Sunshine at Daisy's Guesthouse

by Lottie Phillips

  He clenched his jaw. ‘But I think you’re doing it to make me…’ He stopped abruptly. ‘You don’t know him. You don’t need this or him.’ James’s voice grew louder.

  ‘No, James.’ She felt her anger boiling over now. How dare he tell her what was right and wrong. ‘I am dating him because he makes me feel happy.’

  She could hear Alistair still calling out for her and then muffled voices in the hall. They would all be looking for her soon; after all, thanks to Tom, she was guest of honour at a dating party. Or was she not allowed to be happy?

  James gave her one last pleading look but her eyes continued to flash with anger, and he nodded silently and opened the door. ‘I’m going back to London.’

  Her heart started to hammer in her ears. ‘Why? Don’t you want to stay and run the guesthouse?’

  ‘I can help you from London. I don’t really need to be here.’ She noticed the tremble in his voice. ‘You’ve got my number, ring me anytime.’

  ‘James, is it Annabelle? Are you going to be with Annabelle?’

  James looked at her. ‘Annabelle is married.’

  Daisy shook her head and replied bitterly, ‘It hasn’t stopped her mauling you.’

  James shook his head in disbelief. ‘God, Daisy, can you hear yourself? You just don’t get it, do you?’

  Daisy, affronted, fiddled nervously with the button on her dress. ‘Get what?’

  ‘Well,’ James said, emotion choking his words, ‘if I have to explain it then I must be wrong. It’s a feeling. Not something you can describe.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘Bye, Daisy.’

  Daisy stood stock-still, her stomach churning, and heard James’s footsteps on the stairs and then the opening and closing of his bedroom door. She wiped away the tears falling down her cheeks with her hand and realised she must look a sight. She headed to the bathroom, splashed cool water on her face and waited for her red-rimmed eyes to calm.

  She opened the bathroom door and waited, listening. She didn’t want to bump into James and as she snuck towards the landing, she collided with him as he came quietly around the corner.

  ‘Oh.’ Her cheeks flushed. She noted his bag and he held it up wordlessly as if to confirm he really was leaving. Then he walked fast down the stairs and he was gone.

  Alistair appeared on the stairs below and smiled. ‘Hello.’ His eyes filled with concern. ‘You OK? Have you been crying?’

  She forced a smile. ‘No, not at all. Hay fever starting early this year,’ she lied. ‘There you go, now you know one more thing about me, I’m the least sexy woman ever in the spring and early summer.’ She paused. ‘Unless you like women who sound like they’re wearing a clothes peg on their nose and have no control of their mucus.’

  Alistair climbed the stairs to where she stood and gave her a big, slightly awkward hug as he wrapped his long limbs around her. But she was grateful nonetheless.

  ‘Come on; let me get you a drink. Looks like you need one.’

  She wasn’t going to argue. She allowed him to take her hand and guide her down the stairs and back outside to the growing throng of people.

  Tom ran up to her. ‘I put it out on Facebook and everyone in the area we know is coming to celebrate.’

  She smiled. ‘Well, better keep the wine flowing.’ A very chiselled member (she knew this didn’t narrow it down – they were all tanned and angular) of the Dream Team offered her a glass of white wine and a plate of canapés. She recognised some cheese she thought had gone way past its best before date and vegetables cut into stars and hearts. ‘You lot are amazing.’ She smiled at him gratefully. ‘I mean honestly amazing… sorry, remind me if we’ve met?’

  He shook his head, flashing his pearly white. ‘I’m new to the Dream Team.’ He paused. ‘My name’s Alvin.’

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Alvin.’ Tom came up to them. He exchanged a shy smile with Alvin and Daisy looked knowingly at her friend; that was his smitten look. A petite woman with a dark smooth bob and a tattoo on her wrist stood next to Tom and smiled tentatively at them before her eyes came to rest on Alistair’s.

  Daisy glanced at Alistair who had visibly paled.

  ‘Clare,’ he managed quietly. ‘What are you doing here? I mean I haven’t seen you since…’

  ‘Your mum told me I was uncouth?’ She gave a wry smile.

