Daisy's Wars (5 page)

It was decided that during this temporary lull in Kay’s progress to the top of the showbiz world, she would fill the gap by working. In an office. Beside Dessie. He was keeping her under
his wing, Michael and Kathleen said, watching over her, though Daisy felt it was more than that. It was about control: he was making sure she didn’t get away from him. And what was wrong with
that? He had adored her all her life, hadn’t he? Wouldn’t he want to protect her? And all Daisy could think was,
Yes, but
 …

Then it happened, the huge thing that had changed the universe forever. When she was fourteen, Daisy reached the optimum body weight of six stones and puberty assaulted her. All her life she
would maintain that she had gone to bed one night as a flat-chested, plain, unremarkable child and wakened next morning inside an unknown sex-bomb’s body. Everything was different; her centre
of gravity had moved and her map of herself had altered in some strange way so that she bumped into things and knocked others down. It was almost like learning to walk all over again. There was
just so, well, much of her in places where there hadn’t been before, all of it moving in ways she didn’t understand and couldn’t control properly. And as for the lumps in the
front, well, they just kind of got in the way all the time, so that she constantly tried to move them out of the way till her head got the message that they were stuck there and couldn’t be
moved. And her mousy, unremarkable features had gone as well, and in their place was this beautiful, sensual face with striking blue eyes, framed by luxurious golden tresses.

Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she would stop for a moment and stare at the unknown female looking back at her and try to find an explanation, a reason for the transformation, then she
would shake her head. There was no explanation. With Kay, she knew, it had all been minimal and gradual. She had just seemed to grow taller and slightly curvier, becoming a beautiful adult version
of the beautiful child she had been: even someone who hadn’t seen her in years would still have recognised her as Kay. With Daisy the process had not only been overnight, but more extreme
and, as she insisted, it bore all the hallmarks of a mistake by Mother Nature. Either that, she thought, or Mother Nature had been at the gin and turned mischievous, only there was no way of
reversing the prank she had played. Out there, somewhere, was the rightful owner of the body Daisy now owned, someone who was used to its curves and could handle the shape, a female who would be
aghast at what
she
had woken up with.

The first person to notice, apart from Daisy and her no doubt equally horrified exchangee, was eighteen-year-old Dessie Doyle.

Dessie had never, in all the years they had grown up together, acknowledged her existence, which was fine because he gave her the creeps even when he didn’t look at her. But once the new
body – the new Daisy – arrived, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. At first she had felt so vindicated by his reaction that she could have screamed with happiness – now she
knew why she had disliked him so much, he was indeed a creep – but shortly the joy of being right all along turned to disgust. He almost drooled when he saw her, and he made sure he saw her a
great deal. His eyes never left her, following her around wherever she was in the house till she felt sick. She knew nothing about sex, but instinct told her what was in his mind, and at fourteen
that frightened her, so that she wanted to run to her bed, pull the blankets over her head and hide.

For the first time, Dessie took to touching her. Nothing out of place, of course, just normal contact, but normal contact that had never happened before. A hand on her elbow as they passed each
other in a doorway perhaps, but she was aware that he was passing her much more than he ever had before. And he would hold things out to her, so that she had to take them – a jacket, a bag
perhaps – and in doing so he always ensured that his skin touched hers.

He began talking to her so that she had to make eye contact with him, and he held it that second too long for comfort. He began smiling at her, too, making her turn away and cringe, though he
seemed to take her obvious unease as maidenly embarrassment. No one else noticed, which confused her, till she realised that to her family she was still Daisy – Background Daisy. Regardless
of how she looked she would always be Background Daisy. Kay was still the focus of their attention.

Not that Dessie Doyle was the only male who changed the way he behaved towards the new Daisy, but he was in her own home, that was the difference. She would walk down the street, recoiling from
the glances of males along the way, hunching her shoulders in an attempt to disguise the curves they looked at so longingly, while at the same time there was a kind of fury inside her that she
should be made to feel that way. Unfortunately this heightened her colour so that her face glowed and her eyes sparkled, which enhanced the overall effect that her hunched shoulders tried to
distract from.

