"Too late."
"Well, I don't know. Do you think it is? Do you think it's fair to say something? In the circumstances?"
Another lengthy silence.
"Alex?"
"Jones . . . I don't know what to say."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called you."
"No, no. It's good that we talk about these things. But . . . I'm married now."
"I know that."
"And I don't think your having feelings for me is . . . well, appropriate. You know how Nigel feels about--"
"What?"
"I'm flattered. Honestly. But--"
"No, no, Alex. I'm not talking about you. Oh, Christ, what have I said?"
This time the silence was long--and embarrassed.
"Ah. I'm sorry. I'm not expressing myself very well. As usual."
Her laughter was speedy and deliberately light. "Oh, don't worry, Jones. I'm completely relieved. I just got the wrong end of the stick." She spoke like a primary-school teacher, firmly and brightly. "So who's this latest girl, then?"
"Well, that's the thing. She's not like the others."
"In what way? Blond, for a change? From somewhere exotic? Over the age of twenty?"
"No. Someone I've been working with. She's a designer."
"Makes a change from the waitresses, I suppose."
"And I think she likes me."
"You think? You've not slept with her?"
"It's just that the father of her kid has come back on the scene."
A brief pause. "Her kid?"
"Yeah, she's got a baby."
"She's got a baby? You're in love with someone with a baby?"
"I didn't say I was in love. And you don't have to sound like that."
"After everything you said to me about kids? How do you expect me to sound, Jones?"
Jones leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes.
"I don't believe this." The voice at the other end was sharp, exasperated.
"Alex. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."
"You haven't upset me. I'm married now. I'm far beyond your upsetting me. So far beyond that."
"I just wanted some advice, and you're the one person I know--"
"No, Jones, you wanted someone to make you feel better about the fact that you're in love for the first time, and with the wrong person. Well, I'm not that person anymore. It's not fair to ask me. Okay? Now I've got to go. I've got a meeting."
ON THE DAY OF THE OPENING, DAISY WOKE AT AN HOUR more normally associated with sleep and lay in her hotel bed watching the dawn gradually filter through the handsewn linen curtains. At seven she got out of bed, walked into her bathroom, and cried for approximately ten minutes, taking care not to wake her baby by burying her sobs in an Egyptian cotton hand towel. Then she splashed cold water on her face, put on her dressing gown, picked up the baby monitor, and padded next door to Daniel's room.
The room was dark and silent. He was asleep, a musty-smelling mound under the hotel duvet.
"Dan?" she whispered. "Daniel?"
He woke with a start, turning to face her, his eyes half closed. He pushed himself partially upright and, perhaps from old habit, flipped the duvet back to invite her in. The unconsciousness of the gesture made Daisy's throat constrict.
"We need to talk," she said.
He rubbed at his eyes. "Now?"
"There isn't going to be another time. I have to pack up tomorrow. We have to pack up."
He gazed into the middle distance for a minute. "Can I get a coffee first?" he said, his voice thick with sleep.
She nodded, looking away almost shyly as he climbed out of bed and into a pair of boxer shorts, the sight and smells of him as familiar and strange as a part of one's own body seen from an unfamiliar angle.
He made her a coffee, too, passing it to her as she seated herself on the sofa, his hair sticking up and out like a small boy's. Daisy watched him, her stomach churning, her words like bile in her mouth.
At last he sat. Looked at her.
"It's not going to work, Dan," she said.
At some point she remembered his putting his arms around her and her thinking how bizarre it was that he should be comforting her when she was telling him she no longer loved him. He had kissed the top of her head, too, the scent of him, the feel of him still perversely consoling.
"I'm sorry," she said into his chest.
"This is about me kissing that girl, isn't it?"
"No."
"It is. I knew I shouldn't have told you. I should have just left it behind. I was trying to be honest."
"It's not the girl. Really."
"I still love you, Daise."
Daisy looked up. "I know. I still love you. But I'm not in love with you."
"It's too soon to make this decision."
