Our flat was beautiful. Like something you’d see in a glossy magazine. I could never have believed I would live somewhere so lavish. Running my fingers along the clean white surfaces, there were moments when it felt more like a show home than somewhere a couple might actually live. It frightened me sometimes, all that sparkle, gleam, and polish. As if I wasn’t good enough for my own home, which was a pretty dumb thing to think.
Ten minutes later, I was finally absorbed in a podcast, much easier than reading in my hungover state, when the front door slammed loudly. Ah shoot, Phil was back from the gym. I scampered upstairs to run a comb through my hair and stick a bra on before he saw me in all my resplendent, hungover glory.
Three
I woke up on Monday morning after a good night’s sleep feeling totally revived. Excited and nervous about the day ahead, I went through my usual morning routine with extra care. I even exfoliated my elbows, not sure why. Just seemed like the thing to do.
In the bathroom I slathered myself from head to toe with the good body lotion, usually reserved for date night. While my lotion dried, I moisturised and primed my face then slapped on a coat of foundation. Whisked some blush over my cheekbones. A lick of mascara and I was done.
I padded back to the bedroom to get dressed, pulling on undies, tights, spanks and the new skirt-suit I’d bought especially for today. I did a little spin in front of the mirror. I’d spent quite a lot of money on the suit and it really was quite flattering.
‘Looking good, Daisy old girl,’ I said, blowing myself a kiss. Feeling ready to take on the world, I bounced downstairs to the kitchen.
Phil, of course, was up already, looking dapper in his good blue suit. I gave him a peck on the cheek and poured myself a coffee.
‘You’ve got your good suit on today.’
‘Have I? Well you know, I always like to make an effort,’ he said. Alright, no need to be weird about it, I thought, popping a couple of slices of bread in the toaster.
‘You’re back on bread then?’ Phil said. Actually, I was never off it, but sometimes it was easier to just go along with Phil’s health fads. He’d be on to something else in no time.
Over breakfast, Phil was sullen and quiet, clearly annoyed about something.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘I just don’t feel like talking to you right now.’
‘Why?’ I asked, racking my brains for something I’d done wrong. We’d had Sunday dinner yesterday with his family, but I couldn’t think of anything I’d done that could have upset him. Sometimes he just got in moods for no reason.
‘Please, Daisy, why do you have to always read into things? I just would like a little peace and quiet while I eat my breakfast. Not everybody needs to be constantly talking on and on.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I said, stung. ‘I just wanted to know what was wrong with you.’
‘See,’ Phil said. ‘That’s the problem right there. I’ve just told you nothing’s bothering me and yet you still can’t let it go. Like yesterday. You’re nearly thirty years old, for Christ’s sake. I’m not sure my entire family wants to listen to your fantasies of becoming, what, some famous web designer in quite such excruciating detail.’
‘They asked me,’ I said, wounded by the sarcasm. ‘Why are you bringing this up now? You know I’ve got my meeting today.’
Phil sighed and shook his head. ‘They were just being polite. You’ve got street smarts, Daisy darling, no one can deny that. It’s just that you’re not necessarily book smart. Let’s forget about it, eh? You know I hate it when we argue. I just don’t want you to be disappointed, that’s all.’
I sniffed back tears. ‘I know that, Phil.’
‘And before you get the wrong end of the stick entirely, why don’t you take a look at this?’
Leaning down by his seat, Phil lifted a flat, rectangular package onto the kitchen table with a loud, cheery ‘Ta dah!’
It was beautifully gift wrapped, with a big bow on top.
‘See, I’m not as bad as all that,’ Phil said, radiating charm again. ‘I did go to the trouble of getting you a good luck present.’
I reached out my hand but stopped just shy of touching the wrapping, as if I was waiting for it to disappear.
‘Open it then,’ he said. ‘Oh, come on, you’re not going to sulk, are you?’
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak, and tore into the wrapping.
‘Phil, it’s beautiful,’ I said, taking out a gorgeous leather satchel. It really was quite lovely and expensive-looking too.
‘Just like a real designer would have,’ he said, all proud of himself. He came around the breakfast bar and planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘Love you, Goose.’
Just then my mobile phone began to vibrate. The theme tune to Jaws rang out across the kitchen.
‘Your mother’s on the phone,’ Phil said wryly.
I grinned, picked it up, and opened my mouth to say hi. But Mum was already in full flow. It was how our conversations normally began and usually ended, and it had been that way ever since I was a kid. To this day, Mum never tired of telling me what to do, and what not to do, and what would happen if I didn’t heed her precious advice. Maybe some of this advice wasn’t so bad, but it wore me out always having to hear it. Most of these words of wisdom related to Phil nowadays. How to keep hold of him. How to get him to marry me. Nothing, to Mum’s way of thinking, could be more important than that. It still astonished her that he’d chosen to date me in the first place and that he hadn’t dumped me yet. It was pretty insulting, but of course Mum didn’t see it that way—she thought she was only looking out for my best interests.
