A Place for Us (6 page)

“This isn’t about diets again, is it?”

Lucy had written a pitch last month called “The Myth of Diets: Why 85% of All Weight Lost Through Dieting Goes Back On After 6 Months.” Deborah had practically choked on her soy latte. “Jesus, if people knew that was the truth, half our ad revenues would vanish. Are you mad? Women like reading about diets, okay?”

Feeling Deborah’s coolly appraising gaze on her, Lucy sucked in her stomach. “It’s not about diets. You know, that exhibition of South—of my grandfather’s is opening next year. I want to write a piece about our family. I think—it might be interesting.”

Deborah didn’t sit up exactly, but she stopped gazing over Lucy’s shoulder. “What kind of article?”

“Um—what it was like to grow up with my grandfather.” She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “How wonderful he is. Our family. The house. You know they live in this lovely house and—”

“I know about the house,” Deborah said. “Yup. It’d make for some nice photos. This is a good idea, Lucy. Warm reminiscence. The
Daily News
family. ‘As our beloved cartoonist celebrates X years in the business with an exhibition of landmark paintings showing our city at war,
Daily News
features assistant Lucy Winter tells us about life with the grandfather who created the nation’s favorite cartoon strip.’ She nodded. “I like it. All the family there? Any skeletons I should know about?”

“My mum’s an herbalist called Clare who lives in Stokes Croft,” Lucy said, deadpan. “In Bristol. So . . . I don’t think so.”

Deborah laughed, but she sounded a little impatient. “I mean your grandfather’s family.”

“Right.” Now she had got this far, Lucy suddenly found she didn’t know what to say. “My aunt Daisy—well, maybe it’s not really a mystery.”

“What about your aunt Daisy?” Deborah’s tone was, for her, almost flippant.

“Uh—well, I’m never sure if it’s serious or not. I’ve always thought it was a bit strange.” She glanced at Deborah, feeling suddenly uneasy: was she really the right person to be talking to about this stuff ? But it was too late now. “My aunt sort of . . . disappeared twenty, thirty years ago. Out of the blue. Left her baby with my grandparents when she was just five weeks old and took off.”

“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’? Did she die?”

“No. It’s weird. I mean, she’s still alive. My grandmother gets e-mails from her. Now and then.”

“If your grandmother gets e-mails—where does she think she’s gone, then?” There was a note of impatience in Deborah’s voice.
What kind of family doesn’t know where their own daughter is?

Lucy tried to explain, but as she didn’t really understand it herself, it was hard to know how to put it. “I think she was . . . always a bit difficult.” She remembered having a teenage tantrum once about not being allowed to go to Katie Ellis’s party and her dad yelling at her: “Oh, God, Lucy, don’t be like
Daisy
,” as if that was the worst thing a person could be. And Lucy had seen Daisy all of four times in her life. She didn’t really know her. “She’s very cool. Um—well, I think she got pregnant very young, and it was all a bit much for her?” Almost appealing to Deborah for her agreement, she held her hands slightly open, racking her brains for a way to try to explain it. “We don’t talk about it, you know what families are like, the strangest things happen and people act like it’s not even a big deal. Do you know what I mean?” Her shoulders slumped; of course not.

But Deborah said, “Oh, tell me about it. My mother never knew who her father was, grew up believing he was dead, in fact, and one evening she and my dad are sitting there—I’m at university by this point—and
there’s a knock at the door and there’s this man and he says, ‘Hi there, I’m your father, and I’ve been looking for you for ten years.’ ”

“What?” Lucy’s eyes bulged. In the year she’d worked for her she’d learned nothing about Deborah, other than that she was from Dorking but said “near Guildford” and that she’d asked Lucy to order her loads of
Fifty Shades
–style
erotica to take on holiday that summer. “Oh my goodness. What happened next?”

Deborah shook her head and crossed her legs briskly, as if she was regretting saying anything at all. “It’s not important. I’m just saying, I agree, families are strange. Go on. What happened to—what’s your aunt’s name? Don’t tell me. She was murdered?”

