Crazy For You

“But she hasn’t actually said it, has she? Has she even hinted?”

“How do you mean?”

“Like, does she ever mention how Eddie is living in the gay capital of the world, or that he perhaps has a very special friend called Brad, or that he has shirts in multiple shades of pink, as well as posters of his icon, Ellen DeGeneres, on his wall, just beside his altar to Cher?”

Maggie thought for a few seconds while dunking a Kit Kat Chunky into her cup of froth.

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m afraid not. Anyhow, what’s the big deal? I’m sure Isobel has realised it by now. But even if she hasn’t, what has it got to do with you?”

Daisy fidgeted with the edge of the tablecloth.

“This is going to sound crazy,” she said. “Because it is crazy. Pure mental, actually.”

Her mother frowned. “OK, just spit it out, for crying out loud.”

Daisy coughed quietly and shifted in her chair. She could sense her mother’s patience was wearing thin.

“Eddie wants me to pretend we’re an item.”

Maggie seemed startled but then started to laugh.

Daisy ignored her. “Eddie wants me to pretend we’re an item so that Isobel’s last few months are content in the knowledge that her son’s a heterosexual.” She paused for breath. “He wants his mother to think he’s just a run-of-the-mill lad’s lad whose main ambition is to settle down here in Donegal and have two point four children.”

There, she’d said it. And it was beginning to sound more stupid every time.

“Wow,” said Maggie. She loved that word. It really was so effective when she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Silly, isn’t it? And I’m even worse for agreeing to go along with it,” said Daisy.

Maggie opened another Kit Kat and handed half of it across the table.

“I see,” she whispered. “And have you thought of Jonathan’s feelings at all?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” said Daisy dismissively, licking the melted chocolate from the side of the biscuit in a ritual that mirrored her mother’s.

“Will he? Look, don’t you think Eddie would be better just to tell Isobel he’s gay? I know she’s a Holy Joe but she does live in the twenty-first century,” Maggie pointed out. This all sounded a bit over the top, ridiculous even. “I’m sure she knows in her heart anyway.”

“He just doesn’t want to put her under any more stress. It would be nice for her to think that Eddie was planning to follow in his older brother’s footsteps … in more ways than one. Oh it doesn’t feel right at all.”

Daisy couldn’t even bring herself to mention Jonathan’s name again.

Maggie shrugged her shoulders and sipped her cappuccino, trying to take it all in. Daisy’s home visits were normally to escape from work frustration, or to moan about the lack of good men. Pretending to go out with a gay guy she was practically reared alongside was definitely a first.

“Well, I don’t really think there’s any need for this, Daisy, but if it takes Eddie’s mind off the bigger picture, then why not just run with it for his sake? For a while anyway. Isobel didn’t come up the river in a bubble. She will know from the outset it’s his wee way of coping, so if it makes him feel better, go along with it knowing that the rest of us all know it’s as unlikely as…well, it’s just not even logical in the first place.”

Daisy shrugged and then nodded. “I said I’d give him a week. In the meantime, I’ll try to convince him to come out with it gracefully, sooner rather than later. He would feel much better for it.”

“Good idea. And if all this settles his mind for a short time, it won’t do either of you any harm. It’s Jonathan I’d be more concerned about. You two haven’t been in touch in years.”

Maggie thought carefully before she broached the next subject. “By the way, guess who I saw today? With Jonathan?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re another Sexy Shannon fan? I’ve heard enough about her today already, thanks very much.”

“I wasn’t talking about Shannon. Three letters,” she said with a bright smile.

Daisy’s cheeks went a deep shade of pink and her eyes widened.

“TLC? No. Way. With Jonathan?”

“Way.” That was Maggie’s second-favourite response. She’d overheard it from a teenager standing in the express aisle at Asda.

“Where was he?” Daisy’s face lit up. Suddenly she felt like doing a chant or a dance on the kitchen floor.

“At Isobel’s. Briefly. He and Jonathan are teaching in the same school in Donegal. They’re big buddies, apparently.”

“What? Really? Oh, Mum, I’d love to have been here. Did you get a good, long look at him? Did he see you?”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Ah, Daisy, I wasn’t staring. You should know me better than that. I was in the front garden tidying the flowerbeds and he pulled up with Jonathan in a taxi. They must have been coming from the pub, and he didn’t hang around, but yes, I took in every last detail for you. And I have three words.”

“I can guess.”

“Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.”

Daisy bit her lip with excitement. TLC, or The Lovely Christian, to give him his full title, had once been the lust of Daisy’s life. Well, the lust of half the village’s life, to be more accurate. Young married women mostly, but Daisy strongly believed that there was something about Christian Devine that would make a nun weak at the knees. Devine by name, divine from top to toe. If he was around town again, this little unexpected visit home might not be so bad after all.

“Right,” Daisy brightened. “Hit me with all the details. Long hair? Short hair? Yummy scale one-to-ten?”

“Short…ish. And a bit messy, but nice messy if you know what I mean. Yummy scale is a huge ten out of ten. No, eleven.”

“Tanned skin, pale skin?” Daisy wanted a full description. Christian couldn’t be long home from his worldly travels. The last she’d heard of him, he’d been trekking across Australia.

“Tanned as always. Deeply tanned. Black t-shirt, faded jeans, very hunky…in a rugged, arrogant sort of way that only Christian Devine could get away with.”

Daisy swooned.

“Single or attached? This is the most important bit.”

Maggie thought for a moment. How could she let her daughter down gently? She scrunched up her face and then told the truth.

“Heartbroken, actually. Yes, heartbroken is definitely the word that Isobel had overheard. His latest girlfriend has left him for six months to do some travelling and apparently he’s gutted.”

Daisy gulped. “Heartbroken and gutted? That’s not good … ”

Heartbroken was better than single, but worse than attached. How do you ensnare somebody who is heartbroken? It would be like competing with a ghost, thought Daisy. A living ghost, if there was such a thing.