Page 7 of Dear Daisy

I know why you’re telling me. You’re warning me not to mess with your son. You might not even realise it, but that’s what you’re doing. I’m not sure whether you’re telling me to stay right away or to be careful and not hurt him, but you are being a concerned mother of a damaged son, and I suddenly like you a lot more than I did before.

‘It’s fine. It’s nice to meet a man who thinks before he speaks,’ I said, and she let out a sudden giggle.

‘You’re right! Let’s go and see him and he can make you a cup of coffee, and then you can have a chat about stony things.’

I averted my eyes from her pink outfit, which was beginning to make my vision strobe at the edges, and we walked out through the churchyard and across the main road. I’d passed the Old Mill site several times but, apart from a stone archway with the words ‘The stones move like hearts beat, And love is ground’ carved into them, there wasn’t much to see from the road. Once we walked under the arch though, I could see the old flour mill, its wheel still dredging into the stream. From the newness of much of the stone it had been almost completely rebuilt, and now looked like a posh barn conversion, with huge doors of glass opening onto a paved yard. Pulley arms jutted high on the walls and an old door at second storey level looked like the place where grain sacks had once been hauled, to be poured down into the mill mechanism.

‘Alex is going to let the units out as craft workshops,’ Margaret said. ‘The bank manager said he should make his money back in ten years.’

Yes, all right, you’re trying to persuade me that your son is a dateable guy, not sell me a second-hand car. But I smiled and noted the eco-friendly solar panels on the roof, the sweeping wooden arch of the timbers that curved from the ridge to provide a sheltered seating area outside the doors and the two huge millstones in the centre of the yard. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Th-th—’ Obviously a difficult one because Alex stopped there, walking towards us from the half-built wall towards the back of the mill. He smelled of hard work, of dust and an earlier shower that had left his hair damp; his shirt was checked and the sleeves were rolled to reveal dusty forearms. His knuckles were red and slightly cracked and his jeans were tight over the muscles that a physical job gives you. He looked like a man who’s spent his whole life in the gym and has then fallen into a sandpit. I’d never been much of a one for muscular men before, my type had always been more cerebral. Tall, verging on the lanky, but with a mind that could win a Scrabble game with a ‘Q’ and no ‘U’s’, speak four languages — all of them with a Lincolnshire accent — and a charisma that would charm everyone from old ladies to small dogs. I shook my head. Muscles were where it was at, now. Yes. No more of the dark, no more of the chaos. No more of the Dan.

‘Hello, dear.’ Margaret kissed the stubbled cheek in an offhand way. ‘Winter would like a coffee, if you’re not busy, and I think she wants to talk about stonemasonry, but I’m not very sure. Can you pick Scarlet up from school this afternoon? I have to take Mr Park to the hospital for his prostate again, they’re really going to have to do something about it, he’s just wee wee wee all day, maybe they can put a tube in it.’

‘I’ve got a d-delivery c-coming.’ Alex led us in through the double doors into the building which smelled of new wood, a clean, citrusy scent. ‘Can’t Mr P-Park’s p-prostate wait?’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you had to sit next to him in meetings. Quite frankly, he’s starting to smell, besides he’s got an appointment and it took me weeks to get him to make one this time and I don’t want him having an excuse not to go, even though all he seems to do is go, if you see what I mean. Can’t the delivery wait?’

‘I’ll fetch her,’ I found myself saying. ‘If that’s all right,’ I added as both pairs of eyes turned to me, and I wasn’t sure if they were looking at me as a lifesaver or a potential child-abductor. ‘And if someone tells me where the school is.’

‘Well, that’s—’ Margaret began, but Alex cut her off.

‘If y-you wouldn’t m-mind, Winter. It w-would be such a help.’ He laid a hand on my sleeve and smiled, his face moving up an attractiveness-category as he did so, a half fan of sun-puckered lines spreading from each eye and his dimples deepening as that wide mouth curved into a proper grin. ‘Y-you’ll have to p-put up with Light B-bulb though, and he’s often a b-bit fr-fractious after a d-day at school. He k-kicks, you know.’

