Chapter Twenty-Five Daisy
Chapter Twenty-Five
Daisy
The weight Daisy had felt in the past few months at every thought of the wedding had grown heavier within her, sinking her
to such a level that, with just a fortnight to go, it had almost flattened her. She had to keep reminding herself of her attachment
style and how predictable this made her behavior, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept. She should be excited. She wanted to be excited. Zack was not her dad, and she was not her mum, but despite knowing that, there was a feeling she couldn’t
shake. Daisy just wasn’t sure what that feeling was, so while she waited for it to rise up and reveal itself, she continued
with the wedding plans.
Last on her list was collecting her dress, and despite things still not being quite back to normal with Clara, she’d agreed
to go with Daisy as she tried it on one more time. Daisy had also invited her mum, but she’d had to stay home as Billy From
Next Door had organized for someone to fix her boiler.
Once inside the boutique in Soho, it was clear they were normally used to quite a gathering for the final fitting. As Daisy
and Clara entered, there was a tray of champagne on a table and the dress on a hanger behind it, spotlights shining on it.
Clara let out a whistle, nudging Daisy as the woman in the shop approached them, all peroxide blond hair and sharp cheek bones.
“How are we feeeeliiiiing?” she asked, her voice nasal, wearing a fixed smile that definitely didn’t reach her heavily made
up eyes.
“Goooooood,” Clara said, looking across at Daisy, her expression one of pure confusion that Daisy would ever purchase a dress
from somewhere like this.
She turned from Clara’s perplexed face to the dress that hung up outside the dressing room. She hardly recognized it and had
no idea what had possessed her to choose something so . . . nothing. So boring. You couldn’t even describe it as a classic;
it really did just look like a piece of white material. Daisy thought back to the day she’d gone in there. Zack had kept on
asking if she’d found her dress yet and she couldn’t handle his disappointed face every time she said no, so she’d gone to
Soho after a full-on shift at work and selected something solely with him in mind. Zack had always preferred her in more plain
clothing—he said with a laugh that it meant there was less chance of other men fancying her—but now Daisy wished that she’d
cared a little bit more, and she knew why. Because now she wasn’t just picturing Zack as he watched her walking down the aisle.
Now Tom would be there too.
She reached for a glass of champagne, downing some and carried her dress into the dressing room.
“I’ll just pop in and zip you uuuuup,” the lady said a few minutes later, appearing in the cubicle and pulling up the zip.
She made some attempt to fluff the two layers and then, realizing very little could be done to enhance things, left again.
“How’s it looking?” Clara shouted, as Daisy stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection.
The dress had short sleeves and a V-neck, and for an extortionate price the shop had adjusted it so it pulled in slightly more at the waist, with a long flowing skirt.
It wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t what she would have chosen now.
There wasn’t time to change it, but she could maybe improve it with some silver jewelry and some dazzling shoes.
Perhaps some long dangling earrings and a teardrop diamond necklace.
“Great,” she shouted out to Clara, largely because the shop assistant there today was the same one who’d told her she looked
stunning a few months earlier, before running a few hundred pounds through the till.
For one second Daisy allowed herself to imagine Tom standing at the end of the aisle with his camera pressed to his face,
watching as she came into focus at the end of his lens. What he’d think when he saw her. But this wasn’t about him. It was
about Zack.
The dress will do for Zack, is what she thought.
She pulled back the dark purple velvet curtain and walked toward Clara, holding her arms out. “Ta-da!”
Clara was exactly the right person to bring along because she had no interest in dresses whatsoever. She leaped from her seat
as though Daisy had just appeared in a Vera Wang, wide eyes glistening as she clapped her hands together. “I. Love. It,” she
said. “Give us a twirl.”
Daisy twirled and then disappeared back into the changing room as fast as she could, pulling the curtain closed behind her.
With the dress in tow, the two of them walked around the corner to Soho Theatre where they ordered cocktails and took one
of the booths on the edge of the bar.
“You excited?” Clara asked, and Daisy could see that she was really trying to be enthusiastic.
“I am,” she said, nodding. “How was your Christmas?”
“It was good,” Clara said, taking a sip of her Amaretto Sour. “Had it with the fam and we propped Leisha up on a chair. Mum
laid a space for her at the table and everything.”
“Oh that’s lovely,” Daisy said, sounding perhaps a little too gushing.
Clara’s family were some of the best people she knew and she wasn’t surprised they’d thrown themselves into this anonymous partner and welcomed her as another member.
Daisy just wished she could sense the tiniest bit of apprehension, from any of them.
Someone in the family had to think it was weird that no one had even met or seen Leisha, in particular Clara.
Didn’t they? “Was she just a floating head?”
“Nah, just like a tinny, echoey voice,” Clara said, laughing. “She was on the boat so her video wasn’t working, but it was
all good. She could see us all.”
“Nice,” Daisy said as a speaker announced a show starting in one of the studio spaces.
“I do get why you’re worried,” Clara blurted out. “I know how it sounds, but I believe her. I trust her. And honestly, Daise,
if I’m wrong, I don’t care. What is love if not setting out knowing at any point you might get your heart broken? I’d rather
risk it and be wrong than not risk it at all.”
Daisy opened her mouth to speak up against Clara, but she found that she couldn’t. That, in actual fact, there was something
beautiful in her words. Maybe everyone should be a bit more like Clara. Maybe Daisy should have been a bit more like Clara
when she had the chance.
Daisy swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “Fine. Good speech. I didn’t have you down as such a romantic.”
