Sunshine at Daisy’s Guesthouse: A heartwarming summer romance to escape with in 2018!

James eyed her kindly. ‘You OK?’ he whispered from stage left, his voice barely perceptible above Tom’s booming laugh, and his hand briefly touched her own. ‘You know, it is your house, you can always say no.’

However, she might have known that nothing got past her friends and Tom stopped talking as both he and Lisa turned to her.

‘Oh, come on, obviously it’s your decision, but we’re sure you can do it. Of all people!’ Lisa pouted. ‘I can help out and quit my job, and Tom can quit his. There’s a reason they call us casual labour.’

‘I know but it’s so rash, so sudden…’ Daisy’s voice trailed off.

She studied Tom’s hazel eyes dancing with happiness, Lisa, who was positively glowing, and finally James, who had somehow in the last few hours lost some of the grey pallor that comes from months of heartache. Why couldn’t she be so positive?

‘I’m not saying no as such,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m just scared.’

‘Listen.’ Tom stood up, cleared his throat and pushed his chair backwards causing it to scrape loudly over the flagstones. ‘I’d like to propose a toast to Daisy for being such a gem and, I know she doesn’t feel it right now, but we only want what’s best for you.’ He looked at her. ‘This could be the making of you, of us.’ He puffed his chest out in an almost Napoleonic fashion and started to sing, quietly at first. Daisy could see his mind whirring as he adapted the lyrics and it took her only moments to figure out the song, her finger already tapping out the drumbeat.

‘Do you hear your friends sing? Singing the songs of… Atworth Manor?’ Then his smile grew wider as the next line fit into place. ‘It is the music of the Daisy crew who will laugh and smile again!’

Daisy grinned. They all knew Les Miserables was her favourite musical and Hugh had taken them all, everyone sat at her table tonight, to see it at the Bristol Hippodrome the Christmas before last, a month before Hugh died.

‘When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the manor, there is a life about to start!’ He lifted his hands. ‘Come on! Again!’ He ripped his second Hawaiian shirt of the day (this one even louder with a giant palm tree enveloping his back) open, shooting James a look of ‘look at me, I’m a god’ and held his wine glass way up high, the liquid sloshing over the side. ‘Let’s do it again, people, and let out your inner campness!’

Lisa stood, her hand struck across her chest, followed by James and then Daisy, giggling, also rose to her feet. They swayed in time repeating each line Tom boomed at them as if they were in fact revolutionaries. Daisy’s giggles manifested itself in side-splitting laughter and within minutes she was swaying and drinking along. Daisy realised, for the first time in months, maybe years, she felt lighter and somehow different.

After a few minutes, Tom collapsed in a chair. ‘Christ almighty, I’m out of practice.’ He wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. ‘But, you see compadres, we will win this. We will win back laughter!’

James did laugh. ‘You’ve got a very good voice.’

Tom looked at him. ‘Some say good voice when they mean fine body.’

Daisy punched Tom playfully on the arm. ‘No, I think he actually meant your voice.’

‘Daisy, darling, you read things so literally.’

Lisa poured out more generous glasses of wine. ‘It’ll be like being back at uni.’

‘But no Hugh,’ Daisy whispered.

James shifted next to her. She realised she must stop doing that: making others feel uncomfortable, like they were unwanted replacements. James was very much wanted and she glanced at him and smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

Daisy felt eyes on her and looked up sharply. Lisa winked, and she flushed, guilt washing over her. Then seconds later, Tom was pushing catalogues on her.

‘What are these for?’

‘I picked them up earlier when I was in Cirencester.’

Daisy eyed them gingerly, not liking where this was going. ‘And…?’

‘And I think some of your rooms need a bit of a spruce up if we’re going to have guests staying.’ Tom drank deeply from his glass.

‘No, I haven’t said yes yet.’ She stood, her heart fluttering. ‘This is my house, this is the house I did up with Hugh, I’m not just going to redecorate and erase all that.’ She saw James nod briefly out the corner of her eye, perhaps even gesture to Tom to take it easy.

‘Daisy, darling, I am not trying to upset you. It’s just an idea. I know how much you love interior décor.’

