Page 40 of Dear Daisy

Chapter Seventeen

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Book of the Dead 2 — deadline approaching!

Hi Winter

Just touching base to let you know we’ve got your publication window all set for next June and we’ll be putting out the first round of publicity after Christmas. I know Dan is up there but he’s gone a bit quiet lately. To be honest I think he needed some ‘personal time’, things haven’t been easy for him recently, so if you do see him then pass on my best regards.

Anyway. You’ve got another twelve weeks before we need to see that first draft. No pressure, but I’d like to know which way to angle the publicity, so if I could get a first look around Christmas, I can take it home with me and read through, make some calls.

I’m sure it’s all going just great. Look forward to reading the finished article.

Best

Greg

I stared around the room. The books were in exactly the same position on the table as they had been when I’d tidied pre-Alex, and that had been three days ago, but, by using all my authorly powers, I managed to convince myself that this was a good sign. At least I haven’t thrown them out of the window.

Why wasn’t I writing? The question kept coming round to haunt me. I was having blindingly brilliant ideas, always in the middle of the night, but during the day it seemed almost more effort than I could muster just to turn on the computer and drink coffee. The book was two-thirds done, perhaps there was some miraculous way I could pad out the bits I’d written already, make them hit the word count and . . .

You’ve lost it, Winter.

‘Daze?’

‘So you need me again now, do you? I was thinking you’d replaced me with Daniel.’ A pause. ‘Again.’

And horror dropped through me like a hot ball bearing through jelly. ‘It was never like that. Please, Daze, don’t. I need you. The writing’s come to a standstill and Dan . . . was here but I think he’s gone again, and I don’t know what I’m doing and everything is getting so fucked up and . . .’ The tears blotted out the words, ‘And you’re all I’ve got.’

‘It’s okay, Win.’ Her voice was softer now, maybe it was because I was crying. I rarely cried. Daisy had always been the ‘emotional’ one, after all, and one of us crying fit to burst was usually enough in any situation, if I joined in it was like misery in stereo. ‘Don’t cry. No, it’s good that you haven’t needed me, totes. Sometimes I worry that you need me too much.’

I cried a bit harder. ‘You’re all I’ve got, Daze. You’re like my still point, you know?’

Daisy sighed. ‘Winnie, you’ve got Alex to talk to now. You’re even getting yourself sorted with Dan, maybe it’s time we had a bit of a break from one another.’

My heart set like a solid block in my chest. ‘You mean not speak to you when I need to?’ I imagined Dan’s face. ‘Dan would think he’d won.’

She sighed again. ‘But it might give you another shot with him.’ She sounded mischievous now. ‘Wouldn’t it, Winnie?’

I suddenly had such a strong picture of her that it felt as though she was in the room with me, sitting drinking something with ‘chai’ in the title, draped in layers of fabric that would have made me look like a walking sample-book but made her look cutting-edge. Her hair was all unstructured, and the millions of thin bracelets she always wore were chittering and chiming whenever she moved an arm. I half-smiled. The twin thing still worked, even when she was annoyed with me. ‘Now you are just winding me up, Daze. You don’t want me to end up with Daniel, do you?’

Now she was trying not to laugh. ‘Don’t I? Maybe I can’t wait to see you shacked up with Chaos Boy in a little flat in London.’

‘No way.’ But the panic was over, she was teasing me again. This had been just another one of our occasional spats, when one or other of us would try to assert some kind of ‘single child’ position over the other. I wondered if, sometimes, we didn’t do it just so we could test the twin bond for strength, and then felt a cold shudder deep inside at the thought of what would happen if it shattered.

‘Look, Win, do you want to get this book written? Or is it better to chuck it all in, admit that you only had the one book in you, hand back the advance and go back to telling people why they should buy the latest lawn mower?’

I could almost hear those bracelets now; Daisy fiddled with them when she talked and I’d always been able to find her in a crowd, just by following the sound — and then teased her it was like her version of cow bells.

‘No, I can do it. I know I can. I’m just blocked.’

Daisy snorted. ‘Come on, that’s bollocks and you know it. You’re holding up the book as a way of getting back at Daniel.’

‘Am I?’

‘That or at least getting his attention. And it’s worked, hasn’t it? He’s there. Now you just have to decide whether you’re not finishing it as a way of keeping him around. And what about your luscious Alex? You’ve pretty much done a one-eighty on him since Dan turned up. What’s that about?’

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