Coming Up Roses

by Rachael Lucas

  Miranda shook her head, picking up her coffee. She sat back, observing her sister thoughtfully.

  ‘And your previously charming Irishman? What’s he saying?’

  Daisy pulled her phone out of her bag, tapping the screen until the appropriate page appeared. She handed it across to Miranda, wordlessly.

  Just spoken to Stephen. Can you ring me when you get this?

  ‘No kiss,’ observed Miranda, arching an eyebrow. ‘And have you?’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘Still concocting a reply in my head. Every time I try and write one, it’s got so many rude words that autocorrect goes into meltdown. I’m still working on it.’

  ‘Well, you need to put him out of his misery, Daise.’

  ‘Patisserie selection?’ The waitress appeared, two plates in her hands.

  They paused for a moment of reverence as the cakes were set down in front of them.

  ‘Okay, I’ll give you this. You don’t get cake like this in Steeple St John.’ Daisy picked up a tiny, jewel-bright tartlet, piled high with glistening fruit. She inspected it from all angles, her mouth watering in anticipation, before popping it into her mouth.

  ‘These are obscenely delicious.’

  ‘Well,’ said Miranda, cheerfully, ‘you’ll have this lot on tap when you move here. Y’know, big sis, in a weird sort of way I’m quite looking forward to having you and Polly staying at my place.’

  Daisy looked sceptical. ‘One of us is covered in mud most of the time, and the other one’s increasingly incontinent.’

  ‘Yeah, but we can get a job lot of Tena Lady. You’ll be fine.’ Miranda wrinkled her nose, teasing. ‘And there’s always pelvic floor exercises.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  Sitting on the train back home to Steeple St John, Daisy realized there was a clue in that phrase that she hadn’t even noticed before. When had she started talking about the village as home, and not just the place she was staying temporarily? Much as she’d loved her day in London with Miranda, it was with a sense of relief that she climbed off the train and onto the pretty, flower-decked Victorian platform. Walking down Main Street towards home (there it was again, she thought with a half-smile), she found her thoughts going over and over the conversation they’d had earlier. Miranda, strong-willed as ever, had made her mind up that Daisy was coming to stay with her in the tiny little ground-floor flat she rented in North London. But the idea of living there, with no garden – she could feel the claustrophobia now, just thinking about it. Add in Polly, who’d miss wandering round the park every evening, and . . . it just wasn’t going to work. She sighed in defeat. There didn’t seem to be any other option.

  As she walked down the road towards Orchard Villa, her phone began ringing. She pulled it out of her bag, as always half-dreading a call from George. Since his text, though, there’d been nothing but silence. She needed to sort it out, though – and soon.

  ‘Daisy Price? Meg Stewart here from Midshire News. We’re doing a feature tomorrow lunchtime, ties in with your piece in the Argus. Any chance we could have a word?’

  Daisy did a double take, checking there wasn’t any sign of hidden cameras waiting to prank her. Nothing in sight.

  ‘Of course.’ The prospect of delaying the house sale seemed even more pressing after her trip into town. She couldn’t face living there, but right now she didn’t have a choice. ‘Yes, that’s fine.’

  ‘About nine-thirty? We’ll be in the area filming. If we can just come round about half an hour before we’re due to air, I’ll shoot a live piece to camera – just ask you a few questions, get a bit of the garden on film.’

  ‘On film? Here?’ Daisy echoed, aware she sounded clueless.

  ‘That’s not a problem, is it? We can do it elsewhere, but I gather your garden is particularly lovely?’

  ‘Of course. No problem at all.’

  Daisy shook her head, amazed, and set off towards home, the phone in her hand.

  She stopped by the little supermarket to pick up something for dinner. As she headed back, a beaten-up van almost identical to George’s pulled up on the road opposite. She felt her heart thudding with apprehension. It was ridiculous to be behaving like this when she hadn’t done anything wrong. Sod it. She clicked her phone awake, scrolling down to find his text, hitting reply.

