by Beth Thomas
‘You can’t march across the sea. And anyway, you haven’t got an army.’
‘I don’t need one. Are you coming back, or am I coming there?’
I glanced around me quickly, looking for potential weapons or allies. A large duck was standing on the mud next to me, calmly observing the hostilities escalating. I pointed at it. ‘I’ve got a terrible froshus beast on my side,’ I called across the channel. ‘It’s gonna eat you.’
‘It’s a herbivore,’ Mum countered, ‘everyone knows that. Anyway, ducks are impartial. They don’t take sides.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means it doesn’t take sides. Do you, Impartial Duck?’
We both looked at the duck. It said nothing.
Mum turned back to me. ‘See?’ she said.
Like the duck, I didn’t move.
‘So are you going to surrender peacefully, or do I have to storm your battlements?’
‘Storm!’
Mum stared at me for a few moments, then took her hands off her hips and rolled up her sleeves. Then she bent down and took off her trainers and socks and rolled up the bottom of her jeans. She straightened up and looked at me. ‘You can’t win, Daisy Duck,’ she said calmly. Her hands went back to her hips. ‘If I have to come over there and get you, we will both be filthy and disgusting, which will not make me happy; or you can surrender peacefully and we have a chance to negotiate the terms of your defeat.’ She raised her eyebrows and I started to experience a resigned feeling, although I don’t think I recognised it at that point. ‘Either way, the outcome is the same.’
‘What’s the outcome?’
‘It’s what’s left at the end. And in this case, it will be you coming back here, either willingly, or’ – she slitted her eyes – ‘under my power.’ Her expression at that point went with the word ‘power’ so well, I still remember it now. It was like Voldemort. ‘Which is it to be, Queen Daisy of the Ducks?’
I knew she had power. I had always known it. She was the mummy, after all. I had no choice but to surrender peacefully, and I was on the verge of doing it when a high, cold voice called out sweetly from somewhere behind her, ‘Oh Daisy, why are you always such a problem child?’
It was my sister Naomi. She was sitting on a blanket next to where Mum was standing, eating a slice of Battenberg, sunlight bouncing off her long shiny hair. Wearing a yellow dress. What happened next was thoroughly deserved, I thought. Well, I was already holding handfuls of mud and filth. I barely had to go to any effort at all.
My phone quacks in my pocket so I lift one hip off the ground and reach down to wrestle the phone to the surface. It’s telling me I’ve got a message on Facebook, and I think I know exactly what that’s about. I touch the screen and open up the web page.
Abby Marcus Daisy Quackintyre, what are you doing?
Daisy Mack It’s OK Abs, I’m in the park right now, as we speak. Or, you know, type.
Abby Marcus Oh good. That’s more like it.
Daisy Mack Yeah – I do still remember everything you said on Sunday, believe me.
That’s true, because most of what she said on Sunday were swear words.
Abby Marcus Excellent. Keep it up, Daze. I’m proud of you
Right. Time for me to go, I think. Abby is a truly great friend, and a good person, with the soul of an angel and the heart of a giant. She is kind and thoughtful and considerate and gentle, and when she gets annoyed fire comes out of her nostrils and her voice can split atoms.
‘You haven’t been fucking walking at all this past week, have you?’ was her opening gambit on Sunday afternoon. I almost didn’t understand her because her jaw was clenched together and she barely moved her lips as she spoke.
You know that feeling you get when you’ve been found out doing something? Or not doing something? Or something you’ve done, and shouldn’t have, has been discovered? Well that’s exactly the feeling I got at that moment. It was like something solid and heavy plunging down through my abdomen, making me curl inwards and grasp my tummy.
I frowned. ‘Abs,’ I started to say, but I didn’t have anything else.
She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. Then tilted her head a little and gave a teeny smile. ‘Ah Daze,’ she said, her voice much less like a nuclear missile than I had been expecting, ‘I understand that you’re down. I really do. I know that it’s making you not want to do anything. I even get why you lied to me. No, don’t deny it. It’s undeniable, isn’t it? I mean, if you really had been walking down to the park and back every day this week, I’m fairly sure you would have learned how to get there by now.’
