by Drew Davies
‘No – hey!’ Daisy says quickly, ‘I was kidding. She doesn’t care what you do with me, honestly. Molest me all you want. I’ll stop now, I want to be surprised. Don’t tell me where we’re going. That was mean, I’m sorry.’
Chris smiles weakly.
I am being mischievous, Daisy thinks. Cut it out.
They sit for a few moments, both thinking of something to say.
‘How was the rest of your week?’ Daisy asks finally.
‘Good, thanks.’
‘Get up to anything much?’
‘No, a regular old week. Just the Barnardo’s stuff – the Big Brother programme.’
‘I wish I did something charitable. What made you start?’
‘I’m an only child, like you – and I always wanted brothers to play with. But mostly, it’s a blatant attempt at altruism to right some of my former wrongs.’
‘What ones are those?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know…’
Daisy would actually. She was very nearly over Chris’s constant mysterious withholding.
‘The Barnardo’s stuff is only one day a fortnight though, isn’t it? What do you do the rest of the time?’
She waits for him to reply, but he doesn’t.
They approach a roundabout and Chris accelerates to nip in front of an oncoming van – Daisy gasps and steadies a hand against the glove department. Oh, great, she thinks, he’s going to be one of those drivers.
‘How was your week?’ Chris asks after he’s sped into the left turn.
Deflection, she thinks, he doesn’t want to answer me so he’s asked the same question.
‘I had to wangle a few things to get time off,’ she says. ‘I’ve been on a shoot for a line of swanky jewellery and the art director wanted me to make all these miniature Edwardian-style armchairs for the hand models to sit their hands in – so the hands are like people sitting in chairs, their fingers as legs – it’s all very high concept! What will they come up with next? Anyway, I’m quite proud of these chairs, but they’re very delicate and the hand models keep busting them. It’s heartbreaking. Hand models are the worst, by the way, they’re evil.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I don’t know. They’re usually older than regular models and they never have very nice faces – they don’t have to, I guess – so maybe they compensate by being horrible. They make bucket loads too, so there’s no need. One particular model really has it in for me. I think she was putting too much pressure on the chair and trying to break it on purpose.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I waited until we were alone and told her she should be careful of splinters.’
‘You threatened her?’ Chris says, laughing.
‘Not really. I just said it would be a shame if anything happened to those lovely fingers of hers and she should maybe not press down too hard, as there might be something sharp concealed inside – like a rusty nail. And had she had her tetanus shots?’
‘It’s like On the Waterfront,’ says Chris, still laughing.
‘Is that the one with Kevin Costner set in the future, where they all live in the water?’
‘That’s Waterworld. On the Waterfront has Marlon Brando taking on the mob and corruption.’
‘Ah, I see. Makes more sense. Honestly, though, they’re paranoid these hand models. Some of them wear leather gloves eating lunch.’
‘It’s their livelihood, I suppose.’
‘Exactly. I made my position clear with the model and we came to an understanding. I don’t think any of the chairs will break while I’m away, let’s just say that.’
‘You’re ruthless. I like it.’
‘It’s a ruthless industry,’ shrugs Daisy.
‘I once thought about hand modelling. I even went for a manicure for research, but it was so uncomfortable, I gave up on the whole idea.’
‘Show me your hands?’ Chris raises his left one for inspection. The fingers are long, the nails glossy. ‘Nice cuticles. You’ve never done a day’s hard work, have you?’
‘Guilty. Unless you count digging ditches as a kid. I went through a stage of burying things: time capsules, biscuit tins full of messages in secret code, or the reverse – searching for pirate treasure––’
‘So, when you’re not at Barnardo’s,’ interrupts Daisy, ‘what’s a typical week for Chris?’ She wants to ask: how do you pay your rent? Hire a car like this? Buy all those chinos? But the taboo of asking another Englishman directly about money is too great. Daisy thinks back on other dates, he must have talked about a job? No, she realises, he’s always been evasive, saying something like ‘What don’t I do?’ and waggling those lovely eyebrows of his. He’s talked about his travels but nothing concerning university or a career. And come to think of it, didn’t he say he was an unpaid volunteer at Barnardo’s?
