A Better World than This (42 page)

‘Remember me to Florence,’ Sam said insincerely, picking up his case. ‘Come on, son.’ He turned to Jimmy. ‘That cat will be here when you come back. It’s your own fault if he scratches you. You’re squeezing him too hard.’

Daisy followed them into the hall. Sam couldn’t go like this, not without a word, not without giving her just a minute to try to explain. She saw that his eyes held the over-bright propped-open look of someone who had slept badly.

‘Sam?’ she began, but he looked pointedly at Jimmy, remote from her as if they were strangers. ‘Jimmy. Go and ask Winnie to give you one of her sandwiches,’ she said. ‘He can’t go out without
anything
,’ she told Sam. ‘I don’t expect you to like me much this morning,’ she said quickly, when
Jimmy
ran into the kitchen ignoring his father’s shake of the head. ‘I don’t like myself all that much either, but you can’t go like this, not when I don’t know how long it will be before I see you again.’

‘Leave it, Daisy!’

‘I’m sorry, Sam.’

‘What for?’

‘For last night.’

‘I said
leave it
, Daisy!’

‘No, I won’t leave it.’ She was near to tears. ‘I can’t let you go without things being sorted out between us. It’s not my way.’ She touched his arm. ‘I say what I mean, and you say what you mean, then we know where we stand.’ She lowered her head, speaking softly. ‘I played a rotten trick on you last night, but I didn’t know I was going to. I came into your room thinking you would
listen
to me. …’ She raised her head. ‘But you never gave me a chance. You tried to
rush
me into something I wasn’t ready for, but I see now I didn’t take a man’s normal feelings into account.’

‘A man’s
what
? Oh, my God, Daisy. You’re unique, did you know that? Bloody
unique!
’

‘I don’t see why.’ She was genuinely puzzled. ‘I can’t see anything out of the ordinary about me.’

‘Well,
I
can.’ With a laugh that was half a groan Sam pulled her into his arms. ‘You make me spitting mad, then you make me laugh. You stand on the doorstep at seven o’clock in the morning calmly discussing your reasons for climbing into my bed in your nightie in the middle of the night, and yet another time if I as much as look at you, you blush.’ He wrapped his arms tighter round her. ‘Oh, Daisybell, you’re a two-headed woman, did you know that?’

‘I’m a Gemini, the sign of the twins, that’s why.’ Daisy stared at him, feeling love for him well inside her. ‘I’m glad you didn’t spare me last night. I deserved your anger. I’ll be sorted out in my own mind the next time we meet.’

‘I wish you’d sort me out at the same time.’ Sam put her from him, grinning. ‘But remember I’m a different breed.
From
the wicked south. Like you once told me, we even
think
differently down there. We don’t always call a spade a spade where I come from.’

‘What are you trying to tell me, Sam?’

He was looking at her with gently sad eyes. ‘That I never wish to hurt you. Will that do for now?’

She saw that he was looking past her at Jimmy swaggering down the hall with a glistening greasy chin.

‘Say goodbye to Daisy.’ Sam trailed a finger down her cheek before picking up the cases. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he whispered. ‘Very soon.’

Jimmy hesitated, came towards Daisy, changed his mind almost visibly and took the three steps down to the pavement in one mighty leap. Then came back and kissed her, a swift smack of his lips in the air, but a kiss all the same.

Daisy watched them walk together down the long street of tall houses. It seemed important somehow that she imprinted the memory of Jimmy’s back view on her mind. His over-long raincoat – bought on the big side for him to grow into – his grey knee-socks already concertina-wrinkled round his ankles, his belt twisted and the collar of his coat half up and half down.

Standing there, with a million and one things still to do, she waited until they turned the corner. She had the strangest feeling, quickly subdued, that she would never see Jimmy again. Pushing the thought away before it could take hold, she went inside and closed the door. And immediately smelled tobacco smoke.

In the lounge, sitting swamped in one of the brown chairs, Winnie was smoking the butt-end of a cigarette from one of the overflowing ashtrays. Inhaling deeply, she lifted the white planes of her small face to the ceiling and blew smoke down her nose. For a moment she blinked her sparse eyelashes up and down as if overwhelmed at the achievement. Then did it again, with more confidence this time.

Edna told Daisy that she’d passed a very disturbed night what
with
somebody chasing up and down the landing and somebody else screaming blue murder. ‘There’s nothing like your own bed and your own lavatory seat,’ she said wistfully, tucking into her egg and bacon. ‘You don’t seem to get the comfort away from home.’