She knew he was right: ten of the sixteen rooms remained starkly furnished, as they simply hadn’t got around to doing them. Perhaps, in her heart, she hadn’t thrown herself into the house over the last couple of years because she knew she would end up living alone in the depths of its corridors and shuttered windows. Shutters she had closed the day Hugh had been diagnosed. She had wanted to shut the world out: just Daisy and Hugh. It was safer that way. Only now she was being forced to confront those dark crevices and she wasn’t sure she could do it.

‘Listen,’ Lisa said, more gently now, ‘Dais, if you want to go ahead, how about you choose what you would like. You have the best taste after all.’ Daisy gave a small smile at this compliment because she knew it to be true but also she had seen the state of Tom and Lisa’s rented accommodation.

‘Are you trying to tell me, Lisa, that after all these years you haven’t come to love the leopard print, velveteen cushions and the life-size framed photo of The Nude Man?’ Tom grinned broadly. ‘I even bought you zebra print under sheets for your birthday, you ungrateful cow.’

Daisy snorted with laughter and she looked at James who sat there wide-eyed.

‘Is that all true?’ he asked Daisy.

She nodded. ‘Yes, all true. Every single word. But, most importantly, Tom has forgotten to tell you about his love of an artist who paints… um, man parts.’

‘Lucky you!’ James furrowed his brow. ‘Man parts, huh?’

Daisy laughed, her mind returning to the idea of the B&B. It was true, she did love a project and if it involved anything to do with interior décor and was moving in the direction of being the next Kelly Hoppen… maybe this was what she needed, otherwise, as Tom so often bluntly pointed out, what else did she have?

‘OK, just say I was to say yes…’ Lisa squealed and Daisy smiled. ‘I get to choose the décor and there’s one rule: no one goes into Hugh’s office or our bedroom.’

They nodded solemnly.

‘That’s the one place I can be with Hugh, it means the world to me.’ Her eyes glassed over. ‘OK? It really would mean so much to me if I can trust you to stay out of his office.’

The gathering nodded in unison.

‘In which case…’ She grinned broadly. ‘OK, what have we got to lose?’ She frowned as everyone jumped up to hug her. ‘Well, probably a lot but it is exciting.’

‘First thing tomorrow morning before Mum comes for lunch I will go into Cirencester and start ordering furniture and curtain material.’ She paused. ‘Then I can tell her our plans.’ Daisy visibly flinched. ‘That’s going to be a treat.’

James looked confused. ‘I thought she loved Hugh.’

Daisy nodded. ‘Don’t you remember me telling you? Hugh wasn’t the problem. Mum never agreed with me marrying Hugh. She said that I’d grow too big for my boots living in a house like this. I was a farmer’s daughter and farmers’ daughters don’t marry men like Hugh.’ She grimaced. ‘To this day I can’t tell if it’s because she genuinely believes that or almost doesn’t want me to be happy.’ Daisy shrugged. ‘Who knows? She’s a complicated thing, dear Mum. Anyway, here’s to Atworth Manor and our plans.’ Daisy clinked everyone’s glasses in turn and looked at the ceiling.

‘I hope you’re happy, Hugh, you silly sod,’ she whispered.

The next morning, nursing a boisterous hangover in which it felt as if the drums behind Tom’s song were still going strong, she geared herself up to face her demons: the tour of her own house. Tom and Lisa who had already claimed their rooms at the top of the house, where they always stayed anyway when nights socialising rolled into morning, had returned to their flat to officially hand in their notice; the landlord wouldn’t care. He had wanted rid of Tom and his leopard print many moons ago. She had met the landlord once; a gentleman dressed head to toe in tweed, even his brogues possessed tweed fabric inserts, and the owner of the most horrid Jack Russell on planet Earth.

‘Nigel.’ He had proffered a limp handshake. ‘Oh, you’re another friend of Tom’s, are you?’ he had said, his voice so far back, it was probably being wired over from a previous era. ‘Well, any friend of Tom’s is no friend of mine.’

‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ she had said, resisting the urge to slap him across the face.

His mangy mutt stood at his owner’s feet, baring his teeth and looking like he wanted to eat Daisy for his breakfast.

‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘Don’t you and…’ She indicated the dog.

‘Bitsy.’

‘Ah.’ She forced a smile and looked him the eye. ‘Don’t you and Bitsy look so alike.’