‘A typical week?’
‘While I’m slaving away over miniature furniture.’
‘I work as a singing telegram. In a gorilla suit.’
Chris starts to make grunting noises and scratches his armpit.
‘Joking aside…’
‘I sit waiting for you, of course.’
‘Aw, sweet – creepy, but sweet. Seriously, how do you keep the wolf from the door?’
Chris fixes his eyes on the road.
‘I get by.’
Shit, Daisy thinks, he’s unemployed. I should never have asked. I’ve embarrassed him. It’s none of my business. Except, it is – if they are to have a relationship together. Isn’t it?
‘It’s complicated,’ he says, after a pause.
‘You don’t have to tell me anything…’
‘No, I want to.’
Daisy is silent. The car is heading up Kilburn High Road now, she notes peripherally – they are travelling north after all.
‘When I was ten, my grandmother died and left me an inheritance, which came to me when I was twenty-one.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Daisy says automatically, ‘about your grandmother.’
‘It was a long time ago, she was very old,’ he says, shrugging it off.
She waits for him to go on.
‘So, you’re a trust fund kid?’ she says eventually when he doesn’t.
He winces.
‘All it meant is I didn’t have to work. That I was comfortable – if I was careful.’
‘You’ve never had a job?’
Chris shakes his head and Daisy mulls this over for a second. She’s always had a complicated relationship with money. Daisy was lucky enough to get into a prestigious all-girls’ school on part scholarship, but it meant her parents had to work incredibly hard to pay the outstanding balance. The guilt and responsibility weighed heavily on Daisy during her teens – they never went on family holidays, her dad was always in his cab, working extra hours, especially on public holidays to get time and a half, and she knew her mum hated the temperamental boiler, but never suggested replacing it. To make matters worse, Daisy was teased by the richer girls for not having the ‘it’ piece of jewellery or the ‘in’ hairstyle, or for her battered old schoolbag. The irony of ending up in the fashion industry hadn’t escaped her – but she was able to compartmentalise; other people had infinity pools, and ocelot furs and handbags that cost as much as a house. Daisy didn’t, and that was fine. Wealth, in her experience, was basically a character flaw. Fleeting trends, must-have exclusives, limited editions – they were all designed to extract money from the wealthiest. She wanted no part in the con.
‘I travelled overseas when I left school,’ Chris says. ‘I only planned to go for a year, but it ended up being four. And when I came back… I’d known about the inheritance since I was ten. I’d been waiting for it, I had all these plans.’
‘And what happened?’
He sighs.
‘Money changes things.’
He stares at the road again. Viewed in profile, his eyes are hard set, colder. His face seems to have tightened.
‘So, you’re thirty-one n
ow and turned out alright?’ says Daisy. ‘You’re not sitting in a wedding dress somewhere with all the clocks stopped at least. But didn’t you want to study? Or have a career?’
Daisy thinks back on her own childhood – she was always coming up with a new scheme to become a horse wrangler or a marine biologist, fantasising about honour and glory in some exotic profession.
‘No, I just wanted the money and to be left alone.’
Chris says this so dispassionately it surprises her. It’s so unlike him, this person sitting in the driving seat, that it’s shocking.
‘Left alone? By whom?’
Daisy knows she shouldn’t keep pressing him, but she can’t help herself.
He hesitates.
‘You become a target. People always want something from you. And the ones with money are just as bad. Worse even. It becomes like an addiction, you keep wanting more.’ Chris turns to her. ‘I’m being very frank with you.’
‘I’m being very nosey. But I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I don’t know anyone to tell it to anyway.’
‘You know hand models.’
‘True. But they won’t say anything if they know what’s good for them.’
Chris smiles faintly. ‘It’s just so meaningless, this money stuff.’
‘Only if you have it. If you don’t, money is a very interesting topic.’
‘That’s what I mean, everyone is so interested in it.’