Still, once inside the house she could close the door on all the other eyes, but Dessie had free passage any time of the day, or the night, too, if he had thought of it. He was regarded as
family and therefore the door was never closed to him. And the propriety of the era made sure he had plenty of opportunity to be around Daisy. No one doubted that he and Kay would marry in due
course and, though he was completely trusted by Michael and Kathleen, there was an unspoken understanding that the younger sister would act as unofficial chaperone, especially as the sisters shared
a room. So there was no getting away from Dessie’s leering eyes, and his hands, his entirely innocent hands, though the very thought of them coming near Daisy made her feel sick.

And that’s when a new, even more assertive Daisy started speaking in her head; one who questioned everything and wondered if things should or could be different. It was part of her
reaction to suddenly feeling vulnerable due to the way males treated her. To them she was an animal to be stalked, hunted, and inevitably, in their eyes, claimed as a prize. For a time she
floundered, feeling helpless, before she realised that this game didn’t necessarily have to be on other people’s terms. She could make up her own rules, decide her own strategies. She
began to understand that she either spent her life running from the predators or she turned, faced them and took control. After all, if she had something they wanted, then she had power – it
was there for the taking.

It took a lot of thinking out, but Daisy had plenty of time for thinking while she did the usual daily chores, and gradually a new persona took over the new shape, even if no one else noticed it
at first. Daisy was becoming her own person.

4

When the time came for Daisy to start work, as her sister already had, Dessie, good old reliable Dessie, had stepped forward.

It was a normal evening in the Sheridan household. Dessie was always there or thereabouts, his arm around Kay, his possession, but his eyes on Daisy even with her back to him, as she sat at the
table, concentrating determinedly on a newspaper laid out in front of her, her arms crossed over her chest for extra protection.

‘I was thinking,’ she heard him say to Michael and Kathleen, ‘if you don’t mind, if I’m not talking out of turn,’ Daisy’s face contorted with dislike,
‘that I could put in a word for Daisy at the ropeworks.’

Daisy’s eyes shot wide open with shock.

‘My, Dessie,’ her father said affectionately, ‘that’s a kind thought! Isn’t he a good friend to this family, Kathleen?’

Kathleen didn’t reply. More and more she had to conserve her breath, but Daisy sensed her mother nodding in agreement. She knew Kathleen would be just as delighted at Dessie’s
kindness as Michael was, but Daisy had other thoughts.

‘Isn’t that a kind thought, Daisy?’ Michael persisted.

‘Mm,’ Daisy replied distantly, calmly turning a page of the newspaper on the table in front of her and quickly returning her arm to its position across her chest, trying to disguise
her thoughts and her feelings, but already planning to halt Dessie’s fantasy of setting up his own little harem. Sometimes necessity isn’t the mother of invention, desperation can work
just as well, and Daisy was desperate enough to think of ways out. Bright as she was, school had never really interested her, probably because she was always tired from her main preoccupation of
running the house and looking after everyone in it, but she was certain of one thing: with or without Dessie Doyle’s presence, she was bound for better than working in a rope factory.

As he left that night, basking in Kathleen and Michael’s glowing admiration, he leaned over to where Daisy sat. If there was one thing more sickening than having to look him in the face,
it was being trapped in a seated position as he leaned towards her, against her, from behind.

‘We’ll have fun together, Daisy,’ he said brightly, and she knew exactly what he meant, even if the others didn’t.

‘Mm,’ she repeated, pushing the chair backwards against him and getting up, getting away from him, and, for an instant, her elbow connected with his stomach. It was accidental, the
last thing she wanted was to touch him in any way, but his low, sharp intake of breath pleased her just the same.

‘Well, say thank you to the boy, Daisy!’ Michael smiled.

‘It’s all right,’ Dessie grinned, ‘I know how she feels. She never shows it, but I know how our Daisy feels.’

Our Daisy, she thought furiously,
our
Daisy!

‘Yes,’ she smiled, looking away, ‘I’m sure you do.’

The next day, without telling anyone, she set about finding her own work, taking herself to Fenwicks, the department store in Northumberland Street, to ask if there were any
vacancies. Inside she was terrified, but the thought of spending every day under Dessie’s gaze, at risk of being touched by him, however ‘innocently’, spurred her on.

