Page 77 of The Life Daisy Devlin Designed
“Ha, I wish!” Evan shrugged. “Freya said one of the younger kids decided to get creative yesterday evening.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Once Freya doesn’t start complaining about a late finish. We have to give her daily updates!”
“If there’s any problems, Evan, just let me know.” Daisy’s phone buzzed, and her stomach flipped when she saw Matt’s name flash up on the screen. “Excuse me.” She swiped to answer as she went back downstairs. “Hi, Matt.”
“Daisy? Any chance you could get Niamh out to the house ASAP? Our electricity is gone, and Kenny’s dug his heels in, says she’s on another job that he can’t pull her from. I’ve told him he has to, or I get another electrician.” He sounded furious.
“Hang on, Matt, when did your power go?”
“About half an hour ago. And, before you ask, it’s not a local outage. It’s just our house.”
Daisy tried to think. “You know, you could be on a different power line to your neighbours, so even if –”
“It’s not that, Daisy! Look, I don’t know what’s happened, but somebody’s screwed up and your foreman doesn’t want to take any responsibility.”
Daisy started to defend Kenny, when she heard him shouting in the background.
Matt cursed, and for the next few minutes Daisy was forced to listen to what sounded like a muffled argument between the two men.
Finally, Matt came back on the phone. “Look, here’s the thing, Daisy: Kayley’s moved into the guest wing. She wanted to get away from the paparazzi, and she’s got all her rehearsals and filming happening. And your workmen have downed tools, so if we don’t get the electricity back, that’s a day lost.”
Briefly, Daisy shut her eyes. “Let me see what I can do.” She hung up before Matt could say anything else.
Almost immediately, Kenny rang, and she took a couple of breaths before answering the call. “Kenny, what’s happening?”
“Jesus Christ, Daisy!” Kenny practically snarled down the phone. “Yer man’s bad enough on a good day, but the moment something tiny goes wrong, he shows his true colours. He’s been bad-mouthing my crew.”
A little voice in Daisy’s head told her that Matt was acting like an entitled gobshite. But she reminded herself that he was probably under a lot of strain.
She spoke carefully. “Look, Kenny, I think Matt’s under pressure with Kayley and her band and crew around the place. Any idea what the problem might be?”
Kenny huffed a sigh. “Nothing I can see, but I’ll talk to Niamh.”
“She’s here with me in Freya’s house at the moment.”
“I’ll phone her,” Kenny said. “She might be able to tell me what to do over the phone.”
Niamh was still working in Freya’s kitchen a short while later.
“Did Kenny get you earlier?” Daisy asked.
Niamh shot her a brief look. “Yeah, he did. He told me not to bother going out to Matt’s place to fix the problem. And I told him there was nothing I could do over the phone.”
“Right.” Daisy tried to be diplomatic. “I guess he didn’t want to pull you off another job. And I’m sure another electrician –”
“Nobody knows the electrics at Matt’s place like I do.” Niamh grabbed a screwdriver from her bag.
Daisy thought quickly. “True. But you’ve done such a great job another electrician should be able to figure out what’s wrong.”
Niamh muttered something that sounded vaguely rude.
Daisy sighed. It was going to be one of those days.
CHAPTER 35
Daisy was still thinking about Freya’s request when she got to the office after lunch. Her initial impression of Freya was of someone who didn’t let anything get to her, and who knew exactly what she wanted. That hadn’t exactly changed, but Daisy was starting to see a hint of vulnerability.
She wasn’t sure what had been wrong with Holly but, whatever it was, she seemed to have made a speedy recovery. Still, Rosie claimed that kids got sick quickly and got better just as fast. Daisy wished the same rule applied to adults.
Now she sank gratefully into her chair and took a deep breath.