‘You can’t blame people really. We’ve been programmed all our lives to think it’s the most important stuff in the world.’
‘Yes, but it’s all so, I don’t know, common.’
Daisy shakes her head in stunned disbelief. He didn’t just say common, did he? Jesus Franklin Christ, she thinks, I’m sitting here, imagining Chris has gone through some terrible trauma, and the only thing he’s inflicted with is spoilt rich kid syndrome. Boo fucking hoo! My heart bleeds. Some of us commoners would like to not work. She recounts all the favours she had to promise to secure a long weekend off. The hand model would take her revenge one day too, that was for certain. Add to this the almost daily financial humiliations – overpriced food, the silly money spent on travel only to suffer delays and overcrowding and, to top it all off, after years of scrimping and pinching, Daisy is still no closer to owning even the most derelict of homes. There are many people worse off, of course, but the whole point of living in a dangerously overpopulated city in the first place was so she could meet someone to partner up with and take on London together. Daisy can’t be a team with Chris. It’s too uneven – it made her feel inadequate. He’s from old money; her parents cut out coupons and shop at Aldi. Chris would never be able to understand Daisy, and eventually, he’d grow to resent her – just like the posh girls who’d terrorised her at school.
And just like that the spell is broken. Daisy finds herself in a car (still going much too fast) with a complete stranger. She only met Chris three weeks ago! What made her think she was ready to go away for a whole weekend with him? His revelation proves he could be anyone. What else hasn’t he told her? That he likes to lure women away, under the pretence of a long weekend, only to murder them in some secluded woods? That she is, this very moment, speeding towards a grisly death at the hands of a homicidal maniac?
* * *
She’s gone very quiet, thinks Chris.
He presses his foot down on the accelerator, and as he does so, his right shoulder throbs in response. It’s psychosomatic, he tells himself, gritting his jaw and trying to ignore the pain. It’s been a long time since he’s allowed himself in the driving seat of a car, and a sportscar at that. This was progress – he was getting back on the horse. A very fast horse. All he wants is to arrive at the hotel in good time and get to their room. Chris has organised an ice bucket with champagne to be waiting – they can lock the door, change into terrycloth robes and dive into the king-sized bed. From the moment they slip between those sheets their feet shall not touch the ground again until Sunday – they’ll eat room service all weekend if they have to; build a bridge to the bathroom out of cushions, like he did when he was a child, pretending the floor was molten lava.
They stop at the lights outside Kilburn Tube station.
He knows he should have let Daisy in on his situation sooner, but he didn’t have a high success rate with girls once he told them about the inheritance. Expectation crept in. It started with a trend towards more elaborate restaurants (one girl would quite unashamedly trace a line down the right side of the menu until she found the most expensive dish) and casual interrogation about the cost of his flat. Gradually, the curiosity became more pressing – Chris had to be careful where he left his mail after he caught one of his ex-girlfriends steaming open his bank statements. At birthdays, or the flimsiest excuse for an anniversary, gifts would become mandatory, with hints dropped weeks in advance about some gold bracelet at Tiffany’s, or a charming boutique hotel in Prague. It made him feel used – as if he was a walking money bag.
A car behind them beeps – the light has changed to green – and Chris floors the pedal to make it across in time.
Although it’s clear Daisy is no gold digger, he’ll still have to deal with her friends. Chris will be labelled ‘that rich guy’ – her male friends will be particularly difficult, dropping passive aggressive remarks disguised as good-natured banter in an attempt to knock him down a peg or two. Chris will buy the lion’s share of drinks to curry favour, but at the end of the night, one of the drunker ones will stop him on his way back from the toilets and grill him over every last detail – what sort of tax does he pay? Is the money kept in a Swiss bank account? Does he swim in it, like Scrooge McDuck? – and if Chris doesn’t comply completely, he’ll soon get a new nickname: that rich wanker.
