Page 53 of Dear Daisy

I stared through the window over a muddied field with battered goalposts and two lunchtime supervisors. These were ladies wearing unflattering tabards and a nursery-aged child attached to one leg, obviously trying to keep control over youthful border disputes with about as much success as people trying to round-up clouds. Beside me, on what was obviously an equally uncomfortable and undersized seat, sat Dan. He’d tried to make himself comfortable by tucking his legs as far under the chair as they would go and it made him look painfully perched, like a raven that’s just eaten a golf ball.

‘Do you think he’ll be long?’ he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Only I’m getting cramp.’

‘Shouldn’t think so. He’s only gone to take a telephone call, not marshall an OFSTED inspection.’

‘Why, in chuff’s name, do they not have adult-sized chairs?’ Dan wriggled. ‘I’m gonna be wearing this thing like an arse-cage.’

I looked at him, sitting there with his knees almost up against his chest, his hair tidy today although it still made him look a bit like a half-hearted punk, and the omnipresent coat curled around his slouched body as though he was being swallowed very slowly by a black python. My chest felt suddenly heavy. So, this is it. The last time you’ll ever be bothered by Daniel. Okay, he’ll be around somewhere in the background, maybe a smile at a library talk or a cup of coffee fetched before a radio interview, but never like this again. Never so close that you can smell his skin, the dusty vanilla smell that makes you feel hungry for a food you’ve never tasted, or watch the way his tattoo appears and vanishes from under a cuff like a magic trick.

I tore my gaze away and let it focus back out of the window again. ‘We were early. Shouldn’t think he wants to fetch the kids in any sooner than he has to. Look at them out there, it’s like a warning against the dangers of e-numbers.’

There was a knot of children over at the field’s boundary. One was Scarlet, I could tell from the fact that Light Bulb was bobbing about in their midst like a tour-guide’s umbrella. Within seconds they were ranged along the fence between school property and the field beyond, where two horses grazed, Light Bulb now propped against the rails.

‘Just energy and enthusiasm.’ Dan stretched and stood up. His chair fell back to the floor with a heavy clonk. ‘It’ll wear off soon enough, they’ve still got adolescence to get through, and a life of work and clock watching to look forward to.’

My mind flashed to the graveyard, remembering all those graves of those who had never got past childhood. All those who’d never had the chance to get bored with their jobs or disillusioned with life. Names which were now just stone-carved curios for the idle passer-by to wonder at, but had once been attached to people who’d run and skipped and yelled, hugged and cried and laughed.

‘Win?’ Dan bent in front of me. ‘Hey.’ The back of his hand rubbed gently along my cheek, wiping tears from my skin. ‘Don’t.’

The office door opened and Mr Moore arrived, sighing deeply. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, but . . .’ Another sigh. ‘The children will be coming in in just a minute, shall we go through?’

‘Party face on, kiddo,’ Dan whispered, holding out a hand to help me stand. As he pulled me upright I half-turned. Embarrassed by the tears which had caught me unawares, and overwhelmed by my sudden urge to lean into Dan’s shoulder and let them fall, I didn’t want to look into his face and see — what? Pity? Or the wavering fear that I wasn’t going to be up to publicising the book? To give myself an excuse not to face him, and a few moments to let any redness of my eyes diminish, I gazed out of the window. A little girl, almost certainly Scarlet, was now standing on the top rail of the fence, the lower rails were occupied by half a dozen other children who looked as though they were encouraging her.

‘It must be nice to have such a lot of space for the children to run about in,’ I said. Meaningless small talk but it gave my throat a chance to loosen, and the tears time to head back to where they hid, permanently tangled among memories.

Mr Moore made a snorting noise. ‘It’s hard work. The farmer who owns the fields beyond used to have cows, but now he’s put horses in there and it’s a full-time job trying to stop the kids from feeding them.’ He sighed yet again. ‘I should have gone into dentistry, like my mother wanted. Right, let’s get on, shall we?’

‘Yes, I . . .’ and at that moment a flash of movement on the fence made my stomach draw down into itself with a kind of foreboding. ‘Shit!’ I turned and nearly fell over the small chair. ‘We have to get out there.’

‘Winter . . .’ Dan’s hand moved towards my arm but I’d seen it coming and dodged, made it out of the office door before either of the men had moved.

I heard Mr Moore say, ‘Is she all right?’ and Dan’s murmured answer as I hesitated in the hallway beyond, getting my bearings, then ran down the school corridor towards the far end, where I could see a door out onto the playground, my stomach drawing tight against my ribs with the sick feeling of impending disaster. Then they were both coming after me, Dan calling my name on a rising tone that told me he thought I’d finally lost it, finally flipped into action, and the speed with which he was coming told me that he was terrified which way that action was going to end.

