Lottie Phillips - Sunshine at Daisy’s Guesthouse

Eventually, she looked up and took a sharp intake of breath; it was as if he had read her mind.

‘Hugh, what are you doing?’

He was down on one knee holding open a box. Inside, lay a simple silver ring with a diamond.

‘Hugh!’ she squealed. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

He still hadn’t spoken, red creeping up his neck.

Finally, he cleared his throat. ‘Daisy, would you do me the greatest honour and become my wife?’

She stood, mouth agog. Her life flashing in front of her. Wasn’t she too young? Hadn’t they only just left university?

She shook her head and his face crumpled but then she grinned; he looked confused. What was she thinking? She loved this man. They could spend the rest of their life together, have children, live happily.

‘Yes,’ she shrieked and hugged him so hard he wobbled and fell onto the pavement. ‘Yes, you silly, funny, beautiful man. I will marry you!’

She had lost all previous inhibitions and smiled at the now small gathering of onlookers who clapped her decision.

Hugh gathered himself, relief written across his features and he took her into a firm embrace, kissing her deeply.

‘We’ll be together forever,’ he whispered and she melted into his arms, as she breathed in the smell of cologne on his skin. She thought she could die happily as long as she was never separated from Hugh.

She had never felt so safe in her life.

Of course, she didn’t know that she would lose Hugh to cancer twenty years later.

‘I have no idea why I let you talk me into this, Lisa,’ Daisy grumbled as she wiggled to and fro on the small changing-room stool. She had fallen for the Levi’s for Curvy Women bumph and now she would never be able to leave this store again.

No, really. She was officially stuck in the jeans. Oh, she had got as far as below her knees but then her generous size sixteen thighs and bum had decided she was beyond even Levi’s. Great.

‘Lisa, get in here now.’

She could hear giggling on the other side of the curtain and then, ‘Oh, I love them, they’re perfect.’

Daisy, now with a beetroot red face, looked at her sweaty, bloated body in the mirror and rolled her eyes. ‘Lisa, I’m so happy for you that your size ten self fits so wonderfully well in jeans from the normal Levi’s section, but if you wouldn’t mind helping me remove my cargo ship ass from these ones, I’d be so grateful.’

Eventually, Lisa could be heard moving her curtain across and then she shimmied into Daisy’s changing area. Lisa, looking amazing in her straight jeans and bra, took one look at her friend and burst into laughter, quickly righting herself when she saw tears in Daisy’s eyes.

‘Oh, Daisy, I’m sorry.’ She gulped. ‘I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. You’re beautiful.’

‘No.’ Daisy waved it off. ‘It’s all this. I can’t do it. I’ve lost me . Does that make any sense?’

Lisa nodded. ‘I thought it might make you feel better.’ She paused. ‘You know, getting out and going shopping.’ She hung her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

Daisy brushed her tears away and conjured up a smile. She didn’t want to make Lisa feel bad. She knew it had been well over a year, surely she was meant to be feeling better by now? Hugh would have thought up some mathematical equation in which someone’s spouse dies and the point at which they should start to feel normal, even happy.

Lisa sat on the floor now, gently tugging at the jeans, but they wouldn’t budge.

‘You’re going to have to pull harder,’ Daisy instructed, and an image popped into her mind of her mother telling her the very same thing when she had often tried, but failed, to get the cows onto the transporter.

‘I’m like a heffer,’ Daisy said and Lisa bit her lip, trying not to laugh. ‘I’m like a heffer in jeans. Now that would sell. I must remember to phone Levi’s marketing deparment.’ Lisa, now in a leaning-back position, as if readying herself for tug-of-war, pulled harder and harder on the jeans until they eventually broke free, sending Lisa cascading through the curtain and into the seating area (for bored men).

Lisa could be heard apologising to a man for landing at his feet.

‘Bet you thought all your dreams had come true!’ she said in a singsong voice and backed herself through the curtain. She and Daisy both fell about in fits of laughter.

After a few minutes of laughing so hard that they were almost silent except for the odd painful squeak – their stomachs threatening to turn to six-packs from the pain – they got a grip. Well, not quite. Daisy wiped her eyes and realised she was doing a laugh-cry.

Lisa wordlessly took her into a firm hug and stroked her hair. ‘Daisy, I’m sorry. This was a bad idea. I just thought it was time you had some fun.’

‘It has been fun,’ Daisy said. ‘I haven’t laughed like that for months. I’m just a bit of a wreck. One minute laughing, the next minute crying.’ She paused. ‘It’s like being a pregnant woman. I imagine it is, anyway.’

They left the store, Lisa carrying her new jeans, and Daisy grateful for her free-flowing wide leg trousers. Who wanted to be contained in skinnies anyway?

‘Coffee? Cake?’ Daisy suggested.

‘Absolutely.’ Lisa nodded and they headed to one of the mall’s central coffee bars.

‘I’ll get them in,’ Daisy said. ‘You find us a table.’

Daisy eyed up all the cakes, the last hour’s events already being purged from her mind, and she chose a large slice of chocolate for the whippet-like Lisa (life was unfair) and she went for the carrot cake (there had to be at least one or two of her five-a-day in there).

Once they were both ensconced in a corner, Lisa turned to her friend. ‘Listen, I’m worried about you. I don’t think it’s healthy you living alone in that enormous house.’ She softened. ‘I mean… you know, you need to…’

‘Move on?’ Daisy arched a brow.

‘Well, no, not move on . That sounds so harsh. I just mean it might help you to recover if you moved away from the house, sold it perhaps.’ Lisa refused to make eye contact, her gaze fixed on her fork stabbing at the cake.

‘Lisa.’

‘Yes?’ She eventually looked up, like a naughty school child waiting for their punishment.

‘Lisa,’ Daisy repeated, ‘Hugh died over a year ago of cancer. Now, don’t get me wrong, yes, I knew it had been coming for over two years so some might argue I’m not in shock, I should bounce back faster.’ She paused, a lump rising in her throat. ‘Only, it doesn’t work like that.’ A tear slid down her cheek. ‘Knowing he was going to die for two years built the whole thing up in my head.’ She looked at her cake and pushed it away, suddenly losing her appetite. ‘Because after he had been diagnosed and stubbornly refused all treatment, I thought that every day he lived, maybe he wouldn’t die from cancer. I was so angry with him, so angry for refusing treatment. There’s a time and a place for pig-headedness I used to tell him, and that wasn’t it. Sometimes I thought that maybe—’ she gave a short, self-conscious laugh ‘—maybe they had got it wrong. Then, on the other hand, I knew it would get him eventually and so every day he was still here, I realised how much I would miss everything he brings…’ She gave a slight shake to her head, and corrected herself. ‘ Brought to my life.’

Lisa nodded, her own eyes welling, and put her fork down. ‘I know, I’m sorry.’

‘So I guess I’m trying to get over three years’ worth of grieving, does that make sense?’ She paused though, knowing she was being untrue to herself. ‘I know that Hugh and I had our problems. We loved each other passionately but he could be controlling.’ She nodded. ‘Like he wanted me all to himself. Which is why…’ She looked at her friend and blushed. ‘Do you think it’s wrong that I feel kind of like I want to move on already? Like I want to meet someone? I’m not sure if I’m allowed to feel like that but I would love to be in a care-free relationship… but then a part of me thinks I shouldn’t be allowed to be happy again, does that make sense?’