Daisy Madigan's Paradise (2 page)

Closing her
eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath and counted to ten. When
she re-opened them, she stepped in and tried to wake him.

'Dad... wake
up. Come on... you've got to stop drinking. Mum would hate to see
you like this. I hate to see you like this.'

But Beau said
nothing, he was out cold.

Tutting, she
stepped back over him and went downstairs. At least they had a
downstairs toilet.

Her birthdays
had always been great cause for celebration. The moment Daisy woke
up until the moment she put her head back on the pillow, Beau and
Esther had surprised her with gifts, fun and games, outings and
parties for three.

This year
would be the first year unlike any other.

Her mum had
gone and so, in a manner of speaking, had her dad.

She'd returned
to school a week after her mum had died. The kids stopped taunting
her and she felt completely invisible once again. But Daisy would
have chosen to be the victim of all the bullying in the world if it
meant she could have her mum back.

Three weeks
after her death, Daisy had stopped going to school altogether. Her
dad was in a bad way and she was the only person who could look out
for him.

Not even Geoff
from two doors down could help because he'd had to move back to
Yorkshire to look after an elderly relative. They had no other
family and no other friends. It had always been just the three of
them and that had worked out wonderfully. Until... well, until it
became just the two of them.

Opening the
fridge door, she found it empty so she looked around the house for
her dad's wallet. Opening it, she found a few measly pounds.

'Dad, we need
to get some supplies. There's nothing to eat and we need to eat.
Dad, can you give me some money so I can go out and get
something?'

He lay
motionless on the floor.

Frustrated,
she kicked out at the wall, 'For God's Sake, Dad!'

He groaned and
rolled over.

Running back
downstairs, she opened the front door, slamming it behind her.

Arriving at
the local corner shop, she bought what she could, which was
basically milk and bread. Tears began to silently fall down her
cheeks as she paid. Walking slowly back up the road, she winced at
a pain in her foot.

Great, now what?
she thought as she
hobbled slightly. Stopping for a moment, she wiggled her toes,
bending her ankle this way and that but the pain persevered. She
limped back to the house, where she toasted a couple of slices of
bread and ate it with a cup of sweet milky tea.

The pain in
her foot seemed to have moved, making its way up her ankle to her
calf. She rubbed it absent-mindedly

The sound of a
door slamming startled her.

'Dad?' she
shouted, running through the hall. She opened the front door to see
him climbing into his old Fiat. He drove off without a backward
glance.

'Dad? No!' she yelled, 'You're so drunk,' she whispered,
crying.
He could kill himself driving that
car and then it would be just me. Maybe that's what he wants. Maybe
he doesn't care about me. Maybe he just wants to be with
Mum.

Daisy walked
back into the living room where she sat quietly staring at the wall
for two hours. Flashbacks of her life before continued to run
through her mind. The times she sat at her mum's dressing table as
Esther carefully combed her daughter's curls; Saturday mornings in
the kitchen preparing a special breakfast of golden pancakes; days
out on the coast, walking along the beach eating their favourite
ice cream; visits to their favourite castle in Sussex; cold
evenings in, the three of them curled up under a blanket on the
sofa watching TV shows...

An intense
agonising pain in her lower back doubled her over and she cried out
in shock.

Curled on the
floor, she winced as the pain seemed to come and go in waves.

When she was
finally able to stand up, she rushed to her bedroom. She opened her
wardrobe door and stood in front of the full length mirror and
gingerly lifted her top, gasping at what she saw.

There etched
into her lower back was what looked like a tattoo. It wasn't easy
to see it properly from that angle but Daisy was sure it was a
large eye with wings and beneath the image were words. But she
couldn't read them in the reflection.

But none of
that worried her at that moment because she'd seen it before. The
exact same tattoo could be found on her own father's lower
back.

CHAPTER
4

A couple of
hours later, Beau returned home on foot. He didn't say a word, he
just dropped a couple of hundred pounds on the coffee table in
front of her before turning to walk away.