  We don’t have anything to talk about. You KNEW how much the garden means to me. It was only ever building potential to you.

  Almost immediately a reply flashed back.

  Daisy I’m sorry. When Stephen sent me round the Open Gardens to scout out some potential places, I’d no idea the trouble it was going to cause.

  She boggled at the screen. His bloody brother had sent him round the village to suss out which ones were ripe for development? What an absolute shit.

  I don’t suppose you did.

  Daisy jabbed at the phone screen with a furious finger.

  Well, if you’re ever in Dublin and fancy a drink to make up for it, just give me a shout.

  Give him a – Daisy snorted with amazement.

  Fun odd, you absolute arsenal

  Bloody autocorrect.

  She deleted it, and decided not to dignify his comment with a response.

  ‘Ooh, this is exciting,’ said Elaine, remote control in hand.

  They sat waiting for the regional news programme to begin. Daisy had half-wanted to record it on her parents’ satellite box to show them, but realized they mightn’t be too impressed with their daughter’s five minutes of fame if they knew its context. She’d compromised on saving it on Elaine’s television, and they were sitting perched on the edge of the sofa, waiting impatiently.

  ‘ . . . And with environmental issues at the heart of the recent campaign across the county, we’ve been taking a look this week at some of the arguments.’

  ‘That’s her, it’s her – it’s on,’ Daisy gasped, leaning forward.

  ‘I was there, remember,’ said Elaine, nodding as she laughed. She’d insisted on expertly applying a layer of make-up to Daisy’s face that morning before the camera crew arrived, leaving her feeling she was in a thick mask, her eyes heavy with shadow. ‘It won’t show up on camera, I promise. You’ll look like you’re dead without it.’ Daisy, her face immobile, not daring to blink too hard, had bitten back a sarcastic response.

  Elaine, too, leaned towards the television expectantly. The reporter was standing talking to camera in a shot which had been filmed in the park, down by the stream where she walked Polly every evening. Daisy recognized Dave, her brass-playing friend from the allotment, who walked very slowly – rather more slowly than she’d ever seen him before – behind the reporter as she spoke. Just before he disappeared out of the picture he turned, giving an almost imperceptible wink to the camera. Daisy snorted back a giggle.

  And there was the garden of Orchard Villa. The camera had swept round, taking in the lush borders that she and Thomas had worked so hard to bring back to life; the rose trellis, heavy with flowers; the vegetable garden. It stopped at the orchard.

  ‘Daisy Price, tenant of the property here in Steeple St John,’ intoned the voiceover, inaccurately, ‘has begun a single-handed campaign to save this beautiful garden from destruction.’

  Daisy turned to Elaine with alarm. God, if her parents saw this she’d be disinherited, not just homeless. How on earth had life in this sleepy little village turned her into the sort of person who protested on local news?

  ‘This mulberry tree is a century old,’ her voice was saying on television. Did she always sound that squeaky and breathless?

  The camera showed the gorgeous old mulberry tree, its branches laden with fruit.

  ‘And now back to the studio,’ said the voice.

  Was that it? One mouse-voiced line? She looked at Elaine, who had paused the television and was pressing the rewind button. ‘You look gorgeous, darling,’ she said, freezing the screen on a close-up of Daisy, hand raised to her face, pushing a strand of hair back from her eyes.

  She had to
admit that Elaine’s trowelful of make-up didn’t show on screen. She looked fresh-faced, pink-cheeked and healthy. The perfect gardener. The only trouble was, she was about to be left with no garden. The mulberry tree might be a century old, but Daisy’s online research suggested there was nothing to stop Stephen from buying the house anyway – and an application for a tree preservation order would be on pretty shaky ground. Hours of reading had left her none the wiser, and the man she’d spoken to at the local council office had been vague. Her only hope was the tree expert who’d piped up after the newspaper article; but so far he’d come up with nothing.

  If she was honest with herself, Daisy thought as she trudged home, things looked pretty bleak. Thomas seemed to have accepted that the garden might well be destroyed. Maybe it was time for her to give up fighting and do the same.

