Page 11 of Dear Daisy

Daisy was quiet for a moment. ‘But your judgement might be a bit skewed, don’t you think, Winnie? You thought Daniel was totes gorge too.’

‘Yes. I remember.’ And now you can’t even hear his name without the spectre of a sour taste on your tongue, without your mouth drying in remembered horror. ‘But, honestly, he’s just so good with her.’

‘Well, she is his niece. He would be good with her, he’s presumably known her all her life. Doesn’t mean he’ll be boyfriend of the century, and there’s still the fact that he’s going to care for Scarlet forever, which leaves far less room for a girlfriend. And he really doesn’t sound like your type of guy, Win, unless he’s hiding his MENSA certificate under those pecs.’

‘Shut up. You’re too logical. I hate it when you’re logical.’

‘It’s why you love me.’ It sounded as though she was grinning the Daisy-grin, which should have been identical to mine but, through some fluke of muscular genetics, was wider and friendlier. ‘And you know you really can’t move on until you’ve got closure with Dan.’

‘I’m not listening to you ever again.’

She was right. I knew she was right. I sat with my laptop open, Dan’s last email on the screen, and tried to think of a reply. Composed lots of pithy one-liners in my head but, when it came down to it, I just couldn’t bring myself to write them. The sight of his name there next to the little blue icon made me feel sick, paralysed me, and anything I tried to type looked stupid. You used to be able to talk to him. Stuff you didn’t want to talk over with Daisy, stuff about the book, your parents’ divorcing, the everyday things. You used to send joke mails to one another, even when you were sitting together, daft things you picked up on the net, and all those pictures of kittens doing cute things that he endlessly forwarded to you. And now you can’t even bring yourself to type his name.

Sometimes I had to hold on hard to the memory of that last day. To the expression on Dan’s face, that tough, self-justifying look in his eyes, the shouted accusations, the fact that I hadn’t been able to talk to Daisy for weeks afterwards. Because if I let myself forget, all I could think of was Dan, leather coat flapping, boots all jingling buckles, long-fingered hand with the small tattoo on his wrist, shouting into the air that I was going to be ‘GREAT!’

And now, here I was. I’d been great, he’d been right. But he’d wanted something else.

Facebook

Alex Hill — Winter Gregory Author Page

Thanks for everything today. I’ll email you properly later.

Emily James @CatGirlEmily

@ShyOwlPublishing @WinterGAuthor Just read Book of the Dead. Great book.

Retweeted by @EditorDanB

I snarled at the screen, snapped it shut, and went to bed.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Thank you. And general chat.

Scarlet was so over-excited that I didn’t get her to bed until just now, and even then I had to let her watch some DVD about horses until she fell asleep. Not your fault, of course, obviously, she’s just looking forward to the weekend so much. All I can say is thank you. Thank you for taking the time and interest in a little girl who doesn’t really have a lot. Oh, she’s got me, all this (I’m pointing at the Old Mill here), a grandmother who loves her to distraction, which, let’s face it, for my mother isn’t a long trip. But sometimes she seems so sad. I’ll watch her (she doesn’t know, and don’t tell her) outside, galloping round the yard, she makes this kind of jumping course out of flowerpots and sticks and she’ll be hurtling around and then next minute she’s cuddling Light Bulb, just holding his head and whispering, or maybe crying.

It hit us all badly, Ellen dying. She was my little sister (she was seven years younger than me, think Mum and Dad had given me up as an only child and then, there she was), so pretty, all curls and smiles. Ridiculous, isn’t it? I still get choked up thinking about her, even now. Don’t even know why I think it’s ridiculous, being a bloke, I suppose. We ought to shrug, brush it off, get on with life. Tough it out. And I can, mostly I can, just sometimes, when Scarl says or does something that’s so like her mum, I just, well . . . I try to be everything she needs but everyone thinks I’m a bit weird too. I never used to stammer, you see, and of course everyone in Great Leys has known me since Mum moved into maternity wear, so they can’t get used to it. It all started when Ellen died, when the accident happened.

It was my fault.

I had to go away after I wrote that, I’ve had twenty minutes on the Glenmorangie to give me the courage to write this, thank God Scarl is at Mum’s, and please forgive any subsequent spelling mistakes. Yep, it was down to me that Ellen died, I was always screpulus (sod spellchecker) about unloading at the far side of the yard, where we unloaded today, but that morning . . . God, I was saving time, cutting corners. We had the stone lorry pull up at the entrance so they could just swing the stone off and go. Ellen got out of the car and she didn’t know the lorry was unloading and she walked underneath and the cradle slipped and I tried to resssussitate her but she had a head injury. Oh God, Winter, it was horrible. Then I started stammering and they thought I must have a brain tumour or something. I had scans and tests and then they dicided it was caused by the accident. It would go in time. But I couldn’t take time, Scarl needed somebody, she was there, in the car and she saw her mother die . . . And I lost my relationship too, someting that was importnt to me, becaus I had Scarl to take on.

My fault. Corse it was. I kind of threw myself into being Scarl’s carer. She and Ell lived hre from when she was bron, y’see, an I got custody cos of Mum being a bit . . . she just coulndt cope. And they’ll only let me adopt Scarl if I dont put a foot wrong. And I got so woried that they woud take Scarl away if I didint put all my atention into her that I broke off my relationshp, so as not to look like I wasnt taking it serously. Hurt her. Hurt me. Was stupid, but now I cant go back . . .

Wish I new why I have this urge to spil everything out to you. Lonliness, maybe, it gets so quiet here at night when I’m on my own with nobdy to talk to, and you seem so sweet and so understanding, its like my fingers get a life of their own wen I start writing these emails.

Sorry. Ampissed now. Better go to bede.

Al x

Chapter Seven

Daniel Bekener @EditorDanB

Going Out of Office for a few days. Stuff to sort out, guys, bear with me.

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