Daisy Darker

by Alice Feeney

There were plenty of other – better – options, but she chose to name me after a flower that often gets picked, trampled on, or made into chains. A mother’s least favourite child always knows that’s what they are.

The cast of doctors my mother took me to see when I was five all delivered the same lines, with the same faces, as though they had rehearsed from the same sad little script. They all agreed that I wouldn’t live beyond the age of fifteen. There were years of tests to prove how few years I had left. My condition was unusual and those doctors found me fascinating. Some travelled from other countries just to watch my open-heart surgeries; it made me feel like a superstar and a freak at the same time. Life didn’t break my heart, despite trying. The irregular ticking time bomb inside my chest was planted before birth – a rare congenital glitch.

Twenty-nine years after my traumatic arrival, I’m very grateful to have had more time than anyone predicted. I think knowing you might die sooner rather than later does make a person live life differently. Death is a life-changing deadline, and I’m forever in debt to everyone who helped me outstay my welcome.

Families are like fingerprints: no two are the same and they tend to leave their mark. The tapestry of my family has always had a few too many loose threads.

I don’t know whether my parents, or my sisters, or even Nana’s agent take the palm reading about her imminent death seriously, but I do. Because sometimes the strangest things can predict a person’s future. Take me and my name, for example. A children’s book called Daisy Darker’s Little Secret changed my family forever and was a premonition of sorts. Because I do have a secret, and I think it’s time I shared it.

Pity fades with age, hate is lost and found, but guilt can last a lifetime.

People rarely need the things they think they need in order to be happy.

The invisible shipwrecks of my life are scattered all over this secluded bay with its infamous black sand. They are a sad reminder of all the journeys I was too scared to make. Everyone’s lives have uncharted waters – the places and people we didn’t quite manage to find – but when you feel as though you never will it’s a special kind of sorrow. The unexplored oceans of our hearts and minds are normally the result of a lack of time and trust in the dreams we dreamt as children. But adults forget how to believe that their dreams might still come true.

The lies we tell for love are the lightest shade of white.

Nana has a habit of knowing what is coming before everybody else.

I wonder again why she has really invited the whole family here for her birthday, when I know she doesn’t love or even like them all. Tying up loose ends perhaps? Sometimes love and hate get tangled, and there is no way to unpick the knot of feelings we feel. Asking questions of others often makes me ask questions of myself. If I had the chance to iron out the creases in my life before it ended, which ones would I choose to smooth over? Which points and pleats would I most want to unfold, so they could no longer dent the picture of the person I wished to be remembered as? Personally, I think that some wrinkles and stains on the fabric of our lives are there for a reason. A blank canvas might sound appealing, but it isn’t very interesting to look at.

I wonder whether all families have as many secrets as we do? When the tide comes in, we’ll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, I doubt we’ll ever all be together again.

Some people drink to drown their sorrows; others drink so they can swim in them.

she frequently reminds us all of, as though her failed ambitions are our fault. But in many ways, I suspect some level of parental resentment is normal, even if rarely spoken about. Doesn’t everyone wonder who they might have been if they weren’t who they were?

Complaining is my sister’s not-so-secret superpower. She is a walking frown. The soundtrack of her life is little more than a series of moans stitched together into a symphony of negativity, which I find exhausting to listen to.

He collected regrets while she gathered resentment. Sometimes people don’t know they’re in love until they’re not.

‘I think most murder mysteries are overrated,’ Nana says. ‘There are much cleverer ways to end a person than killing them.’

Rose – who has never had a child-friendly filter – stares at our niece. ‘Well, my first choice would be insulin, injected between the toes, where people are unlikely to look. I have plenty of it at the practice and it’s simple enough to explain missing batches away – things get lost or broken all the time. It would be almost too easy and I doubt I’d get caught.’ Trixie stares at her. We all do. ‘I’d poison them with plants,’ says Nancy. ‘A bit of spotted hemlock or deadly nightshade. Morphine or cyanide if I was feeling fancy and had the time, both of which are derived from flowers and trees. It’s easy enough to find at least one deadly plant in most gardens, if you know what to look for. And it takes less than a second to slip a little something into someone’s drink.’ Dad shakes his head. I sometimes think there is nothing my parents wouldn’t disagree on. ‘I’d have thought a good sharp blow to the skull would be a simpler way to do someone in,’ he says. ‘Or push them down the stairs,’ Lily suggests with a wicked smile. ‘Or over a cliff,’ I add.

Nana beams and claps her hands together. ‘What a murderous family we are!’

It still seems miraculous to me that someone as cold and uncaring as my sister could produce such a kind and sweet child.

