by Jill Mansell
And yes, there he was, waiting for her. She could see him up ahead, leaning against one of the lichened stone pillars, wearing a navy crew neck sweater over a white shirt and dark blue trousers.
And with one of her late husband’s kidneys pumping away inside him.
Well, maybe not pumping exactly, but working away doing whatever it was kidneys did.
As she drew closer, Daisy saw that Barney Usher looked younger than twenty-six. The sunlight bounced off his gleaming blond hair. He had a sweet, youthful face, dark hopeful eyebrows, and long-lashed big brown eyes like a spaniel puppy.
In view of his prettiness, she couldn’t help wondering if he was gay. Ha, that would really piss Steven off.
‘Mrs Standish?’ he said eagerly, and for a moment Daisy almost looked over her shoulder. Even when she’d been married to Steven she’d had a struggle to remember that, officially, this was her name. It had always made her feel like an impostor. Reverting to MacLean had been such a relief.
‘Call me Daisy.’ She smiled at him, wondering if he was as nervous as she was. This was definitely a weird situation to be in.
But it didn’t appear to have occurred to Barney Usher to feel nervous. He took her hand and shook it, his face lighting up with happiness.
‘And I’m Barney—although of course you already know that! Thank you for agreeing to meet me… you don’t know how much this means… giving me the chance to thank you in person… it was such a fantastic thing you did and I’m just so grateful—’
‘OK, stop,’ Daisy blurted out and he obediently froze in mid-sentence. ‘Look, you thanked me in your first letter. You thanked me in your second letter and in the third and in the fourth. It’s done now, you don’t have to say it anymore.’
‘But I want to—’
‘Stop! I already know how grateful you are. But I haven’t done anything heroic here, and it’s starting to get embarrassing. So can we give it a rest?’ She tilted her head and smiled. ‘Please?’
‘OK.’ Barney nodded, smiling too. ‘I’m sorry. Oh, and these are for you.’ Opening up his carrier bag, he pulled out a box of Black Magic chocolates. ‘It’s not much, I know, but I didn’t want to carry flowers all the way down on the train in case they wilted or got squashed. I hoped there’d be a flower shop here in the village, but there isn’t. So I picked these up in the post office. They didn’t have a lot of choice. I wish it could have been something more, but—’
‘Black Magic are my favorites,’ Daisy lied firmly. ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you, they’re perfect, I’m so grateful, thank you thank you.’
When Barney laughed, he looked like Prince William.
‘OK, I get the message. I promise to shut up. I’ll never say thank you again.’ His brown eyes danced with mischief. ‘I might be thinking it, but I won’t say it. You have my word.’
***
They visited the graveyard first. Barney stood and gazed at Steven’s headstone in silence, no doubt mentally thanking him too. Daisy, who had been worried that he might cry, was glad when he didn’t.
At last, his voice gentle, Barney said, ‘You must have loved him very much.’
It didn’t seem an appropriate moment to say, ‘Hardly at all, actually. In fact I hated his guts.’ Instead Daisy murmured, ‘He was my husband,’ which was a complete cop-out, of course, but the truth nevertheless.
‘Beautiful flowers.’ Barney nodded at the fresh roses, evidently thinking she had left them there herself.
‘Yes,’ agreed Daisy.
‘You must miss him terribly.’
‘Oh well, you know how it is. Life goes on.’ Daisy couldn’t bring herself to tell him; she didn’t have the heart. This visit was for Barney’s benefit, not hers. Spoiling the fairy tale for him would be like telling a small child that Cinderella had ended up in a refuge for battered wives.
She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and shivered.
‘You’re cold,’ said Barney, apparently impervious to the dropping temperature himself. ‘I’m sorry, keeping you out here like this.’
‘Why don’t we go up to the hotel,’ Daisy suggested, ‘and have a nice drink and a chat?’
They headed together up the drive. Barney was deeply impressed by Colworth Manor.
‘Look at this, it’s so beautiful.’ He shook his head, lost in admiration. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before. What a fantastic place.’
