Daisy's Secret (15 page)

‘I’d hate it Laura and you know it. Besides, I have to pop over to Toledo for a couple of days. Something about a picture which might be a Greco.’ Felix was always dreaming of finding some undiscovered work of art which would make him a fortune.

‘No problem. I’m having a lovely time being lazy and spoiling myself rotten. Don’t you think I deserve to once in a while?’

She heard his exasperated sigh hiss down the phone line. ‘It sounds inordinately selfish to me. Stop wallowing in nostalgia and come home where you belong. The sheets need changing, there’s nothing in the fridge, and the house is like a morgue, I can hardly bear to be in it.’

‘But you rarely are in it anyway, darling, even when I’m there taking care of all those things.’

‘Are you trying to be deliberately provocative, Laura? If so, I’m not amused. I work only for your benefit you know, to provide you with a lovely house, clothes, etc., etc.’

‘So you keep saying, and I keep asking you to allow me to work with you so that I wouldn’t be so bored and you not so overstretched, but somehow I don’t believe you’re listening.’

‘I don’t intend to turn this call into another marital argument. I shall be catching an early flight back from Toledo on Monday morning. I shall expect you to be at the airport to pick me up.’

Laura took a deep breath. ‘Sorry darling, no can do. I - I have an appointment to see the solicitor on that day.’ The appointment was for Tuesday but the last thing she wanted was to rush home, spend the weekend cleaning up the house, restocking the fridge and then dashing to the airport to pick up Felix at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. Nevertheless, Laura could feel herself flushing at the deliberate lie and put her hand to her cheek, almost as if she were afraid he could see her guilt over the phone.

‘Tell him you need to bring it forward. Or better still cancel it and I’ll deal with the blithering old idiot by phone.’

‘I could always come with you to Toledo. How about that? I wouldn’t mind a romantic weekend somewhere warm and sexy. Then we could both fly back together on Monday morning and I’d nip back up here to see the solicitor.’

‘I’m going to be busy all weekend. You’d be thoroughly bored. Stop arguing and do as you’re told for once, Laura.’

‘Don’t I always? Perhaps I’m growing tired of doing that. Anyway, there’d be the evenings, and the nights together. Time to talk, at least. Is Miranda going to be there?’

‘Monday morning Laura. My plane lands at six-thirty. Don’t be late.’ There was a click and he was gone, subject closed, as abrupt and imperative as ever. Laura noticed that he’d not answered her question about Miranda, and stuck out her tongue at the now silent instrument. Then finding the wine bottle empty, went to pour herself a drop of port from a bottle she’d found in a cupboard. Sly old Daisy had clearly enjoyed a tipple herself now and then.

On Saturday morning, knowing that Felix would be away, Laura drove down to Cheadle Hulme, let herself into the empty house and packed a couple of suitcases with clothes and a few personal items she needed. The fridge was indeed empty with nothing more than a bottle of sour milk and a lettuce that was running to liquid in the chill tray. Closing the door again, she made no move to clean or restock it.

She checked through the mail lying on the mat but left it there unopened. She rarely received either letters or bills and could see nothing beyond a bit of junk mail. She did risk taking a few of her favourite CDs from the rack, guessing that Felix would be no more likely to notice they were missing than he would think to check her wardrobe. By the time he did both, it would no longer matter. She would have made up her mind and come to a firm decision about her future, one way or the other.

She paused to linger for a moment and gaze at their wedding photo on the dresser, recalling with painful nostalgia the hope she had felt on that day. It was a close-up of the happy couple, cheek to cheek, with their arms about each other, Laura looking young and desperately in love. Felix was wearing his embarrassed, ‘I’ll be glad when this pantomime is all over’ expression. Had he ever loved her? she wondered. If not, then why had he married her? Because she’d suited the image he had in mind for a wife? She was reasonably attractive, good in bed, and could cook. An excellent CV for matrimony. And was apparently willing to fit in entirely with his wishes and do exactly as he told her to.

Not any more.

