Page 62 of Dear Daisy

‘But you have to. Otherwise this isn’t over, and it will never be over. You have to, Winter.’

You have to, Winter.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject:

I need to talk to you. There’s so much I need to say, but I don’t know how. I don’t think I’ve ever known how, not since Daisy died.

I’m coming back to London for a few days to sort things out but then I’ve decided to buy a little place up here in Yorkshire. It’s time I started living again . . . properly, but I don’t think I can do that in London any more. I like it here. It’s big and peaceful and there’s just so much sky . . . There’s a house for sale a couple of doors down from Margaret’s place, nothing grand just a tall, thin terraced house near the river, but I think it’s time I put down roots. Stopped floating around in that state of denial I was living in.

I know that too much has gone on between us for us ever to go back, but I’ve seen the way Scarlet has thrown off all the memories of the bad stuff she went through at school, a kind of ‘forgive and forget’ thing that seems so easy when you’re eight, and I wondered if . . . if we could do that. If you could ever work with me again. I just want you to understand that I couldn’t stop talking to Daisy, no matter how much I wanted to back then. She was all I had. And I owed it to her to keep her alive, here, inside me.

But now I know. I talked to Scarlet, about her mother and how she put part of her into Light Bulb to keep her alive, but now she’s moving to real horses and Light Bulb is just a toy again. Just a reminder, a lovely, sweet reminder that her mother loved her. And I’ve got the memory of Daisy, I will have that always. Remembering us growing up, remembering what great times we had, how fabulous it was to have a sister that was a mirror image of me. But she wasn’t me. She was herself, and I had no right to put a life on to her that she may not ever have lived. May not even have wanted.

You were right. I needed to let it change me. And I think I have.

Can we meet, one last time? There’s something I want to show you. The fifteenth of next month, about ten a.m. www.FleetHill.co.uk.

Winter

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject:

I don’t know what to do, Bethie.

DBx

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘They say that no one is truly gone while someone who lives remembers them, so is that why we carve such elaborate memorials to the dead? So that those who come after can see, can be curious? To show off the family wealth and status by expenditure on someone who is beyond caring about such things? Or so that, maybe, just sometimes, someone will be passing by, look at a stone and wonder about the person immortalised in script upon it?

Next time you walk through a graveyard, maybe you will be able to see now, not an enclosure fencing in the forgotten, but a field growing a crop of memories. Every person buried there lived a life. It may have been a small life, scratched out on meagre farmland, or a life of excess and overindulgence, but each of these people were remembered by those who remained. From Augustus Rawlins, who only lived for two days, to Samuel Nichols who lived to be 107, someone remained to remember them.’ — BOOK OF THE DEAD 2

* * *

Mid-December was here with a vengeance. A biting wind travelled at ankle-height like a small bad-tempered dog and the air stung. I gathered my big coat closer around myself and walked on down the path. My footsteps echoed as though I was walking on tin.

I thought I heard someone walking behind me, but whenever I turned there was nothing but the air and trees, evergreen but slightly greyed by the weather which was now sweeping swathes of mist across the ground. I dug my hands into my pockets and walked faster.

And then, suddenly, there it was. All alone, near the wall. My knees buckled and I grabbed onto a convenient bench, sitting hurriedly so my weakness wouldn’t show, although there was no one around to see, and I crouched forward with my head in my hands. I should never have come . . .

The bench creaked as someone appeared out of the mist and sat beside me. ‘You made it, then.’

I passed my hands back over my head, smoothing my hair. Pretending I was adjusting my appearance, not hiding. My heart beat its way into my throat. ‘You came.’

‘Yup.’ Dan stretched his legs out in front of him and stared at the watermarked leather of his boots. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’

‘You didn’t answer my email, so, yes, I didn’t think you’d come.’

The damp air made his hair flop across his forehead and beaded the stubble on his cheeks in little balls of fog. He looked even more elemental than usual, almost as though he was part of this place rather than a visitor. He’d lost the big buckled piracy coat in favour of a woollen greatcoat with a collar that framed his face and a hem that brushed the tops of his boots. ‘Sorry. Should’ve at least messaged you back but . . .’ A sideways look at me that revealed his eyes were shadowed. ‘I guess I couldn’t think what to say. Had a lot of thinking to do all round, kiddo. But I decided, maybe, me being here would . . . there’s some things that no one should have to face alone.’

‘So you know that Daisy . . . that I . . .’

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