‘It’s not there yet, not by a long way,’ Jay was saying, ‘But at least we’ve made a start. Axing those little fillers – the WRI column, the reports from the local history society, bird watchers, ramblers, and such societies has opened up space for more in-depth journalism.’ He picked up a copy of the paper and flicked through the pages. Ben had worked his own miracle. Using the same template, he’d somehow managed to make the paper look smarter, more contemporary. Study it as she might, Daisy couldn’t work out how he’d done it. There was something about the white space? Maybe the font? The way he’d put in the headlines? She’d have to ask him what his secret was.
Daisy looked at Sharon again. She might like the idea of ‘in-depth journalism’ in principle, but they really didn’t have the resources for it. She and Dave – Murdoch too – would have to half kill themselves to fill the pages if they got rid of all the bits people sent in. And besides, Daisy was pretty sure that the members of the aforesaid societies would not take kindly to their news disappearing from the pages of The Herald.
‘The horoscopes will have to go – I mean, nobody believes that stuff any more, do they?’
Oh poor Sir Cosmo.
‘But that was a great front page – Sharon, Daisy.’ The full beam of his smile was directed at her. At last her efforts had been recognised – but it had taken ten dead on the roads and a major fire to achieve it. What a price.
‘So congratulations, team. A great start. Let’s hope we can even better it next week. Sharon? A bit of corruption on the local Council perhaps?’ Sharon smiled bravely. ‘Everyone likes a good scandal.’
Except those exposed by it, Daisy thought grimly. How could he say that when he’d just been the centre of a scandal himself? And was this really the way to save the paper?
Ten minutes later, they received the first phone call and from then on, it was madness. Ruby, fielding calls feverishly, was getting increasingly upset. Daisy got so distressed by the complaints that she stuck a made-up appointment in The Diary and headed out. The rest of them, she learned later, had had to cope as one by one every member of every club, group, society, and association in the neighbourhood rang to protest indignantly that the report of their meeting seemed to have been missed out this week.
Chapter Ten
On Monday evening she walked into the kitchen in her new jeans wailing, ‘Look! Look at this!’ She’d bought the same size as always, but they simply wouldn’t zip up.
‘Lie on the floor and tug,’ advised Lizzie, ever practical.
Daisy lay down and tugged. The zip eased up an inch and stuck.
‘Here, let me,’ Lizzie pulled on the slide. It refused to budge. ‘Nope. No good. You’ll have to change them for the next size up.’
Daisy sat up, horrified. ‘No way! Jeez, what am I going to do? Horrible, horrible, horrible!’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Daisy, the world is not conspiring against you. If your jeans are too small it’s because you’re too fat. Do something about it.’
Daisy stared at her, her mouth sagging open. Where was the laid-back, gentle Lizzie she knew and loved?
Lizzie drew a tired hand across her forehead, gathering her thick hair back and twisting it into a scrunchie she found round her wrist. ‘Sorry Dais, didn’t mean to snap, I slept really badly last night.’ She gave an apologetic smile, then went on, ‘but to be honest, it is down to you. Go on a diet, go to the gym, preferably do both. The jeans’ll soon fit.’
Daisy scrambled up from the floor, reeling from the shock of Lizzie’s outburst.
‘Right,’ she said, and padded back into her bedroom to find her old jeans.
But Lizzie’s words stuck and she made a resolution to rejoin the Hailesbank Fitness Centre. On Wednesday, between filing her last photographs and covering an important presentation by Provost Porter to a delegation of Russians visiting from the twin city of Uskbegost, she snatched a break and headed off to an appointment with Markie Moss, a camp young fitness instructor who’d been assigned as her ‘friendly personal trainer’.
Now, self-conscious in lycra leggings and a baggy old T-shirt that she’d optimistically thought might cover the worst of her bulges, she was standing at the door of the gym. There was no escaping her fate.
It was like an alien world.
‘Height? Weight? Waist, hip, thigh measurements?’ Markie, fired personal questions at her with no sense of embarrassment or discretion. Daisy was unable to answer most of them – she’d steered clear of scales for years. She was forced to succumb to the indignity of being weighed and measured and was shocked at the results, which she could hardly dispute.