It was like leading a three-year-old into Santa’s grotto. As Daisy took him through the hall and into the bar, he was gazing around in wide-eyed wonder, genuinely knocked out by the oak-paneled walls, the Adam fireplace, and the chandeliers.
‘Now,’ said Daisy. ‘Coffee or a proper drink?’
‘Oh, coffee would be great. I don’t really drink,’ Barney explained.
God, no, he probably wasn’t allowed to for medical reasons. She mentally kicked herself.
‘If you like, I’ll show you around the hotel later.’
He looked delighted. ‘I’d love to see it, if you’re sure you’re not too busy.’
‘And how about food? If you’re hungry, we could have some lunch.’
‘This is really kind of you,’ said Barney. ‘But I don’t want to be a nuisance.’
Daisy felt guilty. It wasn’t kind of her at all, she was just desperately trying to find things to do to pass the time. When someone had traveled all the way down from Manchester to see you, it hardly seemed fair to give them coffee and a biscuit, chat to them politely for ten minutes, and then send them packing. That would be mean.
At least the bar was relatively peaceful now; the writers’ convention had piled noisily into the dining room. Having arranged for a pot of coffee to be brought through to them, Daisy settled herself opposite Barney on one of the sofas flanking the open fire and announced brightly, ‘So, here we are then, isn’t this nice?’ and instantly felt ancient. God, of all the patronizing, ridiculous things to say. She sounded like some seventy-five-year-old tweed-knickered maiden aunt.
Barney, his tone understanding, said, ‘Are you finding this a bit difficult?’
‘Me? No!’ She rattled her head vehemently from side to side, like a big maraca. ‘Of course not, why should it be difficult?’
He gave her a sympathetic look. ‘It must feel a bit strange. More strange for you than for me.’
‘Well,’ Daisy conceded, ‘a bit strange. But not in a horrid way,’ she added quickly, in case he was offended.
‘How about if I tell you about myself?’ Barney offered. All of a sudden he seemed to be the grown-up, the one in charge. Eagerly, he went on, ‘I’ll talk about me for a bit, then you can tell me about you. Then you could talk about your husband Steven… but only if you want to… and then after that I’ll go. Does that sound OK?’
He’d clearly spent ages planning this out, Daisy realized. Well, it meant a lot to him, of course he’d planned it.
Grateful that he had, she nodded with relief and said, ‘Sounds perfect.’
Together they pored over the photos he had brought along with him.
‘That’s me when I was seven,’ Barney explained, ‘with my mum. She sends her love, by the way. And this is us about three years ago. We were out on our balcony and it was a windy day, that’s why Mum’s hair’s gone mad.’
‘Balcony,’ teased Daisy. ‘Now there’s posh. And look at the view!’
Barney smiled. ‘It’s the twenty-seventh floor of a tower block, that’s why we’ve got a view. And no, it isn’t what you’d call posh but, you know, it’s home. Well, it was my home,’ he went on, producing the next photo with a flourish.
‘But I’m here now, sharing a flat with some friends from work.’
To spare her embarrassment he had moved swiftly on. Pink-cheeked, Daisy studied this new photo of Barney and three other lads laughing together on a sofa.
No danger of calling this living room posh. It was a typical student-type flat, awash with overflowing ashtrays and lager cans, the carpet spectacularly threadbare, the sofa stained and torn.
Since she could hardly say how lovely it was, Daisy said, ‘Looks like fun.’
‘Well,’ Barney’s smile was self-deprecating, ‘in a grubby, messy kind of way. Mum’s really house-proud so she almost had a fit when she first saw it, but the lads are great. And up until last year I never thought I’d be able to do normal stuff like going out to clubs and meeting girls. I’d spent so long in the hospital missing out on that kind of thing, it was like a miracle. I’m just so lucky to have this new start.’
A lump sprang into Daisy’s throat. The next moment it expanded as he showed her the third photo.
‘This is me on my eighteenth birthday. I’d been through a bit of a bad patch, which is why I’m looking a bit feeble,’ Barney explained.
Talk about understatement.
