Page 64 of The Temp

‘I couldn’t chase after her,’ Mum quivers, ‘not with my arthritic hip, and I didn’t want Georgia to…,’ she falters. ‘I wanted Georgia to stay down here with me in case I sat down and couldn’t get up again.’ Mum laughs nervously.

‘Daisy, why don’t you put the knife down, love?’ I suggest, moving slowly towards her. ‘We don’t want any more accidents.’

Daisy looks at me in confusion, then at the knife in her right hand. ‘Ha, I forgot all about that.’ She sets it down on the table, straightens her pale blue blood-stained blouse, and then follows my eyes to her wound. ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘It’s the fleshy bit of my palm. Looks worse than it is.’ She presses the wound with her left palm. ‘I came up to run it under the bathroom tap and find some antiseptic, but ended up in here’ She gazes at the golf course that backs onto Mum’s garden. ‘What a view, eh?’

Sighing wistfully, Daisy takes in her surroundings. It’s clear she’s having some sort of mini breakdown. But what set her off? I bite my bottom lip. She has been under a lot of pressure lately – chucked by her fiancé in Dublin – abandoned by her brothers – Tina’s husband giving her grief – homeless – adjusting to a temp job and a new home – and now having to uproot again. It’s enough to send anyone over the edge. Getting her involved in the Frank saga didn’t help. She looked so frightened that night. God, what have I done to the poor girl?

‘I’d better get this cleaned up.’ Daisy turns to me.

‘Mum,’ I shout, ‘is the First Aid box still under the sink?’

‘I’ll get it,’ Mum replies.

‘Zelda, grab a towel out of the linen cupboard.’ Zelda glares at me. ‘Now,’ I yell and she shuffles off in a fury.

I walk over to where Daisy is standing to the backdrop of Zelda’s footfall on the landing, followed by the clank of a cupboard door opening, a shuffle and then she’s back, handing me a blue, frayed towel, which is falling apart. ‘What?’ she says, ‘you’re cleaning up a wound not giving her a luxury facial.’

‘Come on, love,’ I say, taking Daisy’s wrist and wrapping the towel around her hand. ‘Let’s go down and get you cleaned up.’

I flick my head towards the knife and mouth, pick it up, as I shepherd Daisy out of the room, and for once, my sister doesn’t object.

Chapter 58

‘There you go,’ I say, looking proudly at the bandage on Daisy’s hand as Mum shuffles in with a tray of tea and biscuits, looking tanned and radiant in her yellow blouse and white slacks.

‘Thank you,’ Daisy manages, back to her old self again. ‘I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean to scare anyone.’

Rocking back on my heels, I get to my feet and brush myself down. ‘I did a first aid course at school. Thanks, Mum,’ I say, taking a mug off the tray. I’m glad we’ve got Daisy in a stable state, but I still want to know what caused her to uncharacteristically lash out like that. My eyes slide to the blood stains on her blouse. Was it an accident, or did she deliberately cut herself? Does she self-harm? I didn’t see any signs of it, but then I had other things on my mind.

‘So, is someone going to address the elephant in the room, or are we just going to sit down to tea and biscuits?’ Zelda says, putting an entire Jaffa cake into her mouth.

‘They’re not biscuits, they’re cakes,’ Georgia comments, taking one from the plate in Mum’s outstretched hand.

‘Yes, I always found that strange,’ Mum muses. She offers one to me. I shake my head, I’ve never been a fan of Jaffas, and she sets the plate down on the oblong wooden table. ‘I mean, biscuits are crumbly, aren’t they? Whereas this…’

‘Will you just stop.’ Zelda shoots to her feet and jabs a finger at Daisy. ‘What were you thinking holding my mum and niece at knifepoint.’

Daisy looks up at her, then at me pleadingly. ‘I wasn’t. I didn’t…’

‘Oh, Zelda, that’s not what happened,’ Mum interjects, coming to Daisy’s rescue.

‘Nan’s right. It was an accident. I’m sorry if I scared you, Mum. I panicked.’ I tell Georgia that it’s fine. Phoning me was the right call.

‘Zelda, will you please calm down,’ I say firmly.

‘Me? I’m not the one who was waving a twelve-inch knife in my hand,’ she spits, and I give her a look depicting maybe not now but you did stick a letter knife into a man’s neck that almost killed him. ‘That was different,’ Zelda protests, reading my mind. I raise my eyebrows, even though I know she’s right and that Frank deserved every bit of pain and fear he felt. ‘Jesus,’ she mutters, and, in a huff, sits down and snatches another Jaffa cake off the plate.

‘Zelda’s right. I was out of order.’ Daisy leans back in the armchair, cradling her injured hand, eyes on the ceiling. ‘I don’t know what to say. It all happened so fast. I…’ she tails off.

‘It’s okay, Daisy, I’ll explain.’ Mum settles down on a high-back chair, tea in hand. ‘Georgia was in the front room playing with her phone on Ticktack.’

‘Tiktok,’ Georgia corrects, taking a sip of tea and pulling a face. ‘Urgh. This needs more sugar.’

‘Anyway,’ Mum says, as Georgia scuttles off to the kitchen. ‘Daisy and I were in the kitchen sorting out dinner. Georgia was hungry and so was I. I hate inflight food. I had a few things in the freezer and picked up some essentials from M&S at Heathrow. Daisy offered to help me, bless her. I called out to Georgia to get rid of those rotting flowers.’ I was right about the abandoned vase. ‘We were having a bit of a chinwag about…’ Mum pauses, glances at Daisy, but Daisy is giving her untouched mug of tea the thousand-mile-stare. ‘Well, I was telling her about my girls, you know.’ Oh, Mum, I do know. Mum has a habit of boasting about our achievements to anyone who’ll listen. Daisy’s lucky she didn’t get the photo album out. ‘Then she asked why I didn’t have any more children, try for a boy.’ Mum sets her mug down on the table. ‘It’s a reasonable enough question. You were just making conversation, weren’t you, love?’

‘Bit personal,’ Zelda groans.

Actually, Zelda’s right. It was a personal question. I hate it when people ask me why I didn’t try for another. Mum might’ve had secondary infertility for all Daisy knew. She didn’t. Mum’s never been motherly. Dad was more hands-on with us – taking us to the park swings, the cinema, fairground, while Mum got on with everything else.

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