Windfallen (43 page)

Provided you were honest.

She had nodded at that. Taken his hand and squeezed it. It had been their last session.

Hal closed his eyes and shifted farther over toward the edge of the bed, dimly conscious of the plastic template, glowing, radioactive, in his jacket pocket, of the dawn light slowly illuminating their room, heralding another night lost to thought, another day of furious indecision and dread ahead.

Camille’s hand, in sleep, slid off his side and fell uselessly beside her.

F
ROM NOW ON, THE ANNOUNCER SAID, THE TRAIN WAS
“Liverpool Street Only,” repeating himself for good measure. Daisy leaned toward the window as the flat marshlands of the Lee Valley gradually melded into the grimy and unlovely suburbs of East London, and she realized that after two months in the little world that was Arcadia, and Merham, she felt curiously provincial, almost anxious at the prospect of returning. London seemed inextricably bound up with Daniel. And thus with pain. She was safe in Merham, free of history and association. It had been only as the train headed toward the city that she became fully aware that the house had given her greater peace of mind than she had realized.

Lottie would have told her she was being stupid. “Lovely day out you’ll have,” she said, spooning sweetened porridge into Ellie’s gaping mouth. “Do you good to get away from here. You might even find time to catch up with your friends.” Daisy found it hard to think of any. She had always described herself as more of a boy’s girl, while conscious that that was the kind of thing girls say when other girls’ men find them a little too attractive. Perhaps she should have made more of an effort; for now there was only really her sister (“Have you called the CSA yet?”), Camille (“I can hardly feel any stretch marks. You’re fine”), and now Lottie, who since revealing something of her past had become a bit more relaxed with Daisy, her fierceness, her stringent opinions more often tempered with humor.

“I hope you’re going to put something smart on,” she’d said as Daisy went upstairs to get changed. “You don’t want to look like a sack of spuds. He might take you somewhere posh.”

“It’s not a date,” said Daisy, who wasn’t entirely sure if it was.

“Closest you’re going to get,” Lottie shot back. “I’d make the most of it, if I were you. Besides, what’s wrong with him? He’s not married, he’s not bad-looking. He’s obviously got a fair bit of money behind him. Go on, wear that top that shows your underwear.”

“I’ve just come out of an eight-year relationship. The last thing I need is another man.” She stopped on the stairs, tried to hide her blush.

“Why?”

“Well. Everyone knows. I mean you shouldn’t go straight from one thing into another.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . . well, you know, because I might not be ready.”

“But how will you know?”

“I don’t know . . . It’s a rebound thing. You’re supposed to wait a while. I don’t know, a year or something. Then you’re carrying less emotional baggage.”

“Emotional baggage?”

“You just have to be in a state where you’re ready to meet someone else. That you’ve got closure on your last relationship.”

“Close your?” Lottie repeated. “Close your what? Who says?”

“No,
closure
,” Daisy said carefully. “I don’t know. Everyone. Magazines. Television. Counselors.”

“You don’t want to be listening to them. Haven’t you got a mind of your own?”

“Yes, but I just think it would be a good idea for me to hold off for a while. I’m not ready to let anyone new into my life right now.”

Lottie threw up her hands. “You young girls. You’re so picky. It’s got to be the right time. It’s got to be this, it’s got to be that. No wonder so many of you end up single.”

“But, look, none of this applies to me anyway.”

“No?”

Daisy looked straight at Lottie. “Because of Ellie. And Daniel . . . I mean, it’s only fair to her if I give him some time to come back. To give her the chance to grow up with her father.”

“Oh, yes? And how long are you going to give him?”

Daisy shrugged.

“And how many good men are you going to turn down in the meantime?”

“Oh, come on Mrs. Ber—Lottie, it’s only been a few months. And they’re hardly beating down the door.”

“You’ve got to move on,” Lottie said vehemently. “No point hanging on to the past, baby or no baby. You’ve got to make a life for yourself.”

“He’s Ellie’s father.”

“He’s not here.” Lottie sniffed. “If he’s not here, he forfeits the right to be anything at all.”

Lottie had never, Daisy realized, told her who Camille’s father was.

“You’re a harder woman than I am.”

“Not hard,” Lottie said, turning away toward the kitchen, her face suddenly closed off again. “Just realistic.”

