Chapter 35

35

SEAGLASS

1988

It was Halloween, 1988. My mother had slowly withdrawn from the world after her breakup with Mr. Kennedy—who seemed intent on drinking himself to death again—and there was a strange melancholy mood at Seaglass that October. The sorrow and sadness seemed to seep out of the cracks in the walls. I remember walking into the room that evening and finding my family all there, sitting around the kitchen table, seated at their individually painted chairs.

Nancy was sitting in her tall thin white chair, looking beautiful but uncomfortable as always. My dad, then fully recovered from his car accident, sat at the other end of the table, as far away from Nancy as possible. Just because she didn’t want to be with Mr. Kennedy, it didn’t change the status of their relationship; Nancy didn’t want to be with Dad either. Not in that way. Not then. His chair seemed a little wider, and rounder, and darker than before, as though it had aged with him. Eighteen-year-old Rose sat in her red chair, next to Conor, who visited so often by then that Nana had painted him a chair of his own. It was sky blue with little white clouds, because she said he was a dreamer. Seventeen-year-old Lily looked sulky and jealous in her green chair.

She’d had an audition for a drama school in London the day before and didn’t get in. Lily couldn’t handle the knock-back, so gave up on her dreams of performing onstage after just one rejection. I guess they didn’t like her rendition of “Eternal Flame.” Even at thirteen, I understood that if you really wanted something, you had to fight for it. Always. But my mother, who had also dreamed of being an actress, did nothing to encourage Lily to try again. 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. She spoiled Lily even more than before after that—unlike Rose and me—which only made matters worse. The problem with growing up with parents who say yes to everything is that it doesn’t prepare you for the real world, which often says no. I’ve never known my sister to work hard for anything or anyone, not even herself. The reality of hard work being a prerequisite for success meant she was doomed to fail.

There was one other guest at the kitchen table that day, but he didn’t have a chair of his own. I’ve always presumed that Nana’s agent was roughly the same age as my father. When I was a child, anyone over thirty looked the same age to me: old. But staring at the screen now, and seeing Nana’s agent again for the first time in years, I notice he was surprisingly young. Early thirties at most. I remember that she was his first real client, and the success of Daisy Darker’s Little Secret launched his career as well as hers. She took a chance on him, he took a chance on her, and it paid off in a big way … until she stopped writing a few years ago. Nana’s agent was sitting next to her that night, on a navy blue chair covered in shooting stars reserved for special guests. My chair—covered in hand-painted daisies—was next to his.

I hadn’t met him before. It sounded strange to my ears when she talked about having an agent—to me, she was always just my nana—but I was curious about this man whom she was clearly rather fond of. Her birthday party was normally a family-only event. Nana said that she could count the people she trusted on one hand, and that she didn’t need all of her fingers to do it. Her agent was the person she trusted most. He wore a smart suit and a kind smile. I had always imagined him carrying books inside all of his pockets, but I couldn’t see any.

“It’s such a pleasure to finally meet the real Daisy Darker,” he said as I sat down at the table. He held out his hand for me to shake as though I were a grown-up, and that—along with his posh voice—made me smile. He pronounced all of his words properly, which made me want to do the same. I found myself imitating the way he spoke without meaning to. Nana’s agent was like a character in a book or a film, and I wasn’t entirely convinced he was real until I touched him. “That’s a good, firm handshake,” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied, rather pleased with myself. As a slightly awkward thirteen-year-old, I took compliments wherever I could get them. “What do you mean, the real Daisy Darker?”

“Well, I work with your nana. Her book Daisy Darker’s Little Secret was the first book we worked on together a few years ago, and it sold all over the world. Which means there are copies of a book with your name on it in bookshops in America, and Spain, Australia, Poland … even as far away as China. It’s quite a thrill to finally meet your nana’s muse.” I didn’t know what a muse was, but didn’t want the nice man to think that I was stupid, so I nodded. I might be misremembering things—it was a long time ago now. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke, and I wondered if the nice man was secretly made of stars. His chair was covered in them after all, and Nana was right about most things.

Every family is a fortress that few outsiders get to see inside. Especially ours. Sometimes people are invited in for a period of time, but they only ever get the public tour; they never really see behind the scenes. A backstage pass is a myth when it comes to human relationships; we can never really know another person because we rarely know ourselves. Knowing that Nana’s agent was one of the very few people on the planet who she trusted, I always wondered and wanted to know why. But whenever I asked her, she could never explain. Maybe she didn’t really understand it herself.

“You do know that my nana’s stories aren’t real, don’t you?” I asked him. “What she writes is called fiction.”

The agent smiled. “Yes, I am aware of the term.”

“Then you should really understand that I am not the Daisy Darker in the books. Nana just borrowed my name, that’s all. A book about the real me would be far more interesting.”

He laughed at that, and it made me cross because I thought it meant he didn’t think that I was interesting. But then Nana’s agent gave me something wonderful, which made me like him again. He reached into the top pocket of his jacket and took out a silver pen. Then he took out a business card and wrote on the back of it:

Looking forward to reading about the real Daisy Darker.

What was most remarkable was that, with a simple click, the pen could write in different colors: red, green, blue, and black. I’d never seen anything like it. He gave me the business card, and when he saw me staring at the pen, he gave me that too.

“Here you go. Write your own story with this if you like, and I’ll read it if you do.”