"No, Dan, it's not. I think I made it even before you came back. Look, I've tried. I've really tried to persuade myself that it's all still there. That it's worth rescuing. Because of Ellie. But it's not there. It's just not there."
He let go of her hands then and pulled back, recognizing some unfamiliar steel in her voice, something irreversible.
"We've been together so long. We've got a child together. You can't just throw all that away." His voice was almost pleading.
Daisy shook her head. "It's not throwing it all away. But we can't go back to what we were. I'm different. I'm a different person--"
"But I love that person."
"I don't want it anymore, Daniel." Daisy's voice was firmer now. "I don't want to go back to how we were, to how I was. I've done things. I've done things I never thought I could. I'm stronger. I need someone . . ."
"Stronger?"
"Someone I can rely on." She paused. Sighed. "Someone who I know isn't going to disappear when it all gets rough again. That's if I need anyone at all."
Daniel threw his head into his hands. "Daisy, I've said I'm sorry. It was one mistake. One mistake in eight years together. And I'm doing everything I can to make it right."
"I know you are. But I can't help how I feel. And I'd be looking at you all the time trying to second-guess you, trying to work out whether you were going to go again."
"That's not fair."
"But it's how I feel. Look . . . maybe if Ellie hadn't come along, this would have happened anyway. Maybe we would have become different people anyway. I don't know. I just think it's time for both of us to let go."
There was a lengthy silence. Outside, the sound of car doors slamming and brisk footsteps downstairs heralded the beginnings of the working day. The baby monitor let out a low moan, the acoustic warning of Ellie's awakening.
"I'm not leaving her again." Daniel looked at her, and his voice held a faint note of challenge.
"I'm not expecting you to."
"I'll want access. I want to be her dad."
She closed her eyes. The prospect of a lifetime spent handing her precious child over at weekends had haunted her, the mere thought of it already enough to move her to tears. It had been the one thing that had nearly saved him from this conversation.
"I know you do, Dan. We'll set something up."
THE MORNING WAS HOT, THE AIR CARRYING THAT KIND of stillness that is almost a threat, muffling the sound of the kitchen staff as they began their preparatory work and the cleaners as they waxed and vacuumed the downstairs rooms. Daisy ran back and forth under the whirring fans, tweaking furniture arrangements, supervising the polishing of taps and handles, her limp shirt and shorts heralding a heat that would become fiercer as the day went on. She continued working her way through the last-minute changes, trying to sublimate her mind to work, trying not to think at all.
Vans came and disgorged their contents onto the drive, disappearing again in a crunch of gear changes and a spray of gravel--arrangements of cut flowers, food, alcohol ferried in and out under the blinding sun--while Carol, her party dress hanging in readiness in the Bell suite, directed operations, a designer-clad dictator, her gravelly voice wheedling, instruc
ting, and blessing in equal measures as it echoed around the grounds.
Lottie had arrived to fetch Ellie at nine. She was not coming to the party ("Can't stand the things") and had offered to take the baby home with her instead. "But Camille's coming, with Hal and Katie. And Mr. Bernard," said Daisy. "Ellie would be quite happy with you here. Go on. You've done so much here."
Lottie shook her head mutely. She looked pale, her usual bite subdued by some unspoken internal struggle. "Good luck, Daisy," she said, and her eyes had met Daisy's with a rare intensity, as if there were more to it than several hours apart.
"There's always a drink for you. You can always change your mind," Daisy had called. The figure pushing the pram resolutely down the drive did not even turn.
Daisy had watched her until they both disappeared, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun, feeling inexplicably sad. Trying to persuade herself that, given Lottie's decidedly ambivalent reaction to the mural and her acid responses to everything else, perhaps, just perhaps, it was a good thing she wasn't coming after all.
DANIEL WALKED UPSTAIRS, AWAY FROM THE RELENTLESS noise and activity that conspired to make him feel like even more of a spare part and into the room that held his things. He had decided not to stay for the party; even if it had been possible for him to spend time around Daisy today, it would be too complicated, too humiliating, to explain his presence to those people he once thought of as contacts. He needed to be alone: to grieve, to think about what had happened and what he was going to do next. And possibly, once he got home, to get very, very drunk.