The photograph had been taken in his hospital room. Barney, pale and hollow-cheeked, lay in bed attached to some huge machine, but he was smiling and holding up a plastic beaker. Birthday cards were strung up over the bed and friends and family were gathered around self-consciously clutching cups of tea and plates of birthday cake.
‘Not the wildest party you ever saw,’ Barney said cheerfully. ‘Me on dialysis and pumped full of drugs, my auntie bursting into tears every five minutes because she was convinced I was about to die, and my nephews begging to go home because they couldn’t stand the hospital smell.’
Daisy wanted to hug him. ‘You’ve got some catching up to do.’
‘Don’t I know it.’ Barney’s eyes shone. ‘This is the life I never thought I’d have, and I’m not going to waste a day of it.’
Over lunch in the dining room—well away from the shrieking, well-oiled authors—he asked Daisy about Steven and she told him everything he wanted to know. The questions ranged from what had been Steven’s favorite food, which sports he had most enjoyed and what kind of music he’d liked, to how he and Daisy had first met. Daisy, who had prepared for this eventuality, took a couple of photographs of Steven out of her handbag and let Barney study them closely for a couple of minutes. Terrified that he might launch into another chorus of ‘God, you must miss him terribly’, she declared, ‘And now I want to hear all about your job!’
Barney worked for the Civil Service. He was a clerical officer in the Department of Transport. It was pretty dull, but he was grateful to be employed and the people in his office were OK. Daisy, interrogating shamelessly, discovered that one of the young secretaries had a bit of a crush on him, but otherwise no, he didn’t have a girlfriend right now, he was waiting for the right one to come along.
‘My mates think I’m mad,’ Barney confided with a shy smile. ‘They reckon I should be shagg—um, working my way through all the girls in Manchester, making up for lost time. But that’s not what I want to do. The right girl’s out there, somewhere. I’d rather wait. That way it’s more special, don’t you think?’
Bless him! Bless his little heart! I’m sitting here having lunch with the last virgin in Manchester, thought Daisy. Heavens, his mother must be proud.
Brenda, Daisy’s secretary, approached their table with an apologetic lift of her eyebrows.
‘Daisy? Sorry to interrupt, but I’m off in a minute. Could you just check the ad to go in the local paper, make sure it’s OK? Then I can fax it through to them before I leave.’
Daisy took the typed sheet of paper and shooed hard-working Brenda away.
‘Don’t worry, you can go now. I’ll fax the ad through.’
Brenda, desperate not to miss the bus into Bath for her tap class, said gratefully, ‘You’re an angel.’
Daisy grinned. ‘I know, I’m fabulous. Off you go.’
After lunch, she gave Barney a guided tour of the rest of the hotel. He loved every inch of it.
‘And don’t forget your fax,’ he reminded Daisy in his soft Mancunian accent as they left the ballroom.
‘Right, I’d better do it now. Oh Lord, just ignore them,’ Daisy hissed as they passed the bar where the boisterous writers’ group were now gathering around the piano. ‘Especially ignore the embarrassing man with the green bow tie and the loudest voice. After a couple of whiskies he does like to pretend he’s Pavarotti.’
Barney, his eyes wide, murmured, ‘Is he one of your guests?’
‘Much worse than that. He’s my dad.’
But it was, of course, impossible to avoid Hector. Having spotted them, he rushed out to the hall and greeted Barney like a long-lost son.
‘You must be Barney! How marvelous to see you, and looking so well! Now, tell me, do you sing?’
‘I know I’ve got to kill him,’ a female voice fretted, just behind Barney. ‘I just don’t know how.’
‘Carving knife? Shotgun?’ suggested a second voice. ‘Or how about shoving him off the top of a tall building?’
‘D’you know, I thought of that, but I don’t want anything too messy. Shattered skulls and intestines splattered all over the place aren’t really my scene. What I’m after is something quick and painless—after all, he’s not such a bad chap. Quite sweet, really. I’ll miss him dreadfully when he’s gone.’
His mouth dropping open, Barney swung round to stare at the mousy-looking pair deep in conversation not three feet away. Two women in their fifties, earnestly debating the best way of murdering some poor chap who was… good grief… quite sweet really.