In her defence, a lot of this had to do with my dad and the way in which he’d left us. You hear about these married men who nip out for a pack of cigarettes and are never seen again. In Dad’s case, it was the Evening Standard. The next we learned of him was a postcard from Australia a fortnight later, where, as it turned out, he’d decided to make a new life for himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t love us – he didn’t want us to think that, said the message – it was just he had this sudden thirst for pastures new. These new pastures we later discovered involved an Amazonian yoga instructor from Perth and her three cute kids.
Mum had never really recovered, which was hardly surprising, and ever afterwards she’d prized stability above all else. Little wonder she’d sought this in her second marriage, instead of romance and excitement, and wanted the same for me.
Several years after I’d left home, Mum had married Gerald Wylie, a widower from Chiswick. In my opinion, Gerald was already wedded—to his model railway set. His real pride and joy. Being his wife meant having to listen to Gerald waffle on about his lifelong hobby endlessly. But Mum seemed happy enough to comply, which was infuriating as she never bloody listened when I had something to say.
I was less interested in Gerald’s infernal witterings. But if I ever tried to change the topic, his face clouded over and, with a raised eyebrow and a meaningful glance to my mother that seemed to say, ‘I don’t know how you put up with it all these years,’ he would flounce off to play with his choo-choo trains.
Mum would stare after him admiringly as he trotted off to run the West Coast line. ‘He couldn’t be any less like your father.’
I knew she still beat herself up about it, falling for a charmer, a chancer, a jack the lad—all the things Dad was. None of which could be said about Gerald, the most boring man I’d ever met. Still, Mum thought I should take a leaf out of her book and show a keen interest in all of Phil’s hobbies. It was this she was waffling on about now.
‘If he’s down the gym, you should be down there with him. It stands to reason—you don’t want him mingling with any lycra-clad sexpots.’
Sexpots! Dear God, Mum. Finally, she paused to dunk a biscuit in her tea. The only time I could ever get a
word in.
‘Has it not occurred to you,’ I answered, ‘that Phil might want his own time and space?’
At this, Mum snorted down the phone. ‘If you have any sense, you won’t give him too much of either. You should always be there with a word of comfort, looking to soothe Phil’s troubled brow.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Mum—I’m his girlfriend not his nursemaid!’
‘I’m only saying, Daisy, you should play to your strengths.’
The unspoken suggestion here was obvious. My strengths didn’t include being especially attractive or desirable. It was far from the first time Mum had implied this. As usual, I let it go. I knew she cared for me in her own way, but Lord did she have a funny way of showing it.
As Mum rabbited on, I checked my watch. I needed to leave in fifteen minutes. I went upstairs, putting her on speaker, paying little mind to what she was saying. In this way, I was able to straighten my hair and pop on some lippy without adding as much as ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
‘You look nice,’ Phil said, coming into the bedroom and swatting my bum. His earlier bad mood seemed to be forgotten.
‘Oh, is that Phillip?’ Mum trilled. She was literally obsessed with him and flirted with my boyfriend outrageously whenever she got the chance.
He shook his head, backing rapidly away, mouthing, ‘Nooooo.’ The swine!
‘Mum,’ I said, ‘I can’t speak for long. I’ve got to get to work.’
‘Still at the little temping job, Daisy?’ she asked. ‘Of course, once you and Phillip tie the knot, I don’t suppose he’ll expect you to work anymore.’
‘If you must know…’
Mum talked over me. ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘you’re not getting any younger, Daisy, dear. You need to get that one tied down, start making babies. He’s quite the catch.’ And back we were, to that again.
‘He hasn’t asked me yet,’ I said, through gritted teeth, as she knew perfectly well. ‘Anyway Mum, I’m probably going to get a promotion soon, so there won’t be time for babies for at least another ten years, maybe fifteen.’
‘Daisy,’ she gasped. ‘Think of your ovaries. They’ll never hold out that long.’
‘Just kidding, Mum.’
‘Of course you are, dear.’
‘You know I want to have a family someday. But Phil wants to wait a few more years and I agree. There’s plenty of time.’
‘There is?’
‘Mum, God. I’m twenty-six, not eighty-six.’
‘Well,’ Mum said, ‘you could always force the issue. That’s what I did with your father.’
I bit back a mean retort. That didn’t work out too well for anyone.
‘Mum, I’m not going to do that,’ I said.
‘The clock’s ticking, that’s all I’m saying.’
I rolled my eyes and finished the last section of hair. Managing to tame my unruly curls into a sleek, straight do every morning was hard work.
‘Mum, I’ve got to go, Phil’s waiting.’
‘Oh well,’ she said, ‘in that case, bye darling.’
I hung up the phone. Took a few deep breaths. Once I got this promotion, she’d have to start taking my job a little more seriously, than thinking of it as something I did to fill in the time until Phil decided to impregnate me.
‘I’m not a prize bloody heifer,’ I muttered to myself.
‘What’s that, Goose?’ Phil said from the doorway.
‘Nothing, hon.’
‘Well, hurry up or you’re going to miss your train.’ Shoot, that would be just perfect. I hurried down the stairs, grabbed my handbag and set off on foot towards the station.
