Daisy Haites: Chapter 44

Busy myself with trying to work out where to hang Matisse’s Open Window. A piece I recently ‘acquired’. It’s a big deal, figuring out where to display a piece. The space has to be right, the lighting has to be right, the height from the ground, the pieces around it. I’m pretty pedantic about every piece I hang but this one — I don’t know — I’m struggling to place it. Something about the piece… It makes me think of her in a way that’s stupid and I’d rather I didn’t. Longing for a life I’ve never longed for til now. Barless windows, easy breaths, skies that break your heart. I look at it and all I see is aimless walks down cobblestone streets in an old French village with nothing but her in my hands, and I hate the thought because it’s not just a thought, it’s a tease. Loving her is a tease.

She’s been distracted this whole trip. Bit annoying, watching her eyes flit off to Ballentine every time he walks into a room. Bit of an understatement — ‘annoyed’, put my fist through a wall in the closet last night when I saw them on the balcony.

It was loud enough, the bang, because she came upstairs to check on me.

“Are you okay?” She frowned over at me, standing in the doorway.

I nodded. “Yep.”

Held my hand behind her back. She noticed that. Don’t know how she noticed that but misses so many other fucking things, but she marched on over, pulled my hand out from behind me, inspecting it. A bit roughed up. Tiny bit of blood. Probably a broken knuckle.

“What did you do?” She stared at it.

“Nothing—” I shrugged.

“You punched something.” She eyed me.

“Just a wall.”

She stared up at me, frowning. “Why?”

Shrugged again.

She rolled her eyes at me like I was the annoying one and walked out of the room. That annoyed me more than the balcony itself. Her just turning on her heel and running back to Ballentine.

Or that’s what I thought, til she came back five minutes later with a champagne bucket full of ice, some towels and a first aid kit.

She sighed out of her nose, telling me without her words me she was angry at me.

Pushed me backwards into one of the Bas Van Pelt arm chairs I picked up in the Netherlands last time I was there. Pretty hard to find these days. Not a bad deal. About £15,000 for two.

She knelt down beside me, tossed me another unimpressed look.

“We need to work on your temper,” she told me.

“There is no ‘we’,” I told her, because I want there to be.

She breathed out loudly and rolled her eyes as she dabbed at my hand. “So you keep saying.”

“Am I wrong?” I looked for her eyes.

She gave me a tight smile. “Frequently, yes.”

I tilted me head. “About that?”

She looked away, inspecting my hand, avoiding my eyes.

She stayed with me for the rest of that night. Felt a bit shit about it because I know it’s not me she loves — but then, fuck it, I’m selfish and I like it better when she’s with me, and she hasn’t been much this trip.

Don’t even know if they know they do it — all these stolen moments and glances — how they gravitate to the same places at the same time. It’s a fucking punish.

I hate loving her. It’s a disaster.

I got a call after she fell asleep.

Told her there was something I needed to pick up in town.

“Shall I come?” she offered in the morning.

Wish I could say yes, but no.

Shook my head and kissed her on top of hers, walked away knowing she’ll find a way to spend the day with that ex-boyfriend of hers who used to be my friend but now I feel like killing all the time.

Us and the braver celebrities about. Right on the water. Only thing more insane than the view are the prices.

I sit down at a table for two, look out at the lake. Wait.

Got the boys with me.

Order a Barbera. Pick at some olives.

Don’t have much of an appetite.

I have a feeling.

“Julian—” She stands over me, smiling curtly. I stand because I’m a gentleman, at all times, even with her.

She gives me a weird hug and I gesture for her to sit.

“Surprised you called.” I nod over at her.

She tucks some of that dark brown hair of hers behind an ear.

“Felt like time.” Roisin MacMathan leans back in her chair. “And where is my niece?”

She stares over at me, eyebrows up.

“Don’t call her that—” I shake my head.

“Sure, but it’s the truth, is it not?”

“Not in any way that counts.”

She shrugs. “Truth is truth, Julian.”

“Bullshit.” I take some wine. “It’s objective.”

She lifts her eyebrows. “How’s that?”

“Because the truth is coloured and made full by semantics. Absolute truth doesn’t exist.” I shrug. “Literal truth is that Daisy and I had the same mother. The truth also is — even though she was the same woman — we all know we did not.”

“I know you’re not speaking ill of my wee dead sister.” She crosses her arms.

I flick her a look. “Just speaking the… truth.”

Daisy doesn’t know. Our mum’s name? Everyone around here called her Leesh. But her name was Laoise MacMathan.

I wondered whether I should tell her.