She’s incredible, isn’t she? I mean, stand aside, Columbo. Take your beige mac and your wonky eye and get out of here. Of course, I did make it easy for her with that idiotic blunder. Completely ridiculous when you consider the lengths I went to to cover my tracks – or lack of them. But then I never expected to be tested on my knowledge of ‘Parks Near Abby’s Flat and How to Get There’. Abs suggested that morning that the three of us go out after lunch for a nice long walk, starting off at the park and from there to the seafront. It sounded like an awfully long way to me but I couldn’t let Abby see me thinking that.
‘Sure,’ I’d said nonchalantly. ‘Should be a piece of cake.’ I hadn’t done the walking I’d said I’d been doing, but I figured it wouldn’t be too challenging. It was only walking after all. How hard could it be?
As it turned out, of course, the distance wasn’t the relevant factor. It all ground to a halt long before the distance became an issue. There was a bit of preamble when Tom and Abby had some kind of disagreement about whether or not he was coming with us. I’m not sure who was arguing for which angle, but the whole thing ended with a lot of ‘Fine’, ‘Fine’, ‘Suit yourself’, ‘I will’, and he didn’t come. I was glad, actually. He’s about as easy to talk to as a marble statue. And I’m always just as surprised when he responds.
‘Everything all right?’ I said to Abs as we went out of the gate of her building. I didn’t want to pry but felt I had to say something. Bit weird if you witness a horrible row between two people and then calmly start a conversation about Hollyoaks.
She was frowning and blinking a lot, which I guessed meant she was trying not to cry. I was a bit taken aback by that, as she’s not usually one to cry. It’s something we both feel the same about. Crying is a blatant demonstration – on your face, of all places, to make sure absolutely everyone sees it – of self-pity. It is self-indulgent, attention-seeking and achieves literally nothing. Normally I can’t bear it, particularly from women. All those weepy heroines in the forties have given us a lot of ground to make up in the crying stakes. Small wonder we are generally despised as a gender for our tap-like qualities. But lately, of course, I’ve been doing crying enough for me and Abby. And, let’s face it, all those weepy heroines from the forties. I can picture all their black and white expressions, smiling at me winsomely every morning as my face leaks sickeningly from every orifice. ‘Chin up, old gal,’ they’ll be saying, in soft oblique lighting, ‘you look tarribly queeah.’
‘Fine,’ Abby’d said, nodding vigorously. ‘It’s all fine.’
We walked on to the end of her road in silence, turned left, and Abby stopped abruptly – violently, even, if it’s possible to do that – put her hands on her hips and spoke that memorable and immortal phrase, ‘Daisy Macintyre, you haven’t been fucking walking at all this past week, have you?’ Enter Columbo.
That was the day before yesterday. Today is Tuesday, April 21st. My magic trainers are officially a week old today. Happy Birthday trainers. I roll back over onto my bottom and stand up, brushing grass and dirt off me. It should take me about half an hour to get back now, provided I don’t get lost, which is actually quite likely, even though this is my third visit here. I don’t have the best sense of direction in the world – got lost in a maze, remember?
A movement at the periphery of my vision attracts my attention and I turn sharpl
y to focus on it. It’s a woman jauntily walking away from me, crossing the arc of my vision from right to left. I stare at her, noting the thick brown ponytail, the boot-cut jeans with trainers, the navy blue fleece jacket. The way she’s walking, almost bouncing along, arms swinging, is achingly, heart-breakingly familiar. I hold my breath, gazing after her as she moves further and further away from me, receding from my sight. I blink and start moving. The logical part of my brain knows it isn’t her, knows it can’t be her, knows that – even if it is her – there are so many hurtful questions that would have more hurtful answers that I almost couldn’t bear for it actually to be her, but her gait and her hair and her clothes are so right, so distinctive, so exact that I set off after her across the park anyway.
‘Mum?’ The word comes out of me in a whisper but I hardly notice as I try to reach her. But she turns, she moves, she disappears, she reappears, all the time out of my grasp, each time getting further away, smaller and smaller until I’m breathless and panting with the effort of getting to her. ‘Mum, Mum, Mum,’ I puff rhythmically, not really noticing the harsh rasp of desperation creeping in as I turn the final corner, look up the street and see that she’s gone. I stop and stand for a few moments, eyes fixed on the empty horizon.
