The Double Life of Daisy Hemmings by Joanna Nadin

Author:Joanna Nadin [Nadin, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2022-05-03T17:00:00+00:00

22.

Jason, 1988

By the following Friday, a sort of appalling boredom is kicking in. Hal huddled in the shade of an immigrant cedar with his open notebook and the dregs of a bottle of red. Julian listless, medical textbooks littering the parched grass around him. Bea reading, another Virginia Woolf. Muriel still ignoring decency laws in favour of a strapless tan. But Daisy – ever the treasure hunter – finds glory in all of it.

‘Isn’t it funny how it all becomes ordinary?’ she says.

Muriel sighs, turns onto her side. ‘What?’

‘Cornwall. Like we’ve lived here forever.’

‘God forbid,’ Julian says without even opening his eyes.

Daisy ignores him. ‘I rather adore it.’

‘No you don’t,’ Bea insists. ‘You’d be desperate for Greek Street in weeks.’

‘I’m not even missing it. Seriously, maybe we should move. All of us. You could set up the theatre here, Hal.’

Hal looks up from a page of scrawled playscript. ‘And play summer stock for the yacht brigade? No thanks.’

Daisy sighs. ‘Rich people need theatre too. You could convert from the inside. An agent provocateur. How admirable.’

Hal snorts. ‘I’m moving to Manchester, not playing fucking jester for a bunch of trust fund junkies.’

‘Says the boy with the biggest trust fund in Christendom.’

‘Shut up, Julian,’ says Daisy.

‘I wish I had a trust fund,’ Muriel muses.

Daisy takes the cigarette from her, takes a drag. ‘You do, darling.’

Muriel’s brow furrows as she tries to fathom this possibility. ‘Do I?’

‘You know that money that goes into your bank account every month?’

Muriel nods.

‘Where do you think that comes from? A mysterious benefactor?’

Muriel claps. ‘Like Magwitch! Or Miss Havisham.’

‘Jesus.’ Julian rolls onto his stomach.

Muriel turns to him. ‘I know it isn’t really. More’s the pity. I’d rather like a benefactor. Other than my father.’

Daisy holds out the cigarette. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’

Muriel takes it, sighs. ‘I’ll live.’

And Jason? Jason takes it all in with the attention to detail of a court stenographer and the gaping astonishment of a tourist on the trail of a lost tribe. Because these days are golden; are so far from ordinary as shit from champagne.

Ordinary? Ordinary is scuffed shoes a size too small and a decade out of fashion but you have to wear them anyway. Ordinary is scraping together the bus fare to Plymouth to spend your five-pound Our Price voucher – your only Christmas present, aside from socks. Ordinary is own-brand biscuits and knock-down yoghurt and a breadline that’s economy sliced white.

This? This is extraordinary.

And he, unbelievably, is part of it.

In the mornings, while his sister’s still sleeping and his father’s passed out, sweating off the bottles, he takes Bea out on Dolly, teaches her to hold her breath, to tread water, to stretch her doggy paddle into a cautious front crawl. Then, boat stowed, he sees out the midday shift until three when last orders are called and he slips back out to the fish cellar where she repays him with lessons in deportment. For, yes, she has taught him the words he can and cannot use:

Dessert, not pudding.

Sofa, not settee.

Supper, not tea.

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