Daisy's Chain

2 DAISY’S EARLY LIFE

2 DAISY’S EARLY LIFETeresa’s pregnancy, her third, though the others had terminated prematurely, was straight forward, although she was naturally anxious because of her past. John was aware of this and provided a private nurse for her and a second car, so that the gardener could take her to hospital, if he or Tony were not at home. However, all went well, and Daisy was born at home on December 14th, a sunny afternoon, with the assistance of a midwife who was provided by the family’s insurance company. It was a trouble-free birth and John gleamed with pride at the sight of his beautiful wife holding their beautiful baby.

John had never been one for photographs, but within a week he had hundreds of them. He showed them to his friends and acquaintances, and when they said that she had his nose or eyes, he was as proud as punch, although he couldn’t see it himself. To him, she was the spitting image of his darling Teresa, and he would not have wanted it any other way. He never took her outside the gates, but he liked to stroll around the garden with her in her pram, describing the flowers and the birds to her, when he was certain that nobody could hear him. He had melted Teresa’s heart one morning when she was popping in to see Daisy and saw John singing ‘Ba, Ba, Black Sheep’ to her. He had flushed red with embarrassment when he saw her listening, and she had never seen him do it again.

The garden walks had stopped taking place shortly afterwards, and that had an effect on Teresa as well, because John was not used to socialising without a partner and so wanted his wife to accompany him, which meant that they needed a nanny. Although, it was not what Teresa wanted, she felt that she had to comply, because John had been so kind to her.

The periods of time that baby Daisy was left with her nanny, Lisa, grew longer and more frequent, until the baby showed more affection towards Lisa than her mother. It broke Teresa’s heart, but there was nothing she could do about it. Around about this time, Tony, noticed that little Daisy was often alone in her playpen in the garden, so he began to stop by to amuse her. He didn’t have a problem with anyone seeing him or thinking him a fool and liked children, always having regretted not having any of his own. Daisy took to him too and they became firm friends.

John was absent from home ever more often, although his office was there, but not knowing any different, it didn’t bother him. It was how he had been brought up.

As a toddler, she proved to be a quick on the uptake, learning Spanish and English at roughly the same speed. Teresa used this opportunity to improve her own command of English, which until then had been reasonably average for the area and her background. It was to stand her in good stead in later years and improved her relationship with her daughter.

Despite that, however, Daisy grew up more or less alone, or, more accurately, with the servants. She lived in the same villa as her parents, but John was used to being single and was too long in the tooth to change. He liked to go out for drinks and meals in the evening and he expected his wife to accompany him as his friends’ wives accompanied them, despite the fact that this usually resulted in the women sitting at one end of the table and the men at the other after the meal was over.

By the time they got home, more often than not, little Daisy had already been tucked up in bed by her nanny and gone to sleep while being read a story. To be fair, Daisy’s nanny could not have loved her more if she were her own, and Daisy’s mother did her best to make up for her regular absences because she never stopped feeling guilty about them, but she was now confident that Daisy’s future was secure and that was what she cared about more than anything.

Daisy would never have to do what she had had to do to secure a future for herself and her children when she had them one day.

Daisy followed the path of many children of wealthy parents. In her early years, it ranged from being spoiled by guilty parents to being neglected by them again the same day; then, when she reached five years of age, she was put in pre-school, where teachers attempted to replace the children’s parents and nannies. Everyone was well-meaning, but it only resulted in more confusion, isolation and loneliness for the children concerned, including Daisy.

She was growing up a little cold-hearted; a loner who didn’t look for friendship or company. That didn’t stop other children trying to befriend her, but none of them got close to her. She had no idea what a best friend was.

School was just more of the same, although Daisy did seem to excel at it. If the truth were known, it was because she was trying to get her father’s approbation. She was more certain of her mother’s, who did spend some amount of time with her when she didn’t have to fulfil her ‘duties’ to John’s social life.

It was at this stage in her life, in junior school, that she first started to hear about her father’s exploits and reputation as a ‘hard man’. Some even went so far as to describe him as ‘merciless’ or a ‘cold-blooded killer’. However, these descriptions of her father did not make her question his character, they only served to enhance his hero status in her young mind. After all, didn’t her mother consider, and frequently call, him ‘her hero’?

She never spoke of her feelings on the frequent occasions when people spoke badly of her father, but neither did she respond when people spoke of him in awe, although inwardly, she was glowing with pride for the person she was learning more about from others than she was firsthand from him.