Margaret sighed. ‘You shouldn’t encourage her to keep playing with that thing,’ she said. ‘It’s silly.’

‘It’s all she’s g-got, Mum,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’m g-going to p-put the k-kettle on n-now.’

‘Right, well, I’d better get back to town, I’ve got a library committee meeting this lunchtime before the hospital run and I must remember while I’m there that I wanted to borrow that book. You know, the one with that purple cover that Sally recommended when I was in the fruit shop, something to do with wine tasting or something and then there’ll be Mr Park and his wee to contend with so I’ll see you tomorrow, probably, Alex, and I do hope they’ve taken your bins, Winter. It’s such a worry, what with rats and things.’

She moved off back out of the building, pausing to stroke a hand over some timber supports as though checking for dust. The outfit became more bearable and less pink the further away she went, like an illustration of redshift. ‘She’s b-b—’ began Alex.

Broke? Bradford? Buggering the librarian? I cursed my brain for its impatient tendency to fill in the worst possible permutations of words.

‘—bonkers,’ he finally managed, ‘but she’s been th-through a lot, what with El-Ellen, and th-the stammer, and h-having to look after S-Scarlet. She w-wanted to t-t-take her but . . .’ A shrug. ‘My d-dad had n-not long d-died. She d-didn’t c-cope w-well.’

I thought about the woman as she’d been in the churchyard. Quietly sad. ‘It must be hard for her. It must be hard for all of you, especially Scarlet.’

A shrug. ‘W-we do our b-best.’ Then a headshake which sent drying hair flicking flakes of stone outwards. ‘Now. C-coffee.’

He led me through the building, which was in various stages of completion with electricians working in one section while another had no roof and only three walls, to an office space in what had obviously been the mill itself. Old beams creaked overhead as someone walked on an upper floor, and there was still a smell of flour, wet sacks and, faintly, mice. There was also a cutting-edge computer system, photocopier and printer and, where I had expected a kettle and a couple of chipped mugs, a vast coffee machine. It grumbled and burbled and shot occasional jets of steam from a chrome nozzle, but the smell made my mouth water.

‘That’s a bit heavy duty, isn’t it? For a building site?’

Alex hesitated, then grinned. ‘I have a h-heavy duty habit to s-sustain,’ he said. ‘It’s temperamental b-but makes b-bloody good c-coffee.’ At that moment the machine let out a noise like Everest achieving orgasm and Alex was just in time, shoving a pot underneath the nozzle to catch a stream of coffee which frothed out. ‘As I s-said. Temperamental.’

‘Dangerous, I’d have called it.’

With one leg he hitched a chair over from beside the desk on which all the equipment rested and poked it my way, then swung himself up to sit on the desk itself. ‘M-milk? Sugar? I’ve got a huge d-d—’

For God’s sake, Winter, stop it . . .

‘—delivery coming in a bit, so I c-can’t chat for l-long but . . .’ He poured two mugs of the fragrant coffee, raised an eyebrow at the milk bottle and, when I nodded, added a slurp. ‘. . . if you’ve got any q-questions, I’m always h-here.’ Then he gave a peculiar half-laugh. ‘Yeah. Al-always here,’ he repeated, and now those grey eyes weren’t looking at anything in the real world, they were seeing something old, something that seemed to be ghosting through his brain.

‘Thanks for the email.’ I wanted him to stop thinking whatever thoughts were making his cheeks pull in like that, stop his eyelids drooping down as though to cut the world out. ‘Like I said, I really don’t mind having Scarlet, if it helps you out. Not when I’m working or anything, obviously, but you know, if you find yourself stuck. Ever. Or your mother has to go to the wee clinic.’

Now the grin was back again. It was obviously a more normal expression for him, judging by the way his face had tanned around the laughter lines, and when he stopped they showed up as pale indents along his cheekbones. ‘You might n-not be so k-keen when sh-she’s going on about h-horses,’ he said. ‘She c-can be a b-bit s-single-minded, Scarlet.’ And the grin died again, it was like watching the sun rise and set, days passing across his face. ‘Ellen used to l-love horses.’

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