‘Medication? Heart problems? Breathing difficulties? Back problems?’
This was worse than school medicals and heaven knows they’d been embarrassing enough.
‘No, nothing. I’m fine. Really,’ she stammered, already wishing she hadn’t come.
‘What kind of regular exercise do you take?’
‘Erm, I … well I have to walk a fair bit in my job.’
‘How far?’
‘Well, across fields, that kind of thing.’
‘How many fields? How big?’
Daisy stared at Markie. Was he being serious? She glanced at his biceps, bulging beneath his sleeveless purple vest, and saw that he was. ‘Well, usually just one at a time. And back to the car of course. Not every day. Sometimes there’s no fields, of course. But I did climb a hill this week.’
‘Which hill?’
‘Tarbert Knoll,’ she murmured shamefacedly, aware that it was a very small hill. ‘But I did have my camera gear with me.’
‘Right.’ Markie laid down the file and studied her. ‘What are your objectives in coming here?’
‘Oh, I’d like to get fit, of course. And lose weight.’
‘And how committed are you?’
‘Very,’ said Daisy staunchly, wondering what other answer she could reasonably have given.
‘OK. I think we should do some tests, work out a fitness routine for you, test your heart rate afterwards. I’ll reassess you in, say, four weeks. You should be ready to step up the repeats by then, but of course, you may feel able to do it much earlier. Let’s go.’
Daisy followed him meekly, tugging her T-shirt down over her bum as she went. ‘Thanks very much, Lizzie Little,’ she thought morosely as Markie led her into the gym, which was full of strange contraptions that seemed to resemble medieval torture devices.
‘Hop on here, Daisy,’ Markie indicated an exercise bike. Daisy hopped. Markie punched a series of numbers into some gadget and said, ‘Right. Off you go.’
Daisy began to slip off the bike. ‘Off you go, pedalling,’ said Markie, shoving her back on firmly.
Daisy pedalled. Within sixty seconds she was puffing, by two minutes she was bright red, and when the resistance increased, she slowed down pathetically.
‘Keep going,’ said Markie relentlessly.
She thought she’d die. Christ! They were medieval torture machines. Daisy’s calves screamed, her thighs ached, and sweat ran down her face. It only stopped after six endless minutes and she had slowed to a pitiable speed. But the respite was brief. ‘Put your feet here,’ commanded Markie, indicating two large paddles on another machine.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s just steps. Here, I’ve made it easy for you. Now step.’
Easy? To keep the machine going she had to push down hard on the paddles otherwise she sank ignominiously downwards, and every time she thought she’d got the better of the machine, the difficulty seemed to increase. Then it was on to another beast, which stretched and pulled at her inner thighs. By the time she got to the treadmill, her legs were wobbling dangerously, but still there was no let-up in Markie’s torment.
‘Run.’
She ran. After that it was shoulder and arm work and finally, abs. Lying on the floor felt blissful, but as soon as Markie had shown her how to hold her hands to her ears and keep her elbows back, he made her start sit-ups.<
br />
‘So just do that set of exercises for a start. Don’t do them every day – every other day is better. If you need me, give me a shout, otherwise I’ll see you in a month.’
Daisy, her eyes clenched tight shut as she concentrated on the searing pain in her abdomen, merely grunted. Thirty-five, thirty-six … nearly there … thirty-seven … Sweat was pouring down her face. She was scarlet with effort, her features contorted with pain. Her T-shirt, an emerald affair sporting the legend ‘Organic spuds – you know they make sense’ (it had been given to her on a photo shoot at an agricultural show last year) was clinging to her soaking body. Thirty-eight …
‘Daisy?’
She knew that voice. In a cloud of pain, Daisy half-registered, half-blanked it. Thirty-nine …
‘Are you all right?’ The voice was amused.
Her exhausted brain made the connection. ‘Jack!’
Her last excruciating repeat abandoned, she made up for it by sitting up abruptly and staring through a veil of perspiration at the unexpected sight of Jack Hedderwick, looking cool, trim, fit, and sickeningly sexy in figure-hugging lycra, standing above her and staring down in surprise.