Laura carefully locked up the house again and drove back to the Lakes. It really had proved to be incredibly simple to break free. By the time she was past the Blackpool turnoff and the motorway traffic eased, she felt quite light-hearted for the first time in months, as if she had rid herself of a great weight.

Daisy saw plenty of Harry in the weeks following and life was sweet, but then the bombshell dropped. Not a physical one, although it seemed equally devastating to Daisy. She was walking home from the Saturday market when Mrs Marshall called her in for a quick cup of tea and regretfully informed her that due to her delicate state of health and the need to take extra precautions and lots of rest, having lost two babies previously, she’d been forced to ask the billeting officer for Megan and Trish to be moved.

‘We’ve written to the little girls’ mother, of course, and although the poor woman has expressed her sadness that they have to move yet again, she understands perfectly.’

Daisy was filled with concern for her young friends. They’d been through so much together it was as if she alone, and not their mother, were responsible for them. ‘But where will they go? They’ll want to stay near me.’

‘I’m sure they will, dear, and I’m equally sure that the billeting officer will do her best to ensure it. I did mention their fondness for you and she promised to do her utmost to keep them in the area.’

Knowing the difficulties of finding a good billet, Daisy was less convinced and made a private vow to call in the office and put in a word on her own account. Perhaps Green Hat could help, though how could she ask for her, if she didn’t even know the woman’s real name? Serve her right for not paying proper attention. ‘Do they know?’

Mrs Marshall shook her head. ‘We thought it best to wait until we’d found a new home for them. Make it easier.’

Daisy could only agree with this assessment, though how she would manage to keep the devastating news quiet, she really didn’t know. They’d already been in enough different billets, and had settled in here so happily. It broke her heart to think of them being moved, yet again. She understood the Marshalls’ reasons, but was nonetheless concerned. All Daisy could hope to do was ensure that they went to a good place, near enough for her to visit them regularly.

She might have visited the billeting officer that very day, had it not been a Saturday, and for what happened next. Daisy had no sooner gone next door and put away the Saturday shopping when she was called into Mr Chapman’s study.
 

‘I’ve taken the liberty of contacting your father. I hope you don’t object Daisy, but I was concerned for your moral welfare.’

‘Moral welfare?’ Daisy stared at him dumbfounded, hardly able to believe her ears. This was too much. The foundations of her world seemed suddenly to be shaking to pieces yet again. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about what you get up to with this young man of yours. I’ve been watching you these last weeks, kissing and canoodling at every opportunity.’

Daisy felt mortified at being spied upon in this way, and her Salford accent was very much to the fore in the tone of her reply. ‘We don’t get up to owt, not anything we shouldn’t, anyroad.’ Not that it’s any business of yours.’ She longed to add but managed not to. Instead she retreated into her usual bitterness where her parents were concerned. ‘What would Dad care? He’s never been particularly interested in what I do. He’s always left my ‘moral welfare’, as you call it, to Mam, so why would he take an interest now?’

‘I thought he should come and talk to you, that you were in need of some parental help and advice.’

Daisy made a little tush sound deep in her throat, scoffing at the very idea. ‘He’d not take the trouble to walk to the bottom of our back yard to help me, let alone catch a bus or train to come up here.’

‘Well that’s where you’re wrong, Daisy. He did come. He’s sitting in the parlour at this very moment, even as we speak, very much looking forward to seeing you.’

It was some seconds before Daisy could find her voice. ‘Dad? In the front parlour?’

‘Yes Daisy, so run along and talk to him, there’s a good girl. I’ll give you half an hour, then I’ll have Mrs Chapman bring in tea and sandwiches. He’ll be peckish after his journey, I dare say.’

‘Aye, happen he will. Tell her to put arsenic in them.’

Joe Atkins was a quiet, self-effacing man, though some might describe him as weak and ineffectual. Never one to push himself forward, or offer his opinion on anything, he preferred to take the easy route and leave all the major decisions in life to his wife, which included the rearing of their only child.

He spent his days collecting folk’s cast-offs in his cart and selling them on to other dealers for a bob or two. Scrap metal was on the up and up at the moment. He’d happen do all right out of this war if he played his cards right. The work required more instinct than skill, which suited him perfectly.
 

