Free Daisy's Wars by Meg Henderson Page B

think of them as “Peroxide Blondes”?’
    ‘No, but …’
    ‘There you go with that “but” again! Daisy, today we will practise walking without falling down or tripping, and tonight you will become a golden blonde, not a Peroxide
Blonde.’
    ‘But I can’t, I have to go home and do the chores,’ Daisy protested.
    Mrs Johnstone looked puzzled. ‘You have a mother, haven’t you?’
    ‘Yes, but she’s an invalid,’ Daisy replied.
    There was a short silence as both women acknowledged to themselves that Daisy had never openly discussed her family circumstances before.
    ‘How long has she been ill?’ Joan Johnstone asked quietly.
    ‘All the years since I was born,’ Daisy replied in a small voice. ‘One doctor told my father it was her heart, something from when she was a child, but my father says
it’s really her lungs.’
    ‘And she’s bedridden, Daisy? Totally?’
    Daisy nodded.
    ‘And you do everything?’ Mrs Johnstone asked, suddenly remembering clues the girl had inadvertently dropped in the past and putting the pieces together. ‘The shopping, washing,
cooking, cleaning?’
    Daisy nodded again.
    ‘But you mentioned a sister at the ropeworks, she must help, surely?’
    ‘No, no, Kay doesn’t do chores,’ Daisy said, shocked.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because one day she’s going to be a big star, she has her music to practise and she can’t have rough hands, and …’ Daisy stopped, realising for the first time
that it sounded strange.
    ‘I don’t understand …’ replied Mrs Johnstone, who did think it was strange.
    ‘My sister’s Little Kay Sheridan,’ Daisy explained, ‘though she’s not all that little now, of course.’
    Mrs Johnstone thought for a moment. ‘The little girl who used to sing in the clubs?’
    Daisy nodded. ‘She’s still going to be star,’ she said defiantly. ‘My mother says it always happens with child stars, there’s a slack spell while they grow up, then
they become adult performers.’
    ‘But for now she works in the ropeworks and you do all the housework?’ Even as she said it Mrs Johnstone looked and sounded as though she thought it was all nonsense.
    Daisy looked at her glumly. ‘It’s not how it sounds,’ she protested, ‘Kay still has a beautiful voice, she’s still going to be a star. She’ll sing for the
world one day, not just the Irish clubs in Newcastle,’ she continued, falling back on her mother’s oft-repeated mantra. She looked up at Mrs Johnstone and they both laughed.
‘That’s what my mother says,’ Daisy said quietly.
    ‘Well I’ll tell you what, Daisy, tonight the star will do the housework.’
    Daisy opened her mouth to protest. Kay didn’t know how to fill a kettle, the thing was unthinkable.
    Mrs Johnstone held up her hand and turned her face to the side. ‘No “buts”, Daisy. I’ll get a message to your sister at the ropeworks that you’ll be late tonight,
and the star can get her hands dirty for once.’
    Daisy’s stomach leaped. The thing wasn’t just unthinkable, it was impossible, maybe even a sin to be confessed. Even if she had beginner’s luck with the kettle, Kay opening up
the banked fire and putting coal on? Making a meal – even if all the basic work had been done earlier so that she just had to heat it up? Kay washing dishes – even with good old
dependable Dessie drying – seeing to Kathleen, washing her and emptying the bed pan she had taken to using since the distance to the bathroom had become too much for her?
Kay?
    Later that day she looked in the hairdresser’s mirror and once again saw a complete stranger, this time a
very
blonde stranger.
    ‘Now I look like, like …’
    ‘A million dollars,’ Mrs Johnstone beamed beside her, ‘just as I said you would.’
    ‘I was going to say that now I really do look like a streetwalker,’ Daisy said quietly.
    Mrs Johnstone exchanged a look with the hairdresser. ‘What can you do?’ she asked, shaking her head with a smile. ‘Can you