Windfallen

by Moyes, Jojo

  “Mrs. Bernard has your keys,” she said tentatively.

  It took some seconds to register.

  “Not by mistake,” she added.

  “Bloody woman. Oh, Christ,” he said, rubbing at his face. “I’ve got a bloody meeting at seven forty-five. How am I meant to get back to London now?”

  Daisy felt suddenly very tired, the previously convivial, fluid atmosphere having somehow dissipated with the telephone call. She had not been up later than 10 P.M. for weeks, and it was now creeping toward midnight.

  “She suggested you get a room at the Riviera.”

  Daisy sat on the edge of the chair, gazing at the sofa opposite. “Or you could stay here. I’m quite happy on the sofa.”

  He looked at it.

  “I don’t think you’d quite fit on it,” she added. “Ellie gets up early, so we could wake you.” She yawned, rubbed at her face.

  He looked at her, a more sober, level kind of look. “I’m not going knocking on the door of the Riviera now. But I can’t turf you out of your bed.”

  “I can’t let you sleep on this sofa. You’re twice as long as it is.”

  “Do you never stop arguing? If you sleep on the sofa and I sleep in your room, what happens if the baby wakes up in the night?”

  She hadn’t thought of that.

  He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands. Then he lifted his face and grinned, a broad, piratical grin.

  “Christ, Daisy. What a pair of drunken fools, eh?”

  His smile changed his whole face. He looked mischievous, somebody’s reprobate uncle. She felt herself suddenly relax again.

  “I came up here to bloody fire you. Now look. What a pair of drunken fools. . . .”

  “You’re the boss. I was only following orders.”

  “Only following orders. Yes . . .” He got up, began to lumber his way toward the stairs. “Look,” he said, turning, “tell me if I’m out of line here. But there’s a double bed here, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You go one side, I’ll go the other. No funny stuff, both of us keep our clothes on, and tomorrow morning we’ll say no more about it. That way we both get a decent night’s rest.”

  “Fine,” she said, yawning again, so that her eyes watered. Daisy was so tired she would have agreed to sleeping in Ellie’s crib.

  “One thing,” murmured Jones as he collapsed onto the bed, his shoes kicked off, his tie loosened. Daisy lay on the other side, knowing that his presence should have made her feel uncomfortable and self-conscious, but somehow she was too drunk and tired to care.

  “What?” she muttered into the dark, remembering, and not entirely caring, that she’d forgotten to take off her makeup.

  “As my employee you get to make the coffee in the morning.”

  “Only if you agree to the handmade windows.”

  She heard a muffled expletive.

  Daisy grinned, shoved her hands under the pillow, and passed out.

  ONCE UPON A TIME SHE HAD THOUGHT THAT DANIEL’S return would cause her to burst, that on seeing him she would literally explode with relief and joy, that she would fizz like a Catherine wheel, send shimmering sparks skyward like a rocket. But now Daisy knew that it wasn’t like that at all; Daniel’s presence back in her life felt simply like the return of a very deep peace, the stemming of an ache that had embedded itself into her bones. It was like coming home. That was how someone had once described finding love to her, and Daisy, now resting in his arms, knew it to be true also of its restoration. It was like coming home.

  She shifted slightly, and the arm, wrapped tightly around her so that its fingers entwined with her own, moved accommodatingly. She’d longed to feel that weight on her. When she was pregnant, it had felt too heavy, almost intrusive, and she’d kept to her own side of the bed, propped and supported by pillows. After Ellie it had been a reassuring reminder that he was still there. That he was still there.

  But Daniel wasn’t there.

  Daisy’s eyes opened, allowing the blurred shapes to come slowly into focus, trying to adjust to the chill eastern light of morning. Her eyes felt dry, gritty, and her tongue had swollen to fill the entire cavity of her mouth. The room, she knew, swallowing arduously, was hers. A few feet away Ellie stirred in her crib, speeding the too-short journey from Daisy’s deep sleep toward wakefulness, the daylight winking through the crack in the curtains onto her blankets. Outside, a car door slammed, and below on the path someone called out. One of the builders, probably. Daisy lifted her head, noting that it was a quarter past seven, and the hand slid down her side and finally dropped away.

