29

Daisy and Con had lunch on a bench in Green Park. It was eight degrees, but the sun was strong. Daisy took another bite of her sandwich and smiled. ‘This,’ she said, pointing at the sandwich, ‘is absolutely delicious. Did you really make it yourself?’

‘Uh-huh.’ He swallowed a mouthful and nodded. ‘Toby helped, but basically I made it.’

‘I am seriously impressed. Where did you get the bread from?’

‘Toby made it.’

‘Is this Toby the poet?’

‘Yeah. He bakes a loaf of bread every day.’

‘Really? That’s so sweet! So, what’s he like, this Toby? Is he broodingly handsome and mysterious?’

Con laughed. ‘Er, no. Not really. He’s kind of … he’s very big. Tall. Big hands. Big feet. Big nose. And sort of scruffy. Mad hair, big sideburns. He’s really shy, and really clever. I kind of like him.’

‘And is he a successful poet?’

Con laughed again. ‘Not that I know of. I don’t think he’s ever had anything published and he’s never got any money.’

‘What sort of poems does he write? Have you ever read any of them?’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded, ‘yeah, actually. He showed me one last night.’

‘What was it like? Was it any good?’

‘Yeah, it was. It made me …’ He paused, looked at Daisy, exhaled. ‘It made me cry.’

She gasped. ‘Wow!’

‘It was about his mum. He wrote it the day of her funeral. It was all about …’ He stopped. He couldn’t tell her what it was really about. ‘It was all about how much he loved her, what a great mum she’d been. Reminded me of my gran.’ He shrugged and smiled.

She squeezed his forearm, gently. ‘You really loved her, didn’t you?’

He shrugged again. ‘She brought me up. That’s the person you really love, isn’t it? The person who raised you?’

‘As opposed to your mother, you mean?’

‘Yeah. I suppose.’

A pair of joggers ran past them, a man and a woman in matching Lycra suits. Con finished his sandwich and tucked his screwed-up paper napkin into the plastic bag. He glanced at Daisy’s hands. Long fingers, a single ring in the shape of a daisy, blue veins, a smudge of butter. He reached over to hold it, before he found a reason not to. It was surprisingly warm. She squeezed his hand back and smiled at him.

‘I’m really touched,’ she said, breaking the silence, ‘that you went to all this trouble with the sandwiches.’

‘It was nothing,’ he said, rubbing the tip of his thumb back and forth across her fingernails. ‘In fact,’ he smiled, ‘I’d go so far as to say that it was a pleasure.’

‘You mean you enjoyed cooking something that didn’t involve a kettle or a microwave.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t call it cooking, but it was, you know, fun. I liked it.’

‘Well, then,’ said Daisy, ‘in that case, I present you with a challenge, Connor McNulty.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yeah. How about you invite me over for dinner at yours?’

‘Dinner?!’

‘Yes. Dinner. With a starter, a main course and a pudding. And wine.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Deadly.’

‘But my house. It’s full of people.’

‘That’s all right. I like people.’

‘Yes, but they’re … weird people.’

‘I like weird people even more.’ She smiled.

‘And it’s one thing knocking together a sandwich, but a whole meal. I might poison you.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ll be fine. I’ve got faith in you.’

‘You have?’

‘Yeah. Definitely. You’re one of those people, I reckon, one of those people who’d be good at anything they put their mind to.’

He shook his head and laughed. ‘What gave you that idea?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just think you are. You’ve got this aura. Really cool. Really capable.’

‘So how come I only got two GCSEs, then? And what am I doing working in a post room?’

‘You’re only nineteen. You were homeless, for God’s sake. And your grandma died. Just you wait. One day you’ll be flying a private jet across the Caribbean sea. But, oooh, wait, no, you won’t just be the pilot. You’ll be the owner. There’ll be a beautiful woman by your side drinking champagne and you’ll fly over your sprawling beachside estate, or, no, actually, you’ll fly over your own private island and you’ll think to yourself, just think, I used to live in a house full of weirdos in Finchley and spent my days wheeling bitchy women’s letters round a big building and you’ll smile and the beautiful girl will smile and you’ll remember me saying this to you. You really will.’ She gripped his hand tightly in both of hers. ‘Give yourself a chance. You’re special, Con, really special. And your life’s only just beginning.’

Con gulped. Only nineteen.

Daisy was only eighteen, but she was already two-thirds of the way through her life; halfway if she was lucky.

‘You’ll be that girl, though? The girl on the plane. That’ll be you, right?’

She smiled. But she didn’t reply.