Daisy Darker

by Alice Feeney

We make moments with our families. Sometimes we stitch them together over time, to make more of them than they were. We share them and hold onto them together as if they were treasure, even when they start to rust. Sometimes those moments change shape in our memories, sometimes we stop being able to see them how they really were. Sometimes we have different recollections of the same moments, as though they were never really shared at all.

‘Because you deserve to see the stars just as much as the rest of us.’

If you can’t find your way back to Happy, Navigate to the place you know as Less Sad.

Daisy Darker’s niece was a precocious little child. Like all abandoned ducklings, she would not fare well in the wild. Aged fifteen (going on thirty) Trixie Darker was clever and kind, But she asked too many questions, and some truths are hard to find. The child was unexpectedly chosen to inherit her grandmother’s estate. A decision which caused much unhappiness, and jealousy, and hate. Her own mother felt angry and cheated, most of the family felt the same. The child’s father might have been happy for her, but nobody knew his name. Despite her endless questions, the child most wanted an answer to one: Who was her dad, did he know she existed, or would she only ever have a mum? When the time came, no one knew who to blame, when she was found under the stairs. It’s hard to know who to trust, when a child is left for dead in the dust, wondering if anyone really cares.

Nobody who is here now would ever have hurt this child.

I think back to last night, when we were all sitting around Nana’s kitchen table, joking about how we would murder someone if we wanted to get away with it. Rose was the one who said insulin between the toes. Seems like someone had the same idea as her, and tried using it to kill my niece. I can’t believe any of this is really happening, and can’t think of anyone who would hate my family enough to do this to us. I look around the room. Everyone in it had a reason to be upset with Nana because of the will. My mother and Lily both hated my father for a long time after the divorce, but nobody here would want to hurt Trixie. Surely I must be right about that?

My mother was more than capable of hurting her own children behind closed doors – albeit only with words – but she could not tolerate the thought of any other child coming to harm.

I might never have gone to school, but I felt like I learned a lot of valuable lessons that day, including that people aren’t always what they appear to be. A middle-aged man with a drinking problem might just be a person poisoned by an all-consuming grief. While a middle-class woman with nice manners and nice things might just be a failed actress who can’t handle being a dress size bigger than she wants to be. Life is a performance, and we don’t all like the scripts we’re given; sometimes it’s best to write your own.

Because someone hurt my mother; it’s the only explanation I can think of for why she was the way she was.

People seem to know more about how their phones function than their own bodies. It’s bizarre and makes no sense to me.

I might have been young, but I could tell that my mother came to visit me in hospital out of a sense of duty and my nana came to visit out of love. Sometimes people confuse love and duty, but they are not the same. Neither were the women in my childhood.

Secrets are like unpaid debts: they pile up, and too much interest is best avoided. I’m not as sweet and innocent as everyone thinks I am. Just because I don’t spend my life complaining like one sister, or thinking I’m better than everyone else like the other, it doesn’t mean I don’t have occasional dark thoughts. Nana’s book, Daisy Darker’s Little Secret, was a bestseller all over the world. I know some people thought the character was based on me, but the real Daisy Darker was never quite as sweet or broken as everyone wanted to believe. I have a secret of my own. And some secrets are worth killing to keep.

I was definitely a daddy’s girl when I was a child, but he could never live up to the man I turned him into inside my head.

But I wasn’t – optimistic, that is – it’s something I’ve always struggled to be. I have a highly active imagination, and it’s been self-taught to imagine the worst.

How do you know the answers to everything?’ I asked. She laughed. ‘I don’t, nobody does! But if I do know more than most, it’s because I read. Books will teach you anything you want to know, and they tend to be more honest than people.’

I read more and more, hiding inside my room and my books for hours. Mostly murder mysteries, while dreaming of one day writing my own.

When I found Nana and Lily secretly rehearsing together the day before, something inside me snapped. Lily was always my mother’s favourite daughter. Rose was my dad’s favourite because she was beautiful and clever. But Nana was supposed to love me the most. She said I was her favourite.

No one ever noticed me in my family except for Nana. Lily couldn’t have her too; Nana was mine. I hated her for trying to steal the affection of the only person who really loved me. And people can make a hobby out of hate. The more they practise, the better they get. The rage I felt when Lily and Nana sang together was all-consuming. And it wasn’t just jealousy. I wanted revenge for all the horrible and unkind things that Lily had said and done to me over the years. I decided that cutting off my sister’s hair was just the start.

I remember the conversation Nana and Nancy had about my dad, and for the first time I didn’t really care whether he made an appearance or not. He wasn’t there for all of my birthdays.

This Daisy was a self-raising flower. But my life was too quiet without my sisters in it. I was almost always alone, with nothing but novels and an overactive imagination for company. Books can take you anywhere if you let them, and reading proved to be a big part of my education. But my sisters learned a lot of things that I didn’t. Things about real life, and social skills, and boys. I have always been a little awkward around real people. I don’t know how to talk to them, and even now, I still prefer the company of characters in books.