‘Come on,’ Hector urged, clapping Barney on the shoulder. ‘A fine-looking lad like you must be able to sing! How about “Mac The Knife”?’
‘You could always poison him,’ suggested the mousier of the two women behind Barney. ‘A nice drop of cyanide would do the trick.’
‘Oh, excellent idea! D’you know, I think I’ll do that! Now, where would I be able to pick up some cyanide?’
‘Don’t panic,’ Daisy told Barney with a grin. ‘They write murder mysteries.’
Barney pretended he’d known that all along. Phew.
‘Maybe a duet?’ Hector persisted. ‘“New York, New York”? You must know the words to that one.’
‘I’m not very good at singing.’ Barney looked worried.
‘No problem,’ Hector declared. ‘I’m sensational. Maestro, please!’ he bellowed across at the thriller writer-cum-guest pianist.
‘Dad, don’t bully him into singing if he doesn’t want to.’ Daisy did her best to protect Barney, but it was too late. Hector was already dragging him over to the Bechstein. The pianist promptly launched into an almost accurate rendition of ‘New York, New York,’ Hector and Barney sang their hearts out and the writers’ group—by this time well away—joined in with boisterous enthusiasm.
Barney, bright-eyed and flushed with success, was giving it his all and clearly having a whale of a time. Daisy, watching from the doorway, decided with amusement that Steven would be turning in his grave and groaning with disgust if he knew that even one small part of him was involved in one of Hector’s infamous impromptu sing-alongs. He had always flatly refused to participate on the grounds that it was, variously, pathetic, undignified, and the kind of activity that only a complete moron would enjoy. Joining in for the sheer fun of it was a concept Steven had never been able to understand.
Oh yes, if he was watching now, he’d definitely be loathing every minute of this.
The song ended and the audience applauded wildly, which just went to show how drunk they were. Laughing, Barney made his way back over to Daisy as a vast blonde woman in her late sixties flung her arm round Hector’s waist and joyfully announced to the room that, ‘Tonight, Matthew, I am going to be Martine McCutcheon.’
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Daisy told Barney.
He shook his head in wonder. ‘What’s it like, having a da
d like that?’
‘Embarrassing.’ Daisy paused then added cheerfully, ‘But never dull.’
‘Don’t forget that fax.’ Barney nudged the sheet of paper still in her hand.
‘God, no, I mustn’t. I’ll do it now. D’you want to stay here, or come with me?’
The pianist launched into ‘Perfect Moment.’ The enormous blonde woman, her heavily bejeweled fingers clutched to her chest, opened her mouth and began to sing in a quavering off-key falsetto.
Heroically, Daisy kept a straight face.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said Barney, ‘I think I’ll come with you.’
Chapter 11
Afterwards, Barney would always be able to recall in technicolor detail the moment he changed the course of his life. He’d been standing in Daisy’s chaotic office with his back to the window and his hands in his pockets, watching her sift through the list of phone messages left by Brenda, the tap-dancing secretary. Daisy was perched on one corner of her desk, her long, brown hair swinging over one shoulder and one foot casually propped up on the swivel chair in front of her. She was wearing a peacock-blue silk shirt and a narrow, emerald green skirt that ended above the knee. As she swiveled round to grab a pen, the letter waiting to be faxed through to the newspaper fluttered to the floor.
Eager to help, Barney bent to retrieve it and said, ‘Do you want me to deal with this for you?’
Daisy looked up, pleased. ‘Could you? That’d be great.’
He didn’t mean to be nosy, but Barney couldn’t help noticing what was on the sheet of paper before he fed it into the machine. It wasn’t a letter, he realized. The hotel was advertising in the local Gazette for a porter.
That was the moment it happened.
Catching his breath as the idea came hurtling up at him, Barney stopped and gazed out of the window at the cedar trees, the sweeping lawns, the rush-fringed river, and the rolling hills, now wreathed in mist. Then he looked across at Daisy, busy scribbling something on her calendar. Across the hallway drifted the sounds of a piano being played with rather more enthusiasm than finesse, and twenty or so inebriated writers, led by Hector MacLean, raucously bawling along to ‘We’ll Meet Again.’