Zoe wasn’t a good patient. Neither was David, but at least he was still in hospital, though his consultant was making “discharge soon” noises. If Daisy thought she had her work cut out now, it was going to be twice as bad when David came home. Daisy, being out of work and considered by her mother to be at a loose end, was the nominated carer, a task she wasn’t particularly relishing. And today was only day one. In fact, Zoe had been home from the hospital for less than two hours, and Daisy had already caught her trying to make up the bed in one of their spare rooms.
Daisy had sent her back downstairs with a flea in her ear, and strict instructions to sit on the sofa until Daisy had finished putting fresh sheets on the bed in which she was to sleep for the next week or so.
After that, they’d see, wouldn’t they? It all depended on Zoe’s GP. At present, the younger woman had been told to take it easy and rest, but when Daisy carried an armful of bedlinen into the kitchen, she caught Zoe chopping vegetables.
‘What did I tell you?’ Daisy demanded, whipping the carrot away and nearly getting her finger sliced off as she did so.
‘I can’t just sit there,’ Zoe protested. ‘I’m going to go mad.’
‘I don’t care if you go doolally, you’re going to put your feet up. Or do I have to call David?’
‘No,’ Zoe replied hastily, ‘don’t do that. I’ll be good, I promise.’
‘I’m not doing this to be mean,’ Daisy pointed out. ‘I’m doing it because I care.’
The other woman’s eyes filled with unshed tears. ‘You’re so good to me,’ she said.
And Daisy felt like a heel. She had never been good to her sister-in-law in her life. All she had done was make fun of her (silently – she’d not shared her thoughts with anyone) and mostly ignored her, and because Zoe was so unassuming and quiet, she often faded into the background like an unused armchair.
Now that Daisy was getting to know Zoe a little better, she couldn’t understand why she had thought the other woman so dull. Yes, she was reserved, but then who wouldn’t be when faced with an overpowering Elsie and a very capable and loud Sandra. Gee-Gee, not to be outdone, could be a force to be reckoned with, too.
Again and again, the phone rang, with people wondering how Zoe was, asking if she was okay and offering their help. Daisy was impressed with the sheer volume of friends her sister-in-law had.
Daisy could count hers on the finger of one hand, and her friends had been suspiciously silent since she and Freddie had split up. Daisy hoped it was because they simply didn’t know what to say to her, and not because they were laughing behind her back. It was also an odd time, in between Christmas and New Year, when family commitments come first, so she gave them the benefit of the doubt. Then there was the other issue, that many of her friends had been Freddie’s friends too, and maybe they didn’t want to appear to take sides.
‘What are you making?’ Daisy asked, gently prising the knife from Zoe’s reluctant fingers.
‘I thought I’d do chicken in a mushroom and parmesan sauce.’
‘I can do that,’ Daisy said firmly. ‘Sit down and let me put this load of washing in the machine, then you can supervise.’ Daisy would definitely need supervising – she had absolutely no idea where to start.
Zoe obediently sat, watching Daisy work and Daisy was conscious of her sister-in-law studying her every move.
‘David might be home tomorrow,’ Daisy said, trying to make conversation.
‘I hope so. Will you take me to visit him later?’
Daisy saw an opportunity and jumped at it. ‘I will, if you have a lie down after lunch.’
Zoe thought, then nodded. ‘But only if you let me phone work first.’
‘Don’t blackmail me, lady,’ Daisy warned, with a smile.
‘You started it.’
‘I did, didn’t I.’
Zoe, Daisy discovered as they talked, worked in a solicitor’s office as a paralegal, and Daisy could imagine her sitting at a desk, her blond hair in a bun and glasses perched on her nose.
It surprised her, having never before been able to imagine Zoe doing anything other than hanging off David’s arm and giggling. Anyway, she’d never seen Zoe with her hair up, and the other girl didn’t actually wear glasses.
‘Do you enjoy your job?’ Daisy asked suddenly, surprised that she really did want to get to know David’s wife better.
‘Yes, I do. It’s hard work, but interesting. And I’m good at it,’ Zoe declared, almost defiantly, and Daisy had the sinking feeling Zoe might have guessed that Daisy thought of her as a bit of a bimbo.
‘What qualifications do you need?’ she asked. She hadn’t had much time to think about her jobless position since she’d been unceremoniously sacked, but as soon as the world had moved past the madness of New Year’s Eve and returned to normal, she intended to start looking in earnest. The problem was that writing verses for cards wasn’t exactly a skill which was in great demand in the Midlands, and that was all she had ever done.
‘I’ve got a law degree,’ Zoe said, to Daisy’s immense surprise.
‘Have you? Didn’t you want to become a lawyer?’
‘No thanks. I’m happy doing what I do. The hours are good and so is the pay, and when David and I got married we talked about having a family, with me staying at home to look after the children.’ Her face clouded when she said children, and Daisy hastily changed the subject.
Sort of. She brought it around to her problems – not for any selfish reason, but to take Zoe’s mind off her own. ‘I’ve been given the sack,’ she announced.
Zoe looked shocked. ‘Poor you! Let me give you a hug.’