  Daisy stuck out her hand to shake Clare’s but Clare barely acknowledged her. The air was thick with heavy tension and Daisy, despite ‘dating’ Alistair, felt like she was intruding and stepped away, motioning for Alvin and Tom to do the same.

  She watched Alistair and Clare as Tom chatted away to her about Alvin’s bottom. They hadn’t even touched each other yet, but Daisy wasn’t stupid, they didn’t need to. The way they looked at each other was enough to tell her everything. It made her heart sad because she realised it was the way James had looked at her in Hugh’s study.

  Chapter 16

  The party continued all day and into the small hours. Daisy continually checked her phone for any messages from James. Tom found out halfway through the evening that Alvin not only could play guitar but he carried his guitar with him everywhere. After Bob and Tom had set up halogen heaters throughout the garden and the Dream Team had hung tea light lanterns from the trees, Alistair’s friends cajoled him into asking her to dance. She could sense his reticence and she saw the fleeting look he gave Clare. They held each other as Alvin strummed Eric Clapton’s ‘Wonderful Tonight’.

  Alistair’s body remained tense against hers and she looked furtively at her bag, wondering if James had messaged yet, though she knew, in her heart, he wouldn’t.

  She spotted Tom sat on the floor next to Alvin’s feet – both of them now barefoot, despite the cooling temperatures. Tom was staring up at Alvin as if he were the most beautiful specimen he had ever laid eyes on. Alvin tapped the rhythm of the songs with his right foot but every now and then fondled Tom’s leg with his left foot.

  Lisa and Bob were slow dancing under the oak tree and Lisa looked as if she had arrived in heaven. Maybe that was why Daisy was panicking; she recognised her support network were, quite rightly, moving their own lives forward. As Alvin moved seamlessly into the next song, she clung more closely to Alistair who looked down at her with a soft look of surprise.

  ‘You OK?’

  She nodded. ‘Just wondering if we really are mad.’

  He smiled and held her more closely. Daisy allowed herself to relax into it the music and Alistair’s body. ‘Yeah, we are,’ he admitted.

  ‘That’s the Clare, isn’t it?’ She kept her voice neutral.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, she lives locally. Heard I was in the area.’

  ‘Is she married?’ Daisy asked tentatively.

  ‘She was,’ Alistair mumbled into her hair. ‘Her husband died five years ago, before they could have children.’

  Daisy stopped moving to the music and held him at arm’s length. ‘You love her still, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Alistair said softly.

  ‘Then go to her.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t put her through my parents’ interrogation again.’

  ‘Alistair…’ She knew she sounded like a teacher. ‘You are forty-five, not fifteen, and if you love her, you love her. You can’t deny yourself your feelings.’ She paused, moving closer to him as the lawn filled with couple and non-couples moving to ‘La Bamba’. They were jostled this way and that.

  ‘Does Clare love you still?’

  ‘She hasn’t said.’ He looked down. ‘She just keeps reminding me of how appalling my parents were to her.’

  ‘Shows she cares.’ Daisy gave him an encouraging nod. ‘Go and talk to her. Life’s too short.’ A lump grew in her throat. She thought about Hugh, his life cut short in its prime.

  Alistair smiled gratefully and headed in the direction of his long-lost girlfriend. Daisy fought her way out of the bobbing mass of people.

  Tom grabbed her ankle as she walked past. ‘You alright, babe?’ he sho
uted up at her.

  ‘Great,’ she forced a grin. ‘Thanks for putting on such an amazing party!’

  He smiled at her, his eyes barely leaving Alvin’s. ‘Least we could do, doll. You deserve to be happy after everything you’ve gone through.’

  She smiled and bent down, planting a kiss on his head. Daisy noted his hair had thinned even more of late. Tom dreaded balding, used every pro-growth shampoo on the market, but she supposed they were all growing older and you could only fight so much.

  She headed inside to find Lisa and Bob talking heatedly in the entrance hall.

  ‘You guys OK?’ Daisy asked, trying to judge the situation.

  ‘Yes, we’re OK, thanks hunny,’ said Bob, clutching Barbara who was trying to wriggle out of his grasp.

  ‘No, actually, we’re not.’ Lisa shot him a look. ‘We both think you’re acting weird.’

  Daisy gave a shallow laugh. ‘Oh good, more people out to judge me.’