‘It’s Scarlet!’ I called back over my shoulder, wrenching open the door and flying out onto the tarmac playground, scattering footballers and skippers, who, clearly scenting some kind of drama, began chasing behind me, so that I headed an arrow formation of running people out onto the slippery mud of the field. My hair blew forward and into my eyes and my mouth, my carefully-selected-to-go-with-the-outfit boots spiked into the ground and slowed me, until I was lunging forwards in what felt like slow motion.

‘Scarlet!’ I shouted once, but only two of the girls at the fence turned round. One of the horses, bored enough to have come over to talk to the children, had its head over the rails now and, as I ran, I saw the terrifying sight of Scarlet swinging her way over the top of the sturdy railings and dropping onto the back of the horse, where she perched for a triumphant second. We were close enough now to hear her cry of ‘See? See, I told you I could ride!’

I slithered to a halt, about five metres from the fence, everyone behind me coming to a stop at the same time in a sticky sound of cloying earth. ‘Scarlet, you need to get off now.’ I panted the order and began a slow, pacing approach, not wanting to startle the horse, a chestnut with the dished face of an Arab, its head held high now as it registered the sudden weight upon its back. ‘Just slide down.’

One of the lunchtime supervisor ladies gave a stifled moan, but it was the only sound. Although there must have been close to sixty children and half a dozen adults crowded onto the slimy pitch at my back, the silence was unnatural. In front, Scarlet looked at me between the horse’s ears. ‘I said I could ride. And I’m riding, aren’t I, Winter?’

Flick went those ears. Please let it be a docile old beast, a schoolmaster, a companion horse for something more flighty. Please, please let her just slither down and end up with no more than muddy knees. ‘You’re not allowed over there. Mr Moore will be really cross.’ I tried to appeal to the group’s fear of teacherly reprisals.

‘Scarlet wanted to.’ A defiant girl with the rippled blonde hair and clean designer-label shoes that shouted that she had an aspiring mother. ‘It was her idea.’

‘Please, Scarlet. Yes, you’ve proved that you can ride, now please get down. If you get down I’ll make Alex get you proper riding lessons.’ I was nearly at the fence now. I could smell the hot, sour smell of horse-sweat and pounded grass from the paddock beyond overlaid with waxy canvas from the rugs the horses wore against the encroaching winter. So close that I could almost lay a hand on the Arab’s neck, keeping my voice level and soothing, unalarming. ‘And maybe, now he’s come to terms with you having a pet, maybe when you’re older he’ll let you have a pony.’

‘Really?’ And Scarlet must have moved too sharply, or dug a heel against the horse’s side because it peeled away from the fence, head up in fright. Ears flat to its head it spun into the centre of the field, Scarlet trying to crouch, both arms grasping out and trying to catch hold of the rug around its shoulders for something to hold onto. The horse put in two tremendous bucks, the first sent Scarlet slithering sideways, almost joining her hands around the horse’s neck in an attempt to stay on top; the second flicked her into the air and she landed with a sound that made my heart give a heavy sick beat, spreadeagled face down on the tussocky grass.

I leaped over the fence, ignoring the bile that soured my breath and ran to where Scarlet lay. Bent down but didn’t dare touch her. Behind me there was a sound of children shouting and crying, released from the immobility of apprehension by shock and fear and Dan’s voice very calm and capable apparently calling an ambulance on his mobile.

‘Scarlet?’ I whispered, but she was clearly unconscious, smaller somehow in the middle of all this green, hunched with her arms bent awkwardly underneath her. ‘Oh God.’

Dan came over the fence. ‘They’ll be here in five minutes,’ he said, peeling off his coat and laying it carefully over the fragile little figure. ‘Don’t touch her.’

Mr Moore was suddenly there, a competent force to be reckoned with. He crouched down and laid a hand against the side of Scarlet’s neck. ‘She has a pulse. She’s alive.’ The note of relief in his voice wasn’t just that of a teacher worried about Health and Safety policy and legal ramifications, but of a man who cared. ‘She’s alive,’ he repeated.

My mouth was dry and I could feel the buzzing in the back of my head start to move to my ears but I fought it away. Kept my breathing even, matched it to the movement I could see in Scarlet’s huddled back so I breathed with her, as though my effort of will could keep oxygen moving in both of us. In. Out. Shallow, but regular. A child was screaming somewhere, but there were scuffling sounds and low, careful voices as adults came to take control, moving the audience away towards the school. I didn’t take my eyes off the little shape in the mud and the hoof-marked grass. Stayed low, so my body half-hunched over hers, as though my shadow could drive away any injuries.

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