‘’Scuse me?’
The voice behind me interrupts my thoughts and I snap back to where I am. Disconcertingly, I find I am outside the park boundary, on a pavement somewhere, with no recollection of how I got here. Oh shit. This is how it starts. I feel the first faint, familiar stirrings of panic as I accept that I am probably lost. Again. I scan my surroundings quickly to try and find something that looks familiar, but it’s just a load of nondescript semi-detached houses, with black or blue cars parked on the driveways. One of them has a tree in the front lawn. It’s lovely – covered in pink blossom, like candyfloss on a stick.
‘Er, excuse me? Again.’
I turn round to look, partly to see who’s speaking but mostly to see if there is any way I can work out which direction the park is from here. Surely I’ve just come out of a gate or something and it will be directly behind me? I can’t have gone far. But there’s nothing there; just the same bland street stretching away into the distance. Well, as far as the T-junction at the end, anyway. A motorbike goes past, right to left, and disappears. Where in God’s name is the park?
A man’s face inserts itself into the frame, blocking out the left-hand side of the picture. He’s smiling broadly, but his eyebrows are pulled together slightly, as if he’s looking at a ninety-year-old woman in a nightie trying to buy a ticket to Afghanistan.
I meet his gaze and raise my eyebrows. ‘Yes?’ I say, in a tone that lets him know without a doubt that I don’t need help of any kind. ‘What is it?’
He’s quite scruffy in a dirty grey tee shirt and denim cut-offs, with messy brown hair pushed away from his face and damp with sweat. His forehead and top lip are beaded with it, although rather annoyingly my attention is drawn to the cute dimples that are showing in his cheeks as he grins. Attractively boyish for someone who’s probably in his early thirties. I look away hurriedly and at this point I notice that he’s holding the handles of a huge wheelbarrow, which is full of masonry or bricks or something else that is firmly lodged in a world I don’t go into. Immediately to my left is a wide driveway that appears to be in the middle of having block paving laid down on it. Half of it is finished, in a clean, herring-bone pattern (which I have to say looks so lovely, really picks up the whole front appearance of the house) while the other half, nearest the pavement – nearest to me – is still a shallow layer of sand. I glance back at the man with the wheelbarrow. A single drop of sweat is trickling down the side of his head and over his cheek-bone.
‘Just wondered, would you mind giving me a hand with this?’ he says now, grinning and chewing gum. ‘It’s bloody heavy.’
My eyes widen and my chin jerks forward. ‘You want me to help you? Carry that? In these clothes? And trainers?’ I glance down overtly at his feet and note that they are clad in huge, heavy-duty, probably steel-toe-capped, Magnum builders’ boots in a gorgeous tan nubuck. ‘Hm. This could result in a lawsuit for you, you know. I take it you are being paid to do this? I mean, this is your job, right? You will be getting actual money from someone for moving these bricks around? So tell me just exactly why you think this is something I should help you with, for no money, and risking painful injury?’
He shrugs – the wheelbarrow full of bricks goes up a little, then down again. I try not to be impressed that he was able to do that. I certainly don’t sneak a peek at the massive muscles in his arms and shoulders. ‘Hey, you might want to lighten up a bit, lady. It was only a little joke.’ He winks at me, and makes a clicking sound with his mouth as he does so.
‘A joke? Really? No, it can’t have been. Surely not. I know about jokes. They’re funny. They’re to make people laugh.’
He grins even more broadly and inclines his head a little. ‘Duly noted. Thanks for the feedback. I am off right now to go and write some more material.’ He moves as if to put the wheelbarrow down, then picks it up again and jerks his head. ‘Ah, damn it, I can’t do it now, I’ve got to finish this first. Tell you what, you move out of the way and I’ll promise to work on some funnier material as soon as I get home tonight. Deal?’
