Chapter 51
51
Daisy was sure she must have misheard. ‘Sorry, did you say grand at the end there?’ she said. ‘As in two hundred thousand pounds? Pounds sterling?’
‘Give or take,’ Theo responded.
‘I don’t understand.’
That was all she could manage, but it was the truth. People didn’t just have that amount of money in savings, did they? Okay, it wasn’t like she’d worked her way up a career ladder or anything, but she had always been employed and no one could consider her work-shy and yet there was zero possibility of her having saved up that type of money. Even Bex, who had the most well-paid job of anyone she knew, had needed to scrimp and save to get a deposit for her flat in London. As far as Daisy was aware, Theo had never scrimped and saved, even though jobs on the canal didn’t pay well at all. Certainly not enough for him to have saved up that sort of money.
‘It’s really come off investments,’ he said. ‘Well, some inheritance that I invested. When my grandfather left me some money, crypto was just taking off, so I put a few grand into that and it’s done well.’
‘A few grand?’ Daisy questioned. To her, that meant two or three, not a quarter of a million pounds.
‘It’s not like I have an extravagant lifestyle or anything either, and I’ve always been that way. I’ve always saved rather than spent. I’m mean, you know when I bought the Escape , she was a shell, so I didn’t need to dip into my savings then and I did all the work pretty cheaply.’
Of course, Daisy knew this about the Narrow Escape . Theo had kindly used all the skills he had learned doing up his own boat – and a couple of others too – to help with the September Rose , but that didn’t change how at that precise moment she was having difficulty swallowing. Her throat had dried up entirely, and her mind was racing through what Theo’s hidden wealth meant for her and their future.
Daisy could feel Theo’s eyes flicking off the road to look at her, but she needed a moment to gather her thoughts before she spoke. It wasn’t the immediate future that worried her so much as the distant one. She had no intention of leaving the canal any time soon. It was her business, her livelihood, and her life, but seeing Yvonne struggling had made Daisy realise there would be a time when dry land would be a more sensible idea and she would much rather make that move when she was young enough to enjoy that new chapter of her life. The problem was that when she had imagined her and Theo being in a place together, whether it was a boat or a house, it had been exactly that – together. Shared. Equal partners. How could they be equal if she wasn’t able to contribute in the same way?
‘I feel like I’ve said something to upset you,’ Theo said. ‘Should I have not told you? I didn’t think it was a big deal. Unless you’re sitting there thinking that you want to blow the entire lot on the wedding and honeymoon, that is. I might have a bit of a problem with that.’
‘No. Trust me, that’s not what I want to do,’ Daisy said. ‘I just hadn’t really thought about how we were going to tackle finances when we got married.’
‘We’ll figure it out,’ Theo said with an annoying nonchalance. Though Daisy wasn’t convinced.
‘Well, we really need to sort it out before we get married. I mean, where are we going to live? I really can’t have Johnny in the September Rose with all the cooking I do, but is the Escape big enough for us to live in full-time?’ Her head was spiralling with the logistics of it all. ‘And I’m not sure I’d feel happy leaving the September Rose empty at nights either. Not every night. I mean, I know we do it a lot now, but I’m always there so early in the morning. Maybe we could see about getting a mooring next to each other?—’
‘Daisy.’ Theo reached across and placed his hand on her lap. ‘This is fine. It’ll take us as long as it takes us, but we’ll sort it out. And as for the money – if I thought it was going to be an issue, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to miss out on anything, that’s all. You don’t have to feel like you need to cut back on the wedding because of money, that’s all. I want you to have everything you want.’
Daisy pressed her lips tightly together. A wedding with everything she wanted. What did that mean? She wasn’t sure, but for some reason, it still didn’t make her feel good.