by Lulu Taylor
Daisy walked up the hill, looking at the dark grey sky overhead. It was cold and would be getting dark soon. It had taken longer to get to South London than she’d expected.
She went past the abandoned chapel and approached the stretches of clear green ground where the headstones stood in neat rows. She knew she was looking for a fresh grave and found what she was looking for over at the very edge of the graveyard, close to an overgrown thicket and next to a bench. The headstone was of pale grey granite, the lettering carved in black. It read Gustavus Dangerfield. Underneath were some lines of poetry she did not recognise, perhaps Gus’s own.
She stood in front of it for a long time, simply staring. Then she said quietly, ‘Hello, Dad. I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet while you were still alive. That was some really shitty timing, I must say. Here. I brought you some flowers.’ She lifted up the bouquet of dark red roses she was carrying as if to show it to the headstone. Then she placed it on the grave, where the blooms lay soft, blood red and velvety against the freshly laid turf.
She went to sit on the bench next to the grave. It felt like a moment of great peace after a tumultuous few days, and Daisy needed that. As she stared at her father’s grave, lost in thoughts of what might have been, she noticed someone walking up the hill towards her. As the figure drew closer, she saw it was a slender girl in jeans, biker boots and a camel-coloured leather aviator jacket that matched the lights in her long hair. Daisy stood up.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in astonishment when the other girl was in earshot.
‘Paying my respects,’ Coco said, surprise written all over her face. ‘And you?’
‘The same.’ Daisy frowned. ‘But what on earth …?’
‘Wait – Dangerfield,’ cut in Coco, her face clearing. ‘That’s the connection, right? Don’t tell me – Gus was your dad, wasn’t he?’
Daisy nodded. ‘He was Daddy’s illegitimate brother. But how did you know?’
‘So that’s why Margaret had to use another DNA sample! In case the results came out too close and it looked like you might be Daddy’s daughter after all. I expect she knew all about Gus, just like she knew about everything.’
‘Yes …’ Daisy frowned. ‘But I still don’t understand why you’re here.’
Coco laughed. ‘I know. It’s confusing. This whole thing is difficult to take in. I knew Gus, you see. He lived near us and he was a friend of my mother’s. He told her he’d got some posh bird pregnant. That was your mum, I suppose.’ She fixed Daisy with her greeny-blue stare. ‘And for a while, I thought he might be my dad too. I wanted him to be, I guess. He was kind to me. I just heard he’d died and wanted to visit his grave.’
‘You knew him?’ whispered Daisy, staring at the other girl.
Coco nodded. ‘Yeah. Not well.’ She gave Daisy a sympathetic look. ‘But I knew him enough to be able to tell you that he was a good man. A free spirit. Creative. A fantastic dad to have.’
‘It’s very cruel not to have been able to know him,’ Daisy said sadly. ‘I’m too late.’
Coco shrugged. ‘Life’s cruel. You’ve got to count your blessings, I know that better than most. I still don’t know who my own dad was, and I probably never will. My mother had other kids, babies taken into care. Somewhere I’ve got three half-siblings growing up that I know nothing about.’
Daisy bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I think we had pretty different experiences growing up. My life wasn’t exactly a picnic.’ Coco smiled to show there were no hard feelings.
‘I didn’t mean to be insensitive,’ Daisy said, looking wretched.
‘Hey.’ Coco fixed her with a steady green-blue gaze. ‘I know your life wasn’t a breeze either. Maybe you had money, but you still lost your mum. And then your dad.’
‘Everything really. Even my name.’
‘But you’re a Dangerfield again now.’
The two girls sat quietly for a moment, taking in the huge changes they were both confronting.
‘I need to thank you for what you did,’ Daisy said sincerely, breaking the silence. ‘You found me at just the right time. You brought me back to my family. You’ve transformed my life.’
‘It’s OK.’ Coco seemed to wave away Daisy’s thanks. ‘I didn’t do it for you.’
‘Was it … for Will?’ Daisy ventured.
Coco’s face softened. ‘Yeah. I owed him.’ Her eyes glowed with happiness.
‘I take it you two have sorted things out,’ Daisy said, smiling.
Coco nodded, unable to prevent a huge smile from breaking over her face. ‘Yes, we have. And it’s amazing.’
‘I’m really pleased. I could see you meant a lot to him.’ Daisy’s mind was immediately flooded with questions but she held them back. There would be plenty of time to find everything out in due course. ‘Then we’re going to get to know each other a little better, I hope. Perhaps we can even be friends, now that all the misunderstandings have been cleared up.’
‘Friends?’ Coco thought for a moment. ‘I haven’t really had many in my life so far. I don’t know if I’d be any good at it.’
‘You may as well try. I think we’ve both been lonely. That’s why we’re here.’
The two girls stood together for a while, looking down at the grave. At last Coco spoke.
‘Girls like us aren’t usually friends. But we’ve got some shared history now, and you know what? I think I’d like it.’
‘Good. Me too.’ Daisy smiled at her. She stood up, straightening her jacket. ‘Then let’s go and get a coffee. I need to warm up.’
‘That sounds great.’ Coco stood up as well, and the two of them walked slowly out of the cemetery, talking as they went, leaving Gus’s grave behind them.
Author’s Note
You can read more about Jemima Calthorpe and the Trevellyan sisters’ battle to save their family perfumery in Heiresses.
The story of Xander and Allegra McCorquodale forms part of the story of Midnight Girls.
Beautiful Creatures features the fortunes of the grand old department store, Noble’s.
If you’ve enjoyed reading about the people and places in this book, I hope you might enjoy those other novels too – or if you’ve already read them, that you liked revisiting these old friends as much as I did.
Lulu Taylor
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to everyone at Random House for all their amazing work, but especially to Gillian Holmes for her terrific editing and tireless support. Thanks as well go to Lynn Curtis for copyediting and Sally Sargeant for proofreading this rather long book!
Thanks as always to Lizzy Kremer, a magnificent agent. I appreciate so much all her hard work and willingness to be on the end of the phone. Special thanks to Laura West too for her invaluable editorial eye just when I needed a fresh take on the book.
Very special mention to Gill Paul for her wise words and constant support, and to Paul Laikin for taking the time to apply his eagle eye, and big thanks to the fabulous James Tuttle, my eyes and ears in LA. He knows everything and is utterly gorgeous (look him up on Facebook and you’ll see what I mean).
Thank you to the Mather family in Temple Guiting: Spring Cottage was a fantastic hideaway when I needed to lose myself in the world of the book.
I appreciate so much the help and support of family and friends, who always do what they can when I need a hand, but I’ll always be more grateful than I can say to James, without whose support this would not be possible – thank you for everything.
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Copyright © Lulu Taylor, 2012
Lulu Taylor has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Arrow Books
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099550464