He walked along the corridor, dialing his brother's number on his mobile phone, leaving a message to tell Paul to expect him to be back that evening. He stopped in the doorway, midsentence. Aidan was standing on a stepladder in the center of the room, his hands fixed on a fan above his head.
"Hi there," Aidan said, one hand reaching down for a screwdriver on his belt.
Daniel nodded a greeting. He was well used to the lack of privacy imposed by living in a work in progress, but just at this moment it didn't make Aidan's presence any easier to bear. He picked up his overnight bag and began collecting his clothes, folding them, and thrusting them deep inside.
"You couldn't do me a favor, could you? Just flick that switch there? Not yet--just when I tell you." Aidan was balanced precariously, easing a fitting back into place. "Now."
Daniel gritted his teeth, crossed the room, flicked the switch on the wall, and the fan eased itself into a blur, audibly cooling the room with a soft hum.
"Your woman there said it was making a noise. Seems okay to me."
"She's not my woman." He had not brought a lot of stuff. It was almost pathetic the length of time it took to pack it away.
"Youse two had a row?"
"No," said Daniel, more calmly than he felt. "We've split up. I'm leaving."
Aidan wiped his hands together. "Well, now, I'm sorry about that. You being the baby's father and all."
Daniel shrugged.
"And you'd only just got back together, hadn't you?"
Daniel was already regretting saying anything. He bent down and scanned the space under the bed for stray socks.
"Still," came Aidan's voice from above, "can't say as I blame you."
"Sorry?" It was hard to hear him from under the coverlet.
"Well. No man wants to think of another man staying nights, does he? Not even if he is the boss, know what I mean? No, I'd say you did the right thing altogether."
Daniel froze in place, his ear still pressed to the floor. He blinked several times, and then he stood up. "I'm sorry," he said, and his voice was viciously polite. "Can you repeat what you just said?"
Aidan took a step down on the ladder, looked at Daniel's expression, and glanced sideways. "The boss. Staying with Daisy there. I mean, I assumed you . . . that that's what you . . . ah, hell. Forget I said anything altogether. No doubt I've got the wrong end of the stick."
"Jones? Jones was staying with Daisy? Here?"
"As I said, it was probably my misunderstanding of the situation."
Daniel looked at Aidan's awkward expression and smiled, a tight, understanding smile. "No doubt," he said, hauling his bag to him and pushing past. "Excuse me."
NO MATTER HOW SMART THE OCCASION, IT USUALLY TOOK Camille a matter of minutes to dress. She would feel her way through her wardrobe, her touch acutely attuned to which fabrics denoted which clothes, pull out the chosen item, and, with a quick brush of her hair and a slick of lipstick, she would be ready. It was almost indecent, Kay would say, a beautician like herself taking so little time. Gave them all a bad name.
Today, however, they were almost forty minutes in and so late that Hal was pacing the floor along the length of their bedroom. "Let me do something," he would say periodically. "No," Camille would snap. And with a sigh as loud and heartfelt as Rollo's own, he would begin pacing again.
Part of it was Katie, who had insisted on helping choose her mother's outfit, and who, to Camille's thinly disguised annoyance, had piled up so many clothes on their double bed that it was hard for Camille, whose cupboards were militarily ordered, to tell what was what. Part of it was her hair, which had for some reason decided to stick up in a decidedly odd manner around her hairline. But most of it was that she knew her mother was likely to be there, and her own indecision over whether she wanted to see her was making Camille fractious and unable to make even the most mundane decision.
"Shall I get your shoes out, Mummy?" said Katie, and Camille could hear the sound of her shoe boxes, all carefully labeled in braille, collapsing into a disorganized heap.
"No, sweetheart. Not until I've sorted out what to wear."
"Come on, love. Let me help."
"No, Daddy, Mummy wanted me."
"Oh, I don't want bloody either of you!" shouted Camille, her hands lifting to her face. "I don't even want to go to the stupid thing."