'Dad? Dad
please talk to me. It's been weeks now... Mum wouldn't want this to
go on, she... she...' the words struggled to come out of her mouth
as she watched her father from behind. His shoulders slumped
forward as he stopped and listened.

He turned and
she caught her breath as she saw his eyes were filled with tears.
But he could barely look at her.

'Dad...
please,' she begged, standing up. 'I need you now...' she sobbed,
but Beau couldn't take it. With his lips quivering, he shook his
head and turned away.

Daisy fell
back onto the sofa and let the tears fall down her cheeks as she
heard the front door slam. She listened to the sound of his
footsteps as he walked down the road.

After about an
hour, she stood up, took the money and walked upstairs. The pain in
her back returned and reminded her of the strange etching that had
appeared there. Stripping down to her underwear, she stood in front
of the mirror once again, stretching to try and read the words. How
had it appeared there? What was it? How could someone have tattooed
her without her knowing about it? It was impossible. She wished she
could ask her dad, but she knew now that wasn't going to happen. He
could barely look at her, let alone talk to her.

Reaching into
her desk drawer, she pulled out the orange coloured camera she'd
got for Christmas a year earlier. With some difficulty, she managed
to take a snapshot of her back. Pulling on her jeans and sweater,
she then placed the memory card into her laptop and clicked on the
image.

The tattoo was
identical to her father's. The only difference were the words that
were placed beneath it. Hers read Semper Fidelis whilst her
father's had something completely different... not that she could
remember now.

A knock on the
front door made her jump. Her first instinct was to hide. Since her
mum had died, she hated having to talk to people, so she tiptoed to
her window and gingerly peered out. Two men stood waiting patiently
as they knocked for a second time.

When one of
them looked upwards, Daisy flattened herself against the wall,
holding the blue velvet curtain over her face.

After a few
more minutes, she watched them as they shrugged and walked away.
They climbed back into their car and drove away.

Rushing
downstairs, she crouched to pick up the letter they'd pushed
through the letterbox. Opening it, she gasped. They were being
evicted from their home. The house she'd grown up in. Where would
they go? What would happen to her?

Later that
night as she sat curled up in front of the TV, the electricity went
off. Not because of a problem down the line or anything like that.
No, it was because they hadn't paid their bill.

She stood up
angrily and kicked at the coffee table. To her amazement, the table
was lifted high into the air and crashed through the wall into the
dining room.

Standing
still, her face went white as she realised the destruction she'd
caused. But moments later, she lifted the tall glass vase, the one
her mum had always filled with a bunch of daisies every Saturday
morning and hurled it at the wall, shattering it into tiny pieces.
Next, without even thinking, she picked up the television like it
was a piece of cardboard and tossed it through the same hole in the
wall, smashing it to the dining room floor.

She tore the
beige velvet curtains from their pole and sat, ripping them apart
as if they were nothing but pieces of paper. The simple act of
making a horrendous mess somehow made her feel better... albeit
temporarily. But she continued her trail of destruction until the
entire bottom floor of the house looked like it had been hit by a
tornado.

Standing at
the foot of the stairs, Daisy surveyed the mess she'd made before
her knees buckled beneath her.

'Mum... I'm
sorry. I'm so sorry, Mum. I'm just so... so... angry. I don't know
what to do. Where are we going to go? Oh Mum... why did you leave
us?'

Some hours
later, curled on the floor in the darkness of the late afternoon,
Daisy watched as a tiny light in the distance began to slowly move
towards her, becoming brighter and brighter until she had to shield
her eyes with her arm.

'Daisy?'
whispered a voice.

'Y..yes?'

'Daisy dear,
it's me. Nanna.'

'Nanna?'

Daisy removed
her arm and lifted her upper body off of the floor, so that she sat
cross legged looking into the light.