‘I didn’t know you were a member here.’
‘I didn’t know you were.’
‘Sure.’ The boyish grin flashed. ‘I joined in January. Iris said I wouldn’t last a month but here I am.’
Daisy was conscious that she was hardly a picture of elegance. Blast and bother! Why did Jack have to come across her looking like this? Once this man had known every inch of her body, known how to make each hollow and bump tickle and tingle and yearn for more attention. Now lumps had replaced hollows and the bumps had multiplied. Embarrassed, she tried to conceal them.
‘Well done, you,’ she said. ‘I thought you were looking in good shape.’ She squirmed round painfully and struggled to her feet.
‘Have you finished your routine?’ Jack asked. ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Is there a bar here?’ Daisy asked, surprised. A pint would slip down rather well.
Jack laughed. ‘A coffee bar. See you there in fifteen minutes?’
Showering, thought Daisy, had never been such a pleasure. And as she dried her hair with the super fast driers, it came to her like a streak of lightening out of a blue sky that if Jack came here regularly, she could get him to herself, just as regularly. Then she could find out how he really felt about Iris, because surely – heavens – surely he couldn’t really be in love with her, not in the way that they had been in love for all those years?
Her insides melted with joy at the thought of Jack. Schoolgirl love. Wow. Finding Jack down by the river one glorious May day when she’d been skiving had been something else. A happiness explosion. Never mind that she was just seventeen, never mind that he was five years older and already finishing training college – they were destined to be together.
Just two weeks after that first meeting, unable to explain her long absences without inventing lies that were more and more implausible, she’d taken him home to meet her parents.
‘Mum’s all right. Dad will probably be difficult,’ she warned Jack as they neared the house.
‘Difficult? Why?’
Daisy shrugged. How to explain her father to Jack? Eric Irvine with his strict sense of duty and his need to control her life. Her nervousness increased with every step. Every pebble on the garden path gleamed and winked and tried to warn her to stop. The wobbly stone at the end – the one that looked like a dog crouching low – stood like a sentinel before the door. Friend or foe? What would her father say?
Ten minutes later, she thought she was going to get away with it.
‘Jack. Right. Yes.’ He shook Jack’s hand, briefly, then turned his attention back to the news on the television and for the rest of the evening he was silent.
Supper over, the excruciatingly stilted conversation at an end, Jack finally took his leave, with a whispered, ‘Call you later,’ as he left. It was not until he’d closed the garden gate and his shadowy figure had moved out of sight that the explosion happened.
‘And what in hell’s name do you think you’re doing, young lady? Did I give you permission to start seeing someone? Did I?’ He pushed his face, florid with fury, into Daisy’s.
‘I’m … I … don’t you like him, Dad?’
‘Like him? Bloody smart-arse. Pah! And anyway,’ Daisy watched a vein in his neck throb as his face grew redder, ‘he’s far too old for you and you, young lady,’ he grabbed her by the wrist and swung her close to him so that she couldn’t escape his glare, ‘you are too young to be dating at all. Especially with your exams coming up.’
Daisy glanced helplessly at her mother. Useless to hope for support from there. Janet was clutching the back of a chair, her whole frame shaking, the gold shards in her eyes dulled and shadowy.
‘Eric, darling, she’s only … she did bring him home so that …’
‘So that what?’ He rounded on her, his face puce. ‘Did he think that cosying up for an evening would make everything all right? Huh? Well, did he?’ He was snarling now. Daisy thought she’d never seen him so angry. ‘And as for you,’ With a sharp shove he released her wrist and started moving threateningly towards Janet. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? Thought if you sprung it on me I wouldn’t be able to do anything, huh?’
This was new, this shadow of violence. Eric Irvine had always been a bully, but it had all been words. As Daisy saw for the first time a streak of raw viciousness – triggered, she could only suppose, by her bringing a competing male into the house – she reacted, instinctively and uncharacteristically.
‘Stop it!’ she said, her voice low and urgent, but controlled and commanding. ‘Just stop!’ For a second he did stop, astonished. In two words, she had reversed their roles and taken control. She took a deep breath and instinctively tried to cool the atmosphere down a fraction. ‘I really like Jack.’ Her voice was low. Soft but steady. ‘I want to carry on seeing him. Please, Dad.’