  ‘I also,’ Lisa said, her eyes shining bright with emotion, ‘have known you for over twenty years and I know you are not genuinely happy. You are pretending to have fallen head over heels in love with a bloody Scotsman because you’re panicking about being alone…’

  Daisy narrowed her eyes, realising the truth really did hurt.

  ‘And he’s panicking,’ Lisa went on. ‘Because you’re both of a certain age…’

  ‘A certain age!’ Daisy shrieked. ‘Priceless. Lisa, do I need to remind you we are the same age. What exactly happens at our age and moreover since when can you not date and have fun?’ As she spoke, she saw something glint in the overhead light. She gasped. ‘You’re engaged!’

  Lisa blushed. ‘Yes. You’ve been so busy with all this stuff, I didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh, Lisa,’ Daisy rushed towards Lisa and hugged her close, and despite the slow response Lisa then clung onto her friend. ‘That is so amazing.’ She stood back to admire the ring. ‘That’s a beauty, Bob.’

  He grinned and Daisy kissed Lisa on the cheek, then Bob and, of course, Barbara’s furry muzzle.

  ‘Listen, both of you, I am an adult and I would appreciate it if you could treat me like one,’ Daisy said evenly. ‘I don’t think that’s too much to ask, is it?’

  Lisa pulled a face. She was being as stubborn as ever, Daisy thought, but then she smiled. ‘We could buy some wedding magazines like we used to talk about!’

  Daisy smiled. Lisa’s moods could change as quickly as clouds passing over the sun. ‘What a beautiful idea.’ She hugged her friend again and ruffled Barbara’s silky ruff.

  ‘I’m just going to go upstairs for a bit.’ Daisy smiled at the three of them and treaded softly up the stairs to Hugh’s study. She didn’t know why but she felt like she needed to talk out the situation with him.

  Once she had shut herself in the safety of Hugh’s study, she sat on his sofa once again and looked up.

  ‘Hugh, I don’t really know if I’m coming to ask your permission or what really but I imagine, by now, you’ve got wind of the fact that I’m technically dating this guy. His name’s Alistair…’ She paused, furrowing her brows. ‘Actually, I can’t remember his last name. He’s from Edinburgh but went to an agricultural college down here.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean I didn’t even know I was dating him, he kind of just surprised me with it.’ She chuckled. ‘To say the least. But then it gets more complicated because you see, his old flame, Clare, turned up today. I can tell they’re madly in love and who am I to stand in the way of that, even though it was Alistair who set this whole thing in motion…’

  She smoothed the leather with her hand. ‘I miss you, Hugh, but I can talk about and to you without crying. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person?’ She shook her head. ‘I really hope not. All your cards and letters that you gave to James to give me said you wanted me to be happy, find love again.’ She squinted at the ceiling, deep in thought. ‘How do you know if it’s the right person? I mean Alistair seems nice but he doesn’t love me and I don’t love him. We could be each other’s companions…’ She fisted her hand and gently hit the sofa’s armrest. ‘Can’t you give me a sign of what I should do? You were always Mr Sensible and now you’ve left me to make my own decisions.’ She closed her eyes, enjoying the moment’s peace. She could hear people still chattering downstairs even though by now it was dark. The lanterns hung like fireflies from the trees.

  She decided she might pen her thoughts. Hugh had always said the best way to sort through your feelings was to write them out. She got up and went to sit at the desk, opening the first small drawer where she knew Hugh kept a pile of overly priced, smart and stiff paper. He had insisted that even the paper used to send a letter said a lot about a person’s standards. She thought about her own mother and father who quite often hadn’t any paper at all to hand so messages were sent on the back of the local pub’s cardboard drink mats or old vet bills.

  She took a sheet and apologised. ‘Sorry, Hugh. Probably not what I should use it for.’ She took out Hugh’s favourite pen; he hadn’t allowed anyone else to use it because the nib could get bent the wrong way. ‘Again, sorry.’

  She started her list of pros and cons of dating Alistair.