Daisy looked away from the train window, leaned down and rubbed her sandaled foot on the back of her leg. She didn’t want another man. She still felt damaged and raw, her nerve endings exposed. The thought of anyone’s seeing her post-baby body naked filled her with horror. The prospect of being left again was too awful to contemplate. And then there was Daniel. She had to leave a door open for Daniel, for Ellie’s sake.

If he ever decided to use the bloody thing.

“C
AMILLE
?”

“Oh, hi, Mum.”

“I’m nipping out to the supermarket over lunchtime. Me and little Ellie here. Do you need anything?”

“No. We’re fine. . . . Is Hal there?”

“Yes, he’s outside. Just having a cup of tea. Do you want me to get him?”

“No. No . . . Mum, does he seem all right to you?”

“All right? Why, what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. I think nothing. He’s just . . . he’s just been a bit odd lately.”

“What do you mean, odd?”

Camille was silent. Breathed out. “He’s off with me. It’s like he’s . . . he’s retreated into himself. He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“He’s just closed down his business. He’s bound to be feeling a bit sore.”

“I know . . . I know . . . it’s just . . .”

“What?”

“Well, we knew it was going badly before. We knew he was going to have to close it before. And things were really good between us then. The best they’ve been for ages.” She paused.

“Well, he’s been fine with me,” Lottie said. “It’s not—There’s nothing you’re not telling me, is there?”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened before. With the two of you. There’s been no . . . no reoccurrences.”

“No, Mum, of course not. I wouldn’t do anything—We’re fine. We’re past all that. I was just worried because Hal . . . wasn’t quite himself. Look, forget it. Forget I mentioned anything.”

“You haven’t spoken to him about it?”

“Forget it, Mum. You’re right, he’s probably just upset about the business. I’ll give him a bit of space. Look, I’d better go. I’ve got to go and take off Lynda Potter’s algae wrap.”

Lottie glanced down at her bag, feeling suddenly reassured that she’d done the right thing. She wouldn’t tell Camille about the money yet; she would wait until she definitely needed it, until she confided in her again. It sounded as if that time might not be as far away as Lottie had hoped.

“You know what he needs?”

“What?”

“Closure. That’ll make him feel better.”

T
HERE WERE EIGHTEEN EMPTY PACKETS OF MINTS LITTERING
the floor of Jones’s car. It was hard to count them all without maneuvering too obviously, as many were partially obscured by other pieces of automative detritus, such as road maps, scribbled directions, and old petrol receipts. But Daisy had plenty of time to locate every one, given that for the first seventeen minutes of their journey, as they crawled through the city traffic, Jones had shouted almost constantly—and bad-temperedly—into his mobile telephone.

“Well, you tell him. He can send in who he bloody likes. All the kitchen staff have had cross-contamination training. We’ve got records of delivery temperatures, we’ve got recorded storage temperatures, delivery quality—everything to do with that bloody party. If he wants to send in the bloody health inspector, tell him I’ve got twenty bloody individual frozen portions in those freezers—one for every single dish we served. So we can bloody send those away for analysis!”

He motioned to Daisy, waving toward the glove compartment, signaling for her to open it.

“Yes, we do. There’s not a paragraph in that food-hygiene training that my staff don’t know off by heart. Any of them. Look, he says he had the duck. The duck, right?”

As she opened the compartment, several tapes fell out, along with a wallet, a bag of mints, and several unidentified electrical cords. Daisy stuck her hand tentatively into the remaining mess, fishing around and hauling out items for Jones’s inspection.

“No. No, he didn’t. I’ve got two members of staff who say he had the oysters. Hold on a minute.”

He broke off to wave at the glove compartment.
Headache pills
, he mouthed.

“You there? Yes. Yes, he did. No, you’re not listening to me. Just listen to me. He had the oysters, and if you look at his bar bill, he had at least three glasses of vodka. Yes, that’s right. I’ve got the till records.”

He grabbed the packet from Daisy’s hand, puncturing the foil bubbles and popping them directly into his mouth.

“Food poisoning, my ass. He just didn’t know not to drink spirits with them. Bloody imbecile.”

Daisy looked out the passenger window at the simmering traffic, trying to fight the feeling of irritation that had originated with Jones’s casual, one-handed, mimed greeting and had grown with each of the three telephone conversations he’d continued since she got into the car.

“Sorry. Be right with you,” he’d said, initially—and then hadn’t.

