Chasing Daisy

the guest rooms for now.’
    ‘No, you cannot!’ she snaps. ‘Your room is your room. MARTINA!’
    ‘Yes, ma’am?’ A maid I haven’t seen before hurries into the room wearing a light-grey dress and a white pinny.
    ‘Daisy is back. Daisy is back!’ My mother sounds slightly unhinged, but that’s always been her way. ‘Make up her room immediately!’
    I look apologetic as Martina nods her assent and scuttles away again.
    My mother turns back to me. ‘Tea? Would you like some tea?’
    ‘Sure,’ I reply, beginning to walk towards the kitchen. She looks startled.
    ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘To the kitchen. To make a cup of tea.’
    She looks at me as though I’m mad. ‘Candida will do it,’ she says, confused.
    ‘Is that the cook?’ I ask. The last cook I knew was called Gita.
    ‘Yes. She’s excellent,’ my mother replies. Her Italian accent is only slight these days. I don’t know how she rid herself of it or if it was even intentional, but many people would assume she’s American.
    I slump down on one of the armchairs and immediately sink into its depths as my mother hurries out of the room. I take another deep breath and stare out at the view as I hear the high-pitched tones of my mother’s voice directing the cook.
    My memory takes me away from the present for a short while as I remember working with Rosa, Johnny Jefferson’s cuddly Mexican cook. How I adored her. She taught me how to cook. In fact, it was she who inspired me to go into catering in the first place. I still dream of running my own company one day. I’ve dreamed of lots of things recently, and most will never come true . . .
    I shake my head quickly to free my mind of my memories. I can’t think of Will now.
    ‘She’ll be through with the tea in a minute.’ My mother stands in front of me.
    ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ I suggest, and she perches on the edge of one sofa while anxiously fidgeting with her hands.
    Neither of us says anything for a while and I enjoy the silence. I’m surprised when she speaks first. ‘It’s been a long time, Daisy.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘I spoke to your grandmother. She told me what happened with the racing driver.’
    The racing driver . . .
    ‘Why didn’t you call?’ Her expression is pained.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, but my apology sounds cold and unsatisfactory. ‘I just didn’t think you’d miss me.’
    ‘Of course I missed you!’
    ‘You would have been the only one.’
    She says nothing. She has nothing else to say about that.
    Candida brings through the tea and leaves again.
    ‘Where is my father?’ I ask suddenly. I want to call him Stellan, because that’s his name. ‘Father’ sounds wrong, and ‘Dad’ is almost laughable.
    ‘At work,’ my mother replies.
    I nod. Of course he is. It’s Sunday. Where else would he be? At home with his family?
    My father is a billionaire. He made his money by being a ruthless bastard, buying up failing companies and selling them off piece by piece. You know that job that Richard Gere did in Pretty Woman ? That’s my dad. Except, unlike Julia Roberts, my mother wasn’t the making of him.
    I don’t know if they’ve ever been happy, but she’s stood by his side, for richer or poorer.
    What the hell am I saying? For richer, richer, richer . . .
    I grew up with what most people would assume was everything I ever wanted. Except all I ever wanted was a warm and happy family, and that was so far from being in my life that I went to bed each night feeling cold, despite the expensive goose-down duvets and underfloor heating. For all my father’s money, he rarely took us on family holidays and we never travelled to Italy to see my grandparents. I saw them every few years when they came to England or the States, but the most contact I had was through letters and the occasional phone call. Then, when I was eleven, I went to stay with them in the mountains and for the first time I knew what it was like to live in a happy household.
    I hated my parents even more after that trip. But try as I might, I couldn’t escape them. I always felt my father despised me, so I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t let me attend college as far away as possible – on the other side of the country or even abroad. I was forced to study law in New York and, with no money of my own, I felt I had no choice but to comply. Of course, I did have a choice, but deep down I think I just wanted to please him, just wanted him to love me.
    I graduated with