Windfallen

  "Your woman down the road. Mrs. Leg Warmers or whatever her name is. Have you seen this?" He walked over to the rug and passed her a copy of the local paper, pointing to the letters page. "Wants all right-minded people to picket the hotel. To stop auld Jonesy serving alcohol."

  "She what?" Lottie studied the newsprint, absently thrusting colored bricks at Ellie as she did so. "Damn fool woman," she said eventually. "As if a few decrepit old pensioners with placards are going to make a difference. She needs her head examined."

  Aidan picked up a mug of tea from the sideboard, his plaster-covered fingers apparently oblivious to its heat.

  "Won't be good publicity, though, for your man. Not quite the image he'd be wanting to project--fighting his way through a line of blue-rinse rebels."

  "It's ridiculous," said Lottie dismissively, passing the newspaper back to him. "As if anyone around here is going to give two hoots about a few gin and tonics."

  She turned as he leaned backward, his eye caught by the sight of Daisy with an unidentified man outside.

  "Aye, aye," he began. "Our Daisy's got a new one on the night shift, has she?"

  "Haven't you got anything better to do?" said Lottie sharply.

  "That'd be a matter of opinion," he said, and, waiting just long enough to get Lottie bristling, he sauntered off.

  It was the baby's father. No doubt about it; she had known as soon as he appeared at the door the previous evening, his dark hair and deep-set brown eyes an echo of Ellie's own.

  "Yes?" Lottie had asked, knowing full well what he was about to say.

  "Is Daisy Parsons here?" He'd been clutching an overnight bag. Something of a presumption, under the circumstances, Lottie had thought. "I'm Daniel."

  She had looked deliberately blank.

  "Daniel Wiener. Daisy's . . . Ellie's father. I was told she was here."

  "She's out at the moment," said Lottie, taking in his strained eyes, his fashionable clothes.

  "Can I wait? I've just caught the train up from London. I don't think there's a pub around here I can wait in."

  She had wordlessly shown him inside.

  It was none of her business, of course. She couldn't tell the girl what to do. But if it had been up to her, she would have told him to head right back home. Lottie clenched her hands beside her, conscious that she felt inappropriately angry with this man on Daisy's behalf. That he could leave her and the baby to face everything all alone. And then think he could just saunter back in as if nothing had happened. Daisy had been doing all right; anyone could see that.

  She looked across at the baby, who was meditatively gnawing at the corner of a wooden brick, and then out at the terrace, where the two figures stood stiffly, several feet apart, she apparently absorbed by some distant horizon, he by something on his shoes.

  I ought to wish you a life with your father, Ellie, she said silently. Me of all people.

  DAISY SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE MURAL, IN A SPACE between several jars of different-size brushes, as Daniel stood with his back to the sea, looking up at the house. She kept glancing at him surreptitiously, trying to take him all in, and awkwardly, in case she should be seen doing so.

  "You've done a great job," he said. "I wouldn't have recognized it."

  "We've been working hard," she said.

  He turned to her.

  "Me, the team, Lottie, Jones . . ."

  "Nice of him to give you a lift back from London."

  "Yes. Yes it was."

  Daisy sipped at her tea, carefully resting her other arm against her.

  "What happened to you? To your arm?" he said. "I wanted to ask last night, but--"

  "I cut it."

  He blanched. She caught his thoughts a moment after.

  "No, no. Nothing like that. I fell through a glass door." She felt a brief flush of annoyance that he still imagined himself that vital to her existence.

  "Does it hurt?"

  "A little. But they've given me some painkillers."

  "Good. That's good. Not your arm, I mean. The painkillers."

  It had not begun this stiffly. On seeing him, the previous evening, she had thought briefly that she might faint. Then, as Jones discreetly offloaded the stained-glass panel and swiftly made his excuses, she'd walked inside and, catching hold of the banister, burst into uncontrollable tears. He had placed his arms around her, apologizing, his tears mingling with her own, and she had cried harder, shocked at how the feeling of his body against hers could be so familiar and strange at the same time.