Her wardrobe consisted of very little, but she washed and ironed a black skirt and loaded a white blouse with so much Robin Starch that it felt like sandpaper against her skin. Her father and
Kay were at work and Kathleen was asleep as she slipped out of the house and made her way to Northumberland Street, then walked purposefully into the huge store. Fenwicks was the biggest and best
store in the city, a Newcastle institution, a place for window-shopping as far as people like Daisy were concerned. Once inside she felt like turning and running out again, then she thought of the
alternative and approached the first assistant she saw.

‘I’m looking for the person who takes people on,’ she said.

The woman, dressed in an outfit almost exactly the same as the one Daisy wore, with the addition of a black cardigan and a string of pearls, looked her up and down. ‘You mean you want a
job?’ she asked in a peculiar voice, Geordie trying very hard to sound like BBC diction on the radio. ‘Here?’ the woman said, as though it was the most ludicrous idea she had ever
heard.

‘Yes,’ Daisy replied, heart thumping.

‘I don’t think there are any vacancies,’ the woman replied, still examining her as though something decayed had been blown through the door.

Daisy resisted the impulse to turn and flee, but the woman’s sniffy manner riled her. She stared back at her, taking in the precise tight waves of her hair, the heavily powdered face and
narrow red streak of her mouth. Then she glanced at the ring-less third finger of her left hand and understood.

Daisy knew how males reacted to her, that lesson she had learned, but there was yet another shock she was coming to terms with: namely, the attitude of women, particularly women of a certain
age. She had thought she would have the support of other females against the unwanted attention of men and at first she had been puzzled by what felt like hostility instead. As a child she had
their protection, but physically she was now a woman, and an attractive woman at that, so now she was regarded as competition and, in the case of women like the one who was staring at her with
disapproval, an almost malicious jealousy came into it.

Anger made her stand her ground.

‘Well, if you’ll direct me to someone who knows that for a fact,’ she said firmly, ‘I can ask
her
.’

Just then Daisy was conscious of another black-clad figure appearing on the edge of her vision, and in the mood she was now in she was preparing to turn and yell, ‘
And who do you
think
you’re
looking at?
’

‘Can I help?’ a voice asked calmly.

Daisy turned and saw a woman, younger than the old harridan she was sparring with, blue-eyed, she noticed, and dark-haired with neat features.

‘I was looking for whoever takes people on,’ Daisy replied. ‘You know, the person who gives you a job.’

The woman smiled. ‘Come with me, Miss … ?’

‘Yes, it’s Miss,’ Daisy said stiffly.

‘But Miss What?’ the woman asked, trying not to smile, but Daisy felt it there all the same. ‘You do have a name?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Daisy stumbled, feeling a complete fool. ‘It’s Sheridan. Daisy Sheridan.’

‘Well, if you’d like to come with me, Miss Sheridan,’ the woman smiled.

What for? Daisy thought, as she wordlessly followed the woman into a lift with double doors like expanding gates. Why bother? Even if there had been a vacancy she had started out facing up to
the first nasty old spinster she had met who did have a job, and now she had disclosed her Irish roots. The thing was settled; this woman was obviously setting her up to knock her down.
So back
to where you belong, Miss Sheridan, it’s the rope-works for you and you should be grateful for even that
.

In the lift the woman held out a small, cool, delicate hand. ‘I’m Mrs Johnstone.’ She smiled, a tight, polite little smile.

Daisy shook hands, knowing her own was rough and, at that moment, distinctly sweaty, wondering just what further humiliation Mrs Johnstone had in mind for her before kicking her out. The lift
stopped and the double gate routine, this time in reverse, was gone through.

‘This way,’ Mrs Johnstone said pleasantly, and like a lamb to the slaughter Daisy followed her into a small office. All fight had gone out of her now. She had never been in a place
like this and despite her best intentions she felt intimidated; she hadn’t even thought to keep an eye on what floor she was on, so how would she find her way out again with any dignity,
particularly after Mrs Johnstone had delivered a flea directly into her ear? She noticed the graceful way the older woman moved, sitting behind the desk without bumping into anything or knocking
anything down, something she had learned to admire and envy since finding herself with so much more to move around.