Never really figured how it’d serve her to know it. Her and Mum were so fucked up anyway, she never met any of Mum’s family, never knew that side even existed — I’ve always had the suspicions that Mum poisoned the town water supply when it came to Daisy over there anyway. She could be convincing about it, that Dad forced her to have her (he did), that she never wanted another baby (she just didn’t want a girl), that Daisy was difficult and insolent and impossible to control (bullshit), that Daisy wedged herself between their marriage (she did ultimately come between them, but she didn’t wedge herself there), that Daisy ruined them — and that’s partially true. All Dad ever really wanted was Daisy, he was obsessed with her the second Mum popped her out. And his love for Daisy, it did cloud everything else — Mum nearly died on the table after having Dais — PPH.

Dad didn’t even know; she had Dais, Dad took her, sat in a chair gazing at this baby girl, forgot his then-dying wife on the table.

She recovered fine in the end, but her relationship with Daisy was over before it began.

She went home to them for a bit after that… recover and recoup, that’s what Kekoa said. Dad didn’t say much about it. She went back to The Docklands for about six months. I visited her a few times, Daisy never did. I heard Dad fighting with her on the phone about it. He didn’t like it, didn’t like how she was treating Dais — that she went straight back to The Docklands as soon as she was out of hospital.

I remember hearing Dad and Roisin going at it on the phone.

“Because she’s her mother,” Dad yelled. He shook his head angrily, staring over at baby-Daisy asleep in the rocker in his office. “I can, because she’s my wife!” he yelled, and then he saw me, gave me a smile that he meant to be brave, but actually it was just sad, then he closed the door.

“How would you know?” I yawn. “You’ve never met her.”

Dad made sure of it. He didn’t like the MacMathans, he kept his distance too. I think when Mum and Dad first got together, he’d probably hoped for her family and his to fuse — his was bigger, more powerful, further reach. Mum’s was prouder.

By the time Daisy came around, the MacMathan clan was well-established in people trading, and you know my sister’s rules — they were my dad’s rules too, mine now. Don’t have the stomach for it, feels beneath us all.

Dais would be crushed if she knew.

“Oh!” coos Roisin. “I’d love to meet her, bring her on down anytime. Cian Gilpatrick would love to say a quick hello.”

I lean back in my chair, cross my arms over my chest. “I know that wasn’t a threat.”

She leans back as well. Too relaxed.

“Do you know that?” She smiles, eyebrows up.

“For your sake, I hope not,” I tell her, unflinching.

“Hm.” She gives me a small smile. “Threats are so funny, aren’t they? They’re empty if your life is—” Her eyes pinch. “Tell me, Julian, is your life empty these days?”

I scratch my neck as I stare her down. Wonder if she’s inferring what I think she might be.

“You have a wee dog now, do you not?” She asks with a strange smile. “I had a dog once. I loved him very much,” He nods solemnly. “So me da’ drowned him.”

She reaches over and pops an olive in her mouth.

“Hateful at the time, but at the end of the day, I’m grateful. It made me weak.”

I give her a little shrug, ignore the sick feeling she’s giving me.

“Might have softened your character a bit.”

She chuckles at that. Shakes her head as she leans back in her seat.

“I hear you’ve got yerself a wee girlfriend as well.”

My stomach tenses. Fuck. I don’t react. Don’t let it show on my face at all.

She takes me saying nothing as a sign to keep going. She gestures around her vaguely. “Eyes everywhere—”

I shake my head a bit, run my tongue along my bottom lip. Do my best to look bored. “Well, your eyes are shit—”

“—Is that so?” she asks, eyebrows up.

I give her a look like she’s an idiot.

“She has a boyfriend—” I tell her, rolling my eyes. Grateful for Ballentine for the first time in my fucking life. “They’re on the cover of every fucking magazine in the country.”

Her face flickers, confused, and I pray a quick prayer that wherever those eyes of hers are, they’re watching Magnolia straddle Ballentine at this very moment.

She pinches her bottom lip, looking annoyed.

I sniff. “We’re just naffing, Ro.”

“How does the boyfriend feel about that?”

“Not good.” I give her a hallow laugh, then shrug. “If you saw her, you’d give it a crack too.”

She gives me an unpleasant smile. “Maybe I will.”

I’m going to be sick, I think.

I nod my head like I don’t give a shit about any of what she’s saying. Like I’m not going to call Jonah the second I’m in my car to keep Magnolia away from all the windows, as though I’m not about to pull up the video footage of the Compound to check in on LJ.

I stand and her eyes follow me up, glaring.

“I think we’re done here.” I tell her as I start to walk away.

Then she calls after me, “We’ll talk soon.”