  Daniel wasn’t there.

  Daisy pushed herself upright abruptly, her brain joining her a split second later. Beside her a dark head lay on the pillow, its hair thatched in sleep. She sat very still and stared at it, at the rumpled shirt attached to it, struggling to think back, piecing together the jumble of words and images. And gradually, with the inevitable force of a slow-motion punch, it hit her. It wasn’t Daniel. The arm hadn’t been Daniel’s. He hadn’t come back.

  The peace wasn’t hers.

  And suddenly, noisily, Daisy burst into tears.

  IT WAS OBVIOUS WHAT HAD HAPPENED, MRS. BERNARD thought as, in a bad-tempered spray of gravel, the rear of the Saab disappeared down the drive and toward London. You didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to work it out. The two of them had been barely able to look at each other when she came in, Daisy clutching the child in front of her like a shield, all tear-stained and pale. He, meanwhile, had looked fed up and anxious to get away. And like a man with an extremely bad hangover, which, of course, with all those silly headache pills, was what he was.

  There had been all that electricity between them the night before, all that conspiratorial joking, as if they’d known each other years, not days. And the sofa, she noted as soon as she walked in, had evidently not been slept on.

  “Always a price to pay for mixing business with pleasure,” she had said to him as she handed him his keys. She meant the drinking, but he’d given her a hard look—the kind of look he probably used to intimidate his staff. Mrs. Bernard just smiled. She was much too tough a bird to be frightened by the likes of him. “See you soon, Mr. Jones,” she said.

  “I doubt it’ll be soon,” he replied, and with hardly a glance in Daisy’s direction, he’d climbed into his car and left. As he started the car, it was entirely possible he had mouthed the exclamation “Women!” to himself.

  “What a daft mummy you’ve got,” Mrs. Bernard told Ellie quietly as they walked around the garden and back toward the house. “I think she took my advice a bit too literally, don’t you? No wonder she’s in such a mess.”

  A shame, really. For in his drunken state, as he saw her out of the house the previous evening, Jones had confided in the older woman that Daisy was a bit of a revelation to him, not the sad sap he’d initially had her down as or even the ballbreaker she’d tried to present herself as. Simply, as he put it, shaking his head in surprise, “A lovely girl.”

  THIRTEEN

  Camille smoothed the algae wrap over Mrs. Martigny’s bulk, running her hands along her stomach and back again to ensure even coverage. In places it had already started to dry, and she used her fingers to push more of the muddy unguent around, like someone smearing tomato sauce onto unbaked pizza dough. Then, swiftly, she pulled off a length of plastic wrap, smoothing it over the top of Mrs. Martigny’s stomach and around each thigh before covering her with two warm towels, still fresh enough to smell of fabric softener. The movements had a languorous, precise rhythm, and Camille’s hands were sure and swift. It was a job she could have done in her sleep. Which was just as well. Because her mind was far away, still locked into a conversation she’d had several hours earlier.

  “Do you need any help?” said Tess, poking her head around the door so that the looped tape of whale noises and electronic relaxation music oozed in through the gap. “I’ve got ten minutes before Mrs. Forster’s highlights have got t
o come out.”

  “No, we’re fine. Unless you want some tea or coffee. A drink, Mrs. Martigny?”

  “Not for me, Camille dear. I’m just drifting off nicely under here.”

  Camille did not need some help. What she was going to need was a job. She closed the door on Mrs. Martigny and her twenty-minute anticellulite wrap, digesting Kay’s apologetic words of earlier that morning, feeling the black clouds that she’d staved off for so long finally gather ruinously around her head. “I’m really sorry, Camille. I know you love this place—and you’re one of the best beauticians I’ve ever worked with. But John has always wanted to move back to Chester, and now that he’s retired, I don’t feel I can really say no. To be honest, I think the change will do us good.”

  “So when are you selling?” Camille had tried to keep her face blank, her manner upbeat.

