Daisy Darker(55)

There is a slight pause before all of Nana’s clocks start to ring and ding and chime in the past. It must have been midday when we gave our little performance, because they seem to go on forever. She had a new one that year that looked like an owl. Its eyes turned as it ticked, as though it was watching us.

When the clocks stop, Rose – the ghostbuster – aims her cardboard proton pack in my direction, shooting a hidden can of squirty cream. When the show is over, we all hold hands and take a bow. I watch as our mother congratulates us and hands me a towel – so even she knew I was going to get wet – then I disappear inside the house.

The static camera picks up some of what the adults are saying, but I have to lean a little closer to the TV in order to hear. Conor’s dad and our dad seem to be fighting for Nancy’s attention. Bradley Kennedy was completely in love with my mother by then, and anyone who saw them together knew she felt the same way. My dad – who’d had more girlfriends than any of us could keep track of – didn’t seem to like my mother having a ‘friend’ of her own, even though they’d been divorced for years.

‘I have to leave first thing, my orchestra is playing in Paris next week,’ Dad boasted.

‘That sounds wonderful,’ Mr Kennedy replied, sounding genuinely pleased that my dad was leaving.

‘Bradley has written a book about grief and gardening,’ Nancy said to my dad, as though it was some sort of competition.

Dad shrugged. ‘Sounds . . . delightful.’

‘I think so. Nana is going to put him in touch with her agent,’ my mother replied. ‘I’ve read it, and the writing is beautiful. The book deserves to get noticed,’ she added, beaming with pride as though she had written it herself. But the smiles didn’t last for long.

There is a scream from inside Seaglass on the TV, which makes everyone here, then and now, jump. The scream belonged to Lily. She had just found me lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, still dressed as Gizmo the gremlin, and I wasn’t breathing.





Twenty-eight



31 October 2:55 a.m.

less than four hours until low tide

My mother said that it was nobody’s fault that my heart stopped that day, but I think being so scared on that stage might have had something to do with it. I have never liked people looking at me, which I think is because of all the doctors who stared at me when I was a child. They would look at my face, then stare down at the scar on my chest, then shake their heads and frown their frowns, and look very disappointed indeed. When people stared at me, it was almost always for the wrong reasons, which was why I would rather they didn’t look at me at all.

There were months of hospital visits the fifth time I died, including a trip to see yet another specialist in London the following February. The private hospital fees were paid for by Nana, who always refused to believe that there wasn’t a way to fix me. Most memories of my times in hospital have faded around the edges over the years, but I remember that week for two reasons. Firstly, it was Valentine’s Day, and the boy in the bed opposite me on the ward gave me a card. I had never received a Valentine’s card before and didn’t know quite what to make of it.

‘Why does it have a heart on the front?’ I asked.

‘Because I love you,’ he said, pushing his jam-jar glasses a little higher up his nose. He was eleven, I was nine, and I’m not convinced either of us knew too much about love.

‘Well, don’t get any funny ideas. I have a boyfriend,’ I lied.

‘No boys have ever come to visit you,’ he replied. ‘What’s his name?’

I didn’t hesitate. ‘His name is Conor Kennedy. But even if I didn’t have a boyfriend, which I definitely do, given the ward we’re on, we might both be dead by morning. So please don’t spend what might be your final hours having fanciful thoughts about me.’

From the boy’s expression, I thought maybe I shouldn’t have said what I said. But his freckled face soon recovered from the shock of my words, and he smiled, revealing shiny silver braces. ‘God will watch over us, and I’m sure we’ll both still be here for breakfast.’

I’ve never been religious, nobody in my family is. Nancy said that she believed in God until the day she found out I was broken. They had a bit of a falling-out after that, which resulted in her not speaking to God for several years, so in some ways her relationship with God wasn’t unlike her relationship with my father. I suppose the doctors were like gods to me; it was up to them whether I stayed alive. They always seemed to find a way to fix me, so maybe I should have been more optimistic about living long enough to endure another hospital meal. But I wasn’t – optimistic, that is – it’s something I’ve always struggled to be. I have a highly active imagination, and it’s been self-taught to imagine the worst.

The boy was still staring at me with a dreamy expression on his face, holding the home-made Valentine’s card. I didn’t much like the look of him, or it.

‘Why do you think you love me? You don’t even know me,’ I said.

‘Yes, I do. I’ve read all the Daisy Darker books,’ he replied with a grin.

It was my first taste of fame, and I didn’t like the flavour. Just because someone has read a book with my name on the front, it doesn’t mean that they know who I am.