Purple pansies on a lower leg

The pansies came in on the night train from Penzance, wrapped in wet newspaper and smelling of the cold. Mr Okafor wouldn't let me sort them until the market lamps were lit, so I sat on an upturned crate with a paraffin torch and picked the bruised ones out one by one. Three of the purples had gone brown at the edges, but the rest were lilac fading to violet where the petals meet, with those dark faces looking up at me like a row of old men who have heard the joke before.

Mr Okafor says pansies are the only flower that looks back. I told him that was nonsense, and he said it was in the book his wife's aunt gave him, and that was the end of the argument. I pressed a dozen between blotting paper under the counter so you'd have something to hold when you read this. Keep them flat. Don't let Dad put his cup on them.

Something happened at closing that I haven't told anyone. A man in a grey coat came to the stall after the buses had stopped and bought the whole last bunch for cash, and he wouldn't take any change. He said they were for a grave in Anfield and didn't say whose. I didn't ask. The notes were warm from his pocket, and the lamp was going out over the fish stalls while he counted out the last coin.

I'll be home at Easter if the money holds. Tell the hens I'm sorry for leaving them with Dad.

Love, Jenny