Page 24 of Dear Daisy

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Advice

You are NOT letting Scarlet down. It’s not easy for you and you are doing an amazing job — I wish all the parents were as dedicated as you are, some don’t even listen to their children read because they think that’s our job! Look, do you fancy having a coffee one evening? We can discuss a strategy for managing Scarlet’s behaviour at school and how we can help her. I might even bring a soufflé recipe! Oh, only if you think Winter will be okay with us meeting as I don’t want to upset anything between you — am presuming you’ve told her we’re just friends these days?

Lu x

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject:

Hi. How are you this morning? Still upright, no signs of acute rice poisoning?

I know I hate saying it, but I’m going to have to do it again . . . I’m sorry. Sorry about last night, about so much of last night you cannot imagine. Sorry that I’m too chicken to admit that the last time I cooked a proper meal was in school, partnered up with that Shakespeare of Facebook, Matt-bloody-Simons, sorry that I didn’t share a bottle of wine with you, sorry that Scarlet ruined the mood (although she couldn’t help it, she didn’t know there was a ‘mood’ to ruin, only that her friend Winter had come over). And, most of all, I’m sorry about the way I acted.

I’ve got this thing, you see. This I don’t know what you’d call it. An inferiority complex? Something like that. The permanent feeling that I’m getting it all wrong. I love Scarlet. Unquestioningly, I adore her. I want you to know that, here, upfront. I would die for that little girl. But. Oh, and now I’ve had to have another drink (it’s okay, Mum has Scarlet tonight, she does sometimes, when she’s in early, when she’s ‘feeling strong’ as she puts it, as though Scarl is some kind of Incredible Hulk who destroys furniture and knocks down walls). But. Scarlet isn’t mine. She’s not my daughter, you know that, she’s my niece. Would it be different if she was mine? Maybe, maybe that genetic thing would cut in and make it all easier but she’s Ellen’s daughter. Ellen and some loser from up north somewhere, who only hung around long enough for the positive test, then buggered off again. So, when Ellen . . . when El died, who else was there? She couldn’t live with Mum, and I wouldn’t . . . would not have her taken away from the only home she’s ever known and taken into care. But I didn’t know, I still don’t know, how to look after a little girl. I’m doing my best, I’m pretty rubbish at the clothes thing, and I have no idea how this make-up effort is supposed to work, but hell, she’s only eight, I’ve got years to get the hang of all that before she needs it, yes?

And the guilt. The absolute knowing that I’m getting it all wrong. It’s constant, Winter, the gnawing little thoughts that Scarl should have her five a day, her vitamin tablets, her proper calcium intake, the sunblock and the vitamin C and a good education and friends and pets and brothers and sisters and . . . you know, there’s a list somewhere. Probably being kept by all those people who tut when she rides Light Bulb into the supermarket or reads nothing but those pony books — you know she can spell Lipizzaner but she can’t spell competition? So every time anyone says anything about Scarl . . . oh, can be something like ‘she should have a coat on’ or ‘she looks a bit pale or tired or sad’ . . . I take it personally. Like an insult. As if they’re saying ‘you can’t look after that child, can you?’ And every time I’m called into school, every time Lucy mentions her behaviour in the classroom, it just heaps more shame onto my head. And then I think, ‘what if they take her away? What if they decide that she really would be better off in a family? What if I lose her?’

It’s stupid. I’m stupid. I know you didn’t mean anything, I know you were just trying to show concern, but all I could hear was ‘you don’t even realise she’s being pushed around in the playground, do you?’ And then there’s the guilt about that. Oh, they pick on Scarl because of me, I know that. And because she doesn’t have a mummy or a daddy, and, you know what? That’s my fault too. So it’s all on me. I was a rude, ungrateful bastard.

Sorry. Again.

Alex

I’d just finished reading the email when there was a knock at the door that made me jump. At least the glass panelling gave me a good idea of who was there, which was something to be grateful for, because flinging it open to Margaret without a moment’s priming wouldn’t be recommended, especially with today’s outfit of something knitted which was the nearest I could come to a definition.

‘I came to see if you need any tea towels washed,’ she said, stepping down into the living room. ‘Because you’ve been here nearly a fortnight and that’s a long time with nothing but a J-cloth. And we don’t have a laundrette for miles, I think the nearest might even be in Stockton, there used to be one on the High Street but I think it burned down. Or went bankrupt, I just remember there was smoke involved.’

‘Hello,’ I said, somewhat weakly. I was rather relieved that she’d come for something as, well, yes, it was completely peculiar, obviously, but at least it wasn’t an attempt to talk about Alex. ‘I think I’m fine on the tea towel front, actually, thanks.’ I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her costume, which was either a woollen dress or a very large and slightly camp fisherman was missing his jersey. ‘That’s a very nice . . . umm . . . you’ve got on.’

Years of Daisy’s affliction with fashion had given me an acute eye for people who were ‘trying something new’ in the clothing department, which usually meant dressing ten years younger or older. In Margaret’s case it seemed to be dressing pink and Icelandic. She looked like a boiled Bjork.

‘Thank you, dear. A friend made it for me on her machine. I like something bright at this time of year, livens things up a bit, don’t you think?’

Well, yes, but so does crystal meth and orgies.

Margaret gazed around the room. ‘Oh, are you working? I shouldn’t have interrupted . . . there was just another tiny thing? I wondered, well, it’s rather an imposition I know, but we were supposed to be having a lady from Newcastle who writes about Victorian sad people, but she’s had to cancel. We get so few creatives through Great Leys, though Mr Park likes to think of himself as a writer, but he’s only ever managed a rather angry letter to the editor of the local paper, so he’s not really suitable. We’re having a meeting tomorrow, you see, and if I could tell them that you were in agreement then it would be a feather in my cap, so to speak.’

No. Not feathers. Not with that knitwear. It would be like the blue bird of happiness dying a terrible death. ‘I’m sure I’d be happy to do whatever it is that you’re asking me to do,’ I said, being as tactful as I could.

‘Oh. I’m sorry, yes, of course. Just to drop in at the book group on Wednesday, maybe give them a bit of a talk? You’d be very welcome to sell your books there, they always like to buy one or two from authors, although I can’t say we’ve had very many. We nearly got John Grisham once, you know,’ she said, proudly, as though they had been hunting him through the undergrowth for weeks and he’d scampered away from their spears at the last moment.

I looked over at the laptop. The December deadline was beginning to look as though it was peering in through the window at me, but publicity was publicity. ‘Of course, I’d be glad to,’ I said.

Glad is probably pushing it. Grateful for the opportunity to procrastinate is more like it.

‘Wonderful!’ Margaret turned on the heel of her comfortable shoes. ‘Now I’d better go and see if Alex is in. He promised to come and help me move a table today and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him yet.’

I wanted to put a hand on her arm, ask her if Alex was really as worried about bringing up Scarlet as he’d seemed in that email, as anxious and self-doubting about her wellbeing, but I stopped myself in time. She didn’t seem to be particularly well-bundled in the concern and reassurance department — which, now I came to think of it, might have something to do with the way Alex had turned out, a childhood of that kind of parenting was going to leave a bit of a mark — and I didn’t want her to turn up on his doorstep full of a ‘what’s this I hear?’

I just smiled instead. ‘Tell him thanks for dinner.’

She gave me a swift nod and went off out again, her dress bulging and rippling as she walked as though she had a couple of large boa constrictors in there with her. With Margaret, that wasn’t totally improbable either.

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