  “Well, I haven’t told Tess or anyone else yet, but I was going to put it on the market this week. And hopefully we can sell it as a going concern, so that the two of you can keep your jobs. But between us, Camille, I don’t think Tess will stick around for long. She’s got itchy feet. You can tell.”

  “Yes.” Camille attempted a smile. Neither of them said the unspoken, about her own job prospects.

  “I’m sorry, love. I’ve dreaded telling you.” Kay’s hand reached out and touched Camille’s arm. A tentative, apologetic gesture.

  “Don’t be silly. You must do what you think is right. No point hanging around here if you’d rather be somewhere else.”

  “Well, my son’s up there, as you know.”

  “It’s good to be near your family.”

  “I have missed him. And now his Deborah is expecting. Did I tell you that?”

  Camille had made the right, encouraging noises. She heard her voice from far off, as if it belonged to someone else, approving, exclaiming, reassuring, all the while frantically making internal calculations about what this was really going to mean.

  It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Hal had told her the previous night that if he didn’t get a commission in the next ten days he was going to have to admit defeat and wind up the business. He’d said it in a curiously flat, unemotional tone, but when she reached for him that night, attempted to comfort him, he pushed her gently away, his rigid back a silent rebuke. She did not persist. She never did now. Let him come back to you at his own pace, that was what the counselor had said. She didn’t say what Camille should do if he didn’t come back.

  Camille sat very still outside the treatment room, only half hearing the sounds she usually found a comfort: the muffled explosions of the blow-dryer, soft-soled shoes shuffling along the wood floor, the broken rhythms of human chatter.

  Her losing her job would not be his fault. But he would use it as another stick with which to beat himself, another brace with which to widen the gap between them. I can’t tell him now, she thought. I can’t do that to him.

  “You all right, Camille?”

  “Fine thanks, Tess.”

  “I’ve just booked Mrs. Green in for an aromatherapy facial on Tuesday. You were a bit booked up, so I offered to do it myself, but, no, I wouldn’t do. She said she wanted to have a word with you about something.” Tess laughed good-humoredly. “I’d love to know what these women tell you, Camille. I reckon one day you’re going to make a fantastic source for the News of the World.”

  “What?”

  “All their affairs and stuff. I know you’re very discreet, but I bet this town is a right old hotbed of bad behavior underneath.”

  A QUARTER OF A MILE ALONG THE COAST, DAISY SAT ON a small, turfed outcrop, a few feet above a shingly cove, Ellie sleeping beside her in her stroller. The sky was bright and still, the waves bobbing politely, tiptoeing their way backward and forward across the beach. In her hand she held the letter.

  . . . You’re probably furious with me. And I wouldn’t blame you. But, Daise, I have had time to think while I’ve been here, and one of the things I’ve realized is that I never actually had a chance to want a baby. I was pretty well presented with one. And although I do love her, I don’t love the way she affected us, or our lives . . .

  She didn’t cry. She felt too cold to cry.

  I miss you. I really do miss you. But I’m still so confused. I just don’t know where my head is at the moment. I can’t sleep properly, I’ve been put on antidepressants by the doctor, who has suggested I see someone to talk it all through, but that feels like it would be too painful. I feel torn about seeing you . . . but at the moment I’m not sure us seeing each other would make things any clearer.

  He had enclosed a check for five hundred pounds. It was signed off his mother’s account.

  Just give me some time. I’ll be in touch, I promise. But I do need more time. I’m really sorry, Daise. I feel like a complete shit, knowing I’ve hurt you. Some days I just hate myself . . .

  It was all about him. All about his trauma, his struggle. There wasn’t a single question mark in it. How was his daughter? Was she eating solids yet? Sleeping through the night? Holding things in her little pink fingers? How was she coping? His only reference to Ellie was in his own confusion. His selfishness, Daisy thought, was matched only by his lack of self-awareness. I wanted you to have a father, she told her daughter silently. I wanted for you the paternal adoration that should have been a right. And instead you got a self-obsessed jellyfish.