Four
It was only a short distance to work, but I did worry a little about all the fumes I must have been breathing in on my daily walk. God only knew what it was doing to my lungs. The roads were gridlocked the entire way, the cars roaring out clouds of pollution. Maybe I’d get myself one of those surgeons’ masks like the cyclists wore.
The lights at the pedestrian crossing opposite the train station seemed to take an age to change. Tapping my foot impatiently, I checked my watch. Five minutes until my train left. I stabbed at the button, which made not the blindest bit of difference.
Finally, thank goodness, the lights changed. I hurried across the road and into the station. Quickly swiped my Oyster card and trotted onto the escalators, holding on to the rail for dear life. I hated the damned things; they always made me feel dizzy, like I was going to topple over for no reason and roll back down to the bottom.
To distract myself I internally rehearsed my acceptance speech: Why Oliver, I would love to work here on a permanent basis. My work is extremely impressive, do you really think so? Exemplary! Oh you’re too kind.
In reality, I was more likely to get blood out of a stone than any kind of compliment from Oliver, but whatever, that was what a fantasy life was for. Well, one of the things, anyway.
I got to the platform just as my train was pulling in. Shit. I pushed my way through packs of commuters who all seemed to lack basic spatial awareness, simple manners, or the basic tenets of personal hygiene in some cases. I jumped on just as the doors slid shut and we all did our daily dance, tussling for a seat. Bagging one, I quickly organised myself before I got too squished to move.
I pulled out my iPad, plugged in my headphones and watched a video tutorial to pass the time on the commute, trying not to brood over my earlier conversation with Phil. In the course of ten minutes, he’d shown me his worst side, quickly followed by his best, which was often the way with him. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Any of it. Not with the prospect of promotion looming large on the horizon. I, Daisy Monroe, was about to move up in the world!
Five
‘Morning Daisy,’ Laura on reception said as I pushed through the revolving doors at the front of our office block. She was pecking away at her keyboard with extremely long and impractical nails. I wondered how she ever got anything done.
‘Morning,’ I replied, swiping myself in.
‘Nice weekend?’
‘Not bad, you?’
‘Oh, you know,’ Laura said. ‘Once you have kids, it’s all nappies and breast pumps.’
At this, I nodded sagely, thinking of the wine-soaked weekend just gone.
‘Oh sorry,’ Laura said, looking as though she’d just remembered I had a terminal disease. ‘You don’t have children yet, do you, Daisy?’
‘Nope,’ I said, eyeing the elevator. The glowing numbers showed it was still on the top floor and not moving. ‘Plenty of time for all that,’ I said, backing away. Why was everyone so obsessed with the contents of my womb? Laura nodded sympathetically. A comic-book style speech-bubble saying, ‘Tick Tock,’ was practically floating above her head.
I decided not to wait for the lift. It was only two flights, and if I took the stairs, I could feel virtuous about getting some more of my daily steps in while avoiding any further well-intentioned negging from Laura.
I arrived in the office, huffing a little. I was one of the first in as usual. Dave the IT guy waved at me across the office floor.
‘Everything okay?’ I asked.
‘Yup. No issues.’
‘That’s how I like it.’
‘I’ve got some server patches scheduled for later in the day,’ he said, ‘shouldn’t be any downtime.’
‘Don’t forget to take a backup this time,’ I said. I didn’t want a repeat of the fiasco a few months back, when the website had been down for an hour and we’d had to restore it from an old version, losing weeks of work. We’d both gotten the bollocking of our lives for that one.
‘Daisy, mate,’ Dave said, ‘you need to let that go.’
‘Never,’ I said overdramatically. I really liked Dave. In general, people in the office seemed to find his blunt style off-putting. But he meant well, and he c
ould have been a lot more obstructive, having been lumbered with a panicking noob like me. Instead, he seemed to relish having someone who was actually interested in learning. To be fair, he did go on a bit, but that was just Dave.
I popped my coat on the hook and surveyed the rest of the office. At some point the sales team – three overconfident members of Gen Z who never reached the office before nine and seemed perpetually hungover – would start to drift in. The head of HR and the business development director each had their own office and a PA. Pam, the office manager, had her own desk in the open plan part of the office.
My desk faced Oliver’s PA, a brittle fifty-something named Amelia who’d been with the company for donkey’s years, and whose lackey I was initially supposed to be. Since I’d taken on my extra duties, she’d become extremely snooty about my “elevation” as she called it.
We were both parked outside Oliver’s office so he could bark orders at us and holler at me to fetch him coffee from the comfort of his own desk. Amelia should have been thankful it was now me he was yelling at, instead of her.
Oliver wasn’t here yet, so that gave me a little time to settle in and start working through the few emails that had come in over the weekend. Our meeting was scheduled for ten and I could feel the anticipation settling like a ball of yarn in the pit of my stomach.
Amelia bustled in. ‘Morning Daisy,’ she said, looking faintly disapproving.
‘Morning,’ I answered guardedly; then we made awkward small talk while her computer booted up.
‘I see you’re having a meeting with Oliver at ten,’ she said. Checking his schedule was the first thing she did each day, even before checking her emails.
‘That’s right,’ I replied.
She gave me an odd little smile.
‘Well, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.’
Daisy Does it Herself Page 2