Page 2 of Dear Daisy

Welcome to Precis-land. ‘Scarlet was just helping me,’ I began, although why I felt I needed to justify anything to a man who’d left a child in his care to roam willy-nilly across a main road, I wasn’t sure. The man opened his mouth but didn’t say anything, closed it again, and held out a hand to the little girl, who gave him a weary look and fetched the hobby horse from his tethering post on the bush.

‘All right.’ She mounted, with the same exaggerated gesture as she’d got off. ‘We’re coming.’ Then, adopting a high-kneed trot, she hurtled off, followed by her silent guardian, and I heard her shout out to me as she disappeared through the overgrown graveyard. ‘He’s not weird, you know!’

Well, you could have fooled me. But then, I was taking pictures of graves, so, you know, maybe it takes one to know one.

Daniel Bekener @EditorDanB

RT @TheBookseller: Next yrs list from publishers of 2014’s surprise hit Book of the Dead @ShyOwlPublishing. Can they do it again?

Chapter Two

‘These remote churchyards are less subject to vandalism than those in conurbations, but their isolated locations can mean less in the way of conservation and protection of the stones. One very interesting example of Primitive carving with triangular terminations has become so overgrown that it took some effort to determine that it had been erected to the memories of children in one farming family, who had all died before their third birthdays. There were seventeen of them. One can only imagine . . .’ — BOOK OF THE DEAD 2

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Does anyone know whether J.R.R. Tolkien ever visited a North Yorkshire churchyard? Because some of the spiders I’m seeing look like Shelob’s descendants. Honestly, this research should come with an award for ‘Bravery in the face of Numerous Legs’.

I flipped the computer shut and sat down on one of the very ‘holiday cottage’ chairs in the tiny living room; old-fashioned wooden backs and seats padded with home-made cushions in 1940’s tea dress fabric. The room was so small that there was no space for anything more upholstered and the rest of the furnishings looked like dolls house seconds.

I’d got the fidgets. The ideas were there but somehow the writing-down of them had got clogged, and the build-up of words was making me restless. This little market town, with its cobbled streets, jagged roofline and notable lack of tourist attractions, was providing me with lots of lovely material for the book, but not a lot of recreational activities, unless I wanted to join the Bowls Club (I didn’t). Pacing around the room wasn’t much help either, not enough floor space and too much furniture, and the bookshelves were filled with local guidebooks, maps and the odd Jeffrey Archer, Scrabble and puzzles. Nothing that would occupy my mind. Nothing that would provide focus for thoughts which, left to themselves, would circle and snap at me from the shadows like hungry wolves.

I’ll talk to Daisy. I felt a bit guilty at having the idea now. As though speaking to my twin was only something I did when there was nothing else, when I’d run out of books and there was nothing on TV, rather than it being something that was second nature.

‘Hi, Daze!’

A small pause before she answered. ‘Hey, Winnie.’ Sounded normal, sounded as she always did, apart from maybe that little gap before her reply being longer than usual. ‘Are you bored again? You only want to talk to me when you’re bored these days.’

‘That’s rubbish.’ My eyes wandered over to the picture on the mantelpiece, me and Daisy aged about five. My favourite picture of us, wearing identical pink dresses and identical ice cream-smeared grins. I’d rebelled shortly afterwards at our mother’s liking for dressing us the same and had immediately gravitated towards jeans and T-shirts, while Daisy had continued with the pretty florals and floaty fabrics. She said I looked like a boy, and I countered with the fact that she looked like curtains. ‘It’s just, you know, after what happened with Dan . . . I never wanted us to fall out about it. It was nothing to do with you.’

She laughed now, and her laugh was unhesitating and unconsidered, unlike her speech. ‘How could I fall out with you, Winnie? You’re so totes adorbs in every way.’

I snorted. ‘Don’t overdo it. How’s things for you, anyway? Are you okay?’

‘Busy, busy, busy, you know how things go. How’s the book coming along?’

Daisy, predictably enough, had gone into fashion design. Having spent our teenage years wearing stuff she created herself and embarrassing me half to death by draping herself in rugs, our dad’s cast-off shirts and random bits of knitting, she’d found herself a dream job working for an up-and-coming ‘name’ in designer fashion. It was dramatic, creative and wildly exciting but also had moments of sheer drudgery, all of which my sister accepted calmly and worked through methodically. The only real drawback was that it was in Melbourne, Australia, but it was so ‘Daisy’ that it had been an unmissable opportunity, with the chance to create her own clothing lines and work with so many talented people. It was my idea of hell, but then I worked on my own and, apart from the obligatory book tours and radio and TV slots, rarely spoke to people who weren’t dead, buried and immortalised by an interesting gravestone.

‘The book’s going okay. I travelled around a bit looking for the perfect place to write and now I’m in a village called Great Leys. It’s not that great, and I don’t know what leys are, but the material is good.’ There was a knock at the front door, which opened directly into the living room, and behind the glass lights I could see a female head. ‘Got to go, Daze. I think my landlady is paying a visit.’

‘Laters, Win,’ and, uncomplaining as ever, Daisy went back to doing whatever it was she did. It was one of the few advantages I’d ever come across with being a twin, we could talk or not talk, agree or not, and yet when we did communicate, everything felt as though it was part of an ongoing conversation, something we could dip in and out of and always have that feeling of connection.

I opened the door to see Mrs ‘Call me Margaret’ Hill and, much lower down, Scarlet. She was being held by the hand very firmly and there was no sign of Light Bulb, so I assumed that the news of her earlier adventure had travelled.

‘Hello. I was just taking Scarlet home and I thought I’d pop by and make sure everything was all right for you in here. Have you found the bin liners? Only the bins have to go out every Monday, like it says on the notice, and it’s Sunday today and so I wanted to remind you, and I wondered . . .’

Margaret had the tightly managed hairstyle and slightly random clothes of a woman whose life consisted of more wayward arms than a spiral galaxy and the little worry-crease between the eyes of someone who isn’t sure they’re doing a very good job of holding it all together.

Scarlet made a face at me. I returned it. Margaret was still talking.

‘. . . and if the bin lid isn’t down they won’t take it away. We’ve complained to the council but there’s not much they can do now it’s all contracted out. Oh, bother, and I forgot, I’ve got to call in at the library while they’re still open and take those books back and put up that notice about craft shops for Alex, only they close at twelve on a Sunday.’

‘I’ll stay here then, Granny, with Winter. I can help her find the bin liners while you go to the library.’ The little girl slipped out of her grandmother’s grasp and into the living room, where she plonked herself down on a chair and looked around with evident curiosity. ‘I know where everything is,’ she said, despite the wide-eyed taking in of the scene that gave the lie to her words.

‘Oh, no, I can’t leave you with Miss Gregory, that wouldn’t be . . .’ Margaret trailed off, the worry-crease deepening into a veritable gulley.

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