  His arrival had been so unexpected that she hadn't had time to work out what to feel. The evening with Jones had brought everything to the surface, and then suddenly she was confronted with Daniel, whose absence had colored almost every minute of the last months, whose presence now prompted so many conflicting emotions that all she could do was look at him and cry.

  "I'm so sorry, Daise," he had said, his wet hands clutching her own. "I'm so, so sorry."

  Eventually, a long time later, she pulled herself together and, one-handed, poured them both a large glass of wine. She lit a cigarette, noting his expression of surprise as she did so and the efforts he made to hide it. Then she sat, staring at him, unsure what she should say to him, what she should dare to ask.

  He looked at first glance exactly the same: His hair was cut the same way, his trousers, his trainers the same ones he had worn on the weekend before he left. He had the same mannerisms: He ran his hand repeatedly over the top of his head, as if reassuring himself that it was still there. But as she looked more closely, he appeared different--older perhaps. Certainly more worn. She wondered briefly if she looked the same.

  "Are you better?" she asked eventually. It seemed like a safe question.

  "I'm not . . . I'm not so confused, if that's what you mean," he said.

  Daisy had taken a long swig of wine. It tasted acidic; she'd drunk too much already.

  "Where are you staying?"

  "With my brother. Paul."

  She nodded.

  His eyes never left her face. They were anxious, blinking. The half-light revealed deep crevices under them.

  "I didn't know you were actually living here," he said. "Mum was under the impression that you were staying with someone in the town."

  "And who would that be?" she said sharply. She closed her eyes, realizing that the anger was too close to the surface. She breathed deeply. "I had to leave the flat."

  "I went there," he said. "There's someone else living there."

  "Yes, well, I couldn't afford the rent."

  "There was money in the bank, Daise."

  "Not for the whole time you were gone. Not to support me as well. Not when you took into account the rent rises Mr. Springfield landed on me."

  Daniel's head dropped. "You look well," he said hopefully.

  She stretched her legs, rubbing at a spatter of browned blood on her left knee. "Better than when you left, I suppose. But then I had only just pushed a whole human being out of my body."

  There was a long, complicated silence.

  She looked at the thick, dark hair on the top of his head, thinking of the times she'd cried on waking because it wasn't there beside her. How she had lain in bed remembering what it had felt like entwined in her fingers. She had no urge to touch it now. She felt only this cold fury. And underneath it, entwined with it, fear that he was going to leave again.

  "I'm so sorry, Daise," he said. "I . . . I don't know what happened to me."

  He shifted forward on his seat, as if preparing to make a speech. "I've been on these antidepressants," he said finally. "They've helped a bit. In that I don't feel like everything's as hopeless as I did. But I don't want to stay on them too long. I don't like the thought of being dependent on them, I guess."

  He took a long draft of his wine.

  "I also saw a psychiatrist. For a bit. She was a bit clogs and lentils." He glanced down at her, gauging her reception to his use of an old, shared joke.

  "So what did she t
hink? About you, I mean?"

  "It wasn't like that, really. She asked me lots of questions and sort of expected me to work out the answers."

  "Sounds like a good way to earn a living. And did you?"

  "To some things, I think." He didn't elaborate.

  Daisy closed her eyes, too exhausted to begin delving into what that might mean. "So. Are you staying tonight?"

  "If you'll let me."

  She took another long drag of her cigarette and tamped it out. "I don't know what to say to you, Dan," she said finally. "I'm too tired, and it's all too sudden, and I can't think straight . . . We'll talk in the morning."

  He had nodded, his eyes still wide, still watching her.

  "You can sleep in the Woolf suite. There's a duvet still in its box. Use that."

  The possibility of his sleeping anywhere else had evidently occurred to neither of them.

  "Where is she?" he said as she went to leave the room.

  Oh, you're finally interested, are you? she thought.

  "She'll be back first thing," she said.