‘Help her? You smother her, always have. It’s no wonder she never learned to stand on her own two feet. She is what she is because of you.’ ‘And what is that exactly?’ ‘An entitled, spoilt, selfish, lazy, brain-dead bore of a woman, who still behaves like a child because you never stopped treating her like one. She cares more about her looks than her own daughter. And she’s still completely irresponsible with money that isn’t her own, because she has never lifted one of her manicured fingers to earn any.’

All families experience conflict. Whether it is between husbands and wives, parents and children, or siblings, it’s as normal as day turning into night. But unresolved conflict spreads like a cancer in human relationships, and sometimes there’s no cure. Despite everything, I still have some happy memories of us all together, tucked away inside the folds and creases that forced us apart. We weren’t always the us we are now. It’s Nana who I feel most sorry for. She’s made such an effort to create a lovely evening for everyone and, as usual, my family has found a way to ruin it.

I might have been the baby of the family once upon a time, but I find myself frequently worrying about my eldest sister. It’s a special kind of love that holds families together, even dysfunctional ones. Our love is like an intrinsically woven net made from a million memories and shared moments. The knots in the net are tight, but there are holes, just big enough for all of us to slip through if caught the wrong way.

suspect so,’ Nana replies. ‘Safer than jumping off a cliff at any rate. On a related subject, I don’t want to be the richest woman in the graveyard, and I’m sure you all want to know what happens when I die. I’d like us to enjoy the time we have left together this weekend. So, rather than keep you in suspense any longer, I have decided to share my will with you tonight.’

The future is a promise we can still choose whether to keep. The past is a promise we’ve already broken.

‘Yes, Mother?’ ‘I have left you my clocks, all eighty of them, in the hope that you might use the time you have left more wisely.’ His mouth falls open, but Nana continues without waiting for any words to spill out of it. ‘Nancy, my beloved daughter-in-law, you gave me three beautiful granddaughters, for which I will always be grateful. I am leaving you my drinks trolley. Like you, it’s now an antique but still good for holding liquor.’ My mother’s face is a picture I wish someone would paint, a beautiful mix of shock and outrage. My sisters are both grinning like the naughty school girls they used to be until Nana turns to them. ‘Rose, I am leaving you my unpublished artwork and brushes, in the hope that you might paint a happier future for yourself. Lily, when I die, all the mirrors in this house will belong to you, in the hope that you might see what you’ve become.’ Nobody is smiling now, including me. I’m terrified of what Nana might say next. ‘Daisy is the only person in this family who never asked me for a penny,’ she says, smiling in my direction. ‘I plan to leave a sizeable sum to her favourite charities.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, and Lily pulls a face. I am grateful, really I am, but I confess that I always secretly hoped that Seaglass might be mine one day. I don’t think anyone in this family loves this place the way that I do. Nana takes a sip of her champagne before carrying on. ‘My literary estate will continue to make donations to my own favourite charities, as long as there are sufficient funds for it to do so. I will be leaving Seaglass in my great-granddaughter’s precious hands. I hope we can all agree that Trixie is the future of this family. My home will be held in trust for her alone, until she is older, along with any other royalties and future payments from publishers—’

Nana sighs. ‘Not everything, Lily, and please stop smoking in my home. Before those tiny cogs in your small mind start trying to turn, the will prevents you from taking a penny of what will one day be Trixie’s. Besides, I’m not dead yet. You need to learn to make your own way in life, the world doesn’t owe you anything, and neither do I. But . . . it may or may not please you all to learn that I have started working on one final book.’

‘Well, I didn’t have anything left to say. But now I do have one last story I’d like to tell. It’s about a dysfunctional family, not unlike ours.’

We spend our youth building sandcastles of ambition, then watch as life blows sands of doubt over our carefully crafted turrets of wishes and dreams, until we can no longer see them at all. We learn to settle instead for flattened lives, residing inside prisons of compromise. A little relieved that the windows of the world we settled for are too small to see out of, so we don’t have to stare at the castle-shaped fantasies of who we might have been.

Miniature faces of the Darker family past and present, painted inside the tree’s giant black leaves, permanently look down on the mistakes we’ve all made. It makes me feel an overwhelming sadness; the idea of this one day being a place I can no longer visit whenever I want to. We all have roots in this family and in this house. It isn’t something I think any of us can just walk away from.

Perhaps because when you work that hard for something, sometimes you live in constant fear of losing it.

Most teenagers are children dressed up like adults, but my niece is still a child in so many ways.