The other woman was a hugger, and Daisy had often seen her hug Sandra and the other two Macbeth witches, who comprised the rest of the women in Daisy’s family. It was only Daisy who had never been on the receiving end of one of them, and Daisy realised she only had herself to blame. Zoe must have accurately read Daisy’s body language and kept her distance.
Zoe stood up and Daisy put the knife down and walked into her sister-in-law’s embrace. It was surprisingly comforting. They patted backs for a while, then Daisy pulled away, embarrassed.
‘When?’ Zoe asked.
‘The morning you went into hospital.’
‘It wasn’t a good day for you, was it?’ Zoe said quietly.
‘It wasn’t a good day for you, either, but at least David is on the mend now, and you’ve got your little one to think of.’
Zoe’s tears were close to the surface and Daisy could have kicked herself. She wasn’t doing too good a job of preventing her sister-in-law from becoming stressed, was she?
‘I know,’ Zoe said, ‘and I’m so grateful. I’m a lucky lady.’
Daisy seriously doubted the luck aspect, unless it was bad luck. And there was still no sign of that dratted coin. She ought to eat more roughage – that should get things moving.
‘Got any prunes?’ she asked.
Zoe blinked at her, bewildered. ‘I don’t think so. It’s not something we ever buy. Is this for your sixpence problem?’
Something in Zoe’s voice made Daisy smile. The other woman was laughing at her, but not in a nasty way, in a sympathetic way. If only she knew the trouble the blasted little coin had caused.
‘I’ll get some next time I go out,’ Daisy said. ‘In the meantime, I want you to go lie down while I finish preparing dinner.’
Zoe walked slowly out of the kitchen, but before she disappeared into the hall she said, ‘Feel free to use the laptop.’
‘Eh?’
‘Job hunting. I’m sure you’ll find something. A lady with your talents is bound to get snapped up.’
Daisy gave her a rueful smile. ‘My talents consist of thinking up silly rhymes to sing to the tune of Deck the Halls,’ she said.
‘Are you joking?’ Intrigued, Zoe came back into the kitchen and sat down again.
‘Nope. The last thing they asked me to do before they sacked me, was to look into musical cards, and since it was Christmas and carols were playing everywhere, I couldn’t get the damned tune out of my head.’
‘What did you come up with?’
Daisy started to hum, running the words through her mind. ‘Here’s one,’ she said and started to sing…
‘Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laa
Don’t forget you’ll need a brolly
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laa
Cause all the weather does is rain
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laa
Time to move abroad to Spain
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laah’
‘Did you just make that up?’ Zoe asked.
‘Yep. Pathetic, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s quite good.’
Bless her, Zoe really was a sweetie. Daisy finally understood what her brother saw in her.
‘It’s awful,’ Daisy said. ‘Not exactly what Caring Cards were looking for.’
‘Is that why they sacked you?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to share it with them. No, they sacked me because of the rise of ecards, I think, not that they actually said so.’ Daisy blushed. ‘They caught me job hunting on company time.’
‘That’s not usually a sackable offence in the first instance, unless you’ve been disciplined before?’
Daisy shook her head. ‘Nothing official. I’ve had the odd pointed look from my manager for being late, but no one has ever said anything. But just before that, and the reason why I was looking at a job site in the first place, was because Simon pulled me into his office to tell me that they were thinking of making me redundant.’
‘Did he actually say that, were those the words he used?’
Daisy looked at her sister-in-law closely. Something had changed. Zoe wasn’t Zoe anymore. Okay the thought was silly; of course Zoe was still Zoe – she hadn’t been taken over by aliens or anything – but she seemed less Zoe-like, or rather, less like the Zoe Daisy thought she was.
‘Yes,’ Daisy said. ‘Simon said I was going to be made redundant, and that a date hadn’t been set yet. He said he was giving me a “heads up”, and I actually thought, stupid me, that he was being kind, giving me a chance to look for another job. Then I realised the company was hoping I’d leave before they had to officially make me redundant, so saving them having to pay me any redundancy.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I went back to my desk, decided I wasn’t going anywhere until they gave me my redundancy payment, then I did a quick hunt on the internet, just to see what was out there.’
Zoe leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. ‘Could your line manager have reasonably expected you to do that? Look on the internet, I mean.’
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘Does Caring Cards have an internet policy?’
‘No idea. But there was something about using it for personal reasons in the contract I signed when I first started.’
‘Have you got a copy of it?’
‘Yes, that’s what I was reading when you phoned.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘I suppose so. Why?’
‘I may be shooting in the dark here, and it may come to nothing, but I think you have a case.’
‘For what?’
‘Unfair dismissal.’
Was there such a thing? Daisy had never heard of it, but then she had never been sacked, either.
‘Let me look into it,’ Zoe said.
‘You’re supposed to be resting.’
‘I can read and rest at the same time, and it will give me something to do. I’ll go insane if I have to sit here twiddling my thumbs. Besides, I want to repay you for everything you’ve done.’
Heel time again, except now Daisy felt even worse. After all, she had done nothing to help and might even be responsible for Zoe’s miscarriage, stupid though it sounded. Remind me never to say it out loud, Daisy told herself.
A thought occurred to her. ‘What sort of law does your company practice?’ she asked.
‘Employment law.’