the symbol of a musical group Lauren had been to see in Melsborough a few months previously. Her gaze travelled down to the drain pipe trousers which ended in a neat coupling with ankle length boots, smartly tied with red laces. Boots which wouldn’t have been out of place on a building site. It was very Lauren and, although not stylish in any conventional sense, Andrea was grateful that her eldest daughter didn’t feel the need to ape the displays of social media harlots and television wannabes.

‘It’s hanging up in your cupboard.’

‘Did you wash it?’

‘I told you I did yesterday.’

‘Oh, thanks, Mum.’

‘What time did you say Heather was coming to pick you up?’

‘About quarter past six.’

‘Ok, I’ll keep an eye out for her. Any idea of what time you’ll be back?’

‘We’re only going to Jimmie’s Parlour. It shouldn’t be too late. About ten or ten thirty.’

‘That’s fine.’

Not for the first time, Andrea reflected on the contrasting natures of the two girls. Lauren, unconsciously aware of, and happy to stay within the boundaries. Paula, always eager to leap over them, charging the barricades. But it was Lauren who worried her most, recognising herself in her eldest daughter. She knew what Lauren left inside her; life’s leftovers, failures to meet the mark.

She saw the taxi through the window when she turned to retrieve a hanger for Chris’s shirt. It was parked partially on their drive, allowing other cars through on the narrow street they lived down. Already nearly six o’clock. She left the iron upright and fled to the other side of the house, reaching the bottom of the stairs before shouting.

‘Chris! Chris, the taxi’s here.’

No response.

‘Chris!’ she yelled a bit louder. From upstairs she thought she heard a muffled cry, but continued. ‘Chris, the taxi’s here. Come on!’

She heard a door opening upstairs and, clearer now, the sound of a hair dryer. A voice called out. ‘Right, I’ll be two minutes, love.’

She didn’t reply and turned to go back towards the other side of the house. As she left, she saw the door to Paula’s room partially open and could see, thrown on the bed, the constrictive top which had been the source of the recent disagreement. At least she’d taken it off.

Andrea began to grow flustered when she returned to the living room and saw the taxi driver waiting patiently. She could hear the light rumble of the engine through the double glazing. Zoe’s parents were due at any moment, and Andrea fretted that there would be some awkward manoeuvring of the vehicles. That really wouldn’t do.

Across the wood floored kitchen which connected the two parts of the house she heard Paula’s jack-knife heels announcing that her stridency had not abated. Everything seemed to be happening at once, and Andrea felt a stab of agitation, more so in that she knew that in a further thirty minutes she would be alone, left to deal with the silence.

Maybe it was this prospect which irked her, for she had always liked the flurry of family life, its energetic ebbs and flows. From courting with Chris and planning their future lives, babyhood with both girls, through to the endless years of school runs, reports and half glimpses of other families’ lives through their children. Keeping up with it all had been her personal challenge and, even if she was never fully aware of it, a source of solace.

She met Chris on the stairs when she went to hail him once more. He smiled at her with a cheeky complicity which she had always found hard to resist, and to which she could only ever respond with a wry smile of her own. At forty six he was still handsome, though nothing remained of the coal black hair which had been Bryl-creemed to perfection at their first meeting nearly twenty years previously. But the short stubble to the sides wasn’t unattractive, and was the most practical response to the baldness he had succumbed to in recent years. She took deep within her the rich cologne as he swept past, anxious now to get to the taxi. Sandalwood with a hint of citrus. It still had the power to unnerve, and, for a moment, she wished he was staying.

‘Did you tell him I was running late?’ he asked.

‘No. Did I need to?’

‘No, it doesn’t matter. Remember to leave the back door open.’

‘I will. Any idea of what time you’ll be back?’

‘None, late probably, you know what Pete’s like.’

‘Ok, not to worry. Enjoy yourself.’

They spoke as she followed him across the kitchen, into the hall, before he turned, taking both her arms and exchanging a perfunctory kiss on the lips, dry and as unthinking as his final glance in the mirror.

‘Don’t drink too much. It’s your turn to take Paula to dance tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll try. Don’t wait up!’

‘Ha, ha, very funny. Get off!’

Both of them knew there would be little chance of her being awake when he finally finished his celebratory curry with Pete and the mates he still had from school. Most of them still lived in Melsborough, and could walk home, but Chris always faced a ten mile taxi ride to their countryside retreat in Dovelend. The journey was no bad thing. It allowed Chris to sober up enough to give the impression of control, allow him the illusion of not waking