Page 39 of Dear Daisy

‘Freeoow. Take it back, kiddo, you are complicating your life like a fractal.’ Dan jumped down onto the car park. ‘Why? Not bizarre enough for you already that you’ve got to add a single dad and his offspring to the pile? How much does he know about you, this Alex? Enough to make a judgement call?’

But I’d seen Alex and Scarlet now, standing in the reception area to the rehoming unit, and I walked off to join them without speaking to Dan again.

‘Please let me come home with you,’ I muttered to Alex under my breath as we watched Dan showing Scarlet how to hold a guinea pig properly. ‘I don’t think I can stand a return journey.’

Alex looked at Dan for a moment. Dan was on his hands and knees in sawdust in a pen of assorted rodents and rabbits, holding a brown and white guinea pig in an upright posture, so that it looked as though it was sitting on the palm of his hand, paws over his wrist. He passed it to Scarlet, positioning her hands so that she held it the same way.

‘He s-seems okay. S-Scarl likes him.’ Now Alex looked at me. ‘I d-don’t know, ob-obviously, b-but maybe . . . maybe h-he’s not so b-bad?’

I felt my eyes widen. ‘Oh, not you too! This is what he does, he suckers people in with the whole “I’m just adorable” routine and then, wham, next thing you know he’s got you pinned to a wall and he’s ripping your heart out with his teeth.’

Alex looked from me to Dan and then back. ‘You d-don’t think th-that you m-might be overreacting a b-bit?’ he asked, carefully.

‘Dan took it into his head that I was too dependent on my sister. Now, I don’t know what made him think that, or why it was such a bad thing, but asking me to give her up in favour of him? That was just wrong. And me making the choice to stay with Daisy — what part of that is overreacting?’

Dan was making the guinea pig ‘talk’ to Scarlet, squeaking ‘pick me, pick me!’ and waving its paws in the air. As I watched his performance, he looked up and saw me looking, dropped me a wink that made my face heat up, then gave the guinea pig a kiss on the top of its head. ‘Your choice,’ he said to Scarlet, but I had the itchiest little thought that he’d heard what we’d been talking about, and the phrase had been directed equally at me. ‘Just remember that you choose for life.’

Alex patted my shoulder. ‘Y-you know him b-best,’ he said. ‘M-maybe he’s j-just good with ch-children.’

‘I want this one.’ Scarlet took the guinea pig from Dan and held it under her chin. ‘I’m going to call him Bobso.’

Alex took her to fill in the paperwork so they could come back and pick up Bobso the next day, leaving Daniel and I together in a room full of squeaky over-excited fur.

‘I’m going home with Alex,’ I said, watching Dan brushing wood shavings off his knees. ‘You can leave now.’

Dan focussed on a small white rabbit which was attempting to dig its way out of the big plastic run. Scratch scratch scratch, then pause, then back to the frantic scrabbling at the corner where the Perspex walls met. ‘Some things,’ he said, still watching the rabbit, ‘you can’t escape from. You might be able to see the world out there, but however hard you dig you just can’t get through to join in.’

‘Was that meant to be allegorical or something? Because I think you are getting a bit too literary for your own good.’

Dan seemed to pull himself together. His gaze moved from the rabbit to me. ‘Just your editor, Win,’ he said. ‘Just here to get the book done. Like I said before, no agenda.’

I waved an arm. ‘Coming to help Scarlet choose a guinea pig is “no agenda”? Dan, do you even know what an agenda is?’

His shoulders came up in a shrug and he nestled his chin down into the collar of the coat, which was now liberally dusted with guinea pig pooh and little strands of white fur. ‘Agenda sunt. Latin. Those things which must be driven forward. Like you, Winter, and here I am just driving on with soft words and carrying the big stick of . . . well, I’m not really sure. Why are you writing this book? Wasn’t Book of the Dead enough?’

‘Just because people are dead doesn’t mean their story is over,’ I said, moving to one side to allow a family to come past and bend down to eye up the rabbits. ‘Their graves tell a story too, and, if the last book is anything to go by, people are interested in previous generations; they want to know what their lives were like.’

Dan put a hand on my shoulder to manoeuvre me so that a young couple could come by on the other side. Arms around each other, they took up all the available space and Dan and I had to step closer together, almost forced to mirror their physical closeness. I was pushed into Dan’s chest and the sudden feel of his body, the smell of vanilla and expensive body spray, the brush of his coat against my skin made me dumb for a moment. So familiar. The scent of comfort that sat on the edge of challenge, a wildness that could bring sudden transformation from sitting over a pint in a pub to racing across a windswept heath. Daniel.

He was looking down at me, smiling slightly at our forced proximity with one eyebrow cocked. ‘Hey, just like old times,’ he said, in a half-whisper. ‘Remember?’ And his fingers tangled in my hair, pushing it back away from my face, his other hand cupping the angle of my jaw, tilting my face up towards him.

My pulse was so fast it was a solid thing in my throat. I could feel the softness creeping now, starting beneath my belly button and crawling slowly up my body, bending everything I thought, everything I wanted, into cooked-spaghetti shapes. Just fold. Fold into him, let his strength take the pain away.

And then the image again, of Daniel on that bridge. Staring off into the distance as the wind danced in his hair and whipped tears from his eyes. Making me choose.

‘What about Daisy?’ I asked, softly, because my voice wouldn’t come out any louder, as though that crawling malleability had reached my vocal chords. ‘What about those things you said about her? Because that is what I remember.’

He took a couple of steps back, and his hands fell to their customary positions, pushed deep into pockets. ‘Yeah. You’re right. There’s still Daisy standing there between us, isn’t there?’

The brightly-lit room with the excited chatter of the children choosing a new pet, the smell of sawdust and incontinence all came flooding back in, washing the feeling of Dan away from my skin. ‘Daisy will always be standing there.’ I had my teeth gritted, and the space where his hand had been felt cold.

‘Winter! We can come back tomorrow after school and get Bobso, they just want to make sure that we’ve got the right sort of hutch and a garden for him, and that he’s got food and a water bottle.’ Scarlet bounced back through from the far room and flung herself into the gap between Daniel and me.

‘That’s good.’ I tried to give her my attention but it was hard with him standing there so full of things only half-said. ‘Daniel has to go now.’

Dan bent down to the little girl’s level. ‘Remember, he needs to run on the grass, not just sit in a hutch all day,’ he said. ‘And things to nibble to keep his teeth from growing too long. And love. Lots of love — guinea pigs will purr if you sit them on your knee and stroke them, when they know that you love them.’ Then he stood up again. ‘Bye.’

Without another word, without any kind of leave-taking or indication that he’d see me again, he walked out of the room like a shadow walking away from the light. I must have been staring after him, because Scarlet had to attract my attention by pulling on my sleeve and half-dragging me across to Alex, waiting in the car park.

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