Daphne
Daphne
“Art, darling. How many times have I told you not to go shopping on your own?” Daphne said to the hunched-up man on the seat in the corner of the room. “Did he forget to pay again?” she asked the security guards, trying not to laugh at the bizarre collection of items on the table. A spatula? Acne cream? Mascara?
“Maggie Thatcher!” said Art, as the dog bounded up to him.
“Oh dear, it’s one of those days,” said Daphne. “He sometimes doesn’t even recognize his own wife, as you can see. It’s the first time he’s called me after a former prime minister, though.”
“We thought it might be his wife calling, on account of the ringtone!” said one of the security guards.
“Yes, if I changed my wife’s ringtone to the Jaws theme tune and her name to Cruella de Vil , she’d kill me,” said the second.
Daphne, who could see Art smirking from the corner of her eye, tried very hard not to look annoyed.
“Yes, well, my husband always had a unique sense of humor,” she said. “Sadly, that’s gone. Replaced with dementia—as you can tell— double incontinence, flatulence, and erectile dysfunction.” Take that, Art, you old goat.
“Well, you’d better get him home,” said the security guard, eyeing Art a little warily, probably wondering where they kept the emergency cleaning fluids. “We’re obviously not going to charge him, given the circumstances, but please don’t let him in here on his own again.”
“Don’t worry, gentlemen. I shall be keeping a very close eye on him,” Daphne said, holding out her hand to Art.
“I’m so ashamed,” said Art in a whisper, as she led him out of the supermarket.
“I’m not surprised,” said Daphne. “You smell terrible.”
“Not about the smell,” said Art. “Or, at least, not just about the smell. The whole arrest thing. All that stuff I stole. Things I didn’t even need. You must despise me.”
“Well, that’s where you’re quite, quite wrong, old chap,” said Daphne. “To be honest, I like you way more than I did before. Which isn’t to say that I actually like you. I just dislike you a lot less, now you’re not quite so perfect. I’ve always loved a man with a fatal flaw, as well as a penchant for mascara. Was the spatula intended for icing cakes, or is it some kind of fetish?”
“Well, I like you more, too, since you saved my bacon. So, we’re even,” said Art. “Will you let me make you a cup of tea? To say thank you?”
“Sure,” said Daphne. “Why not?” There were many reasons why not, obviously, but she was not going to turn down another opportunity to see inside somebody else’s home.
“We’ll just need to stop off at a shop to buy milk, tea bags, and Hobnobs,” said Art.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Daphne, “but why don’t you wait on the pavement with Margaret, and I’ll do the shopping?”
···
Art’s home—if you could call it that—was the polar opposite of Daphne’s. His furnishings weren’t so much curated as merely accumulated. Decades’ worth of ugly, often broken, things just shoved together randomly. And then covered in dirt and grime. Did men not see cobwebs and dust? Or did they see them, but simply not care? A ghastly array of socks and underpants were draped over the radiators. Daphne was both gratified and disgusted to note that she had not been wrong about the state of Art’s underwear.
“Good God, when I said I loved a man with a fatal floor, this is not what I meant,” said Daphne, staring at the stained and cracked kitchen tiles. “Art, if you want me to sit in your kitchen, you’re going to have to let me clean a bit of it first.”
“Sure,” said Art. “That’s a little strange—rude, even—but go ahead while I make the tea.”
Daphne found some old cleaning products under the sink and spent fifteen minutes cleaning one tiny corner of the kitchen, so she had somewhere to drink her tea without worrying about botulism.
Art passed her a cup of tea and a plate of Hobnobs.
“Right,” said Daphne. “You’d better tell me what’s been going on.”
Art sighed. “I think I got to the point where I hated myself and my life so much that I just wanted to blow the whole thing up,” he said.
That was a sentiment Daphne could understand. After all, wasn’t it exactly what she’d done fifteen years ago? Although in a very different way. It wasn’t herself that she’d got arrested.
