She was born as Daisy the gnome from a faded, half-forgotten puppet show. Her ears stuck out rather alarmingly, her hair defied gravity in every direction, and her nose was a cheerful new potato. She stayed pale as a sheet all year round, her voice a thin shimmer, like a sunbeam sneaking beneath a door. Daisy arrived in a family of startling good looksas if shed been switched at birth.
But her father refused to hear even a whisper that his daughter was anything short of extraordinary. He adored his Daisy, dashing about after her as though she were the Crown Jewels in a rucksack.
It was no easy timethe country ran short of so many things. The head of the family waged campaigns for tins of baby formula, bursting through the door with triumphant pride, as if he were bearing not powdered milk but, say, the Rosetta Stone nicked from the British Museum.
Getting her ready for her first day at primary school, hed parade her before the mirror and announce, You are beautiful, you know that? Daisy would inspect her legsso very much like tally sticks used in a village churchand nod in solemn agreement.
He never so much as tapped her, not even on the bottom. Even when shed once got lost on a crowded Brighton beach, tagging along behind a nursery school trip out for a walk, he spent stretched-out, gangly minutes dashing along the shore, hollering in a hoarse, seagull voice. When he finally found her among other round-bellied little ones, he grabbed a stick and whipped his own leg with such force it branded a streak of purple and red. He showed it to her, voice scattered and broken in all directions:
Look, thats exactly the bruise left on my heart.
Whenever Daisy woke, sweat-drenched from nightmares, she would scurry to her fathers side and describe her monsters. He would scramble for a pencil, sketching frenzied linestrams or telegraph wires, who could tell?
Does it look like that?
No, the legs are longer.
So hed stretch out the legs, arms, and tails, but always ended up with a silly, kindly giraffe or a flamingo-camel hybrid.
See? Theres nothing to be scared of.
He attended every parent night, sorted out the bullies, gave her a sweets day or a Friday full of laughs. He bought her bottles of Fanta and swirl-shaped Chelsea buns. He taught her how to be brave, and when a grim film played on the telly, he built her a tank out of sofa cushions, so she could watch from the machine gun window. During these times, Mum would lay aside her embroidery hoop and sigh her insides out:
Oh Daisy, how will we ever see you married off? Your daft father will scare every suitor off the doorstep.
Years fluttered by. Daisy grew her hair long, then chopped it into a blunt bob. She first enrolled in modern languages, then detoured into marketing. She loved Harry, Charlie, and the neighbour called Buster. She thought about marriage, changed her mind, jumped out of a plane in a charity parachute drop. Her father always hovered close, steady as a lamppost, cheering every new lark. Even when Daisy pranged her Mini because she forgot to use her indicators, he rushed up, pale as milk, and cracked a joke first thing:
Thats all rightwhy should anyone behind you know where youre off to, anyway?
On that particular day, nerves were stretched so tight you could have woven a hammock out of them, or a dozen wall hangings for a National Trust gift shop. Daisy had finally settled on a suitor, and tonight her father would meet him. All evening Dad hung about the drinks cabinet, shuffling brandy bottles, fanning out childhood photos into a nervous solitaire, gulping water as if hed trekked in from the Sahara.
When the young man arrived, Daisys father skipped pleasantries and launched a full-on inquisition:
Do you understand shes quite something?
The chap, red as a pillar box, nodded politely.
What will you do when shes frightened?
Ill build her a tank.
Whats your favourite cartoon?
The one about Daisy the gnome”Moomins,” came the answer, soft but certain.
Daisys father paused, his guard momentarily lowering.
“Moomins, eh? Good choice. Everyone needs somewhere gentle to go.”
Daisy caught her fathers eye. He tried to frown, but his mouth twitched traitorously. She saw, maybe for the first time, how much hed been holding her upnot because he feared shed fall, but simply because loving her made him lighter.
Later, when the suitor had gone and the kitchen shimmered with fizzled laughter, Daisy found her father outside, stargazing with the tea towel still slung over his shoulder.
“Well?” she ventured, teasing.
He looked at her, and grinned that sideways, off-kilter grin shed known since forever. “You know, I never worried for a second,” he said, which was an outrage and a lie and, somehow, the nicest bit of truth shed ever been told.
Night breeze in her hair, Daisy stood by his sideas if all the faraway, forgotten strings from that puppet show were still guiding her, not someone elses little marionette, but wholly hers. Above them, infinite and twinkling, the sky felt like something you could step into if only you believed hard enough.
“Come on, my girl,” he murmured, draping an arm over her shoulders. “Lets go inside. Theres still some Fanta leftand the worlds not as scary as it looks from out here.”
And together they crossed the threshold, where every lamp was just bright enough and all the monsters, for tonight, had grown wonderfully, comically small.