  Pros:

  Good looking (beautiful, in fact)

  Great dress sense

  Impeccable manners (apart from the lies)

  Someone to talk to (I know nothing about him so there should be loads)

  Sex (presuming he’s not gay and doesn’t have a medical condition. Though imagine Tom’s radar would have picked up on this)

  ‘Sorry, Hugh,’ she mumbled again, blushing despite herself. ‘I know you hate people being so open about it.’

  Comes from a good family (well, he says he does)

  Both share a hate of camping

  She nodded, pleased with her efforts.

  Cons:

  He’s ridiculously good looking (making me feel even more unsexy and ungainly)

  Great dress sense (highlighting how nice it must be to be slim and fit into anything therefore making me feel even worse)

  He makes stuff up (compulsive liar???)

  Someone to talk to (though nothing mind-blowing or scintillating has been talked about so far)

  He might be rubbish in bed (or gay)

  His ‘good family’ might think they’re above me

  If he hates camping, what else does he hate? He might hate open-air opera (which I love) or eating. Oh no, what if he hates food??

  Talked for the grand sum total of…

  Daisy thought about it, adding up the figures in her head. She knew maths wasn’t her forte but, surely, that couldn’t be right.

  ‘Daisy, be honest with yourself,’ she said aloud.

  Talked for the grand sum total of… six hours.

  Oh, fiddlesticks. Not looking good. Maybe Lisa had a point. She sighed deeply and put down Hugh’s pen noting that the nib definitely sat at a different angle now. ‘Sorry.’ She knew Hugh kept spare nibs somewhere ‘just in case some moron tried to use my pen’. Well, turned out she was the moron. She could just make them out at the back of the drawer but it was such a narrow space that she could barely fit her hand in the slot, let alone wiggle her fingers. When she felt something small, pointy and metal, she pinched it with two fingers and shuffled it forward.

  When she had finally managed to retrieve her now very squished hand from the drawer, she looked at the nib, only to find it wasn’t a nib, but a key. A very small key. For a second, she was confused and about to dive back in to get the nibs, when she remembered the metal box under the desk.

  Her heart pulsed in her throat. She wasn’t sure why she was nervous; it was just a gut feeling that she wasn’t about to find some utility bills and a card she had written to him on his birthday years ago. She knew, because Hugh wasn’t that sort of person. By now, the bills would have been filed in an exact order – probably colour coded – in the filing cabinet and she knew that even his sentimental box with cards etc. had a system. No, if Hu
gh had taken the time and effort to buy a metal box – a lockable metal box – there was a reason.

  She knelt down and, hand shaking, put the key into the lock. It fit perfectly. With bated breath, she pulled the door open and there appeared to be nothing inside. Then, on closer inspection, there were two envelopes.

  She pulled them out slowly, almost as if they might combust in her hand. Did she want to know what was inside them? On the one hand, she thought, they might be nothing to do with her. Her mind started to whirr with possibilities: what if it was addressed to another woman, what if it was a photo of a child he had with another woman…

  ‘Stop it,’ she whispered, gathering her dress up and sitting back on the chair. ‘Just look.’

  She flipped the envelopes over and with a mixture of relief and dread was pleased to see her name on the front.

  The first envelope had a Post-it stuck to the front and it read, ‘James, for Daisy’s birthday.’ Her birthday wasn’t for another few months but she ripped it open anyway.

  It read:

  Dearest Daisy, by now I imagine you will have moved on and I’m glad of it. If you haven’t, please do, please remember how important your happiness is to me. I wasn’t a barrel of laughs when I was alive, so imagine putting up with this for the rest of your life?

  Daisy laughed, and realised she was crying, despite telling Hugh she was over that.

  I love you Daisy, darling. This is the last card I will send you because I hope by now James has explained his feelings for you and I can see, I have always been able to see, truth be told, that he loves you. He loves you truly and deeply, like I do. He is a good man. The best. In my heart, I know you love him too, and that’s good. That’s as it should be.

  Love always, yours,

  Hugh xxx

  She sobbed, tears of happiness but also despair. She had pushed James away. Why had she pushed him away? Maybe because she knew she loved him.

  ‘Please don’t let that be the last I hear from you, my darling Hugh,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘It can’t be the last.’

  She plucked the envelope from underneath which again had been colour coded with a red Post-it note that read, ‘James, only when time is right. And thank you.’