“I don’t understand this self-loathing thing you have going on,” she said. “I’ve always found you irritatingly good , to be honest. I mean, look what you’ve done for all those children—giving them toys and clothes, directing their nativity. And you’ve been trying so hard to save the community center, as well as looking after Margaret. You should be proud of yourself, surely? Smug, even. I’d certainly assumed you were.”
“But I’ve been doing it all for the wrong reasons, Daphne. It’s all been completely and utterly selfish.” Daphne just raised an eyebrow at him and let him continue. There was nothing better than listening to someone else’s guilty conscience being off-loaded.
“The toys and clothes were all stolen, obviously. I have a whole wardrobe rammed with things I’ve nicked over the years, and just knowing it’s all lurking there keeps me awake at night, but I can’t bring myself to throw away all that valuable, unused stuff. Finding a good home for some of it gave me back a tiny bit of my pride.” Art paused while he took a large bite of Hobnob, which seemed to give him the strength to continue.
“And the nativity was just a form of distraction, to take my mind off the end of my career, and to keep me out of the shops. Plus, it was good practice for M,” he said, through a mouthful of biscuit.
“M?” said Daphne.
“Maggie,” said Art. “The only reason I agreed to help with Maggie was because I had this ridiculous idea of entering her into a TV talent competition. There’s a one-hundred-thousand-pound prize, you see. And the visibility, as my agent pointed out.”
“A hundred grand?” said Daphne. “That money would repair the community center and keep the developers away! It’s a genius plan! Why on earth didn’t you say?”
“Because it wasn’t for the community center, Daphne,” said Art. “It was for me. For my retirement. So I could afford to heat my house and maybe even go on holiday. Anyhow, it won’t work.”
“Why not?” said Daphne.
“Because the auditions are tomorrow, and I’ve not done any practice with M for the past two weeks,” said Art.
“Nonsense,” said Daphne. “Right. We are going to take Margaret to that audition. We are going to win that money. You are going to give it to the council to save our hall, and that way you will be able to completely wipe clean your conscience and stop all this frightfully boring, self-pitying nonsense. You could keep a little back for your gas bill. It’s bloody freezing in here. Now, take me to the wardrobe of shame.”
Art opened his mouth, paused, then closed it again. Daphne often had that effect, she found. Then he led her up his stairs and into a room which was like a 1980s time capsule. A teenage girl’s room perfectly preserved under inches of dust.
“Whose room was this?” she asked.
“My daughter’s,” said Art. “Kerry. She and her mum left in 1987. I never saw either of them again, and I’ve never met my grandchildren. My wife, Jill, died about ten years ago, still hating me. Cancer, apparently.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Daphne. And she genuinely was. She really wanted to know why Art’s family had walked away from him, and to ask about the second bed in the room. This was a bedroom for two children, surely? But she’d pushed hard enough for one day. Slowly, slowly, catchy the rolling stone, as they said.
“Let me see inside this wardrobe,” she said.
Art walked over to the large cupboard in the corner of the bedroom and, screwing his eyes tight shut, opened the door.
“I see,” said Daphne, who did very much see. “We need someone to help us move all this stuff. I bet you Lydia has a Volvo.”
“Why do you say that?” said Art.
“She’s obviously the sort of woman who drives a Volvo,” said Daphne.
“You make some ridiculous assumptions,” said Art. “But with such admirable conviction.”
“Do you have a spare set of house keys?” asked Daphne. Art nodded. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” said Art.
Which was remarkably stupid of him. When people trusted Daphne, it tended to end badly. As Jack had discovered.
Daphne’s phone rang. This very rarely happened, so it took her a while to realize it was hers, then to locate it.
“Yes?” she said, suspiciously.
“Daphne. Sorry for bothering you. It’s Janine. You’re on my emergency contact list for Kylie. I need your help. It’s Ziggy. Can you meet me at the nursery, as soon as possible?”
“I’ll be right there,” said Daphne.
Good grief. How on earth had all these people managed up until now without her? And how had she turned into the sort of woman one called in an emergency?