Give Me Your Answer, Do, Chapter 3. A Rowansford story

“So how did Matthew seem to you?” Charlie was back from staying with Matthew, and for some reason that Daisy didn’t know anything about, Jonathan was concerned for him. Charlie had new clothes as well! That was, like, so unfair – that she didn’t have to save up all her earnings to get her room decorated! Still, Daisy had had three pay packets now – another week should see her with enough.
“I think he’s okay,” Charlie said, answering Grandpère. “Ask him yourself though – he talks to you.” She smiled at her grandfather. How was she going to book a decorator though? They probably wouldn’t accept a job from a teenager. Daisy considered the problem, oblivious to what was going on around her.
“Grandpère,” she thought suddenly. “He’d probably book one for me, if I was paying.”
“Daisy, your grandmère is speaking to you,” Jonquil said, irritated by Daisy’s lack of manners. As she got ever larger and ever nearer her due date, Jonquil was becoming less sweet-tempered! “Your new glasses, my dear. Are you accustomed to them yet? And do they make a difference?”
Daisy grunted, and rather than take offence, her grandmère became mischievious.
“They will make a big difference to your learning. Let me guess…at school, always you sit at the back of the class and cannot see the blackboard clearly.” This time Daisy sighed.
“Oh Grandmère, blackboards are like so last century! Next you’ll be thinking we still write on slates like you used to.”
Lorraine looked a little less amused, but before she could say anything, her grandpère stepped in.
“Anyway Daisy, you’ll be sitting at the front from now on.”
“What? But I always sit at the back with Poppy and Chloe. The front row’s for swots.”
“And short-sighted people like you.” Lorraine’s voice was full of double meanings.
“And in any case,” her father added, “if your maths doesn’t improve over the summer, you won’t be in the same form as Poppy and Chloe.” “It costs how much?” Daisy couldn’t believe her ears. Fresh home from work and only a day away from her next pay packet, she’d been pleased when Jonathan had said he’d got a quote for her re-decorating.
“Come and tell me upstairs,” she’d said, glancing around to make sure that no-one else (like Charlie) was within earshot. “But I’d have to stick with this dregsville job for like a year and a half to earn enough to pay someone to do this room for me!”
Jonathan wasn’t altogether unsympathetic – but he did think Daisy needed a bit of a reality check. Why she thought her part-time teenage wages for four weeks would pay a grown man for a week’s work, he didn’t know. And that was before you added on the cost of paint, wallpaper… “Grandpère, I just simply can’t go on with this room.” Daisy was close to tears.
“Have you thought of doing some work on it yourself?” Jonathan asked gently. “You could afford to buy some paint and wallpaper you know. I don’t mind …”
“Helping me? Doing it for me?”
“No,” Jonathan said firmly. “Teaching you how to do it for yourself. Think about it and let me know.” “And I thought things couldn’t get any worse,” Daisy thought, gazing out at the moonlit garden. “Everyone’s talking about Charlie’s nice new clothes, and how good she looks in them, and I’m in last year’s rags. I’m going to have to stick at this job for ever. I’ve got to work at my maths really hard, and I know I can’t do it. And this room’s never going to look good. Ever. No-one will do it for me.” Daisy had come back from work to be greeted by the news that she needed to redo the whole of that day’s maths.
“You are already behind schedule,” her father pointed out. “If you want to have to change forms, say so, and we will stop doing this. Otherwise, go and look carefully at the difference between a plus and a minus sign.”
She hadn’t even bothered to change out of those hateful clothes, or re-do her hair – it was all of a piece with her totally dregsville life anyway. And now here was her grandmère, interrupting her. “Daisy. Answer me this. My Jonathan, he says he will tell you how to improve your room. But you do nothing. My David, he gives up his time with his wife to help you with your mathematics, so that you do not have to lose being with your friends. But you do next to nothing. Explain to me why. Is it that you think you are too important? Or is it that you are too stupid?” That had Daisy up out of her chair and glaring at her grandmère – who remained unmoved.
