Flash fiction, Denise Bayes

Becoming Mrs Dalloway

It is an ordinary Wednesday afternoon when she is suddenly overtaken by the spirit of Clarissa. She has been going about her usual chores after a dreary day in the office, dashing to the supermarket to get some frozen pizzas for dinner and checking that the dry cleaner will still be open by the time she gets out of the store. Carrying out the endless chores of a single mum. 

And then it happens.

She stops in the middle of the street. A sudden impulse fills her.

 She must buy flowers. 

Peonies, she thinks, imagining blousy pink blooms in childhood gardens.  She turns back towards the independent  florist shop in the high street.

She has never been inside before, has always thought of flowers as an unnecessary luxury.  As the bell announces her entry with a tinkling tune, an unfamiliar calm descends upon her. The owner  is behind the counter, her fingers twisting stems into a bouquet of roses and gypsophila.

Walking between rows of zinc pots filled with a variety of blooms, her fingers drift across the petals, releasing a whoosh of perfume. She leans towards a rose, inhales it. She  is an elegant lady in a Waterhouse painting.

“I need peonies. For my party.” She says to the florist, already visualising an imaginary soiree in her dining room.

Reaching home, she drops her parcel of blooms onto the rarely used dining table. As the children have grown into teenagers, they have migrated to sprawling on sofas at meal times. Screens have replaced conversation.
 But tonight will be different. 
 She trims the stems and arranges them into a glass vase, rescued from beneath the sink.  Soon she has covered the table with a glitter of forks and knives.

She can see the children’s shock when they return from school. They  halt, stunned by the  heady scent of flowers filling the hallway.

“Just time to change for dinner…” she announces in a calm voice. And smiles. The muscles in her face twitch at the unfamiliar upward movement.

The children nod, walking upstairs in bemused silence.

Tonight, she thinks,  they will eat together and share stories of their day across the table. They will laugh, smile. And for one glorious night, she will be Mrs Dalloway.