Daisy Darker(71)

‘What? Unhappy? Lonely? Bored?’

Nancy tutted, and it made me so angry. It was the bad habit she was always so good at. The sound of people tutting still makes me cross. Sometimes my mother would tut for the benefit of nobody but herself, when she thought she was alone and no one could hear her. Tut. Tut. Tut. It was her response to everything that irritated her, including me. Nancy steered me out of the room, as though I were an embarrassment that Nana’s agent shouldn’t have to see.

‘Your sisters aren’t as delicate as you are,’ she said, with a level of satisfaction that made me want to tut.

‘I’m not—’

‘Daisy, I have spent my life protecting you from the world and looking after you . . .’ That sounded like a joke to me. By then, my mother was a woman who could barely look after herself. After the break-up with Conor’s father, she seemed smaller and had become a bit introverted. London was too loud for her, and our tiny town house was too claustrophobic with no real outdoor space. So we spent more time at Seaglass than ever before. Nancy sat alone in the garden for hours with her precious flowers, because they were all she had left of Conor’s dad, and her only friends came in bottles. My mother had less time than ever for me, and she resented the pity and guilt I seemed to cause her to feel. ‘I am never going to let anything happen to you,’ she said, holding my shoulders a little too tight. Sometimes it felt like she wanted me to stay sick and vulnerable forever.

A lifetime of my mother ‘protecting’ me meant that I didn’t have much of a life or any friends of my own, not real ones. I didn’t go to school, or Brownies or swimming lessons like my sisters. I didn’t get to hang out with any other children my own age. Even now, I find it hard to make friends, and sometimes I think it’s because I never got taught how to do it. That was something neither Nancy nor Nana knew how to teach, because they didn’t have any either. My childhood friends were Agatha Christie and Stephen King.

When I look back, I think being home-schooled deprived me of so much more than anyone realized. I can understand why my mother didn’t see the point in me learning algebra – that was something we did agree on – but there were plenty of things I couldn’t teach myself by reading books. I didn’t just miss out on the lessons most children learn in a classroom. There were life lessons I never knew about.

I gave up demanding to be allowed out that night. There was no point arguing with my mother. You can’t win an argument with someone who refuses to have one. I left them all to it and went up to my room, furious about being treated like a child when I no longer felt like one. Nancy wouldn’t even let me read the letters from the hospital, even though they were about me. I thought about the last doctor I had seen, and how happy and cheerful he was compared to all the others. ‘Now go and live your life,’ he had said with a big smile on his face, as though there were nothing wrong with me at all. Living was all I wanted to do, so I couldn’t understand why Nancy still insisted on locking me away and treating me like a porcelain doll.

An hour or so after Nana’s birthday dinner, the tide was almost low enough for Rose, Lily and Conor to leave. They had changed into fancy dress for the annual Halloween beach party and, like always, I was going to miss out on all the fun. Whenever the three of them attended local parties, there was normally some coordination when it came to their costumes. That year they were going as the Lion, the Witch and the Pumpkin. Rose was the lion, Lily was a witch – a role she was well rehearsed in – and Conor was dressed in what looked like an orange sack.

I sat at the top of the stairs, watching them put on their coats and say their goodbyes. Then I heard the front door slam, and listened to the adults return to the kitchen and their drinks. In my fury at the injustice of it all, I stumbled into the old wicker hamper on the landing, the one that we used for dressing-up games when we were younger. I kicked it in frustration, then had an idea. I opened up the hamper, pulling out home-made ghostbuster and Gizmo costumes, along with witches’ hats and wigs, but realized none of it would be enough to change my appearance and hide my face. Then I found the old sheet from my performance as a ghost a few years earlier. I pulled it over my head, lined up the two holes with my eyes, and looked in the mirror. Then I put the sheet in my backpack and hatched a plan.

After using cuddly toys to make a me-shaped lump in my bed, I crept downstairs and let myself out of the front door. I ran across the causeway as fast as I could with the moon lighting my way, constantly checking over my shoulder to see if I’d been caught escaping. Then I scrambled up the cliff path, until my sisters and Conor were only a few metres ahead of me. They were taking the long route – which was safest when it was dark – but I knew a shortcut and reached Conor’s car before they did, just in time to climb inside the boot. Nobody ever used to bother locking their cars when leaving them behind the sand dunes back then. Things have changed so much since 1988. These days we are taught to suspect others of doing us harm at all times.

Conor had borrowed the old blue Volvo from his dad, without Mr Kennedy’s knowledge or consent. Forgiveness is easier to ask for than permission, but Conor no longer asked his father for either. The car was already as battered and broken as its owner. Since his return to drowning his sorrows, Conor’s dad had driven home drunk from the pub on more than one occasion, often driving into a wall or a tree along the way, but at a speed that luckily only dented his pride and the vehicle.