♦
When Angela got upstairs Daisy was already asleep, still clothed, white socks with grubby brown soles, holding a teddy bear Angela hadn’t seen for a long time. The Art of Daily Prayer and Neutrogena hand cream on the bedside table. Let’s get you into bed or you’ll wake up freezing in the middle of the night. She eased the duvet from beneath Daisy’s hips then turned her onto her back so she could unbutton her dirty jeans and slide them off, like she was five again. Flu, chickenpox. Daisy half woke and said something Angela couldn’t quite make out. Almost done. She flipped the duvet back over Daisy and straightened it. There. Daisy turned to face the wall. Angela sat on the chair opposite. She was ill, that was all. Dominic was being over-dramatic, playing the old game, concocting a story that threw a little charmed circle around the two of them. That bear. Harry? Henry? She had to sew a leg back on after it was torn off in a fight, by Alex, presumably.
Was she warming to Louisa? Or did she just like taking sides? Was that little confession about Karen simply the price she had to pay to show her loyalty? It was a fault of hers, she knew, comfort in conflict, black and white, us and them, knowing where one stood, none of that muddy moral ambiguity. The relief at work when Helen finally slapped that boy in her class after years of just being a crap teacher.
Laughter downstairs and the chime of crockery. A brief Christmas feeling then a memory of sitting in her bedroom listening to Mum shouting in the lounge. Except it was Dad shouting, wasn’t it, his voice suddenly so clear after all these years. Why didn’t he come upstairs and say hello? Why was he so angry? She wanted to run downstairs and have him turn and see her and break into that big smile and sweep her off her feet.
Then she was back in the present again, Daisy’s hands moving as if she were fending someone off in a dream. Angela got to her feet and stood beside the bed. She touched the side of Daisy’s head and waited till she was calm again, then retucked the duvet and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
♦
He was sitting on the edge of the bed. She was standing leaning against the chest of drawers with her arms folded. This is not about you, Richard. She closed her eyes to regather her thoughts. I don’t know who I am, sometimes. I’m not sure I’ve ever known. I’ve tried so hard to please other people, my parents, Craig, Melissa, you. I listen to your music, I go to your plays, I watch your films. And it’s not your fault. I chose to be the person who fits in with your life.
Are you saying you don’t want to be married to me?
I’m saying…What was she saying? She was saying, Let me think. She was saying, Give me space. Just for once she wasn’t rushing to reassure him. Perhaps he was right, perhaps she didn’t want to be married to him. She wanted to turn this extraordinary idea over in her hand, like a shell she’d found on the beach, run her fingers over it, knowing that she might very well simply put it down again. I’m saying I need to get some sleep. I’m saying we both need to get some sleep.
6: Wednesday
Daisy put the milk back into the fridge, closed the door quietly and picked up the mug. When she turned to leave the kitchen, however, Melissa was standing in the doorway. Coffee slopped out of the mug onto the stone floor. Please. I just…
Melissa refused to move, she pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her hoody and rocked forward onto the balls of her feet as if this had to be squeezed out. I’m sorry about yesterday.
The apology was so unexpected that Daisy didn’t know how to reply.
I just blurted, OK? I didn’t think.
It doesn’t matter. Really. I just need to go back to my room.
Wait. Melissa was angry. This had cost her and she wanted that cost acknowledged. It’s fine being gay. I’m not prejudiced.
I’m not gay. Daisy realised too late how loud her voice was. She paused, listening carefully, terrified that someone else might be in the dining room. Her hands were shaking. She put the mug down. Please. I don’t want to talk about this.
Yeh, well maybe you should.
A sudden stab of utter loneliness. Melissa was the only one who knew, there was no one else she could tell. Daisy reached out towards her. I need you to be my friend. She wanted to be held but she couldn’t say the words.
Cool it, lady, said Melissa.
Daisy saw herself standing in the kitchen, arms outstretched like a cartoon zombie. She’d made an idiot of herself for a second time. She threw herself through the doorway, pushing Melissa aside. She heard Melissa say, You are so spectacularly fucked up, then she was in the hallway and running up the stairs.
♦
Abergavenny. Originally Gorbannia. Alex turned the page. A Brythonic word meaning ‘river of the blacksmiths’.
Brythonic?
Of, or appertaining to the Britons.
What happened to your hand?
Alex glanced casually at his knuckles. Mucking about with that roller in the shed. He’d practised the explanation in advance. Lucky my fingers are still attached.
Dominic had taken over the guidebook. It sits between two mountains, Sugar Loaf and Blorenge.
Blorenge?
Richard appeared in the doorway. Alex hid his damaged hand under the table. Richard walked past and patted his shoulder and Alex thought, Fuck you.
Baron de Hamelin, said Dominic. Tree of Jesse. Blah-blah. Goat’s hair periwigs. Rudolf Hess.
Are you making this up?
Scout’s honour.
Benjy came in with his bowl of Deliciously Nutty Crunch and sat next to Dominic, squishing in close because he still felt bruised by his fears of last night which had not been banished entirely by the daylight.
Hey, kiddo.
Incidentally, has anyone seen Daisy this morning?
Nope.
Melissa?
What?
Have you seen Daisy this morning?
She came down to get some coffee. She seemed in kind of a weird mood.
I’ll pop up and see how she is.
Hey. The town hosted the British National Cycling Championships. 2007 and 2009.
Paris of the West.
Now, don’t be bitchy.
I’ll be back in an hour, said Richard, chugging a glass of water. I’ll grab a quick shower and we can all be off.
Enjoy.
Don’t get lost, said Alex.
♦
He was determined not to return home having spent so much money without running properly, plus he needed to be alone for a while. It wasn’t just Louisa. If he’d hit Alex…Would there have been a better way of alienating every single person in the house? He needed to step back and get some distance.
Squatting on the slate path that led from the front door to the iron gate he yanked the tongues of the trainers and double-knotted the laces. The air was damp but somehow clearer and more transparent this morning. The deep greens of the foliage. You didn’t get this in a city, the way the light changed constantly. He walked over to the wall and put each foot up in turn, leaning forward to stretch his hamstrings. The house looked like an extension of the landscape, the stone quarried from Welsh hills, the rafters from a forest you might very well be able to see from the top of the dyke, the moss, the rust, the burst blisters of weathered paint a record of its passage through time and weather, like the scars and barnacles on a tanker’s hull.