“I don’t give a flying f—” he shouted, and Daisy had closed her eyes. Jones was a big man, and somehow, coming from him in the enclosed space of his car, the effect of his expletives was unhappily magnified.

“You tell him to send his f—” Here he turned and caught Daisy’s pained expression. “You tell him to send his lawyers, the health and safety—whoever he wants—to me. I’ll sue his ass right back for defaming my establishment. Yes. That’s right. Any records they want to see, they know where to find me.” He pressed a button on his dashboard and then ripped the earpiece from his face.

“F—” He shook his head and pursed his lips. “F—bl—ruddy man. Ruddy salesman trying it on for compensation. That’s all it is. He eats the bloody oysters, drinks a load of spirits, and then wonders why his guts ache the next day. So it’s got to be my fault. Send round the health and safety and shut me down until they’ve swabbed us from here to kingdom come. God, they really get my goat.”

“Evidently,” said Daisy.

He hadn’t even seemed to notice her. He’d made more noise, been more animated, than at any other time since they first met, but none of it was directed at her. There she was, possibly looking better than at any time since she’d had the baby, wearing a new T-shirt and skirt, her skin glowing from Camille’s salt scrub, her legs smoothed and defuzzed by Camille’s torturous waxing, looking, if not exactly Old Daisy, then at least Fairly Rejuvenated Daisy, and he’d noticed . . . what, precisely? When looking at her long brown legs? That she was stepping on the directions for how to get to the salvage yard.

“It’s his girlfriend put him up to it,” said Jones, signaling right and leaning forward over the wheel. “We’ve had her in before, trying it on. Sprained her ankle in the toilets, I think it was, last time. No medical evidence, of course. I’d ban her if she were a member. But I wasn’t in that night.”

“Oh.”

“It’s the Americans have done this. Bloody litigation culture. Everyone wants something for nothing. Everything’s got to be someone else’s fault. God!” He banged his fist on his steering wheel, making Daisy jump.

“If I had that little shit in again . . . I’d give him food poisoning, all right. What’s the time?”

“Sorry?”

“Eldridge Street, Minerva Street . . . it’s somewhere along here. . . . What’s the time?”

Daisy looked at her watch. “Twenty-five past eleven.”

“Salvage. That’s it. Just there. Bloody little . . . Now, where am I going to park?”

Daisy’s good mood of the previous hour had dissolved faster than Jones’s headache pills. Finally losing patience, she stomped out of the Saab and into the architectural-salvage yard, the cool of the car’s airconditioned interior swamped by the heavy heat of a city summer.

Daisy was not used to being ignored. Daniel had always made a point of telling her she looked nice, of offering suggestions on what she wore, touching her hair, holding her hand. He took care of her when they were out, too, checking that she was warm enough, that she had enough to eat, drink, that she was happy. But then this wasn’t a date, was it? And Daniel
hadn’t
hung around to check that she was okay when it counted.

Men. Daisy found herself using a silent expletive worthy of Jones’s own. Then hating herself for becoming the kind of bitter and twisted man-hater that she’d always despised.

The yard was huge and tired-looking, enormous timbers piled up on oversize storage shelves, slabs of stone stacked in forbidding towers, graveyard statuary casting jaded, uncaring glances around her. Beyond the corrugated iron of the entrance, the London traffic seethed, belching purple fumes and angry horns up into the fuggy air. Ordinarily a trip to a new architectural-salvage yard would have given her the same sense of anticipation and pleasure that a starlet got sitting in the front row of a catwalk show. But Daisy’s mood was dark, newly tarnished by Jones’s filthy temper. She had never been able to disassociate herself from men’s moods; she would try to jolly Daniel out of his temper, fail, hate herself for failing, and then eventually succumb to it, too. He, perversely, had never been affected by hers.

“Couldn’t find a bloody meter. It’s on a double yellow.”

Jones strode through the gates toward her, patting his pockets, waves of discontent radiating from him. I’m not going to talk to him, Daisy thought crossly. I’m not going to talk to him until he snaps out of it and speaks to me nicely. She turned away from him and began walking toward the windows and mirrors section, her arms folded across her chest, her head low on her shoulders. A few yards away she heard the ring of his mobile phone echo through the yard and then his own explosive response. The only other visible occupant of the yard, a middle-aged man in thin spectacles and a tweed jacket, turned to see the source of the noise, and Daisy glowered in response, as if she were nothing to do with Jones.