Deadheads

With these and similar rock-hard resolutions she sat and passed the time till on the stroke of eleven she heard the front door open. Instantly the rock began to crumble, and suddenly the thin surface of her life seemed quite strong and certainly rigid enough to carry her not unhappily to the grave.

But the knowledge of her weaknesses had given her a knowledge of her strength too, and by the time he entered the lounge she had summoned up her spirit of resolution once more.

Unfortunately the man she was resolved to confront was not quite the man who came through the door. It was Patrick all right, but instead of the small reserved smile and the gentle peck on the cheek she would have expected, he advanced with a positive beam on his face, caught her in a full embrace and kissed her almost passionately.

'Hello,' he said. 'It's good to be back. These are for you. Where's Di?'

'She's at Mary Jennings'. Patrick, thank you . . . but buying flowers . . . you?'

These were a bunch of roses, carefully wrapped in tissue paper.

Patrick sat down, relaxing into the deep armchair with a positive grin on his face.

'Even Rosemont doesn't have every variety,' he said.

Carefully she removed the paper. There were five of them, rich golden blooms on long stems, a couple of them opening to reveal a scarlet flush and emit a sweet, delicate perfume. Daphne, fairly expert perforce, could not identify them.

'Darling, they're beautiful. What are they?'

'There's a tag, I think,' he said off-handedly.

She looked. Wrapped round the stems was a green plastic nurseryman's tag. She read it, then once more, still not understanding.

Type - hybrid tea.Variety - Daphne Aldermann.

'You mean, this is their name?' she said in bewilderment.

Patrick threw back his head and laughed in pure delight, a sight almost as bewildering as the rose-tag.

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, yes, yes! You don't remember, do you? I told you years ago that when I bred a rose worth naming, I'd call it after you.'

'Yes, I do remember, but I thought that it was, well, just a compliment, a romantic way of speaking . . .'

'I always mean what I say,' said Patrick seriously. He jumped up and moved to the fireplace. She had never seen him full of such nervous excitement.

I started on this one five, no, six years ago. I knew it had potential after the first blooming, but I'd been disappointed before. Three years ago, I reckoned it was good enough to send to the Royal Society's trial ground. I was right. It got a First Class trial certificate. And what's more, it just won a Gold Medal at the Society's show.'

'This is marvellous,' she said. 'Marvellous. Patrick, I'm so . . .'

She wasn't sure what she was except that she was no longer ready for the immediate confrontation she had planned. Indeed it was beginning to dawn on her that many of the explanations she had hoped to elicit by confrontation might now be given to her, undemanded.

'And I'm not finished,' Patrick went on. 'I've signed a deal with Bywater Nurseries. It'll be in their next catalogue. They're going to produce it commercially!'

'Patrick! Why didn't you say anything?' she cried, but there was no stopping him.

'And that's not all,' he said. 'Not only have I put you on the Garden Centre stalls, I'm putting you into the bookshops too. You know how I keep careful notes of everything I do in the greenhouse? Well, I showed them to a publisher. They said there was a book in it, an account of all the trial and error that's gone into producing Daphne Aldermann. They're going to launch the two of them together, the book and the rose. It's a gimmick, of course, but they seem delighted with it. And what's more important, they're commissioning me to do what I've always wanted to do, that is, write a full and detailed history of the rose!'

Daphne shook her head, not in denial but in bewilderment. All this excitement in him, for months at least, and yet not a word, not a sharing.

'Darling, are you all right?' asked Patrick, momentarily diverted from his euphoria.

'Yes, of course. It's all so overwhelming. It's marvellous, but it's a shock too.'

'A shock?'

'Yes. I never guessed. I mean, you never said anything. All this, and you never said!'

'No, I never did,' he agreed. 'It was all so uncertain. Or rather, I couldn't believe it myself till it was all settled yesterday. But I never hid anything either. It was all there to be seen, what I was doing. The writing, the roses. It was all there.'

Was it a reproach? She didn't know. And she didn't want to know either. A reproach would have to be answered. Or accepted. But she was in no mood to accept reproaches. At least, five minutes ago she hadn't been in any mood. Now she was not altogether certain what mood she was in. These revelations explained many things perhaps - his preoccupation, his secret excitement, even his apparently ill-founded optimism about the future. Oh God! She suddenly realized the implications of her misinterpretations. They had led to Dandy Dick's bed and to a police investigation. Guilt and resentment were warring in her. It was her fault, it was his fault; she had been uninterested, he had been secretive; nothing had changed, everything had changed.

He came across the room and sat beside her.

'Are you all right?' he asked anxiously.

'Yes. Of course. Just a bit overwhelmed.'