'Yes dear,
your Nanna. Oh deary me, whatever has happened here, my love? I
know you're feeling angry but this is no way to handle it. You
mustn't take out your anger on things like this... or on people, my
dear. You must learn to channel that anger. You're so strong, my
dear. You're just like your mother in that respect. And that's why
you need to pull yourself together. You need to look after your
father. Beau is a good man, Daisy. He just can't take the pain. He
can't take the loss. Your dear mother was like his backbone and
he's lost, so very lost without her. You must be strong, Daisy. You
must help him through this... that's the only way you'll be able to
help yourself through this.'

'Nanna?'

'Yes
dear?'

'Is Mum with
you? Can I speak to her?'

Daisy watched
the light as it began to lose its sparkle and the faint outline of
her grandmother appeared in front of her.

'Now Daisy.
Your mother is resting with all of the family that went before her.
She's not quite strong enough to see you or your father. She wanted
to, of course she wanted to, but we didn't feel it was a good idea.
Not right now. Not yet, my dear. It's too soon.'

Daisy's bottom
lip quivered.

'Now now, my
dear. I know you're terribly sad but you must understand that you
will see her again. At some stage we will all be together again.
But now is not that time, do you understand?'

Daisy slowly
nodded.

'But Nanna.
How can I see you? Are you real? Am I dreaming?'

Her
grandmother smiled and held out her hand. Daisy felt a warm feeling
on her cheek, the same kind of warm feeling she'd got when her
mother had touched her.

'You're not
dreaming, my dear. I had to come and reassure you that all will be
alright, eventually. As long as you stay strong. You're a very
special girl, Daisy and I believe you've already received a sign
about that. It comes from your father's side of the family, my
dear. At some point you will understand what it's all about and why
you have it.'

'What Nanna?
What are you talking about?'

'Semper
Fidelis, my dear, Semper Fidelis.'

And then Daisy
was alone again, curled up at the foot of the stairs in the
darkness.

CHAPTER
5

The following
day, Daisy escaped to the only other place she ever felt safe:
Abney Park.

Abney Park was
a huge former cemetery that had been left to become overgrown over
the years. Some people used it to walk their dogs during the day,
and for others, it was a place to escape from their busy day to day
lives. Though many others kept their distance as the place was also
known to be creepy, frightening and possibly even haunted.

Yet to Daisy,
it felt like home. There were plenty of hiding places that few
others knew about. She could stay there for hours on end and not
come across a single person.

Sitting
beneath her favourite statue, the one of the sleeping lion, Daisy
opened her sketch book and began to draw. Soon the image of a
beautiful woman with a contagious smile began to look back at her.
Daisy stopped what she was doing and just looked at the picture
before tearing the page out of the book and screwing it up, tossing
it to her side with a silent scream. The piece of paper began to
blow away in the wind, hopping along the dirt and settling between
two ancient headstones metres away from where she sat.

She tried to
ignore it but seconds later, Daisy scrambled to her feet and rushed
over, tripping and falling in the process, knocking her knee on the
gravestone.

'Ouch!'

'Oh are you
alright?' said a voice that nearly scared her half to death.

Grabbing the
picture and shoving it into her pocket, Daisy turned to see who the
voice belonged to. A guy about a couple of years older than her
stood leaning casually on the lion. He reminded her of that guy
from Oliver Twist, you know the one that takes Oliver under his
wing. Cheeky-looking and a bit scary.

Daisy gulped
and turned to run away.

'Don't go,' he
yelled. 'I didn't mean to startle you.'

His voice, all
tender and gentle, didn't match his face.

Daisy guiltily
turned, her cheeks reddening as she stopped walking.

'I... I saw
you drawing and wanted to talk but,' he shrugged his shoulders and
smiled a lop-sided grin. Stepping forward toward her, he brushed
his long dark fringe to one side and said, 'I'm Jack.'

Daisy smiled.
The Artful Dodger, that's who he reminded her of and his real name
was Jack too.