  SHE HADN'T SLEPT. HOW COULD SHE, WHEN SHE knew he lay, probably awake, too, on the other side of that wall? At one point she had berated herself for her response to him, for the fact that she'd effectively sabotaged what could have been a glorious reunion. She should have said nothing tonight, simply pulled him back to her, loved him, brought him home again. Other times she wondered why she'd let him stay here at all. The anger felt like a cold, hard thing inside her, sporadically throwing up questions like bile: Where had he been? Why had he not rung? Why had it taken him almost an hour to ask where his daughter was?

  She rose at six, bleary-eyed and headachy, and splashed cold water on her face. She wished that Ellie had been here; it would have given her a focus, a practical series of things to do. Instead she moved silently around the house, conscious suddenly of its familiarity, the feeling of safety that it had bestowed.

  Until now. Now she would be unable to think about it without Daniel in it; the areas that had been free of him now held him imprinted upon their memory. It took her several minutes to realize she felt unbalanced by this because she was expecting him to leave again.

  He woke after Lottie arrived. She had handed back Ellie, who looked distinctly unperturbed by her unorthodox evening, and curtly asked Daisy if she was all right.

  "Fine," said Daisy, burying her face in Ellie's neck. She smelled different, of someone else's house. "Thank you for looking after her."

  "She was no trouble." Lottie observed her for a time, raising an eyebrow at Daisy's arm. "I'll make tea, then," she said, and went off to the kitchen.

  Several minutes later Daniel came down the stairs, his sore eyes and gray complexion testament to his own unrestful night. He had stopped when he saw Daisy and Ellie in the hall, his foot still resting on the step behind.

  Daisy felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of him. She had wondered, several times, whether the previous night had been an apparition.

  "She . . . she's so big," he whispered, shaking his head. Daisy fought back the sarcastic response that came to her lips.

  He walked slowly down the stairs and came toward them tentatively, his eyes still on his daughter. "Hello, sweetheart," he said, his voice cracking.

  Ellie, with a child's unfailing ability to defuse a moment, gave him the briefest of glances and promptly began to smack Daisy repeatedly on the nose, cawing to herself as she did so.

  "Can I hold her?"

  Daisy, trying to save herself from the harder of Ellie's smackings, looked at the tears in Daniel's eyes, at the raw longing on his face, and wondered why, at this moment, the moment she'd thought about for months, the moment she'd longed almost physically to see, her overriding instinct was to hold her daughter to her. To not hand her over at all.

  "Here," she said, holding Ellie toward him.

  "Hello, Ellie. Look at you!" He brought her to him slowly, tentatively, like someone unused to holding children. She stood there for a minute, fighting the urge to tell him that he was holding Ellie in a way she didn't like, trying to ignore Ellie's arms reaching out for her. "I've missed you," Daniel was crooning. "Oh, sweetheart, Daddy's missed you." Then, overcome by a mass of conflicting emotions and unwilling for Daniel to see any of them, Daisy walked briskly away from them both and off to the kitchen.

  "TEA?" SAID LOTTIE, NOT LOOKING UP.

  "Please."

  "And . . . him?"

  Daisy looked at Lottie's back, ramrod straight and neutral as she moved deftly along the kitchen surface, sorting teapots and tea bags.

  "Daniel. Yes, he will. White, no sugar."

  White no sugar, she thought, holding on to the work surface to stop her hands from trembling. I know his likes better than I know my own.

  "Want me to take it out to him? When he's finished with the baby?"

  There was an edge to Lottie's tone. Daisy knew her well enough now to hear it. But she no longer resented it.

  "Thanks. I'll take mine out on the terrace."

  He emerged eleven minutes later. Daisy had been unable to prevent herself from timing him, from monitoring how long he lasted with his child before the periodic squawks of frustration or unidentified crying jags unsettled him so much that he handed her over. He lasted longer than she'd expected.

  "Your friend's taken her upstairs. Said she needs a nap." He brought his tea out and stood opposite her, gazing out over the sea below.

  "Lottie looks after her for me. While I'm working."

  "That's a handy arrangement."

  "No, Daniel, it's a necessary arrangement. The boss didn't like me trying to deal with planning officers and suchlike with a baby on my hip."

  So it was always there, this anger, bubbling under, just waiting to spit out at him, to scald him. Daisy reached for her head, exhaustion making her irritable and confused.