“Well?” One of her so-french shrugs. “It has to be one or the other. Or have you another reason for doing nothing at all to change the things you so much do not like?” “I haven’t enough money to change this stupid room! You know that! Grandpère must have told you!”
“He told me that you have enough money for paint, wallpaper, sandpaper, paste. And I see that you have two hands. So why, I ask, do you not use them?”
Lorraine paused, and went on a little more gently. “Daisy, who has taught you that you can do nothing for yourself? Why do you so lack the initiative? From where have you learned all this helplessness? You are not a baby, you know.” Then Lorraine left the room, and a still seething Daisy sat back down at her desk.
“It’s not fair. How am I supposed to know how to do things when I’ve never done them before?”
But even to her own ears, this excuse sounded a bit thin. After all, Charlie had learned to ride – and if Charlie could learn something new, surely she could. Grandma H had always said that she was better than Charlie at everything. “You okay about having seen your mother again?”
Jonathan was worried – Matthew’s encounter with his mother hadn’t been an easy one, and in part it had been Jonathan’s doing.
Matthew thought for a while before he answered, carefully doing some of the final preparation of the bodywork.
“Yeah. I got to ask her the questions I’d been saving up for years.”
He paused, and went on working for a while. Jonathan, wisely, said nothing.
“That was – satisfying. Like letting something out. And we stopped her ruining Jacob and Alice’s lives – and probably Luke’s as well. I like Jacob and Alice. And they’ve had enough hurt with their daughter dying.”
He changed the subject. “Did you say you’ve got the car booked in for a paint job?” The conversation became technical after that. The scaffolding was up round the house: the painters were starting the day after tomorrow.
“House and car together,” her grandpère had joked, as his restoration project was taken away to the paint workshop.
Charlie was off out to see Matthew again, and boy, was she glad to be getting away from Daisy! She’d had enough – enough of Daisy’s “I’m better than you, you know,” attitude, enough of Daisy constantly looking down on her and sneering at her. To be fair, Daisy had always been like that, and Charlie had just believed it all – until Matthew had moved to Rowansford, and he and Hanako between them had made her see herself differently. “This really is good. And so much better than being at home.”
“What’s Daisy been up to now?” Matthew knew Charlie was enjoying living with her grandparents – it had to be Daisy who was the fly in the ointment.
“Oh, it’s just her endless comments.” And Charlie began to list them. “Charlie, you don’t have to just put up with this, you know.”
Daisy’s petty and snide comments reminded him too much of his mother and the way she’d always undermined his father.
“Fight back. Give as good as you get. Stand up to her, and she’ll probably crumble. If you keep it really calm and logical, you should be able to get away with it in front of your parents…” Charlie began to listen seriously as Matthew outlined his plans. “You know what,” Chloe said to Poppy thoughtfully. “This sleepover is way more fun without Daisy. For one thing, I don’t have to sleep on the floor! And I don’t know why I didn’t ever tell Daisy it was my turn for the bed this time.”
Poppy sighed. “I feel a bit mean, but I do agree with you.”
Since going on holiday with Chloe’s family, Poppy had seen more of her, going to cheer her on at the regional finals for one thing (she’d come second, up from seventh last year, and had definitely got her place in the squad). And Daisy had been unusually busy all summer – and hadn’t even invited them round to see her new bedroom.
“We seem to talk more – I don’t think Daisy’s very good at listening to other people.” Poppy might be feeling guilty thinking this was nicer without Daisy, but Chloe had no such qualms. She was just wondering why it had taken her so long to realise it, to admit it.
“I like Poppy,” she thought. “She’s really kind, and really friendly. And she fits in so well with my family. And even though she’s got loads of money, she doesn’t look down on me like Daisy does. I don’t think I want Daisy as a friend any more. She doesn’t really know how to be one.” Poppy got off her bed to head to the bathroom one last time before they went to sleep.
“I like it better with Chloe,” she thought. “She doesn’t tease me for being fat, or laugh at me for wishing I looked different. And her family like me too! Chloe’s nice – and I never even noticed that Daisy always had the bed, never took turns to sleep on the floor. I feel mean about that. It wasn’t fair.” Tired from work, cross and fed up, Daisy wandered into the back sitting room in search of someone to moan at. Charlie was in there, playing the piano, and the sight of her in more new clothes did nothing to sweeten Daisy’s mood.