Be nice, her instincts told her, appear to submit. Find a way of getting him on your side. You’ve got to. But she saw at once that Eric was not to be diverted. She quailed at the fury in his eyes and was forced to drop her gaze. Her father kicked a chair out of his way. It skidded and scraped on the floor, teetered on one leg, tumbled and fell on the tiles with a clatter. Janet, still gripping the back of the chair near the sink, uttered a low moan.
‘You’re not to see him, Daisy.’ The rage made his voice rough. ‘You’re not old enough to date anyone. And that’s final.’
‘But …’ The word escaped before she could bite it back.
He turned savagely. ‘I don’t want to hear another word, Daisy. And if I find you’ve defied me …’
He left the words hanging as he left the room.
Helplessly, Daisy looked at Janet.
‘Sorry, love,’ she whispered.
Sorry wasn’t enough. Sorry was hopeless. This time, Daisy thought as she silently helped to tidy the kitchen, she had to find courage from somewhere, because she had to be with Jack Hedderwick, she just had to.
Daisy finished drying her hair and assessed her reflection in the mirror. Maybe there was something about this exercising lark after all, she thought. The scarlet had subsided, leaving a glow that was actually quite flattering. Her eyes looked brighter than usual too – or maybe that was just the thought of the coffee with Jack.
‘I got you a latte as usual. That’s right, isn’t it?’ he waved at her as she entered the bright brasserie.
‘Fine, yes, thanks Jack.’ She wouldn’t tell him she’d switched to black in an effort to trim the calories – just knowing that he remembered the past was sweetness to her soul.
‘Great front page this week, by the way,’ he said as they placed their cups on a small table near the window. The brasserie was well situated, in a loop of the river not too far from where they’d first met all those years ago. The town had grown outwards, reaching stony tentacles across the fie
lds into the rural heart of the area.
‘Thanks Jack.’ He’d noticed! He liked her photographs! He still cared! Daisy’s mind hopped and bumped along a path of logic uniquely designed by some inner conditioning of her brain to reach the conclusion she wanted. ‘Of course, no one wants something like that to happen, but …’
‘But news-hounds are vultures of the worst kind,’ Jack grinned.
‘I was going to say, but at least if it does, we like to be able to handle it sensitively,’ Daisy said primly, conveniently setting aside the fact that emblazoning graphic images across the front page of a newspaper for all to ogle at could hardly be labelled ‘sensitive’ behaviour.
Jack refused the challenge. ‘So how are things otherwise, babes?’ he asked. ‘I gather that guy you used to be so friendly with is back in town.’
‘Do you mean Ben Gillies? By “friendly”, I take it you’re thinking of “friendly” activities such as stream-damming and apple-chucking, or maybe the intimate little activity of snowman-building,’ Daisy said, keen to remind Jack that Ben Gillies had been nothing more than a kid when he’d moved to London.
‘Apple-chucking, right.’ Jack’s mouth twisted in amusement. ‘What are the rules of that again?’
Daisy put on a superior look and started to reply, ‘First one person grabs an apple …’ when she suddenly remembered the Provost’s presentation. ‘What’s the time?’ she interrupted herself.
Jack glanced at his watch. ‘Nearly seven-thirty. Why?’
‘No-o-o!’ Daisy wailed, snatching her bag and hopping to her feet, ‘It can’t be! I’m late, I’m late, Christ, where’s my key?’
Jack, watching her fumble through her pockets and shook his head ruefully.
‘Not here … or here. Where …? Must be … no …’ she turned to Jack, as she always had, for help. ‘I’ve lost them! And I’ve got to get to the Town Hall! Now!’
Jack sighed. ‘OK. Think. When you came into the gym, what did you do with them?’
‘I put them in my right hand pocket. I always do,’ said Daisy, her mouth quivering. She was demonstrating how disorganised she was again and she knew he’d hate it, but she had to find her keys, and quickly. ‘They’re not here!’
Maximum Exposure: The Heartlands Series Page 7