Lottie Phillips - Sunshine at Daisy’s Guesthouse

No one had spoken since the end of Tom’s presidential speech; they were waiting on her.

She clutched the letter and held it to her lips. ‘Categorically no.’

Tom huffed. ‘Lisa and I will cook you guys dinner. I’m going to pick her up now anyway and let’s see if we can’t persuade you this evening.’ Tom gripped his phone. He hadn’t stopped smiling. ‘There is so much to talk about.’

Daisy felt uneasy as she watched Tom head back to his car. James, sensing this, squeezed her shoulder.

‘You OK?’

She nodded, forcing herself to smile.

He nodded and walked outside, leaving her alone in the hall as she caught sight of a silver-framed picture of herself, Hugh and James taken at an outdoor concert three years ago. Hugh and James hugged her close. Maybe that was why she hadn’t entirely written off the B&B idea in her head: James was the closest she could be to Hugh. The thought of him on the other side of the world had made her feel panicky, unsure. She couldn’t let go of any more of Hugh. Not yet.

Daisy looked at each of them in turn over the rim of her glass and inhaled her wine. Tom had gone to town over supper. He had remembered that the B&B idea stemmed from a reality show set in France and so red, white and blue bunting fluttered across the ceiling, the table was laden with salami and casserole and some sort of terrine with actual animal hair poking out of it (rustic she had been told), beset on top of a paper red gingham tablecloth and, of course, there were carafes of red wine. It looked glorious and simply perfect. Her eyes flitted towards the ceiling and she was glad Hugh (who, to her mind, was now a permanent fixture of the ceiling or sky) could feel a part of it with the bunting. She discreetly held her glass up to him.

‘Salut, dear Hugh,’ she thought and fearing another onslaught of tears, said, ‘Gosh, it must be hot in here,’ and offered her glass to Tom for a refill. ‘Fill her up, please.’

She was trying to get drunk because she could see where the conversation was going; they wanted her to set up the B&B. But, she thought, what about her quiet, controlled world where she just about coped : what would happen to that? The thought alone of losing the tranquillity was awful and she snorted inadvertently into her glass, wine escaping in all directions.

James eyed her kindly. ‘You OK?’ he whispered from stage left, his voice barely perceptible above Tom’s booming laugh, and his hand briefly touched her own. ‘You know, it is your house, you can always say no.’

However, she might have known that nothing got past her friends and Tom stopped talking as both he and Lisa turned to her.

‘Oh, come on, obviously it’s your decision, but we’re sure you can do it. Of all people!’ Lisa pouted. ‘I can help out and quit my job, and Tom can quit his. There’s a reason they call us casual labour.’

‘I know but it’s so rash, so sudden…’ Daisy’s voice trailed off.

She studied Tom’s hazel eyes dancing with happiness, Lisa, who was positively glowing, and finally James, who had somehow in the last few hours lost some of the grey pallor that comes from months of heartache. Why couldn’t she be so positive?

‘I’m not saying no as such,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m just scared.’

‘Listen.’ Tom stood up, cleared his throat and pushed his chair backwards causing it to scrape loudly over the flagstones. ‘I’d like to propose a toast to Daisy for being such a gem and, I know she doesn’t feel it right now, but we only want what’s best for you.’ He looked at her. ‘This could be the making of you, of us.’ He puffed his chest out in an almost Napoleonic fashion and started to sing, quietly at first. Daisy could see his mind whirring as he adapted the lyrics and it took her only moments to figure out the song, her finger already tapping out the drumbeat.

‘ Do you hear your friends sing? Singing the songs of … Atworth Manor? ’ Then his smile grew wider as the next line fit into place. ‘ It is the music of the Daisy crew who will laugh and smile again !’

Daisy grinned. They all knew Les Miserables was her favourite musical and Hugh had taken them all, everyone sat at her table tonight, to see it at the Bristol Hippodrome the Christmas before last, a month before Hugh died.

‘ When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the manor, there is a life about to start!’ He lifted his hands. ‘Come on! Again!’ He ripped his second Hawaiian shirt of the day (this one even louder with a giant palm tree enveloping his back) open, shooting James a look of ‘look at me, I’m a god’ and held his wine glass way up high, the liquid sloshing over the side. ‘Let’s do it again, people, and let out your inner campness!’

Lisa stood, her hand struck across her chest, followed by James and then Daisy, giggling, also rose to her feet. They swayed in time repeating each line Tom boomed at them as if they were in fact revolutionaries. Daisy’s giggles manifested itself in side-splitting laughter and within minutes she was swaying and drinking along. Daisy realised, for the first time in months, maybe years, she felt lighter and somehow different.

After a few minutes, Tom collapsed in a chair. ‘Christ almighty, I’m out of practice.’ He wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. ‘But, you see compadres, we will win this. We will win back laughter!’

James did laugh. ‘You’ve got a very good voice.’

Tom looked at him. ‘Some say good voice when they mean fine body.’

Daisy punched Tom playfully on the arm. ‘No, I think he actually meant your voice.’

‘Daisy, darling, you read things so literally.’

Lisa poured out more generous glasses of wine. ‘It’ll be like being back at uni.’

‘But no Hugh,’ Daisy whispered.

James shifted next to her. She realised she must stop doing that: making others feel uncomfortable, like they were unwanted replacements. James was very much wanted and she glanced at him and smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

Daisy felt eyes on her and looked up sharply. Lisa winked, and she flushed, guilt washing over her. Then seconds later, Tom was pushing catalogues on her.

‘What are these for?’

‘I picked them up earlier when I was in Cirencester.’

Daisy eyed them gingerly, not liking where this was going. ‘And…?’

‘And I think some of your rooms need a bit of a spruce up if we’re going to have guests staying.’ Tom drank deeply from his glass.

‘No, I haven’t said yes yet.’ She stood, her heart fluttering. ‘This is my house, this is the house I did up with Hugh, I’m not just going to redecorate and erase all that.’ She saw James nod briefly out the corner of her eye, perhaps even gesture to Tom to take it easy.

‘Daisy, darling, I am not trying to upset you. It’s just an idea. I know how much you love interior décor.’

She knew he was right: ten of the sixteen rooms remained starkly furnished, as they simply hadn’t got around to doing them. Perhaps, in her heart, she hadn’t thrown herself into the house over the last couple of years because she knew she would end up living alone in the depths of its corridors and shuttered windows. Shutters she had closed the day Hugh had been diagnosed. She had wanted to shut the world out: just Daisy and Hugh. It was safer that way. Only now she was being forced to confront those dark crevices and she wasn’t sure she could do it.

‘Listen,’ Lisa said, more gently now, ‘Dais, if you want to go ahead, how about you choose what you would like. You have the best taste after all.’ Daisy gave a small smile at this compliment because she knew it to be true but also she had seen the state of Tom and Lisa’s rented accommodation.