Then Nana tapped her champagne glass to get everyone’s attention, and our conversation was over almost as soon as it had begun. I put the pen and the card in the top pocket of my dress. I see on the video that it was a dress of my own—rather than a hand-me-down—a denim dungaree dress, not unlike the ones I still like to wear today. I also had my first shoes that had only been worn by my feet: a pair of white trainers that Nana had painted with daisies.

“Now then, I know it’s Halloween, and some people have a party to go to,” Nana said, looking at Rose and Lily. “But I’m glad we could be together for a little while. It means a lot to have my family in one place all at the same time for my birthday. Cheers to all of you, and special congratulations to Rose for getting into Cambridge University. We’re so proud of you.”

I was only thirteen, but even I was allowed a glass of champagne. I liked it, and tried to sip it as slowly as possible to make it last.

“Shall we do presents before dinner?” Nana asked, and everyone looked uncomfortable. It had always been her rule that nobody was allowed to buy proper presents on her birthday, only sweets, with it being Halloween. I’d already given her a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk miniature dispenser, which she had seemed thrilled with, and Rose gave her chocolate frogs. Dad brought an expensive box of chocolates all the way from Switzerland, where he’d spent the summer with his orchestra. Lily forgot as usual, so Nancy pretended her gift of Milk Tray was from both of them. “Don’t panic, I’m only teasing. You all being present is present enough,” Nana said.

Her agent cleared his throat. “I didn’t know about the no-big-gifts rule, so I’m afraid I did get you something. I hope you’ll forgive me.” He reached beneath the table, and put a large, beautifully wrapped gift box on it.

“Oh my goodness!” said Nana, beaming like a child. “What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

Nana lifted the lid, revealing the hand-carved wooden Scrabble set that Trixie and I were playing with earlier this evening. Her agent had even had some of the letters especially made: small layered squares with real seaglass on the bottom and driftwood on top, with a letter and value carved into each one—I thought they were beautiful. “It’s hard to know what to get someone who loves words but already has all the books they want in their own little library. You always say it’s important to use your words, and I know you like the game,” he said, sounding more like Nana than himself. His eyes seemed to twinkle again, and I noticed how very blue they were, just like hers. They wore similar smiles on their faces too. They looked like a mother and her son celebrating a special moment together.

“It’s the most wonderful gift I have ever received,” she replied, and I think we all felt a bit sheepish about what we had given Nana. Her agent had made more of an effort than her own family. I had forgotten until now that he gave her the beautiful wooden Scrabble board. Before I can think too long about the significance of that, the home movie continues.

“Thank you, I’ll treasure this always,” Nana said. “I actually bought myself a gift this year too, and I wanted to share it with all of you before we start eating,” she added with a mischievous grin, then shuffled out of the room. I noticed that her slippers matched her new dress, which was pink and purple and covered in tiny hearts. We all watched from the kitchen table as she wandered out into the hall before disappearing inside her library. She continued to talk to us the entire time, shouting a little in order to be heard.

“Now, as all of you know—because I’ve complained about it often enough—things can get a little lonely here at times, when none of you come to visit and I am left alone with just my characters for company. I’ve checked the dates on all of your cards by the punch clock, and I’m not imagining being on my own more than before. So my gift to myself this year is a rather special one. I’d like you all to meet Poppins.”

The puppy on the TV screen is ridiculously cute and so small, it’s hard to believe that she grew into the giant Old English sheepdog currently sleeping in front of the fire, with hair so long now that it is plaited with ribbons to keep it out of her eyes. It’s also hard to believe that she first arrived at Seaglass all those years ago. The old dog managed to outlive Nana, which is something nobody would have predicted, not even a palm reader in Land’s End.

Miniature Poppins was passed around, and we all made a big fuss of her. I watched Nana’s agent as he smiled at the puppy, and decided that if Nana trusted the man with stars in his eyes, I would too.

“If I write a story about the real Daisy Darker, will you really read it?” I whispered.

He smiled again. “Yes. I promise that I will.”

“Daisy, stop bothering the man with your silly stories,” said my mother, passing Poppins to Rose—Nancy never had any real interest in dogs or books.

“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Nana’s agent said with that kind smile of his. “Finding the stories hidden inside people’s heads is my most favorite thing to do.”

We look like a happy family on the screen, and it’s a nice memory to be reminded of. As usual the Halloween/birthday menu Nana had prepared for us all catered to her sweet tooth. That year we had chocolate chili con carne for the first time, along with chicken and hot chocolate gravy, jelly babies and sweet corn, chocolate-filled ravioli, fish fingers with lemon drops, white chocolate lasagna, and cola-bottle trifle. It all tasted a lot better than it sounds.

I watch, transfixed, as seventeen-year-old Lily picks up the camera off of its tripod and films some close-ups of Poppins the puppy. Then there is a shot of Nana hugging me and whispering in my ear. I can still remember what she said.

“I love you from here to the moon and back three times and once for luck.”

It was something she only ever said to me, and the memory of that moment haunts me.

The picture on the screen turns black. I’ve never seen anything that happened that evening captured on camera before. I didn’t know this tape existed until now, so I wonder if that’s all there is. But then an image of a beach at night appears, and a bonfire, and I don’t want to see any more. I don’t want to remember what happened next, or what I did. That night is why they all stopped speaking to me. It was the worst night of my life.