  And yet in his written words was an echo of the way he spoke, a ghostly echo of that emotional urgency that she’d loved for so long. And an honesty that she wasn’t sure she was ready to feel. He hadn’t known if he was ready for a baby. He’d been quite frank about that for some time. “When the business is up and running, babe,” he’d say. Or “When we’ve got a bit of money behind us.” He had, she suspected, been furious when she told him she was pregnant, although he’d hidden it well. He’d been outwardly supportive, gone to all the classes and scans, said the right things. It wasn’t her fault, he’d told her more than once. They were in this together. “It takes two to tango,” Julia had added.

  But it didn’t always, did it?

  Daisy sat on the grass and for the first time guiltily allowed herself to think back. Not to Ellie. To a pill packet, glanced at and discarded. To fourteen months before.

  “THEY’VE FINISHED THE TWO FRONT ROOMS. WANT TO take a look?”

  Mrs. Bernard lifted the newly awake Ellie from her stroller as Daisy returned, closing the big white door behind her. “The beds are coming tomorrow, so they’ll start to look almost done. And that man rang about the blinds—he’s going to ring back this afternoon.”

  Daisy, chilled and tired, peeled off her coat and laid it over what would become their reception desk. It was a 1930s piece she’d found in Camden, which she had kept in its protective bubble wrap since its delivery last week. She wanted to show Jones, but they hadn’t spoken directly in the ten days since they’d last met. Mrs. Bernard, looking uncommonly cheerful, motioned Daisy along behind her. “And look. They’ve started doing the gardens. I was going to ring you, but I thought you’d be back soon enough.”

  Daisy looked down at the stepped terraces, where a selection of trees and shrubs were being dug into freshly composted earth. Some of the more overgrown plants, the lilac and wisteria, had been cut back diplomatically so that the hint of wildness and magic remained. But the terraces, scrubbed and repaired, now stood stark and clean against the organic forms around them, the smell of sage and thyme from the new herb garden mixing with the lilac, whose spindly limbs were now bowed with heavy heads of blooms.

  “Makes a difference, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Bernard was beaming, pointing things out to Ellie. She liked to do that, Daisy had noticed. She supposed, with a pang, that she hadn’t been able to with Camille.

  “It’s coming on,” said Daisy, gazing around, a rare sense of achievement and pleasure germinating inside her, displacing the black hole that seemed to suck out everything that was good. It was starting to come together. They were still behind
schedule, but it was starting to come together.

  The rooms that needed to be knocked through were open and bright, while a newly installed electronic shutter allowed light to come in through the oversize skylight when required, while saving them from the blinding heat of midday. At least three of the bedrooms were now awaiting only their furniture, their replastered walls giving off an intoxicating smell of new paint while freshly waxed herringbone floors settled under a layer of builder’s dust that wouldn’t disappear until the builders did. The banks of stainless-steel units had been installed in the kitchens, along with the industrial-size fridges and freezers, and all but one of the bathrooms had their fixtures. The basics done, Daisy was able to start thinking about the details. For it was the details that Daisy had always done best, happily spending hours researching a single piece of antique fabric or looking through reference books to see exactly how pictures were hung or books stored. Next week, she told herself, she would sit down with Mrs. Bernard’s promised albums of the place. They were a treasure she had not allowed herself until “Daniel’s” side of the work, as she saw it, had been completed.

  “Oh. I meant to tell you. They’re ripping out that corner seat. Apparently the wood has rotted too far. But the carpenter reckons he can make you one just like it. I didn’t think it was worth troubling the listings people about. And that jasmine up the side is going to need to come out, as it’s strangling the guttering. But I said that was okay. I put that one in myself when Camille was small.” She paused, then explained. “The smell, you see. She liked things that smelled nice.”

  Daisy frowned at the older woman. “Don’t you mind?”

  “Mind what?”

  “All this ripping out. This was your house for years, and now I’m demolishing it and remaking it as I see it. It’s not going to be anything like it was.”

  Mrs. Bernard’s expression closed over. “Why should I mind?” she said, her irritated tone at odds with her elaborate shrugging. “No point looking backward, is there? No point hanging on to things that aren’t there.”