“Er—no. Daisy. She ran off to India to work in a children’s school and my grandparents raised the baby. Cat, my cousin. And that’s basically it. She stayed in India and lives there now. She helped build a school; I think she got some award for it. She’s been back home four, five times since. Usually to ask for money.” Lucy frowned at the clearest memory she had of her thin, wrinkly-tanned aunt Daisy, so pretty and exotic and strange, and yet familiar in the old safe surroundings of Winterfold. She’d come back for Dad’s unexpected wedding to Karen (which took place so hastily, Lucy had been gloomily convinced that news of a pregnancy would come soon afterward, but no such announcement was ever made), and everyone was surprised to see her, Lucy remembered that much. She seemed to be permanently half there, half-eager to join in and yet always on the edge of leaving. She had a silver elephant she always carried in her pocket. And big green eyes, too big in her gaunt face; she really was the thinnest person Lucy had ever seen. She clearly had no idea how old Lucy was and kept asking her if she’d read
The Famous Five
and talking to her in a babyish voice. She had a row with Dad about money the day before the wedding. And she’d said something to Cat, Lucy was never sure what, but she found Cat crying afterward in her room, hugging her old cushion on the bed, almost inconsolable, and since then Cat had hardly been back, and Lucy missed her so much, though Cat had become so cool, so distant, she’d never dream of saying any of that to her.

“Daisy usually has some argument with my dad or my grandparents,” she finished. “She leaves and says she’s never coming home again.”

“So she’s broken off contact with all of you?”

“It’s not really like that.” Lucy didn’t want to exaggerate. “She wasn’t ever
that close to Flo, my other aunt. Or Dad, I suppose. But she still e-mails Gran these days. It’s strange because . . . we’ve always been a really happy family otherwise. It’s like she came from somewhere different.”

As she said this, she felt it was true that they had been a happy family once, but not now. Things were different, they were all sadder; she could not explain it.

Deborah’s hands were pressed to her cheeks. “Well, you’re right, that is interesting. An article about growing up with your grandfather, the lovely house . . . and then this about Daisy. Very meaty—yes. I suppose your grandfather wouldn’t mind?” She looked like a cat, about to pounce on a mouse.

Lucy said carefully, “I didn’t mean . . . I’m not sure I’d want to write about all of it.”

“Why not? Lucy, don’t be contrary.”

“I was really thinking of a piece about our family, how jolly we are, what we get up to, Southpaw drawing us little pictures, you know?” Deborah’s nostrils flared. “Look”—Lucy tried to sound firm—“my grandfather doesn’t like people digging into his past. He wouldn’t even let the man from the
Bath Chronicle
interview him about his new show. I don’t think he’s going to want you to publish an article about . . . Daisy and stuff.”

Deborah’s voice took on a gentler, honeyed tone. “Of course. Look, Lucy, you don’t have to be sensationalist about it. There are plenty of people in situations like that: you know, unfinished business. And you never know, you might find out more about her and think how happy your grandparents would be. We’ve got two million readers, there must be someone who knows something.” She cleared her throat delicately. “I’ll be honest. I like you, Lucy. I want to help you. You know? I mean, don’t you
want
to write it?”

“I could ask him,” Lucy said hesitantly, trying to feel her way on this slippery ground. “We’ve got a family reunion coming up—I don’t know if Daisy’ll be there. It just feels a bit funny. . . .”

“Ask your grandparents. Or speak to her daughter. Though I don’t know why you can’t just e-mail your aunt yourself, ask her if she’s coming back for the reunion. That’d make the perfect hook for the piece. Imagine it. You must have an address for her somewhere.” The phone on Deborah’s desk rang and she diverted it with a jab of one bony finger.
“When you were in here last week asking for a pay raise, you told me you were positive this was what you wanted to do. I’m not asking you to write some hatchet job on your family. I’m just saying, think about digging around a bit, seeing if there’s something there.”

Lucy nodded. “Okay.”

“You can write, Lucy.” Deborah shook her head so her hair fell into its perfect bobbed shape. She ruffled it with her fingers, and then put on some lip gloss. “You’re good at pitching, you made me believe you wanted a job writing for a newspaper. You aren’t there yet.” She stood up, peculiarly gawky, and slung a long coat around her shoulders, rather like Cruella de Vil. “I have to go, I have lunch with Geordie. Think about it, Lucy. G’bye.”

And she left, leaving Lucy alone in her large glass office, staring out of the window, wondering what she’d just got herself into.
You can write
. Lucy pulled out Gran’s invitation, her mind racing. She had no idea what she’d do next, but she was sure about one thing: wherever Daisy was, she wasn’t coming back for this party.

Daisy

March 1969

I
HATE THIS
house.

We have been here for a whole year now and I know I hate it. I am nearly eight and I am not stupid, though everyone seems to think I am, because I don’t like reading stories like baby Florence, and I don’t like hanging round the kitchen with Ma like Billy Lily. He hates it when I call him that!

When we first saw this house I didn’t understand it would be only us living there. I said to Daddy: “But it’s far too big! There’s only five of us and the dogs!” They thought that was so funny, Daddy and Ma, like I’d said something jolly amusing. Grown-ups never understand that you mean what you say.

