Page 7 of The Only Way Is Up

Daisy shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. We’re still close friends and we have a lovely daughter.’ God, how many times had she said those same words over the last decade? She sounded like a robot.

‘It’s fine,’ Justin grinned. ‘We’re keepers of each other’s secrets now. You can call him a cheating twat if you like.’ Daisy laughed and decided Justin might not be the worst neighbour ever. Even though some of that homemade soap definitely wouldn’t go amiss.

After Justin left to pluck his chicken, throwing out a vague invite to Daisy to come over for dinner later in the week, Daisy closed the curtains and turned on the lamps around the cottage. It was warm and cosy, and she momentarily felt sorry for Justin who was managing with oil lamps and candles and no heating other than the wood burner in the lounge and a wood-fired AGA in the kitchen. The bedrooms would be damp in this weather. No wonder he wasn’t in a hurry to get naked for a shower. Did he even have hot water?

Dinner was cheese on toast washed down with a small glass of wine. Daisy had decided she was going to limit herself to one glass a day, having found herself reaching for the bottle as soon as the clock struck five since The Incident. Daisy’s mother was an Olympic-standard drinker, so she always tried to be careful with her booze intake.

So instead of giving into the urge to get stuck into the bottle and drown her many sorrows, Daisy made a peppermint tea and decided to call Christian, hoping he might be up for improving her mood. None of their previous calls had gone much beyond checking in – Christian always seemed to be busy, although she suspected he was avoiding heavy conversations. This time didn’t bode any better, certainly not for phone sex, anyway: she could tell he was in a sulk from the moment he answered the phone.

‘I’m getting loads of grief on Twitter from mad feminists,’ he mumbled. ‘Apparently some people think me announcing our engagement is a sign of me being an emotionally abusive control freak.’

Daisy shrugged. ‘It was your decision to put it out there. You had to expect some kind of backlash.’

‘And here’s me thinking you might defend me,’ snarked Christian.

Daisy sighed. ‘Can you really not see any issue? I know we haven’t got into the details, but would it help if I explained exactly what I’m upset about?’

‘Sure,’ mumbled Christian. ‘If it makes you feel any better.’

‘Actually, it does,’ said Daisy, with a headmistress-like tone that Christian would probably find quite sexy, knowing him. ‘First, you blurted out our personal business on Twitter without speaking to me beforehand – but we’ve already talked about that one. Second, you said I’d agreed to be “Mrs Walker”, which I categorically have not. I didn’t change my name for Simon; I’m certainly not doing it for you.’

Christian was silent for a moment. ‘Why wouldn’t you want my name? That’s totally something we need to discuss.’

‘I agree, but you jumped the gun, remember?’ Daisy’s tone was firm. ‘My answer would have been the same. I’ve been Daisy Crawford for nearly forty years, and I’m not changing it for you or anyone else.’

She could pretty much hear Christian pouting at the other end of the phone, trying to work out his next move. When he said nothing, she ploughed on. ‘THIRD, you used the announcement of our engagement to remind everyone that you once won a match on Centre Court, which is absolutely pathetic—’

‘It wasn’t a MATCH, it was a TOURNAMENT,’ spat Christian.

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Daisy’s tone was withering. ‘You were fourteen. It doesn’t count.’

‘It fucking does!’ whined Christian. ‘It was the Boys’ Singles in 1999, and that win over Marcus Elliot set me on course for British Number Two.’

Daisy rolled her eyes, again wondering why men were such needy children.

‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry.’ Christian was clearly tired of this conversation. ‘I don’t know what more you want.’

One hundred miles away in Shipton Combe, Daisy suddenly realised that she didn’t know either. Why did relationships have to be so complicated?

CHAPTER FIVE

A week later, Tom Clark sat in the headmaster’s office at Shipton House School, reading through the grade predictions for this year’s batch of Year 13s and wondering for the thousandth time why he’d ever become a teacher. Shipton House couldn’t afford to be selective; they had barely three hundred students across the seven secondary school years as it was. So they usually ended up with the kids who didn’t make the grade for other local private schools, and this year’s lot was even more underwhelming than usual. The exception was Will Forbes-Glover, who was on track to be their first Oxbridge candidate in several years.

He put down the sheet of paper and stared out of his office window, across the field to the stables and the just-visible chimney of Willow Cottage, which he knew from the staff WhatsApp group had now been rented to Daisy Crawford. That rumour had originated with Lesley, the landlady at the Shipton Arms, who’d heard it from Avril, the local cleaner, who’d heard from the owner of Willow Cottage, who was Daisy’s ex-husband, Simon Burton. Ms Crawford being in Shipton Combe was of no interest to Tom unless she could add twenty extra pupils to his register by next year, although he felt a twinge of guilt over soaking her with his car last week. Seeing her in the village like that, actual Daisy Crawford outside the school gates; it had stopped him in his tracks. In the heat of the moment, he’d lost his mind and driven away – not exactly his finest hour, true, but it was too late now.

Tom stood up and looked at his reflection in the framed mirror above the fireplace. At forty-two, after twenty years of hard work and thousands of mostly tolerable children and universally ghastly parents, he’d achieved his ultimate career goal. He still had his own teeth and hair, and if the come-to-bed looks from some of the mothers (and a few of the fathers) were anything to go by, he was still what Tessa had called ‘a dish’. So why did he feel like he was wearing lead boots?

He stuffed a folder of old A level papers into his bag and put his coat on, rousing Henry the chocolate Labrador from his slumber by the radiator under the bay window. He’d drop them off at Will Forbes-Glover’s house, then give Henry a walk while he ran a couple of errands in the village. His old dog stretched and yawned grudgingly, then trudged after him down the stairs.

‘Thanks for bringing those over.’ Will caught Tom’s eye for the briefest of seconds. He was a smart kid, and good-looking enough that the girls in the school pursued him relentlessly, but he was also cripplingly shy and awkward. It was one of the many reasons Tom liked him – Will reminded him of himself twenty-five years ago. Tessa had been good friends with Will’s mother, Melanie, which had given Tom the opportunity to get to know him a little over the years. In school, Will treated him with the same eye rolling disdain as every other student. But in private, Tom liked to think Will saw him as some sort of family friend.

‘No problem.’ Tom sat on a stool at the kitchen island while Will fished a carton of milk out of the fridge and swilled a teabag in a mug. ‘Is your heating broken?’ It was only early October and it was already damp and freezing in here. Tom could practically see his own breath.

Will shrugged and disappeared back into the fridge. ‘It’s always like this. Dad likes the cold.’

Tight-fisted, or broke? You couldn’t tell with Gerald Forbes-Glover; he sometimes came across as the kind of man who’d leave the rest of his family to freeze while he checked himself into a five-star hotel. Tessa had never liked him, but Tom was more inclined to see the best in people. He glanced over at the open textbooks further along the counter. ‘How are you getting on with The Handmaid’s Tale?’

‘OK,’ Will shrugged. ‘It’s actually pretty good. I thought it would be a girls’ book, but it’s not really.’