Daisy Darker’s family were as dark as dark can be. When one of them died, all of them lied, and pretended not to see. Daisy Darker’s nana was the oldest but least wise. The woman’s will made them all feel ill, which was why she had to die. Daisy Darker’s father lived life dancing to his own tune. His self-centred ways, and the pianos he played, danced him to his doom. Daisy Darker’s mother was an actress with the coldest heart. She didn’t love all her children, and deserved to lose her part. Daisy Darker’s sister Rose was the eldest of the three. She was clever and quiet and beautiful, but destined to die lonely. Daisy Darker’s sister Lily was the vainest of the lot. She was a selfish, spoilt, entitled witch, one who deserved to get shot. Daisy Darker’s niece was a precocious little child. Like all abandoned ducklings, she would not fare well in the wild. Daisy Darker’s secret story was one someone sadly had to tell. But her broken heart was just the start of what will be her last farewell. Daisy Darker’s family wasted far too many years lying. They spent their final hours together learning lessons before dying.

Daisy Darker’s nana was the oldest but least wise. The woman’s will made them all feel ill, which was why she had to die. Nana said she loved her family, but it wasn’t always true. The old bat was more bitter and angry with them than any of them knew. She wished her son had been born a girl, or not been born at all, The granddaughters were a blessing at first, but her hopes soon hit a wall. The first was too clever, the second too daft, so the third was her only hope. But the child was born with a broken heart, and Nana knew she’d never cope. Nana led a rather lonely life with a dog for a best friend, She started to fear that death was near, thanks to a palm reader in Land’s End. When the time came, no one knew who to blame, when she was found with a blow to the head. It was hard to grieve, for a woman so peeved; at least one of them was glad she was dead.

Conor stops on the landing and I notice that there is some chalk on his jeans. He sees it too and tries to brush it away. I don’t say anything.

‘Of course we all have different handwriting. Just like fingerprints or DNA, it’s to remind us that we are individual beings. Our thoughts and feelings are there to be expressed and they are our own: unique. I don’t feel the same way as you about the world, and that’s fine, we’re not designed to always think and feel the same. We are not sheep. Agreeing with someone about something is a choice, try to remember that. Don’t waste your life wishing to be like someone else, decide who you are and be you.’

As the youngest in the family, I’m quite used to nobody really caring what I think.

But I’m sure nobody in this family would have wished her dead.

I wondered if mine would look like that when I was older. Then I remembered that I would never be old enough to have white hair, and it made me feel so sad.

Daisy Darker’s father lived life dancing to his own tune. His self-centred ways, and the pianos he played, danced him to his doom. An unexpected pregnancy resulted in marriage and three girls, But instead of seeing his family, Frank chose to see the world. His orchestra was his one true love, and he thought they loved him too, But those out-of-work musicians just needed cash and something to do. Frustrated as Frank became about his own music not being performed, He carried on touring, though failure was boring, still hoping to be adored. While the family who truly loved him was abandoned and alone, It was all too late, when he accepted his fate: he might have been happiest at home. When the time came, no one knew who to blame when he was found poisoned by his drink. It was hard to feel sad for an absent dad. His grieving girls didn’t know what to think.

‘Lily Darker, you have a lot to learn. If you must always break the rules in life, you need to understand how to do so without getting caught. Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.’ ‘What?’ Lily said, rubbing a bruised knee. ‘Pardon, not what. It’s Shakespeare.’ Nana may as well have said it was Swahili. ‘Look, Lily, I admire your spirit and your ambition to always get your own way in life, but I fear others might find your personality tiresome and petulant when you are older. If you want to be bad and get away with it, you need to be better at pretending to be good. Like the innocent flower they all wish you were. Understand?’

silly. I think it’s completely logical to fear what you cannot see.

Monsters don’t always hide in the dark. Some walk around in broad daylight, happy to be seen by anyone foolish enough to look in their direction.

‘Good girl,’ said Nancy, happy that her favourite daughter was trying to make up for what had happened. She has always been a firm believer in fraudulent feelings. She presumed Lily had apologized and didn’t hear what my sister had really said. None of them did, but I’ve never forgotten it: ‘I wish you had drowned.’

Some marriages are held hostage by memories of happier times, others are imprisoned by the idea that parenthood can only be performed well in pairs.

All families have their own private routines and secret language, and all families know how to hurt each other.

Maybe finally, and for the first time, my family does know what it is like to be me; to live with the constant fear that today might be their last.

‘It’s always important to have adventures, even if only in your imagination. Sometimes those are the best adventures of all,’ he said, sounding more like Nana than himself.

Memories are shapeshifters, especially the childhood variety,