One half of the Accrington couple wanted bacon crisp, the other half told Daisy just to
show
it the frying pan, the way you did with liver. Joshua came down, asked for tea and nothing else and went straight out. Daisy wondered if he remembered kissing her and thought how awful he looked with his eyes all bloodshot and his face a nasty putty colour. Edna offered to stay in the house that afternoon to welcome the visitors when they arrived, leaving Daisy free for a snatched hour in which she could make a quick dash to the hospital and back.

‘I want very much to go and see Florence.’ Daisy looked worried. ‘But it’s my job to be here. One family is coming from as far away as Kilmarnock. They’re Mrs Mac’s overflow. They’ll expect me to be here to show them to their room.’

‘The graveyards,’ said Edna with a sniff, ‘are
full
of indispensable people. Six feet under. But suit yourself. One of these days you might be glad of me.’

‘I’m glad of you
now
, Auntie.’ Realizing that she was, Daisy leaned forward and kissed Edna’s cheek. ‘Okay, I’ll go. I’ll show you what there is to do first.’

‘No need for that, chuck.’ Chuffed to bits by the unexpected caress, Edna actually smiled. ‘I’m not just a pretty face, you know.’

By two o’clock that afternoon Daisy had rushed around so much her hands shook as she combed her hair and caught it back at one side with a tortoiseshell slide. Twelve people had booked in, with another four to arrive. She had staggered up the stairs with cases, thrown open bedroom doors, pointed out the bathroom and the
two
toilets, and served tea and biscuits in the lounge to the new arrivals.

The fish for the evening meal, fresh hake, so fresh the fins were still flapping according to the fishmonger, was in the wire-netted safe out at the back, and the batter was settling in the big earthernware dish, just waiting for that important last-minute stir to give it the all-important air bubbles. She was making a coconut pudding with milk, breadcrumbs, sugar and eggs, and to go with the bedtime drinks a big batch of Easter biscuits, with plenty of chopped candied peel and just the right amount of cinnamon essence to give them a nice tang.

The tall old house was full of people; they either went straight to their rooms to unpack, or dashed out for that first exciting walk along the promenade. Winnie had staved off one of her threatened fainting attacks by stuffing herself silly with anything going, including the uncooked scraps left over from the Easter biscuits and the scrapings of coconut mixing from the sides of the big earthenware bowl.

‘She’s a scream,’ Daisy told Florence, sitting by the side of the high white bed at the end of the long ward. ‘You have to laugh.’

‘Why?’

Daisy looked flustered. ‘What do you mean, why?’

‘Why do you have to laugh?’

Daisy sighed. So Florence was going to be in one of her moods, was she? Lying on her back, with her eyes closed, the lids rounded over her slightly bulging eyes, she had already told Daisy that the blisters on her feet were bigger than blown-up balloons; that a young doctor kept trying to force her to talk about her childhood. As if some memory from when she was no more than a baby had nudged her arm, causing her to spill the boiling water all over her feet.

‘He’s an amateur Freud,’ she said scathingly.

‘Sam’s gone back,’ Daisy said, thinking to cheer Florence up a bit.

‘The flarchy rotter,’ Florence said without opening her eyes.

Daisy fidgeted on the little hard chair. This was to have
been
her big day. The day she had worked towards since first deciding to sell the pie shop and move to Blackpool. With her moving graciously into the hall to greet each new arrival, assuring them of her best attention at all times, inviting them to sign the visitors’ book and anticipating their cries of delight when they stepped inside the bedrooms with the gleaming new wash basins and bedspreads matching the curtains. She felt impatient with Florence, then immediately guilty.

‘Joshua got tiddly last night,’ she said, trying once again to make Florence smile. She had already decided not to tell about Bobbie being held in police custody. That would have been too upsetting. ‘Yes, Joshua was so much under the influence he lurched into the house, keeping his hat on, staggered into the kitchen, swept me into his arms and kissed me! Passionately!’

‘Then what?’ Florence spoke so softly Daisy only just caught what she said.

‘Then he raised his hat, bowed politely, apologized out of the side of his mouth like a gangster, and walked straight upstairs to bed.’

‘I’d like you to go now, please, Daisy.’

Daisy looked swiftly round for a nurse. Florence had gone so white her face seemed to merge into the starched cotton of her pillow-slip. Could a person faint while lying flat in bed?

‘Would you like a drink of water?’ Daisy picked up the glass from Florence’s bedside locker. ‘Come on. Lift your head up and I’ll help you.’