She was taught in English and Spanish at the same school and was completely fluent in both. She mixed just as easily with the rich and poor Spanish kids as she did with rich Brits. She never met any poor British people, so, until she went to boarding school in Britain at sixteen to do her ‘A’ Levels, she had no idea that they existed. In that respect, she was like a lot of Spanish children.

Her parents took her to London to start boarding school, but when they left her there, her mother in tears, she found that it was the man she called Uncle Tony, the head of security for her father that she missed the most. The nannies had come and gone, just as her teachers at school, but Tony had always been there, which was more than she could say for her parents. He had taught her to ride a bicycle with support wheels, and it was he who took them off and caught her when she toppled over. He had also taught her to swim, climb trees, kick and throw a ball and even the rudiments of boxing and karate. She had fond memories of watching rugby with him on the television and enjoyed seeing him get excited when England scored points or played especially well.

Several times, she almost shed a tear for those happy days, which she knew were probably gone forever.

It was in boarding school and university, where she studied Business and Economics at the LSE, that she developed the thick skin of a rhino and the cunning of a fox. She had always had the uncanny ability to remember every word that anyone had ever said about her, her family, and especially her father. She was also in the habit of writing it all down in diaries, and had been doing so for a decade, but it was only a way of committing it to memory. She had discovered in her childhood, that once she had written something down longhand, she never forgot it.

For something to do outside of school, and then university, she took lessons in mixed martial arts. She was adept at full contact Kyokushinkai Karate and had studied Aikido and boxing by the time she had left school.

John and Teresa felt like the proudest parents on the planet when they went to London to watch their daughter receive her first-class honours degree. They celebrated at the Ritz directly afterwards with friends and then at friends’ of Daisy’s in the evening. It was a perfect day, and perhaps the only one for ten or fifteen years when Daisy had felt of worth to both her parents at the same time.

John and Teresa offered her a round-the-world, first-class flight ticket as a reward for her achievement, and had a brand new Porche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet in the garage in Spain as a surprise, but to their amazement, Daisy declined the ticket.

“I’d rather just fly back to Malaga with you, if it’s all the same”, she said. “I want to contribute something to the family business. There will be plenty of time for flying around the world later. I want to work in the family firm with you, Dad”.

Dad, at eighty-six, wasn’t sure what to make of that, but felt a warm glow in his heart. He put his arm around his daughter and squeezed her. It was a rare moment of togetherness for both of them.

As an alternative to the round-the-world flight, Daisy’s parents treated her to a £5,000 shopping spree in the heart of London. John made his normal excuse of a bad back for not accompanying his wife and daughter, but they knew that he didn’t like shopping anyway and went alone. They had a whale of a time and paraded their new outfits in front of him on their return. He feigned interest, but again, they both knew him too well to expect any enthusiasm about fashion from him.

Worried about the British press, John decided that it would be safer for him to head back to Spain the following day and his small family were all too pleased to go with him. He had been away so long that Britain, and not even London, felt like home any longer. Teresa liked London, but only for the shopping and Daisy was keen to begin her new life. She felt older, more responsible, and more able to get to know her parents on a higher level than was possible when she had been a child.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend or someone special that you would like to say ‘Goodbye’ to?” asked her mother.

“No”, she replied rather shyly, but she wasn’t being coy because she did have a boyfriend, it was just that she was acutely aware that people expected a beautiful young woman like her to have one, but she did not. Teresa didn’t believe her, but let it drop. The fact was there had been scores of boys and men after her in the five years that she had been away, but she had not been able to get emotionally close to any of them.

She had tried in the first year, really tried, but she did not enjoy kissing, especially French style, and she didn’t like being groped or being expected to please boys. She had made love three times with two different partners, but she hadn’t enjoyed the experiences. After that she had given up, and used the excuse of a fictitious fiancé in Spain to keep her pride. She hadn’t even had girlfriends who were close enough to have noticed that they had never met her fiancé, whom she called d**k, because it made her laugh.

She had come to the conclusion that she was asexual, but knew deep down that that was not true either. She did fancy boys, not girls, but she didn’t like them, or at least none of the ones she had met so far and she had to admit that that was quite a few in university.

However, in order to throw her mother off the scent, she went out on her own for a few hours that night, but it was only to see a film and have a burger.

The three of them, especially Daisy, were happy to fly back home to Spain the following afternoon.