Daffodil, lily of the valley and sunflower bouquet

The boat from Penzance came in on Tuesday with the crates, and I have never seen Mr Pascoe so cross. The daffodils had been cut too early, while they were still tight as knuckles, and half of them had gone soft in the hold. I sorted them on the trestle by lamplight, the good ones into the bucket and the rest onto the heap behind the glasshouse. I kept back a handful of lily of the valley because the bells were perfect, every one hanging like a small wet tooth.

Then there was the sunflower. Nobody ordered a sunflower. It lay in the bottom of the crate wrapped in a page of the Times, a single head as wide as a saucer, and the label had been scratched off. Mr Pascoe wanted it binned. I did not. I put it in a jug on the sill of the back room, where the sun comes in at four, and told myself I would make it into a posy for the chapel on Sunday, but really I only wanted to look at it.

On Sunday the bride cried when she saw the bunch, not from pleasure but from something else, and I wrapped the stems in brown paper and string and did not ask. I left one bud closed, tucked against the long leaves, because there is always one thing a person is not ready to show anyone.

The sunflower is still in the jug. It turns its face to the window every morning, and I have caught myself doing the same.