Hal sat down with her then and pulled her to him. And somehow the fact that even after all this her husband still had the ability not just to understand her but to forgive her made Camille feel the tiniest bit better.
They had finally left shortly after 2:00 P.M., Camille secretly suspecting that Katie had her done up like a dog's dinner, but trusting that Hal wouldn't let her go out in anything too outrageous. They had decided to walk to Arcadia, Hal reasoning that the drive was likely to be blocked in with visitors' cars and that even in summer one should enjoy a day like this as far as was possible. Camille wasn't so sure. Katie's hand sweated gently into her own, her other already sliding on Rollo's harness, strapped on to help her negotiate any crowds.
"I should have put sunblock on Katie," she said aloud.
"Already did it," said Hal.
"I don't know if I locked the back door," she said sometime later.
"Katie did it."
Halfway across the park Camille stopped completely. "Hal, I'm not sure I'm in the mood for this. It's just going to be loads of people making small talk, and I think this heat is going to give me a headache. And poor old Rollo's going to boil."
Hal took hold of his wife's shoulders. When he spoke, it was quietly, so that Katie wouldn't hear. "She probably won't even come," he said. "Your dad told me she thought she wouldn't bother. You know what she's like. Come on. Besides, Daisy will probably be leaving straight after, and you want to say goodbye, don't you?"
"The things she said about Dad, Hal . . ." Camille shook her head, her voice still trembling with the emotion of it. "I knew it wasn't exactly a match made in heaven, but how could she say she never loved him? How could she do that to him?"
Hal took her hand and squeezed it, a gesture that spoke of comfort and a certain futility.
They walked on, Katie skipping in front, toward the house.
DAISY STOOD OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN IN THE MIDST OF THE group of elderly men and women, smiling as the fourth photographer catcalled them into some new arrangement, whispering under her breath to some of the frailer among them to find
out whether they were bearing up, whether they might want a drink or something to rest on. Around them white-clad sous-chefs rushed around clattering plates and metallic pans, arranging savory confections on oversize platters. Julia, catching her eye across the crowd of people, waved, and Daisy smiled back, wishing it felt like less of an effort. It was going well, really well. The woman from Interiors had already translated the house into a four-page spread, with Daisy featured prominently as its designer; several people had asked for her number, leaving her wishing she'd thought to make up cards. She'd been so busy that she'd barely had time to think about Daniel, other than being conscious of a fleeting gratitude that he had not decided to stay. Jones she saw periodically in glimpses across the crowded rooms, always talking, always surrounded by people. The host, in a set of rooms he barely even knew.
But Daisy felt miserable. This was always the hardest bit of a job. The vision you had striven to create, had lost nights of sleep for, had worked on with dust in your hair and your fingernails caked with paint. It finally came together, colored with pain and draped with exhaustion. And then, when it was perfect, you relinquished it. Except this time it was harder to let it go. This time it had been Daisy's home, her refuge, her daughter's first months. There were people she had made her own and whom, despite best promises, she would probably never see again.
And where was she leaving it for? Weybridge.
Across the terrace Julia's smile beamed out at her from under her perfectly frozen hair, proud, well-meaning, completely misunderstanding everything Daisy now knew she was. I thought I'd made it, she realized in a burst of clarity. In fact I have nothing. When she arrived at Merham, she'd had a home, a job, her daughter. Now she faced the loss of all of these, even if the last was only part of the time.
"Cheer up, darling." Carol appeared at her elbow, perennial champagne bottle in hand, topping up drinks, posing for photographs, exclaiming at how perfect everything was, laughing off the chanting villagers outside on the drive. She had sent a tray of drinks out to them and made sure the newspapers had seen her do it. "Why don't you head off to the ladies'. Perk yourself up a bit. I'll handle things out here." Her smile was kind, her tone unarguable.
Daisy nodded and fought her way through the chattering groups toward the lavatories. She passed Jones as he talked, so close she could smell the scent of the mints on his breath. Her head was down, so she couldn't be sure, but she thought he hadn't even noticed.