  Daniel stood in silence for some minutes, sipping at his tea. The smell of the jasmine in full bloom was almost overpowering, the faintest of breezes sending it across the terrace toward them.

  "I didn't expect to be welcomed back with open arms," he said eventually. "I do know what I've done."

  You have no idea what you've done! she wanted to shout at him. You really don't have the faintest idea. What she said was "I really don't want to discuss this while I ought to be working. If you can stay another night, we'll talk this evening."

  "I'm not going anywhere," he said, smiling apologetically.

  She smiled back. But it had not made her feel as reassured as she thought.

  THE DAY PASSED, AND DAISY WAS GRATEFUL FOR THE distractions of her work, of door handles wrongly affixed, windows that didn't shut, their irritating mundaneness restoring to her the faintest sense of normality and equilibrium. Daniel walked into town, supposedly to get a newspaper, but largely, Daisy suspected, because he was finding it as difficult as she was. Aidan and Trevor watched her with interested eyes, conscious that some domestic drama of epic proportions was being played out in front of them, distracted even from the opening matches of some football tournament on the radio.

  Lottie just watched and said nothing.

  She had offered, that morning, to relinquish day-today care of Ellie to Daniel "for as long as he was there." She had offered to show him how to do things like prepare her food, bolt her into her high chair, show him the way she liked her blanket tucked under her chin as she slept. "She doesn't want someone faffing around with her, unsettling her," she said. Something about the look on Lottie's face as she said this persuaded Daisy it might not be the best idea to let Lottie be the one to do this, not if Daisy was serious about Daniel's coming home.

  Camille came up at lunchtime and, after a quick chat with her mother, asked Lottie discreetly if she "was doing okay." "Stop by at ours for a head massage or something this evening if you like. Mum will mind Ellie. They're great for stress." If it had been anyone else, Daisy would have told her curtly to get lost. Having grown up with a Londoner's natural sense of anonym
ity, she hated the goldfish-bowl element of village life, the way that Daniel's reappearance apparently entitled everyone to an opinion. But Camille seemed uninterested in gossip; perhaps she heard so many sensational tales in her everyday work that she had become inured to its pleasurable possibilities. She just, Daisy thought wonderingly, wanted to make her feel better. Or perhaps she just wanted company. "Don't forget--stop by," said Camille as she left with Rollo. "To be honest, when Katie's out with her friends, I could do with someone to talk to. Hal seems to prefer his painted ladies to me these days." She said it jokingly, but her expression was wistful.

  Hal was the only other one apparently uninterested in Daisy's romantic situation. Probably, she thought, because he was now deeply engrossed in the mural, which was almost three-quarters revealed. He was absorbed, monosyllabic. He no longer even took a lunch break, accepting his sandwiches from his wife almost abruptly, and certainly with none of the romantic flourishes of the previous weeks. Half the time he forgot to eat them.

  Jones didn't call.

  She didn't ring him. She had realized pretty quickly that she wouldn't have known what to say.

  DANIEL STAYED ON. THAT SECOND EVENING THEY DIDN'T talk; it was as if the fact that they had both thought of little else all day meant that by the time they had the house to themselves, they were exhausted, their arguments already run through countless times in their heads. They ate, listened to the radio, went to their separate beds.

  The third evening Ellie had cried almost incessantly, victim apparently of some internal grumble or emerging tooth. Daisy had walked her around the upper floor of the house, conscious that here, unlike in their flat in Primrose Hill, Ellie's screams, which always tautened some invisible cord running through her to breaking point, did not prompt a simultaneous anxiety that she was disturbing everyone: her neighbors, upstairs and downstairs, people out in the street, Daniel. She had become accustomed to the space and the isolation. In Arcadia, she told her daughter fondly, no one can hear you scream.

  She walked the corridors, Ellie's sobs diminishing with the various changes of room, trying not to think too hard about Daniel's response, downstairs. This, after all, was what had driven him away before: the noise, the chaos, the unpredictability of it all. She half expected him to be gone when she finally crept back down the stairs.