“Nothing,” she said, meaning it.
She picked up her phone and automatically opened up her work email, heart jumping as she took in the subject of one. A new job had gone live on the intranet due to the previous employee not passing their probation. An investigative journalist role on the News Now! Team.
Daisy watched the sun disappear completely, the trees fading into darkness and it felt important to her, for some reason, that she had watched that day, of all days, come to an end.
Dan picked Daisy and Clara up from Paddington, laughing at Clara’s description of Daisy diving into the swimming pool and the journey she’d gone on since. He was in London now until after the wedding.
“What do you mean you didn’t even know if you wanted to swim?” he asked. “That is truly wild, Daise. Has Mum spoken to you?” he added, turning to her.
“About what?”
Dan’s face lit up. “She wants a plus-one,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“I know,” Daisy said. “I cannot tell you how much it grosses me out that her plus-one is you.”
“It’s not me,” Dan said, turning on the indicator. “It’s Silly Billy.”
“What?” Daisy said as Clara let out a whistle from the back.
“Yup,” he said. “Something about her feeling ready to move on after the Christmas debacle.”
“Is that what you call ruining my wall with a bowl of potatoes?” Daisy asked, but she was teasing. She actually loved the permanent reminder of the breakdown and therefore rebuilding of her family. Huge rebuilding, it would seem, if her mum wanted to bring Billy.
“Wait. Billy? Are you sure?”
Dan shrugged, turning off the motorway. “That’s what she said.”
“Classic Mum to think she can add a fucking plus-one a week before the wedding,” Daisy said, and the three of them started laughing. “God, I’m so happy for her,” she added, thinking about what this might mean. That perhaps, after years, she was freeing herself from their dad.
“Same,” Dan said. “And happy for me too.”
“Well yes, definitely. No one wants to feel like their mum’s boyfriend.”
“No one.”
Daisy looked out the window. “I’m so glad you went away,” she said, reaching across and patting his hand. “I know how important it was for you, but I think it might have saved all of us.”
“I don’t know,” Dan said, staring ahead. “I’m not sure it’s savedyouyet.”
It wasn’t until later that Daisy really understood what he meant.
Chapter Thirty
Tom
Should Tom worry that he didn’t even remember turning up at the studio that morning? That this job was now so underwhelming to him that a paid taxi into the heart of Soho at one of the most sought-after photography spaces in London made such little impact, it was almost as though he only surfaced once his camera was pressed to his face.
“Tilt your chin slightly,” Tom said, finally in the flow of it.
Kiki responded immediately, her right cheekbone catching the light just as he hoped it would. He pressed down on his camera.
“Perfect,” he said. “Keep it right there.”
He pressed a few more times, twisting his lens until she came sharply into focus, and pressing down on the shutter again. He pulled his camera away from his face, staring at the mini version of Kiki on his screen, head upward, in a long beige mac, wide open, revealing a white crop top and pants underneath. It was for a famous jacket brand and while he wasn’t convinced that anyone would wear their garment in this way, he had to agree that the image worked. It was striking. Itwasstriking and yet it wasn’t going to change anything at all.
“We got it,” Tom said, and Kiki immediately walked off theset and away from the lights that were shining on her, searching for her vape.
Tom moved to his laptop and took the SD card out of his camera, transferring the images so he could take a closer look. He missed the feeling he got when he captured a moment he really cared about, and he was fairly sure his exhibition had helped with that. The exhibition that had come about because of Daisy. He wondered if she’d known what she was doing when she told him about the gallery, or if it was just a coincidence. Maybe that was just who she was as a person—someone who thought of others and wanted their lives to be better, in the same way he had wanted for her. He’d just gone about it all wrong, and now he wasn’t even sure if she wanted him at her wedding, or whether she never wanted to see him again. The only way he could answer that was to imagine her now, and what she’d say. He believed she would understand and that she’d forgive him, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking.
