Page 34 of Whispers at The Bookshop Pretty Beach
Daisy reached for the shampoo and squirted some into her hand. The smell, sweet and nostalgic, reminded her of when the girls were babies. It hit her in the chest and she blinked back a sudden sting in her eyes, tried to focus on the task in front of her, but her mind kept slipping away to Miles and the fact that since the phone call, she had heard precisely nothing. This fact was making her pathetically emotional. There had been not a sausage at all; no text, call, or even a single full stop in a WhatsApp bubble.
Evie leaned her head back and looked up. ‘Can I go first, Mummy?’
Daisy nodded and guided Evie to lean a bit further, tipping a little jug of water over her head with one hand and gently massaging the shampoo in with the other until Evie had an enormous head full of bubbles. Daisy laughed as Evie made a face, but truth be told, her mind was elsewhere. Water ran down Evie’s shoulders and pooled at the crook of her elbow, bubbles catching the light and popping one by one.
Daisy told herself that the last thing Miles would be thinking about was her. She thought about the train and where he might be. Whether he was pacing a corridor somewhere, or sitting in a hospital chair made of that revolting wipe-down material that always felt too cold and as if a million people had sat on it before. She pictured him outside a ward, arms folded, jaw tight, staring at a vending machine with no change in his pocket. Her heart clenched; the image so vivid she had to take a breath.
Evie blinked water out of her eyes and looked up. ‘Did I get shampoo in my nose?’
‘No, sweetheart. You’re fine. You’re all rinsed and ready to go.’
Daisy picked up a towel, helped Evie out of the bath, wrapped it around her, and set her down on the bath mat. ‘Margot, you’re next.’
Margot pulled a face. ‘Don’t get it in my ears this time, please, Mummy. I don’t like bubbles in my ears. It makes me feel sick.’
‘I’ll try, but you have to stop wriggling like a fish.’
‘I’m a dolphin.’ Margot flapped her arms.
Daisy managed a smile and reached for the jug again. The motion felt mechanical and she tried to tune into the girls’ chatter, but it was muffled by the emotion currently zooming around her brain at a hundred miles an hour. She was so fuddled, it was almost as if she was underwater herself. The bathwater was getting murky, the bubbles deflating and swirling in tired circles around Margot’s legs. The smell of shampoolingered in the air and Daisy’s phone sat on the bathroom shelf, face down and very loud in its inactivity. She hadn’t heard it buzz, but she still glanced over every two minutes just in case. Nothing, not even a sniff of anything.
The feeling of not knowing was worse than she remembered from the first time when she’d felt as if Miles had ghosted her. Or maybe it was just sharper now because she knew more about him and knew how much she’d fallen for him.
Towelling Margot dry, she wrapped her in a dressing gown with strawberries all over it and tried not to think about it. She helped them brush their teeth, stood beside them as they spat and giggled and tried to outdo each other with the foam. She smiled at the right bits, corrected their technique, wiped toothpaste off Margot’s sleeve, and made sure Evie’s flossing wasn’t just for show.
Both girls were trailing damp footprints across the landing and talking about whether or not they could have a hot chocolate with their story and a snack before bed. Daisy followed slowly, a towel draped over her shoulder, her hand unconsciously checking her phone as she passed. Still nothing and it had been hours. She tried not to let the panic rise again, but it was there, very lurking and so very heavy.
When she tucked the twins into bed, they asked for the same book they always did. She read the first few pages and tried not to sound as flat as she felt. The girls didn’t seem to notice, or if they did, they didn’t say. Halfway through, Margot yawned, her hands curled up under her chin like a little kitten. Evie blinked slowly; eyes half shut by the time Daisy closed the book. After kissing them both, she stood for a second watching them settle, then pulled the door almost shut and tiptoed away.
Downstairs, everything was quiet and still and she moved through to the kitchen, flicked on the lamp above the hob and sat down at the table, staring at the chair across from her, foldedher arms on the table and rested her head. What the actual? Was he really going to do this again? It wasn’t just his mum getting mugged that was unbelievable. He actually was going to do what he’d done the first time again. Daisy felt awful; truly, horribly, dismally, selfishly awful. Awful because she wanted to hear from him and because her brain kept making it about her. A very strange mix of conflicting emotions. Dreadful because he was going through something huge and frightening and here she was, more worried about her heart and updates.