  Despondent, she got home, taking a book to the back of the garden where she lay in the dappled shade of the condemned orchard, feeling sympathy with the trees. She picked up her phone, hearing the ping of an email arriving.

  Hi Daisy. Thank you for your application for the post of Assistant Gardening Head here at the Periwinkle Project based in Hackney. We’d like to invite you for an interview on Wednesday, 15 August . . .

  Daisy dropped the phone onto the grass. If that was another one of those signs from the universe everyone kept banging on about, she wasn’t listening.

  *

  She was still feeling flat late that evening. Turning off the television, she hauled herself off the sofa. The night sky was still streaked with red, and a crescent moon was glowing over the tops of the hills beyond Steeple St John. A stroll might clear her head. Polly would be glad of the chance to have a wander round by night, taking in the scents of the evening. Daisy picked up the dog lead and slipped on an old fleece left over from her horticulture college days, and together they headed out into the village.

  St John’s Church looked beautiful in the pale evening light as Daisy and Polly made their way along the river path. Despite darkness falling, Daisy felt quite safe walking through Steeple St John with the old dog by her side. She stopped for a second to zip up her fleece against the chill before they manoeuvred their way through the wooden kissing gate and headed along the narrow path down the side of the cricket pitch and back through town. They wove between the houses, Daisy peeking in through windows lit brightly but with curtains still not drawn, watching the people of the village as they pottered around, getting ready for another day. A man stood by the window in boxer shorts, ironing a shirt. Through the window of the cottage next door Daisy could see a couple play-fighting, throwing bubbles from the washing-up bowl at each other. Peering out of her bedroom window, chin in hand, a little girl had sneaked behind her bedroom curtains after bedtime and was watching the world go by. Daisy gave her a smile and she waved back, delighted that a grown-up was complicit in her trickery.

  They passed through the car park of the Grey Mare, where the beer garden still held the last stragglers, nursing their final drink of the evening. Over in the corner Daisy recognized a familiar outline in the dusk: Ned, chin in hand, leaning into the conversation, sat opposite Fenella. Her thick blonde hair was knotted up casually in a loose bun, long tendrils highlighted by the string of fairy lights that hung in a swathe behind their table. She threw her head back, laughing, a hand reaching out to touch Ned on his upper arm. Daisy stepped sideways into the shadows, hugging the fence to avoid being spotted as she made her way through the stone carriage arch. Shoulders sagging, her mood now even lower than before, she headed down the hill towards Orchard Villa.

  ‘Evening, stranger.’

  The voice came out of the shadows. Daisy, who was fiddling in her pocket searching for her keys, jumped in shock. She turned around, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling in sudden fear.

  A familiar shape stepped out from beside the honeysuckle which arched over the doorway. Daisy stepped back in surprise, dropping her keys. He bent down, picking them up. For a second, she thought he wasn’t going to give them back.

  ‘You going to invite me in?’ He passed the keys to her, stepping from foot to foot. ‘It’s freezing out here, Daise.’

  She hesitated for a second, then turned the key in the latch with a sigh of resignation.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  Thank God she’d picked up a bottle of red when she popped to the supermarket earlier. Hands shaking, Daisy unscrewed the lid. She poured two glasses, and turned around. Jamie was sitting at the kitchen table, chin resting on his hand, looking at her with that confident, lazy half-smile she’d once loved so much.

  ‘Here.’ She slid the glass across the table, sitting down opposite him.

  ‘Cheers.’ He reached across, clinking his glass against hers, and raised it to his lips. His dark eyes didn’t stray from hers for one second.

  ‘So – you’re not in France?’

  Jamie laughed, dismissively. ‘God, no. We lasted about a month – two, maybe? I’ve been working in London – landscape design on a new development.’

  Daisy took a mouthful of wine, and closed her eyes. She let it sit on her tongue, tasting the raspberry sharpness and the tannin, blotting out the outside world for a moment. A memory flickered alive – she and Jamie on a fortnight in France. They’d spent every night sitting together in the evening sun, sampling bottle after bottle of cheap red wine. And now here they were, facing each other once again.