“It’s Leisha,” Clara shrugged. “She’s worth it. Anyway, how was your Christmas, with Dan?”
Daisy held the stem of her cocktail glass between her thumb and forefinger, turning it slowly. “He . . .” Daisy stared into
her glass and Clara reached across and rested her hand on Daisy’s.
“Go on.”
Daisy met Clara’s eyes. She could trust her, she knew that she could. This was the friend who was willing to fall out with her because she wanted to protect her. The feeling was so new to her. She hadn’t confided in anyone before. Anyone except Zack, but it was time. She could see that now.
“I never told you why I went to Zack . . . for therapy, I mean,” she explained. “I never told anyone. My dad was . . . he
was pretty controlling.” Daisy told Clara some of the things she remembered about the way her dad had treated her mum. The
memories she had pushed down and minimized for years. “He never hit her, but he was abusive all the same. And when he died,
we just . . . No one spoke about it. I don’t think I realized at the time how much Dan had to look after my mum. How much
she leaned on him. I think he just . . . cracked. And I don’t blame him.”
“Oh, Daisy, I’m really sorry. So you’ve all just been walking around with this massive secret that no one spoke about?”
Daisy nodded. “Basically, yes. And it all came out on Christmas Day. Dan threw a whole bowl of roast potatoes at the wall.
It was . . . intense.” She looked over to the bar, and back. “But it’s sort of changed things a bit. Dan seems more calm,
and Mum actually went to talk to someone, for the first time ever.”
Over the speakers there was a reminder for the show, starting in five minutes.
“That’s amazing,” Clara said. “It’s never too late. Speaking of which . . .” she added, raising an eyebrow. “Did you think
any more about it?” Daisy thought of Zack finding the card. Of how he’d reacted.
“I prefer talking to Zack,” she replied, a fierce, desperate loyalty having kicked in since everything happened with Tom.
“If it weren’t for him, I’d never have faced up to what happened. He really did help me.”
“I can see that,” Clara said, tapping her thumb with her middle finger as relief washed over Daisy. That perhaps Clara was
wrong about Zack. “It was still his job though.”
Tears filled Daisy’s eyes. “I know. I know it was, but it was more than therapy. I don’t expect it to make sense to you, but it became love.
In talking, we fell in love with each other.
He doesn’t practice any more. He gave it up to be with me.
I really do believe that I am who I am because he’s helped me so much. He’s still helping me.”
Clara bit on the inside of her cheek, staring at Daisy. Daisy watched as Clara took on a mental battle and fought back and
forth with it before she spoke again.
“Daisy, you’re my best friend and I love you more than life. And if you are telling me that Zack is the man for you, then
I have to believe you. I have to accept that and show up for you, because you’re marrying him and you love him and I need
you in my life, which means that he comes too. But I won’t agree with what you say, about you not being who you are without
him,” she said. “You have always, always been brave and strong and ready to take on the world. Always. So please,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Please
don’t let someone else take the credit for that, even if it’s just you giving them that credit yourself.”
Daisy didn’t recognize herself in what Clara was saying. Not one bit. “Okay,” she said, not really meaning it. “Okay, I won’t
do that.”
“Thank you. And I’m so sorry to hear about your dad. And I hate to make this about me in any way, but I’m so sorry you felt
that you couldn’t tell me. You can tell me anything, always.”
“I know,” Daisy said. “I know I can. I just wasn’t even ready to tell myself. Not until Dan forced us all to face up to what
happened. It was brave, really.”
“It was.”
“Annoying about the potatoes though. They were my best yet too. So crispy. And the goose fat really ruined the wall.”
“No! Not that moldy apple shade you took so long choosing.” Clara threw her hands to her mouth. She knew how long Daisy had
deliberated over the color for the kitchen.
“Yup. It’s now moldy apple and mashed potato.” Daisy laughed helplessly.
“Sounds even better,” Clara said, giving Daisy a warm smile that told her all was forgiven. It was forgiven, and that meant
the wedding was still going ahead. “Now there’s one thing we haven’t discussed, and it’s urgent,” she added.
Daisy’s heart sunk again. She wasn’t sure she could face anything else.
“You are having a hen party. It’s the rules of weddings. Me. You. Weekend away. This weekend. It is not optional.”
Since the job had been removed, Daisy was trying to do more investigative work in her day job and she’d realized how many
more stories were out there than the ones she’d been reporting on. She was hunting down leads from Instagram quotes, seemingly
innocuous TikTok videos, or from one sentence in an interview. It turned out that if you dug beneath the surface, there was
always more to what people were saying. It was a bit like Tom had been trying to do with his exhibition about happiness. He
was encouraging people not to take things at face value.
As she rode the N73 to work, windows steamed up from the January cold outside, she was searching through social media for
clues after rumors one of the cast members of EastEnders had been fired. The grounds under which it had happened and which cast member it was were yet to be announced, but Daisy
was sure that with enough digging, she could find them. She started looking through each of the actors’ profiles, checking
who they were following and who was following them. Which other actors had recently liked their photos. Her heart beat more
quickly as she saw that one of the main actors wasn’t following the EastEnders page, nor, it seemed, was he following any of the cast.
She started reading comments under Instagram stories about the rumors and sure enough she could see that the same actor was liking any about how unfair or unjust it all sounded.
She sent him a quick message from the Entertainment Now!
profile, asking if he was willing to speak to them.
It was worth a try. She kept searching too, just in case.
She was, in fact, so deeply invested in being the first to discover the identity of this actor, that she didn’t even notice
when the bus pulled into Angel and drove off again until a voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Hello, stranger.”