In the evenings he would eat the supper Rita prepared for him, keeping his head down while she ranted on over something or other. Then, if he was lucky, he’d escape to the pub, or a race meeting. If he’d had a bad week and he’d no money, Joe was happier standing on a street corner talking to his mates than stopping in with his family. He avoided trouble, and his wife, with equal dedication, and, as Daisy grew into a young woman and began to rebel against the strictures set by her mother, his only response was to stay out even more.

Joe was well aware that he’d neglected his only daughter, that being out of the house so much had left him with not the first idea how to talk to her. If she’d been a lad, happy to come fishing with him, or stand him a pint, it might have been different. He would’ve liked a son but, after Daisy’s birth, Rita had made it abundantly plain that there would be no more babies. Most men would have stood up to Rita’s bossiness, maybe even clocked her one now and then to bring her into line, but that wasn’t Joe’s style. He’d opted for a different course. Not once, in all the years of their marriage, had he ever contradicted her in anything. Some might judge this as weakness on his part, but then they hadn't seen the way she treated her own sister, or her dying mother for that matter. No, Joe didn’t see his behaviour as weakness, he looked upon it as his best means of survival.

Now she’d sent him to do her dirty work, as was her wont. Not that he’d had owt to do with that other business, refusing to take any part in it. He’d been disappointed, angry too in a way that Daisy should behave so wantonly but he’d said nothing to anyone on the matter. Only once had he come close to expressing an opinion to Rita on the subject.

‘I’m not happy about this adoption idea,’ he’d mildly remarked.

‘You’re not, eh?’

He’d seen the challenge in her eyes. ‘Not that it’s owt to do wi’ me. If’n you want to give away our Daisy’s babby, then don’t ask me to get involved. That’s women’s work.’

‘Aye, and we know what men’s work is,’ she’d told him, her mouth twisted in that nasty way she had whenever she spoke to him. ‘To take their pleasure and leave us holding the babby. Oh, I’ll find it a home right enough, in fact I reckon I’ve found one already. So you keep yer trap shut. No prattling to yer mates if I tell you.’

‘No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.’ And he’d walked out of the house to avoid hearing the details.

After the child had been born, and it was a boy, a part of him wished he’d let Daisy bring the kid home. It might’ve been nice to have a babby about the place again, the boy he’d always longed for. But Rita would have made all their lives a misery from dawn to dusk. So happen things had worked out for the best after all.

He glanced up as Daisy came into the room and was filled with a rush of pity for her. He’d forgotten how pretty his daughter was with all that mass of bright golden brown curls. No wonder the chaps all fell for her but she wasn’t a bad lass, only a bit daft and dizzy, as many were at her age. She’d grow out of it, as they all did. She looked better than he’d seen her in a long while: lost that pastiness about her skin and was positively blooming. Happen it suited her, living here in this Cumberland village.

Daisy stood awkwardly at the door, reluctant to enter, fingers grasping tightly to the brass knob; the very shadows of this rarely used room seeming to reflect the sombreness of her mood. She waited for the inevitable questions, the silent disappointment forever evident in her father’s face. Yet all her life she had only ever longed for him to love her.

When Daisy entered, he’d been sitting in Mr Chapman’s chair, straight backed and awkward, probably wishing he’d never agreed to come or that Rita hadn’t made him. As she approached he leaped to his feet and came to her with hands outstretched. ‘Eeh, our Daisy, yer looking well, all pink-cheeked and blooming.’

From his words, anyone would think he was pleased to see her, yet the truth was revealed in the way he dropped his hands before he reached her, attempted to put them in his pockets, then remembering he was in his best suit letting them hang loose at his sides, not quite sure what to do with them. It was a relief to Daisy that he made no attempt to kiss her, merely stood a few feet off, considering her, as if she were an unknown exhibit in a museum. They’d never been close. In many ways he was like a stranger to her and, in Daisy’s opinion, it was far too late to change things now.