Chapter Thirteen
Daisy
‘How’s it looking?’ Ginny asked the next morning when she saw Daisy inspecting the quilted advent calendar laid out on the airer in the laundry.
After her outburst up in the loft yesterday, Daisy was still embarrassed. Somehow whenever either of her sisters were around, she reverted to a much younger version of herself. And when there were two of them it was hard not tofeel as though they might gang up on her like they had when teenage Daisy had been troubled, she’d not known which way to turn and she’d batted away any attempts at help from the members of her own family. It had been Fern and Ginny against her when they realised their special quilt was no longer anywhere to be found too, and that was what had made her lose her temper in the loft yesterday. Butit was only moments after she’d stormed out of the house and slammed the front door behind her that Daisy had started to question whether the assumption her sisters were against her might be more in her head than in theirs. Maybe she’d got so used to thinking of Fern and Ginny regarding her as the troublesome one, the daughter who caused their parents the most grief, that she’d closed herself offfrom each of them. She’d never told her sisters the things she’d shared with Joshua in the pub that night, yet talking to him had come so easily with a trust that had been there in all the years she’d known him. And hearing that Joshua had his moments with Lucas, that even their relationship was challenging at times, had instilled a sense of acceptance Daisy felt she’d been battling for a long time.Perhaps it was time she opened herself up to trusting her sisters again rather than assuming the worst.
‘It’s all dry,’ Daisy told Ginny and carried on unpegging the individual pieces from the bottom rungs of the airer and stacked them next to the laundry sink. She put the last of the ornaments onto the pile and Ginny lifted the quilted advent calendar from the airer. Daisy had expected Ginnyto leave her to it but she lingered the way their mum did when she wanted to ask something and wasn’t quite sure how to say it. Loretta had done it often when Daisy was a teenager, when Daisy had way too much going on in her head, more than any fifteen-year-old should.
In the hallway Daisy and Ginny hung up the calendar, slotting the ornaments into pockets at random. Each ornament was a squarewith a different picture on it – there was an elf embroidered onto a snow-white background, a Santa with a big brown sack slung across his shoulder embroidered onto midnight blue, a twinkle in his eye to match the stars up above him, a reindeer with a bulbous red nose embroidered in scarlet. There was a tiny gingerbread house on one ornament, its colourful sweets intricately detailed using the finestneedle, an angel with golden wings and a halo that sparkled. And as each piece went into a pocket Daisy felt a little bit of their childhood trickle back, the memories of their mum and dad sitting at the bottom of the stairs close together, watching their daughters as one of them got to take that day’s ornament and find a space on the tree above.
Daisy popped the angel into one of the pockets.‘I should take Busker out quickly and then get going to work.’
‘How is the shop?’
‘Busy,’ she answered, looking for her keys and finding them beneath yesterday’s newspaper on the kitchen worktop.
‘I thought, given I’m not working and not travelling, perhaps I could come and give you a hand today.’
Daisy turned, unsure whether this was a criticism that she couldn’t cope but after yesterdayshe knew she had to try harder not to jump to conclusions. She picked up Busker’s lead, ready to take him for his walk.
‘We could talk quilting,’ Ginny went on, perhaps conscious of making an effort too. ‘I’d have a chance to raid through the material box in the stockroom to find things for Grandad, and it means Mum gets some time out.’
‘Mum and I have already set aside a few bits and pieces.’Daisy smiled.
‘Great, I’ll see what I can add. And hey, why don’t I take Busker for a walk and you get to have some time to yourself before work?’
‘He’s all yours. Maybe I’ll head out and take some photographs of the square.’ She handed Ginny the lead and ran upstairs to grab her camera. She almost suggested she went with her sister but she wasn’t ready for a heart-to-heart just yet and shehad a feeling that was close to happening. The others had to be thinking about it too, surely? It was just getting over the final hurdle and actually doing it that seemed insurmountable right now, at least to Daisy. It had been one thing confiding in Joshua, but it was quite another to finally tell Fern and Ginny why she’d been such a mess as a teenager, why she’d been so angry, why she had closedherself off from her family and their offers to help. Joshua was an outsider, but the thought of another confrontation with her sisters, especially before Christmas when they were all supposed to be here for their grandad, filled Daisy with dread. It could be just what they needed or it could go the opposite way and they wouldn’t want to hear her reasons at all, especially when they were so deeplypersonal and about their family.