They showed us around the garden and Flo and Bill were awfully keen on it. Because of the space and the woods. But I
hate
it. I am scared out here. I wish we were back in Putney, where the houses are the same and everything is safe.

And it is too big for us, now we’re in. Daddy is so pleased with himself because he could afford to buy it, because of him having no money and a sad childhood. I heard him saying that to Ma. I listen to them all the time, when they don’t know I’m there. I know all about his dad and how his mummy died too. All the wood is painted green (in the house). There’s mice and rats everywhere and Wilbur is terrible at catching them. He hides under the sideboard or once in the games cupboard in the sitting room when they appear. There’s wasps, too, under the roof. No one else has spotted the wasps yet. And a huge garden. Ma is cross all the time. She wants to draw and she can’t draw because she doesn’t have time because of the mice and the dogs and dropping us at school and
making food and all of the housewife chores. Daddy is off in London having meetings and lunch with friends. He comes home late, he smiles, Ma hisses at him and she gets so cross. They shout but they also whisper things, and that’s when I like listening, when they’re in bed at night and they can’t hear me pressed against the door.

Everything’s different since we came here. And Florence is here. Since she came along everything’s worse. We moved because of her. We had to leave Putney and our old house with the poppies and the corn wallpaper because of her. Everything was fine before she arrived. It was quiet and nice and I knew where we were, me and Bill, Daddy and Ma. Ma had time for me, for Wilbur. Now she’s always cross.

The other thing is we don’t have enough money to pay for the house. I worry about it all the time. I try to say it to Ma and Daddy: ‘There’s not enough money because you told me once Daddy gets £100 for a painting or a sketch and this house was £16,000.’ And Ma doesn’t have any money. She is from a poor family too, though not as poor as Daddy’s. We don’t see her family very much. There wasn’t room for them in Putney to come and stay, but they stayed the night here last week and I hope they don’t come again. Her sister speaks with a funny accent and she was mean to me. She told me to shut up when I wanted to talk some more about Wilbur. So before she went I put a piece of broken glass from the time I pretended Florence broke the mirror—well, I keep some of the pieces in my tree by the daisy bank at the back of the garden—and I put it in her handbag. So when she reaches in for her handkerchief she will slice her fingers. I hope she slices them right off.

•   •   •

So I have got three things that I want to do. One, move back to Park Street, Putney. Two, get rid of Florence. An accident like what happened to Janet, although that scares me, and I didn’t mean for it to happen. Three, make everyone say that Wilbur is my special dog, not the family’s. They can have Crispin as their family dog and Wilbur can be mine. I drew some pictures of him doing funny things, and I put them up in my room. The first one is of Wilbur hiding with the snakes and ladders in the cupboard when he sees a mouse. The second is him jumping up like a beanpole on the other side of the table when he sees food held in the air. He looks so funny. The third is him walking behind me down
the hill to school. He does it every day and then he walks back up to Winterfold and sits with Ma and waits for me to come home. I love Wilbur more than anyone else in the whole world. He is a bit sandy, and he is a cross between a Labrador and a retriever, I think.

This is what I’m worried about most at the moment: just before the holidays, Janet Jordan at school laughed at him and said he was ugly and a mongrel. The next day Janet fell on the steps and hit her head and now she can’t speak. At all.

I worry that I did that to Janet. I didn’t make anything special happen like I do sometimes, but I thought a lot about it, I wanted her to die for being nasty to Wilbur. I really did. Sometimes I stare at things very very hard and I’m sure I move them just a bit with my thoughts, and I get so scared but I can’t stop doing it. When I look at books late at night in the new room sometimes the colors jumble up and start to jump in front of my eyes like they’re talking to me. And when I see myself in the mirror I think an evil person’s talking to me, and sometimes he is. Then I think:
So what?
Janet wasn’t nice, she laughed at me for being new and having a pinafore on, and she was nasty to other girls, but she started being nice when she saw my house was big. She deserved it.

When Wilbur’s with me, though, it’s all all right. They are saying they might put poison down for the rats, and if Wilbur ate it it would kill him, so he has to get used to sleeping in here, then. I like him being in here. I feel safe. We are friends. I draw him while he’s lying there. I can’t draw like Daddy but I try to match the way his back swishes in a curl, and how his legs fold under him so neatly. Wilbur is very clever as well as being a bit silly sometimes. Mrs. Goody says my drawings of him are very good, and I should hang them up in the classroom, but I don’t want other people to see them and ooh and aah so I put them up in my room.

Daddy likes the drawings. “Well done, Daze,” he says, looking at the picture of Wilbur in the games cupboard hiding from a rat. “Lovely idea, that. Very funny.” But it’s not funny at all, it’s serious.