until recently, been the sort of person who left things behind. I suppose I am getting old, she thought, a little dispirited. Her mind searched for something positive. Then she found it: Daisy’s coming home . . .
Chapter 2
The next day Daisy telephoned at dawn to tell them that she had managed to get a flight out of Milan late that morning and would be home by nightfall, sending Suze into a spin. ‘She’s not sharing my bedroom!’ she declared, only to be told by her mother that she’d have to because there were no spare rooms in the house now that Nan had come to live with them. ‘It’s not fair!’ Suze had cried, tossing her mane and flashing her blue eyes. ‘Where am I going to put all my clothes? Can’t she sleep on the sofa? I mean, it’s temporary, isn’t it? She’ll be back with Luca by the end of the week. It’s ridiculous me having to move all my stuff, just because she decides to come home. It’s perfectly comfortable on the sofa. Can’t she sleep there!’ She had stormed up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door.
Marigold had gone out to feed the birds. It had stopped snowing during the night and now the sky was flat and white, the snow flat and white below it, waiting for the sun to rise and turn it into diamonds. Marigold unhooked the feeder from the tree and looked for the robin to appear, which it did, on the roof of Dennis’s shed. ‘Suze has always been selfish,’ she told it as she carefully poured the seed. ‘I suppose I’m to blame. I’ve worked hard all my life, as has Dennis, so that we can provide for our children and give them an easier time than we had. But in so doing we’ve made it too easy for her.’ The robin’s little head jerked from side to side as if it was trying to understand her. ‘Life is complicated for us humans. I think it’s easier being a bird.’ She hooked the feeder back on the branch. ‘At least Daisy is coming back. I can’t help being excited about that, although I’m sad she’s broken up with Luca. I’ve hated her living abroad. I can only admit that to you. I’ve hated her living so far from home.’
When Marigold returned to the kitchen Nan was sitting in her usual place at the kitchen table. ‘Daisy’s going to set the cat among the pigeons,’ she predicted, pursing her lips. ‘This house is too small for all of us.’
‘It’s too small for Suze. It’s fine for the rest of us,’ Marigold corrected her.
‘Are you going to let her live with you for ever? She’s twenty-five years old. Time to move out and make her own way in life, I would have thought. When I was her age—’
‘You were married with two teenage children, well, almost,’ Marigold interrupted. ‘It’s different nowadays. Life is harder.’
‘Life has always been hard and it always will be. Life is what you make of it, that’s what your father always said and he knew a thing or two about that.’
‘I must open the shop,’ said Marigold, edging towards the door.
‘Suze should help you out in there, instead of doing all that silly stuff she does on her telephone. It would do her good to do some proper work.’
‘I don’t need an extra pair of hands,’ said Marigold. ‘I have Tasha.’
‘Tasha.’ Nan sniffed. ‘I don’t call that an extra pair of hands.
I call that a headache.’
‘She works hard.’
‘When she’s here.’
‘She’s here most of the time.’
‘Most is not the word I would use, but then you’re a people-pleaser, Marigold, you always have been. Well, off you go then. I’ll hold the fort in here, cheer Suze up with a few tales of the deprivation I suffered as a child.’
Marigold laughed. ‘Oh, she’ll love you for that.’
Nan smiled back. ‘The young don’t know how lucky they are.’ Then when Marigold was halfway out the door, she called after her, ‘Be a dear and bring me some digestive biscuits when you have a moment, the chocolate ones. I like to dip them in my tea.’
Marigold had owned the village shop for over thirty years. It had been convenient for her when the children were little because the house was separated from the shop by a small, cobbled courtyard, so it was easy to dash back and forth. The buildings were pretty white cottages with small windows and grey slate roofs,