  ‘And –’ she took a second to get the name out. ‘Sylvia?’

  ‘She stayed on in France.’

  So they weren’t together any more. Daisy hid her face in the wine glass, looking down at the table.

  ‘I happened to turn on the TV at lunchtime today – and there you were. I realized—’

  ‘Don’t, Jamie.’ Daisy put both hands up in protest. She couldn’t bear to hear whatever he had to say. Pushing her chair back so suddenly that the wooden legs screeched on the floor, she stood up.

  At the same time, Jamie stood up, glass in hand. As she took a step towards the door he reached out, grabbing her wrist. He pulled her gently towards him, putting down his drink at the same time.

  ‘You looked beautiful on screen.’ His voice was lower now. He reached across, taking her glass from her hand. With a practised motion he set it to one side, taking her hand. ‘I recognized your mum and dad’s place straight away. Daise, I knew I had to come – knew you’d be here.’

  He took a strand of Daisy’s hair, curling it around his finger thoughtfully. Daisy had seen all these moves before. And yet, as if in a dream, she felt herself take a step towards him.

  ‘You looked so sad – I recognized that look in your eyes.’ He reached for her hand and took it in his. ‘Thing is, Daise, I know you. I could tell something was up.’

  ‘It’s nothing. It’s just –’

  ‘Come on, honey.’ Taking the wine again, he passed her the glass.

  She took a gulp so big that her eyes watered, and she coughed. Jamie’s hand slid onto her waist. It felt familiar, and safe. She was so tired, and he felt like home – or the closest she was going to get.

  ‘What you need is a hot bath, and bed.’

  It was so tempting. She was exhausted. And here was a familiar face, ready to swoop in and rescue her. It was such a lovely thought. Even if he was a lying, duplicitous, two-timing –

  She stepped backwards suddenly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, Daisy. You’re knackered,’ he gave a self-confident grin, ‘I’m gorgeous . . .’

  She shook her head violently, the fog clearing completely. Arrogant shit – he hadn’t changed one bit. But she had, thankfully.

  ‘Piss off, Jamie. You’re pathetic. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but –’ she looked up at the kitchen clock – ‘there’s a train back into London in fifteen minutes. I suggest you take yourself back there and find some other mug.’

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘Got a bit of attitude in my absence, ha
ve we?’ He reached out, fingering the collar of the old hoodie she was still wearing. ‘Come on, Daise, you were tempted for a moment. The old Daisy wouldn’t have sent me packing.’

  ‘The old Daisy didn’t realize you were in bed with my best friend all the way through our last year of college.’

  Fired up with temper, horrified that for one second she’d even let the idea of him cross her mind, she wrenched the kitchen door open and stormed out into the hall.

  ‘I don’t care what reason you had for coming here, Jamie. I suspect you were at a loose end, and knowing you as I do, you probably thought you’d head through here and get a guaranteed pity shag.’

  Jamie laughed at her, contemptuously.

  Fired up, Daisy continued. ‘You know what? I’ve worked my backside off on this garden and it’s about to be destroyed. I’ve got enough on my plate. I don’t need an arsehole like you turning up to take advantage.’

  He shrugged. ‘Your loss, Daise.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Bastard, bastard, bastard, thought Daisy, once again. God, they were all shits. She closed the door and double-locked it, sliding the big old metal bolt across the latch just to be sure. With a groan of disbelief, she took her wine glass and headed upstairs to bed.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Daisy lay in bed the next morning, propped up against a mountain of pillows. She was texting Miranda with updates about the night before. Her sister, ostensibly in a sales development meeting and bored out of her mind, was chasing her for details.

  I always thought Jamie was a dickhead. So what’s happening now?

  Daisy tapped out her reply:

  Well, I’ve got no boyfriend, no house to speak of, I’ve spent months working on a garden that’s about to be trashed – but apart from that, everything’s going great.