There was a darker side too. A few years back, one of Chris’s good friends had asked for a loan to start a new business – to provide executive services for time-poor bankers. It seemed like a robust idea, and after he’d gone through the business plan, Chris agreed to loan the money in full. It was a no-brainer really, he trusted Duncan – they’d travelled around India together, Chris had even dated Duncan’s cousin – and it would be a blast to be part of his mate’s endeavour. But the company never materialised, and Duncan had disappeared – even his cousin didn’t know where he was (sitting on a beach in Thailand, drinking cocktails was Chris’s guess). Now he can’t walk down a busy street without imagining he sees Duncan’s face somewhere in the crowd.
There were things that were unrelated with his inheritance that Chris wanted to open up about too, bad choices he’d made – one especially, that even now he can’t bring himself to think of – but money always took precedent. It was a curse. It stopped people relating to each other. Stopped them relating to him. Chris wasn’t sure if a woman would be able to love him – really love him – if she knew about his family’s wealth. And then he’d met wonderful Daisy…
There was the little matter of his parents too. They’d want to meet Daisy soon enough, God help her – with his father’s ‘sense of humour’, and his mother’s icy interrogations – if money wasn’t an issue now, it certainly would be after that.
He glances at Daisy again. She’s really being exceptionally quiet. Chris tries to think of something to break the silence – a rollicking game of I Spy for some good retro fun, perhaps? They’re fast approaching the M1 – an open stretch of road will lighten the mood. The world seems better when you’re cruising along a motorway.
Daisy sits bolt upright as if she’s been struck by lightning.
‘Is everything okay?’ asks Chris.
‘No,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘No, it’s not.’
They are gaining on the turn off to join the M1.
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘You can stop the car.’
Chris does a double take.
‘What? Why?’
‘I want to get out.’
‘There’ll be a motorway services in about ten minutes if yo
u’d like?’ But even as Chris says this, he knows this won’t be enough to appease her. There’s something resolute in Daisy’s voice, an edge of panic too. When he looks at her again, he’s shocked to find her eyes are filled with tears. ‘We can absolutely stop,’ he says, slowing down. ‘Let me just find a place where I can pull over.’
This is easier said than done. They are already on the underpass speeding towards the roundabout, but Chris spots an entrance to a tile warehouse on his left. He indicates and quickly makes the turn. There are a few angry honks behind them, but they arrive in the car park in one piece.
As soon as he pulls on the handbrake, Daisy opens her door and scurries out. Chris does the same and when he joins her, she’s already lifting her suitcase out of the trunk.
‘Can we talk about this?’ Chris is no longer thinking about getting to the hotel now, he just wants to salvage whatever he can. ‘I’ll take you home at least?’ Daisy’s eyes are smudged with black. He’s never seen her cry before, it’s only been three weeks after all. Chris has a sense that everything has fallen apart, right under his eyes. He feels like crying himself. Or howling.
‘I’m sorry,’ is all Daisy says as she turns to go (Where? thinks Chris. Into the tile warehouse?).
‘Just tell me what I’ve done wrong,’ he calls after her.
She doesn’t turn back. He stands, dumbfounded, watching Daisy as she walks away, pulling her suitcase behind her. At one point, the case loses balance and topples over so Daisy has to right it again. It seems to Chris the most wretched thing he’s ever seen.
How could this have happened? he thinks. We were happy a moment ago.
As she reaches the entrance to the warehouse, she does pause briefly to look at him.
‘You were right the first time,’ he calls, his voice hoarse. ‘About where we were going. It was the Lake District.’
Daisy turns and disappears through the doors.
Janelle always smelt sweet. The sweetest of sweet smells. Like boiled sweets. Or fresh strawberries. Or candyfloss.
They first met during Dylan’s worst days: he was bedridden, couldn’t even bear to listen to music so he lay in silence. When he’d stirred (it wasn’t really sleep, all he ever managed was a waking doze), he’d smelt the sweetness of her perfume first (Angel by Mugler, he learnt later), and felt the mattress move as she sat down beside him. As he opened his eyes, her smiling features greeted him. This new face seemed so foreign – Dylan’s father had been his only visitor for days – and so beautiful.