Snapping her eyes open Florence stared up into Daisy’s round rosy face, not a foot from her own. Look at her, a little voice inside her head screamed. Look at that face with its wide-apart dark eyes, the mouth curved and smiling. Oh, dear God,
always
smiling. The straight nose and the thick shiny hair falling forward to curve on to Daisy’s cheeks with their peach-blossom glow. Joshua kissed those lips, not because he was drunk, but because he
wanted
to. Drunk with longing, drunk with desire, drunk with the need of her. …

‘I’ll look after you,’ Daisy was saying in her low husky voice. ‘You won’t have to do a thing till you’re better. Young Winnie will soon get into the swing of things. I’ve got her measure already.’

Deliberately Florence knocked Daisy’s hand away so that the water spilled over the top turned-down sheet. ‘You mean you have
charmed
her,’ she said in a cold distinct voice. ‘Just like you set yourself out to charm everyone you meet. You
force
people to like you. You
use
people. You get at them by mothering them, by making a fuss of them. But you’re not doing it to me. Because I don’t
want
to be looked after. I refuse to be patronized. I will accept your charity no longer!’

‘What on earth is all that about?’ Daisy snatched the towel from the rail behind Florence’s locker and began dabbing the sopping sheet with it. ‘I don’t patronize you, Florence, and I certainly don’t see you as an object of charity.’ She stepped back in astonishment as Florence jerked the towel from her and tossed it on to the floor at the other side of the bed. ‘I
need
you, love. I couldn’t do what I’ve set out to do without you. I would never have gone in for this business without you as a partner.’ She sat down again and tried to take Florence’s hand in her own. ‘You are my
friend
. My best friend. Remember?’

‘
Joshua
is your friend,’ Florence said in a high piercing voice. ‘Bobbie is your friend. Jimmy is your friend. “Daisy is my good friend,” he told me one day, and that was after you’d walloped him one for being cheeky.’ The large pale eyes glittered with a terrible rage. ‘I would say that Sam is your friend, but what you and he feel for each other is not friendship. Oh, no, what you and he feel for each other is
lust
. Purely and simply L-U-S-T!
Lust!
’

‘Florence!’ Daisy glanced round the ward, but perhaps Florence wasn’t speaking as loudly as she seemed to be doing. The afternoon visitors went on talking to the patients propped up for their benefit. A nurse at the far end of the ward trundled a tea trolley through the doors, the rubber wheels squeaking on the shiny floor. ‘I’ll go and get you a cup
of
tea,’ she said quickly. ‘You’ll feel better for a cup of tea.’

‘You do that,’ Florence said clearly, ‘and I will throw it at you.’

‘Stop behaving like Jimmy on one of his bad days.’ Daisy pulled the chair closer to the bed. ‘Let me tell you about the visitors. Do you remember that very fair girl from the mill who used to come in the shop and tell us tall stories about what went on in the weaving sheds? Finishing off every sentence with “God’s honour, kid”. Well, she’s just the same. Every time she opens her mouth. “God’s honour, kid, it’s lovely. I like you with your hair like that, Daisy. God’s honour, kid. God’s honour, kid, what a thing to happen to Florence! You remember Florence, don’t you?” This to her husband. “You
know
, Florence Livesey, Daisy’s friend.” Whispering to me: “God’s honour, kid, his memory’s shocking. I don’t think he’d recognize
me
if we didn’t live in the same house.”’

‘The thing is, I’m not cut out for anything.’ Florence’s long thin hands were scrabbling at the wet sheet, pulling it up into pleats. ‘I’m not trained for anything apart from flashing a torch along a row of cinema seats. I can’t sew a hem without tying the cotton in knots. The scones I make turn out like biscuits. I hate knitting, even if I was any good at it. I bet I could burn a cup of tea if I put my mind to it. I have no physical attributes to speak of, and I loathe being nice to people I dislike.’

‘Apart from all that you’re lovely,’ Daisy said. ‘Oh, come on, Florence. If I tried to list
my
talents, a twopenny stamp would be too big to write them down on. We’re in the same boat, you and me. Both of us could have gone on and furthered our education, but circumstances saw to it that we didn’t. You might have been a teacher, and I might have been the secretary to a top tycoon, going off to the office with a clean white collar stitched into my smart navy dress and a spare pair of white gloves in my handbag.
You
could have married the Prince of Wales if he hadn’t seen Mrs Simpson first.’