Page 14 of Best Summer Ever

I flipped the card over and frowned at the image of the perfect-looking garden and statement tree at its centre, which was in full bloom.

‘What a suck-up,’ I tutted, checking the date on the postmark.

The card had been sent just a couple of weeks before and Daniel was right, it was just the sort of thing Dad would appreciate.

‘Well done, Danny,’ I huffed, pinning it back up again. ‘You little goody-goody.’

Even from thousands of miles away, my wretched younger cousin, the son of Dad’s younger sister, had the ability to make me feel inadequate. Living his best life in Australia, with a perfect wife, two flaxen-haired, intelligent children and a photogenic dog, he was the family thorn in my side. I had always known that Dad compared my lacklustre adult life to Daniel’s spectacularly shiny one, even though he never would have admitted it if anyone had asked him.

‘No,’ I said, as I resolutely turned my back on the pinboard. ‘No, no, no, you will not start travelling down that road, Daisy.’

I piled my dishes in the sink, then brushed my teeth and got dressed ahead of turning my attention to my many boxes and bags and clearing some space in my room. I didn’t needto feel any worse about myself and my life than I already had the potential to do, so thoughts of delightful Daniel were banished, along with Laurence’s deceit. Staying focused and on task would get a parental tick in my ‘Best Daughter on the Planet’ box and that was what I was determined to achieve.

‘What on earth’s all this?’

With my mini speaker belting out some inspiring Taylor Swift lyrics, I didn’t hear the question the first time it was asked.

‘Daisy!’ Dad shouted and I spun round.

‘What’s all this?’ Mum shouted too. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

I lurched for my speaker and in the process knocked into a teetering pile of magazines I’d kept from my teen years and almost upset my glass of water as I fumbled and failed to steady them. Dad salvaged my drink and then turned his attention back to the state of the sitting room.

‘What time is it?’ I yelped into the silence, now the music had been banished. Taylor might still be able to make a whole room shimmer, but all I could do was turn it into a disaster zone apparently. ‘I was going to bring you a mid-morning snack, Dad.’

‘It’s lunchtime,’ he muttered. ‘A little after, actually.’

‘Did you not read my note?’ Mum asked, sounding exasperated. ‘I asked you to set the table and heat up the food I’d left in the fridge so it would be ready for us all to eat together when we got back.’

Ankle-deep in all the bits and pieces collected over a lifetime that I’d carried downstairs, pulled out of boxes and then failed to sort through ahead of opening more, and knowing thatupstairs and the kitchen were similarly littered, I couldn’t recall seeing a note.

‘I’m sorry,’ I apologised. ‘I got caught up doing this.’

‘What exactly is this?’ Dad demanded, as he looked about despairingly.

‘I wanted to clear some space, so I thought I’d go through everything, have a proper sort-out and in the process, hopefully scale it all down so we could get rid of some of the boxes,’ I explained. ‘This isn’t just stuff I came back with, it’s things from when I lived here as well. This is all out of my bedroom.’

‘Yes,’ Dad said tersely. ‘I can see that.’

‘And that’s what you’re doing, is it?’ Mum frowned. Her lips were a thin line, so I knew I was on thin ice. ‘Sorting out? It looks more like a bombsite or a jumble sale to me.’

I looked at the state of the room again and couldn’t disagree with her description. I had just reached the point where it was at its worst, but it would soon come together when I started going through the ‘toss’, ‘keep’, ‘charity’ process.

‘I’m going back to the manor,’ Mum said crossly before I had a chance to tell her what my plans for the muddle and mayhem were. ‘I’ll eat with Algy.’

‘No, don’t,’ I said, feeling bad. ‘I’ll clear a space in the kitchen and heat our meal now. It won’t take long.’

‘I’ve not got time to wait for that now,’ Mum said impatiently and walked out.

‘I’ll come with you, love,’ said Dad, taking the glass I’d nearly knocked over with him. ‘We’ll see you later, Daisy. Please make sure you’ve got this lot sorted by the time we get back, okay? Your mother doesn’t need the extra stress. And neither do I.’

I felt even worse then. My aim had been to reduce the stress of having me back under the cottage roof, not increase it.

‘I just thought it would be easier to look at everything en masse,’ I said to his retreating back. ‘And I didn’t realise how late it was…’

Mum’s note was on the worktop, right next to the sink. I had no idea how I’d missed it. I scowled at Daniel’s postcard and laid the blame at his feet rather than taking it on myself. If I hadn’t been made to feel so inferior when I started my day, I was sure I wouldn’t have got in such a muddle and further besmirched my chances of being offspring of the year.

‘Well,’ said Mum, when she returned just before four and ahead of Dad, ‘this all looks much better in here, I must say.’

---