But even with all that, trying to be reasonable and logical, there was another feeling too: white hot anger. Not at him, at least, not totally, but at the whole thing. At the unfairness of it and how it felt as if the rug had been whipped from under her yet again with no warning. She hated that she was scared again and that the old thoughts were back. The ones that had told her she wasn’t enough. That she was convenient and temporary and quite possibly optional, too.
After pacing for a bit, she went to the sink, filled a glass with water and drank it down in one go. Then she filled it again and left it on the side, glanced at her phone, which was still blank and tutted at the stupid enormous hamper wedged into the corner of her minuscule, cobbled together, DIY-ed kitchen. The clock ticked, the hum of the fridge kicked in and Ms Daisy Henley continued to spiral.
She walked through to the bookshop and checked the front lock, even though she’d already done it. Then she flicked the switch on the fairy lights strung across the back wall and watched them glow. She’d quite often sit in the bookshop watching Pretty Beach, but tonight it felt like a waiting room in a not very nice place. Staring down the street to the building that was up for sale, she shook her head and sighed at the proposal that would threaten her business. Shaking her head, she squinted to look at the shop frontage and didn’t reallyhave a clue what to think about it. When push came to shove she had little to no control over a corporate business with an agenda moving in. A mix of fear and fury swirled around Daisy’s stomach. Just a few days before she’d been thinking how her life had improved and how the road ahead had felt straighter. Now two things in the space of as many days had swerved it off track again.
Swallowing and breathing in and out as slowly as she could, she sat down on the wingback chair in the stillness, heart heavy, watching her phone, trying not to count the seconds until it lit up. She shouldn’t have bothered because it didn’t. It just sat there as if it was winking at her, informing her that nothing had changed and that she was very much on her own.
22
The bathroom was quiet and so was the bookshop building, not as quiet as Daisy, who was still as a mouse. She was quiet and still, at least on the outside. However, inside her head, her thoughts were far from quiet. Having a fair old pity party and shouting a lot, in actual fact. Her inner dialogue was so loud it was as if a carbon copy of herself was sitting on Evie and Margot’s little bath time stool, having a conversation with her right there in the bathroom. Miserable, pitiful and self-centred all rolled into one.
Sitting back in the bath, knees just poking out of the water and with a pale blue flannel folded on the edge near her arm Daisy felt sick. Her hair was scooped on top of her head, her face bare, and a single candle flickered from the little ledge near the taps. She had a nip of neat gin beside her that was untouched except for one small sip, and the ice cubes had begun to melt in the glass, clinking faintly as she shifted.
The girls were in bed and she’d not heard a peep out of them; at least that part of the evening had gone off without a hitch. It had been the same old routine she’d been doing on her own since she’d had them: clean pyjamas, teeth brushed, story, one twin slightly more fidgety than the other, the usual pattern thatfollowed the same path every night. To be fair, she had been proud of herself for managing it all without snapping at one of them because of the knot in her stomach that had twisted and gnarled as time ticked on without hearing from Miles.
She’d kept her phone close all evening, but it had remained dead as a dormouse. Close wasn’t even the word for it, she might as well have duct-taped her iPhone to her forehead. It had been with her in the bookshop, on the edge of the sink, by the bed, next to the kettle, in her cardigan pocket, under her folded arms while she’d stared out the kitchen window with a glum look on her face and now it was on the bath mat. Every buzz or phantom buzz had made her jump, and each time it had been an email or a notification from the parent app and she’d had a message from her mum and one from Suntanned Pete. From Miles, though: not a sausage.
She took another sip of the gin and put the glass down again. It wasn’t very strong and just what she needed, not enough to tip her into anything, but ever so slightly razoring off her frazzled edges. Rubbing at the corner of her eyes, she let her head tip back against the rolled rim of the bath. The enamel was cold on her skin, and for a moment, she just stared at the ceiling and tried not to cry. She could not get her head around that the same thing was happening again. All day and night and not even a text. She just wasn’t important enough.
Her phone pinged and she sat upright so hastily that a slosh of water splashed out onto the bathroom floor. Reaching over, the candle flickered in the draught from her movement, the screen was bright and there it was a message notification on her phone.
Miles:Sorry. There’s a funny, patchy signal in the part of the hospital she’s in. Everything has taken sooooo long. ******* nightmare!
Daisy exhaled a long, slow whoosh out of her mouth, closed her eyes, tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling for a good few seconds. Thank the good lord above. Another text came through right away.
Miles:It’s not been pleasant. Mum has had to have her head shaved and loads of stitches. She looks like she’s been through a war, but she’s still with us.