When Daisy came back downstairs Ginny told her, ‘I saw some more of your photographs in the shop, they’re really wonderful. You’re very talented.’
‘Thank you.’ She quickly added, ‘Have fun, Busker.’ And then she was off. Because she didn’t want Ginny to bring up the photograph that had upset her so much, the one she’d torn into pieces. And she definitely didn’twant Ginny to delve into why photography had never verged past a hobby for Daisy. She’d asked once before and Daisy had made a joke that she had it too good in the Butterbury Sewing Box to ever consider another way of earning a living, and now she couldn’t deny that lately she’d been thinking exactly the same thing herself.
Daisy had a lovely hour walking around Lantern Square photographing thewoodland creatures all lit up with white fairy lights and hidden in the flower beds or at the foot of the trees. It was a quiet time of the day, and with the sun shining she captured some of them in a beautiful golden glow from the right angle. Back in the days of cameras with a film Daisy had been more selective and less experimental with her photography, not wanting to waste a shot that was anythingless than near-perfect. Her dad had told her it was an opportunity to learn and that she shouldn’t worry about using film, it was what it was there for. He’d also told her to always follow her dreams, to never settle, and it was advice that had carried Daisy through until her world had fallen apart. She’d had her dreams mapped out. She’d planned to do a degree in photojournalism at a universityon the south coast of England, she’d thought she had it all in hand.And then everything had changed. She’d discovered something she’d kept to herself, her dad went and died unexpectedly, and the only thing Daisy knew to do at the time was finally be the one to come to the rescue and be there for her mum in the shop no matter what. And the strength of proving herself to be responsible had spurredher on, until now. Now, Daisy was well aware she’d got into a rut and she didn’t know how to edge out of it. If she’d been more decisive like Fern she would’ve said no to the whole idea in the first place, she never would’ve volunteered when her heart wasn’t in it as much as she tried to convince everyone else that it was.
When Daisy headed to the Butterbury Sewing Box to start her shift Ginnywas already upstairs and she was surprised to see Fern in the shop. But rather than reference the moment up in the loft, Fern merely showed her some material she’d found for Grandad’s quilt. ‘It was in the cheap lot by the door, you know the odd bits that don’t necessarily go with much else.’
‘He’ll like this, it’s beautiful.’ It was pine green with snowflakes and candy cane designs.
Fern nodded,seemingly pleased to have done something right, and Daisy saw what she didn’t pick up on very often – a slightly unsure version of her sister, someone who had her doubts along the way too.
Fern lifted a notepad from the counter, pencil in hand, which was never a good thing, it meant she was about to get organised and, worse, bossy. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she began. ‘It’s not long until Christmasand we want this to be the most perfect Christmas for Grandad.’
‘It will be,’ Loretta called out as she rearranged the frosted pine cones in the window display. Kids often picked them up, toyed with them and left them around the shop wherever they liked.
‘We need to plan the food,’ Fern went on.
‘About that,’ Loretta continued, bending down to retrieve another pine cone from beneath a shelfand brushing the dust from it. ‘You don’t have to take on the responsibility of all the cooking, Fern.’
‘I’m happy to pitch in,’ said Daisy. ‘And I’m sure Ginny will.’
Fern nodded. ‘So what’ll we have?’
‘The usual?’ said Daisy. She went out to the back to hang up her coat and when she came back into the shop Fern looked over at her expectantly and so she elaborated. ‘You know – turkey, roastpotatoes, pigs in blankets, roasted carrots.’ Fern was frantically scribbling as if she didn’t know all this herself. ‘Oh, and cranberry sauce.’
Fern sat up straighter, a finger poised in the air. ‘I have a great recipe for home-made.’
Ginny came downstairs from where she’d been sorting the stock, which sometimes got in a mess all on its own. With a variety of balls of wool in her arms she droppedthem all into the bargain basket. ‘Recipe for what?’