“What’s that horrible racket?”
“The slow movement form Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata,” Charlie replied. “But then I wouldn’t expect you to recognise anything as sophisticated as that. It’s not boy band music.”
Her tone was light, dismissive – Charlie was looking down on her! How dare she? How could she? “Well, I suppose you have to be good at something,” Daisy began – and was going to go smoothly on to one of her criticisms of Charlie’s looks, but Charlie over-rode her.
“I know,” she said sweetly. “I mean it’s not as if I got 87% for my maths exam, while my sister only got 45%. Oh wait! I did get 87% - and she did get 45%. Guess I’m good at more than one thing after all.”
And Charlie smiled at her speechless sister. There was a member of staff on holiday and Daisy had been offered an extra shift – she’d taken it for the money, though she still didn’t like having to work! She paused, on her way out, to look at Charlie’s latest painting: the urge to scribble all over it was strong, but the thought of the likely consequences stopped her. Then she heard Charlie’s voice on the stairs, coming up with Hanako. She couldn’t let Hanako see her looking like this! Even Daisy had to admire Hanako’s sense of style. She nipped hastily into the nearest room. “Okay, I’ll believe you when you say it’s a horse painting for Matthew to give to Bryony. Did you work out what to charge him?”
“I asked Grandmère – and then I asked Matthew to pay me in proper riding lessons, and he pays for those by working for free for a while. No actual money changes hands – it’s all done by bartering!”
Hanako laughed. “Neat. How’s the Great Disastrous Bedroom Saga coming on?”
“That’s the same as ever! Nothing’s happened. Of course.” On the other side of the door, Daisy stiffened in indignation. They were talking about her! If it hadn’t been for the clothes and hairstyle, she’d have stormed straight out there. As it was – she stood still, and Hanako’s voice reached her ears clearly.
“But why doesn’t she do something about it?”
“Daisy? Do something for herself?” Charlie snorted with laughter. “Come off it, Hanako. I don’t think she’s capable of doing anything for herself.”
They moved away, their voices fading, but Daisy caught Hanako’s final words.
“Arrested development. Very sad…” “Hanako! You have come to help us with the garden, while the painters are not here.”
Hanako laughed – she liked Lorraine’s sense of humour.
“I am deeply sorry to be obliged to refuse your kind offer but, alas, Charlie and I have already promised Matthew that we’d all go to the cinema together. And I could not break my word…”
“Eh bien, I shall just have to make do with my husband and son then. Enjoy yourselves, mes enfants!” That was it! Daisy had had enough – enough of everyone thinking that she was no use at anything, just a baby still. She was going to show them all what she could do – she was going to decorate that bedroom herself! And she wasn’t going to ask anyone else for help either – she was going to find out how to do it herself, and then they’d see she wasn’t useless!
First stop was definitely choosing paint and wallpaper – and that sounded like fun. “Honestly,” thought Daisy, as she chatted politely to Mrs Annotto, who lived on their old street, “The whole town really is full of pregnant women!” She didn’t want to tell Charity Annotto what she was shopping for, and was quite pleased when Charity said she had to head home, her feet were killing her!
Daisy was less pleased when, having found some wallpaper she liked, she realised she had no idea how much she needed! She had to go home again, measure the walls, find out the area she wanted to cover – and then traipse back to the shop to buy the paper. “Daisy! How are you? Now that we no longer live in the same street, I hardly ever see you.” Mrs Patel this time – and Daisy had deliberately gone to the old library so as not to bump into anyone else she knew.
“And how is your mother? Is she feeling the heat as much as I am?”
Daisy had to stop and chat politely, when all she wanted to do was to find out just how you decorated a room! And what else she would need apart from wallpaper, and what kind of paint to buy… Eventually, Daisy found the book she wanted and sat down with it, flipping through the pages for the chapter she needed, oblivious of everyone around her. She’d prove to them all that she could do things too! Charlie wasn’t going to be able to look down on her any more.