I stare at him, and realise at that moment that I am standing on the pavement, midway along the entrance to the driveway, essentially blocking it to all cars, vans and anyone with a large, heavy wheelbarrow. I feel that solid thing dropping in my belly again. When he said ‘Excuse me’ the first time, he literally meant, excuse me, you’re in my way, please move. It wasn’t the sort of ‘Excuse me’ that you say to someone to get their attention before you ask them something. I glance down at the unfinished driveway, wishing it was still a big hole so that I could jump into it. Then I look back up at the man. A sheen of sweat is covering the huge muscles now. I look away quickly and give a decisive nod.
‘OK, that sounds fair.’ I turn round and start to walk away, then half turn and speak over my shoulder. ‘Twenty-four hours it is. I’ll be back tomorrow with a clapometer.’
‘A clap …?’ I hear him snort. I hope it’s laughter. I suspect not. ‘Excellent,’ he says. ‘I’ll look forward to that.’
Thankfully he can’t see my red face as I march as fast as I can up the street and into uncharted territory.
FIVE
Daisy Mack
is so used to getting lost, you’d think I’d be better at it by now.
Daisy Mack Actually, getting lost I can do. It’s what I’m good at. If you ever need to get lost, come and see me. Oh, if you can find me, that is.
Jenny Martin What the hell is going on with you, Dozy-Doo?
Georgia Ling Lol! xx
Suzanne Allen Where are you now? What can you see?
Abby Marcus Pay no attention Suze, she’s on the sofa, watching Rotting Hell.
I don’t know why Abby’s put that. She likes Notting Hill as much as I do.
No she doesn’t. What am I thinking of? Of course she doesn’t. No one does. Richard Curtis doesn’t like Notting Hill as much as I do.
Anyway, I think I deserve this relaxing little interlude. It’s been a very strenuous few days since I marched rapidly away from Wheelbarrow Man on Tuesday and got myself instantly and completely lost. I’ve been out walking every day since then, and that was five days ago. I must have covered at least ten miles every day, which is fifty miles all together. Bloody hell, I could actually have walked to Bluewater shopping centre. Could have had a Subway of the Day. Tried on shoes. Bought tights.
Julia Roberts is arguing for the last brownie. I pause the film at this point because Abby has just come and sat down near my feet and is staring at me pointedly. She looks like she wants to have a serious talk with me about something. I wonder what on earth it could be. Any ideas anyone? Answers on a postcard …
‘Daze, we need to have a serious talk about your training plan.’
I smile and nod. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Do you? Because I’m still not convinced you’re completely aware of how much work there is left to do.’
She’s entirely wrong there. Why on earth else does she think I’ve been walking so much? I’ve been like a walking demon this week, out every day, marching down to the park, marching around the park, marching backwards and forwards across the park, marching around the park again, becoming so familiar with the park and all its entrances and exits and all the housing estates that border it that I’ll never ever get lost again. It’s quite surprising really that, in all that marching down to, and through, and round and round the park and its environs, I never bumped into that man again. Or actually, I suppose I could have seen him again, I really wouldn’t know. I can barely remember what he looked like, except that he was holding something, I think. What was that again? Some kind of statue, was it? Or a bicycle? I can’t remember, it’s all gone.
I’ve also never seen that woman with the ponytail again, the one who walked like her and moved like her and looked like her. It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if I was looking for her.
Anyway, the point is that I have done some pretty substantial walking this week, whatever Abs might think, and I’m proud of myself. I’d like to see her cover ten miles a day. On foot, obviously – she does far more than ten miles every day in her car of course. I know that for a fact. She gave me a lift into town once when my car was off the road, and the only problem was I had to sit in the back while she gave a lesson first. It was only an hour, and it probably would have taken me that long to get the bus anyway, so I went with it. I had never seen her with a client before, and I was really surprised at how flirty she was with him, a lad of about nineteen or twenty. There was a lot of, ‘Oh hi there, Justin, OK, first gear to pull away, you look good today, braking carefully towards the junction, don’t you smell nice, what is that, Calvin Klein? Red light, Justin, red light.’ I sat in the back and rolled my eyes, and they kept on rolling for the entire sixty minutes. I felt a bit sick by the end of it.