Free Daisy's Wars by Meg Henderson Page A

marriage works: she found her man and held on to him!’
    Daisy listened for the rest of the fitting session as Mrs Johnstone kept the conversation going in a polite voice with the strong Geordie inflections evened out, and thought how much she had to
learn. Later, over sandwiches in the office, she talked about Mrs Armstrong.
    ‘Money really isn’t everything, is it?’ she asked thoughtfully.
    ‘No, it isn’t, Daisy.’
    ‘She sounded so sad, poor woman.’
    ‘Well, she is,’ Mrs Johnstone replied.
    ‘But you’d think she’d have found someone, wouldn’t you? I mean, she must’ve been a looker in her day, and she’s so wealthy.’
    ‘It doesn’t always follow, Daisy.’
    ‘And she’s so nice, she’d have made a lovely mother.’
    ‘Well, there are a whole bunch of lessons there for you,’ Joan Johnstone said quietly. ‘Just because she’s got lots of money doesn’t mean she should be horrible;
just because she’s beautiful doesn’t mean she’s able to forget – what did she call him? – the love of her life? And just because she’s rich and beautiful
doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her sadnesses or that she shouldn’t be nice. Now stop it, you’re getting morbid!’
    ‘Do you think there is such a thing?’ Daisy asked. ‘As a love of your life, I mean. Does everyone have one?’
    ‘Now how would I know that, Daisy? Maybe there is one for everybody, but not everybody meets theirs.’ She looked at Daisy’s serious face and suddenly laughed.
‘You’ll have us both in tears in a minute! Let’s change the subject. I want you to model a dress for a couple of customers the day after tomorrow.’
    Daisy choked and stared at her.
    Mrs Johnstone chuckled. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she teased. ‘Something go down the wrong way?’
    ‘You mean put a dress on and walk up and down?’ Daisy asked, horrified.
    ‘You see, it’s simple, isn’t it?’ Mrs Johnstone replied, calmly getting on with her lunch.
    ‘But I can’t!’ Daisy spluttered.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I’ll fall over, I’ll trip, I’ll … they’ll just laugh at me.’
    ‘No they won’t, they won’t even see you, they’ll only see the dress.’
    ‘But why me then?’ Daisy persisted.
    ‘Because you’re the right shape to
let
them see the dress.’
    Daisy glowered at her.
    ‘Now what’s that look for?’ Mrs Johnstone demanded.
    ‘I hate my shape. I didn’t think it mattered here.’
    ‘Of course it matters, you daft girl! And why would you hate your shape?’
    ‘It’s all lumps and bumps and men grab me or leer at me, that’s why!’ Daisy said bitterly. ‘I wasn’t always this shape, I used to be normal. My sister’s
two years older than me, she’s nearly twenty, and she’s still normal, they don’t grab at her.’
    ‘Oh Daisy,’ Mrs Johnstone said, ‘you are quite beautiful. Has no one ever told you that?’
    ‘No. Women hate me and men just grab at me and rub themselves against me.’
    ‘My dear God!’ Mrs Johnstone whispered. She looked at Daisy’s embarrassed face across the desk. ‘Daisy, from now on you have to have a different outlook. You
are
beautiful, and that’s a plus, not a minus. You have to rise above the creatures of the gutter who don’t have the intelligence, education or natural graces to know how to behave.’
She looked at her again. ‘I want you to have your hair lightened,’ she said.
    ‘What?’ Daisy demanded. ‘Where I come from it’s bad enough already, what do you think will happen if I become a Peroxide Blonde?’
    ‘You will look like a million dollars, that’s what will happen,’ Mrs Johnstone said firmly. ‘Daisy, you never intended staying in Heaton, did you?’
    Daisy sat in silence. She had always wanted to ‘get out’, but it was a vague notion. She had no plan, in her mind it was a kind of ‘someday’ thing. ‘No,’ she
said uncertainly, ‘but …’
    ‘But nothing, my girl! You’ve seen the young ladies we get in here, do you