Page 42 of Dear Daisy

Matt Simons: You could take black-lipstick woman. Show her how you can party in the Leas.

Alex Hill: Seriously, Matt, that’s pretty exciting around here!

Matt Simons: Hey, Dundee isn’t much better.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Barn dance

I was serious on Facebook you know. Come to the barn dance! Bring Winter, if she wants. Remember us ‘do-si-do-ing’ at Matt’s party that time? I want to see if you’ve still ‘got it’!

Lu x

It was getting dark when I wandered my way over to the Old Mill. The shops were on the point of closing, the streets emptying of people. There were no bars or clubs opening, no lines of those waiting for the evening to get started and wind up into the frenzy of a night, just the pub filling a little more and the descent of a frost that made my heels crack on the pavement as I walked.

The lights of the Old Mill were muted but welcoming. The atrium was softly lit and a lamp glowed down from the flat; the office was in darkness except for the satanic red glow of the coffee machine’s power light. I pushed my way in through the main door, and found Margaret and Alex standing just inside, surrounded by the smell of new wood and polish.

‘W-winter!’ Alex immediately came over to hold the door open for me. ‘H-hello. J-just telling M-mum I wanted to f-f—’

Oh, Alex. No, stop it, Winter.

‘Facebook you and ask you over,’ Alex finished in a rush. ‘S-scarl is upstairs, writing a s-story about B-b-Bobso.’ He rubbed his face. ‘She c-could have c-called him Andrew, for my s-sake.’

‘How are you, Winter?’ Margaret asked. Her tone was ‘motherly concern’ overlaid with wool from what was either a hand-knitted scarf or an anaconda with a really nasty skin condition. It was wrapped around her neck so many times that I wondered what she was going to do when December arrived. ‘I suppose you’re terribly busy, aren’t you, although we haven’t seen you outside much recently. You should get out more, you know. Into the sunshine.’

‘W-winter is a writer, M-mum, not a t-tomato plant,’ Alex said.

‘Hmmm.’ Margaret looked me up and down. The scarf bobbed as though it had a life of its own. ‘You’re looking thin. I know thin is supposed to be the new voluptuous, but a young lady who appears to be a stranger to the sticky toffee pudding can never be attractive as far as I am concerned.’

‘G-good job she’s n-not trying to p-pull you then, M-mum.’ Alex gave me a grin. ‘You l-look fine,’ he said, the grin broadening.

Since I hadn’t even looked in the mirror before I left the house, I doubted this was the case, but it was nice of him to try to mitigate the effect of his mother.

‘Winter!’ There was a frantic rush of sock against wooden stair, and Scarlet precipitated towards us like a downpour. ‘D’you want to come and see Bobso? He’s got a huge hutch and a thing that goes out on the grass so he can be outside without getting eaten by foxes.’ She jumped the last few steps and slithered alongside me.

Alex and Margaret exchanged a Look, and I deduced that they’d been talking about Scarlet when I arrived. And, knowing Scarlet, that she’d probably been listening.

‘Yes, come and show me.’

‘B-boots, Scarl. If you’re g-going outside,’ Alex said, and she sighed heavily, flouncing over to her wellies, which lay scattered just inside the doors as though lost during a particularly balletic moment. Alex is going to have his work cut out when you’re a teenager, I thought, and, from the look on Alex’s face, the same thought occurred to him on a regular basis.

‘Daniel would like to know,’ Margaret put a hand on my arm, ‘whether it would be all right if he called on you tomorrow.’

I blinked. Had I somehow fallen though a wormhole into Pride and Prejudice? Focussing on her weird apparel meant I could ignore that little burst of heat that had gone off inside me at the realisation that Dan hadn’t left me and headed back to London. ‘Er, yes. Sure. Why didn’t he just come round?’

Margaret gave a boa-busting shrug. ‘He’s giving you “space” apparently. To “think”. I’ve told him what you need is a week of square meals and a turn around the Topping . . .’

I mouthed ‘euphemism?’ at Alex, but he shook his head.

‘. . . but he says that, where he’s concerned, you need space.’ She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Do you?’

I opened my mouth to say that what I really needed was Daniel and the uncomfortable feelings that he roused in me to go away, but I was saved by Scarlet dashing up to me, her wellies making ‘pock pock’ noises against her legs. ‘Come on, we need to see Bobso before it gets too dark. Light Bulb is keeping guard on him in case of cats,’ she said, and I was dragged through the doors and around the building to a small shelter, probably built for logs, but which now contained a hutch which looked as though it had been made for a nightmarishly large rabbit. Bobso sat in one corner, squeakily disgruntled at being disturbed halfway through a carrot. Light Bulb, even more lopsided than usual, leaned above the hutch like a corduroy angel at a rodent nativity.

I admired the guinea pig as much as I could, while Scarlet bobbed around telling me about how he needed his water changed every day and fresh food and bedding, and seemed to be taking the whole ‘pet ownership’ thing very seriously. She seemed happier and brighter than she had for a while, so I carefully brought up the subject of school. ‘Has Mr Moore said anything to you about me visiting school?’

Scarlet paused in her recital of guinea pig no-nos, where she’d reached ‘no citrus fruits’, so may have been working alphabetically. ‘He said to tell you that he’d email you.’ Another bounce, which Bobso regarded with the equanimity that told me he was probably going to be a very good pet. ‘And Daniel told me to tell you that he wants to see you but he doesn’t want you to be frightened. He only wants to help you write the book, but he thinks you think that he’s trying to make trouble.’

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