Daisy Darker(35)
‘I don’t get it,’ says Conor. ‘Who left this tape on the kitchen table with the words WATCH ME stuck to the front? It must have been one of us, so who was it?’
Nobody answers him.
Lily lights another cigarette before tossing the match and a log on the fire, which crackles, and spits and choreographs a hundred eerie shadows to dance across the room. Then she takes a long drag before slowly blowing smoke from her pink lips.
‘Do you ever think about anyone except yourself?’ Rose says, staring at her.
‘What does that mean?’ Lily asks, sitting up and staring back.
‘Rose,’ says Nancy, trying to prevent storm damage when the rest of us can see that the roof has already blown right off. The home movie has brought back some unhappy memories for everyone. Maybe that’s why someone thought we should watch it. When Lily loses her temper, she’s the only one who can find it again, but it’s unlike Rose to lose control of her emotions.
‘Honestly, you are the most selfish and spoilt person I’ve ever had the misfortune to know. I’d actually forgotten how cruel you used to be to Daisy when we were kids. The poem in the kitchen, and everything Dad said about you last night is true,’ Rose continues, while we all wait for Lily to react. I fully expect her next words to be soaked in sarcasm, her preferred form of self-defence. I confess I do enjoy it more than I should when my older sisters squabble. It always felt like them against me when we were younger, and them against one another is much more fun. All families have their own private routines and secret language, and all families know how to hurt each other.
‘I don’t care what Dad thought about me, and I don’t care what you think either. Why don’t you get a life and stop judging mine,’ Lily says.
‘I’d gladly not watch the car crash that is your life any longer, it’s embarrassing. Maybe with Nana and Dad gone, we don’t need to keep playing happy families. Perhaps we can all just go our own separate ways for good when the tide goes out?’
‘Rose, you don’t mean that,’ says Nancy.
‘Don’t I?’ As soon as she sees the look on our mother’s face, my eldest sister softens again, retreating inside the version of herself she thinks we all want her to be. ‘I’m . . . sorry. I already had a terrible day before I got here and, like everyone else, I just can’t believe what has happened. Or that Nana and Dad are gone.’
Rose’s unexpected Jekyll and Hyde routine catches us all off guard. When I try to translate the look on her face, I think it is fear. Rose is terrified, and maybe she is right to be. Maybe finally, and for the first time, my family does know what it is like to be me; to live with the constant fear that today might be their last. I see the same fear on the faces of the residents at the care home where I volunteer; because they know their time is almost up. I do my best to comfort them, listen to their regrets and ease their anxiety, but they know it’s inevitable. Life kills us all in the end. I stare at my family as we sit in yet another awkward silence, wondering how it came to this. In contrast, the storm outside continues to make itself heard, the sound of rain constantly tapping on the windows like a thousand tiny fingernails.
‘Why was yesterday a bad day?’ Conor asks Rose, sounding genuinely interested.
She makes eye contact with him very briefly, then stares into the distance as though reliving another memory she would rather forget.
‘I got a call from the RSPCA yesterday afternoon. I had to stop off at a disused barn on the way here and there were six ponies locked inside. They hadn’t had food or water for days.’
Even Lily looks moved. ‘That’s so sad. What did you do? Will they get rehomed?’
‘I shot every one of them. Between the eyes.’ Rose looks up, but nobody says anything. I look around the room and see that everyone is as shocked as I feel. ‘I had to,’ she says. ‘It was too late to save them, there was nothing I could do. They were in agony. I had to do something to end their pain, but I didn’t have enough anaesthetic to inject them all. My gun was the only option. It was awful. I can still hear them. Did you know that horses cry when they are scared? Like children.’ Her hands tremble a little and she balls them into fists. ‘I wish I could have shot those responsible instead. Sometimes I loathe people, I really do. I don’t understand how human beings are capable of such horrific things, or why they inflict so much pain on others.’
The silence seems to swallow us all this time.
‘I didn’t even know you had a gun,’ says Lily.
Rose sighs. ‘It’s just a small handgun. A lot of vets have guns and are licensed to use them. It’s normally locked in the safe at the practice.’
Nancy frowns. ‘But if you did . . . that on the way here, does that mean there is a loaded gun in the house? With real bullets?’
‘Don’t worry. I hid it somewhere safe when I arrived.’
The silence resumes and I study my eldest sister for a while. I know that her vet practice is having a little money trouble, but I also know she has always been too proud to ask for any financial help from anyone, unlike Lily. Rose would have really benefited from Nana’s money had she been left any, and would have put it to good use. I notice how she keeps checking her watch, and wonder whether she is just counting down the hours before we can leave. Just over four now, I think. Rose looks so sad. She has always found human company unsatisfying. She says she finds it exhausting to listen to the manufactured feelings of people too stupid to know when their thoughts are not their own. I wonder what her thoughts are now as she checks her watch again, for the second time in less than a minute. I’m not the only one studying Rose, and it’s as though the weight of our stares are too heavy for her to bear.