‘Don’t spend all of your ambition on other people’s dreams,’ said Nana. ‘Why not? What kind of future do I have to look forward to? I’m a nobody.’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘The only nobodies in this world are the people who pretend to be somebody; the people who think they are better than other people because of the way they choose to look, or speak, or vote, or pray, or love. People are not the same but different, they are different but the same.’ I was too young to understand what she meant at the time, but I think I do now.

Nana smiled. ‘I’ll always keep your secrets, my darling girl. And you’ll always be my favourite. You just have to prove all those doctors wrong for me. As for your sisters . . . Albert Einstein once said that weak people revenge, strong people forgive, and intelligent people ignore. It was one of the few things he was wrong about. Success is the best revenge. Try to remember that.’

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird does scream, Mama’s gonna trap you inside a dream. And if that dream is a scary place, Mama’s gonna put a pillow over your face. Hush, little baby, don’t you cry, Sometimes we live, sometimes we die.

Or maybe someone just wanted to make a point. It seems my mother was late for her own murder, because I think we all know that’s what this was and that she is dead.

I spot a card with another familiar name. It’s sticking out and at an angle. According to the time and date stamped on it, Nana’s agent was here at Seaglass yesterday. Just a few hours before I arrived. There is no stamp for when he left, but maybe he just forgot to punch out.

I wonder if we are all just echoes of the people we might have been if life had unfolded differently. The by-products of a crease in time.

I often wonder whether we are born with love in our hearts, and whether life just slowly erases it, eating it away little by little, until all the empathy and warmth is completely rubbed out. We learn to love regardless of whether there is anyone in our lives to teach us how. Love is as instinctive as breathing, but we don’t have to give it away. Like our breath, we can hold onto it if we choose to. But not forever. Because then it starts to hurt.

Almost as though she couldn’t stand the possibility of her daughter succeeding when she had failed. That thought might be unkind, but I think it might also be true.

They looked like a mother and her son celebrating a special moment together.

‘You are funny, Aunty Daisy. I’m not the one who has trouble remembering things,’ she says. Her tears have stopped. One Mississippi . . . ‘What does that mean?’ I ask. ‘You always do this . . . forget what really happened,’ she replies, with a strange look of pity on her face. I don’t understand anything she is saying. Two Mississippi . . . ‘Are you telling me that you didn’t kill Rose and the rest of the family?’ I ask, desperate for there to be some other explanation. ‘Of course I didn’t . . .’ Trixie starts to say, and I feel a brief moment of relief. Maybe this is just a bad dream and I’ll wake up soon. But it isn’t. ‘I couldn’t possibly have killed them all by myself. I had help.’ I feel dizzy and strange. ‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, losing my temper. ‘What have you done? Why would you murder the whole family? And why didn’t you kill me too?’ Three Mississippi . . . ‘Stop being silly, Aunty Daisy. I couldn’t kill you because you’re already dead.’

It was a lie. Life is only ever a series of choices; we all have them and make them and regret them every single day. The ability to choose between right and wrong is a fundamental part of being human. But Conor’s humanity got lost that night, and I fear he never found it again.

‘I was born with a broken heart too,’ Trixie says with tears in her eyes. ‘They think it might be hereditary, but nobody knew about mine until I was ten. I was at school when it happened. Mrs Milton, my bully of a PE teacher, made us do cross-country on a really hot day. Around the school field and through the woods. After the first lap, I said I didn’t feel well. I tried to tell her that my chest hurt and it felt like I couldn’t breathe. But Mrs Milton is one of those women who only sees what she wants to see, and only hears what she wants to hear. She made me keep going even when I said I felt a bit broken. I didn’t want to let anyone down, so I kept running. I collapsed beneath a huge oak tree, and it was a few minutes before one of the other girls found me. They thought I’d fainted from the heat, but then my heart stopped. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital two days later with this scar down my chest, and seeing you sitting at the end of my bed, watching over me. I died that day in the woods, and I think that’s why I can see you. I was only dead for a couple of minutes before an ambulance arrived, but that’s when I saw you for the first time. I’ve been able to see and hear you ever since.’

I know what she’s telling me is true. All the times my family ignored what I said this weekend were because they couldn’t hear me. Nobody hugged me when they arrived because they couldn’t see me. My family has treated me like a ghost for years because I am one.

‘What’s that?’ I ask, seeing something else in the suitcase. ‘This book?’ she replies, picking up a battered-looking old novel. ‘It’s And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, one of my favourites. Would you like to borrow it?’

Nana nods in agreement. ‘In some ways, they were all killed by what they loved the most: Frank was killed by his desire to be alone with his music. Nancy was killed by her precious plants. Rose was killed by something to do with her work, which she always put first. Lily was killed by the stench of entitlement she wallowed in. And Conor died eating his own words. Being a journalist is a privilege. The stories they tell should always be true.’