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Basira’s head knocks gently against the window of the train, the rumble of it cushioned slightly by the fabric of her headscarf, jarring in a way that is distant and constant and grounding.
Her eyes skitter over the English landscape as it passes, muted grey towns broken up only by flashes of adverts; a tunnel that blinks to black only to let out onto the green of fields boxed in by trees, muddy tracks carving lines through the rolling hills.
As the train pushes North the platforms get shorter and the stations get weedier, the sky gets greyer, clouds building until there’s the first few flecks of rain criss-crossing against the glass.
Basira tries not to stare too closely at the reflection of herself overlaid against the backdrop. Dark smudges under her eyes like she’s gone full-on raccoon with the eye make-up, brown skin turned ashen, the whites of her eyes shot-through with red. She looks down-right sick; gone so far beyond exhausted she looks dead.
She sighs through her nose and forcefully re-adjusts her attention back onto the skyline, the sun beginning its slow dip below the horizon, dull grey sky becoming a duller, darker black. She notes when cows become sheep, when sheep become horses, when horses become rapeseed or wheat or whatever the fuck grows in fields, and she lets her brain switch off, lets the thrum of the train melt into the patter of the rain as she closes her eyes.
-
Basira slings the strap of her hold-all over her shoulder, hefting the weight of the bag against her hip. It’s not quite everything she owns and she’s not a weak person, but she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to pack, so she’d packed… securely.
She takes a moment to re-adjust herself while the train comes to a stop: zipping her hoodie up properly, making sure her headscarf is straight, pulling the wire of her earbuds from where they’ve gone janky from being pulled ajar by her bag. She has time to take a couple of centering breaths before the light on the door flashes to let her know it’s safe to exit. She presses the button with the back of her knuckles and steps through the opening doors, already knowing to go left to get to the ticket barrier.
It’s the dead of morning, nearly five, the station barely awake. Every shop has their shutters down but a little kiosk selling coffee and crisps, the uncle behind the counter barely looking up from the drama he’s watching on his phone to pour two black coffees into paper cups and dumping a plastic-wrapped cherry muffin, two ready-made samosas and a couple of nutrigrain bars into a blue plastic bag.
Basira ties the plastic bag to the strap of her hold-all and lets the two coffees bite into her skin, glad for the warmth on her glove-less hands as she walks into the morning chill of the outside. She takes a cursory glance around the carpark but there’s only one beat-up banger waiting in the drop-off and pick-up aside from the early-morning taxis, so she lets herself drift towards it, recognising the head of dirty blonde hair through the mud-splattered windows.
She rests the cups on the roof as she opens the door, pulling the lever on the seat to pull it forward and chuck the bag onto the backseat, depositing the coffee cups in the cupholders and buckling herself in in practised motions; the routine of slipping into the police car guiding her body on autopilot.
“Alright?” she asks, meeting Daisy’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Yeah,” Daisy says, almost immediately breaking the brief moment of contact to pick up her coffee and take a pull with her right hand, flicking on the turners as she does with her left, non-coffee-holding hand releasing the hand-break, shifting to drive, and using her coffee-holding wrist to turn the wheel. “Cheers.”
Basira nods, then turns to grab her bag of breakfast. She chooses the muffin first, ripping open the packet to dunk chunks of almost-grey, fake-tasting cake into her black coffee, the bright-red pieces of candied cherry sickly sweet against the bitter and over-brewed cheapo caffeine.
Basira glances at the radio, notices the dials have been forcibly knocked off. Briefly wonders at it, but decides better than to ask. She doesn’t mind the silence anyway, the static-like fuzz of her dampened thoughts content to crackle with the background of the car driving through wet, empty streets, only the quiet and rhythmic thump of the windscreen wipers and the tick-tick-tick of the turn signals as they wait at red lights.
Daisy crushes her cup up once she’s finished it, throwing it over her shoulder to join the pile of rubbish collecting in the footwell of the back seat. Basira uses her own as a rubbish-bin, stuffing the wrappers of her muffin and her demolished samosas into it when she’s done scoffing them down.
“You want a nutrigrain?” she asks an hour into the drive.
Daisy raises a shoulder in a vague yes, so Basira roots around in the bag, opens one and pinches a portion of the bar off, holding it out towards Daisy, who opens her mouth, keeping her eyes on the road but tilting slightly to accommodate the movement until Basira’s fed her the whole bar.
They don’t talk after that. Highway becomes single-lane roads with tree-canopies that block out all light, which turn into dirt roads through miles of endless fields, crumbling stone walls supported only by thickets. They drive until they’re pulling into a farming cottage, derelict, stone and slate tiles, outer walls choked with ivy, windows papered with newspaper.
Basira leaves her rubbish in the car, stretching as she closes the car door with its rusted creak. The noise of them here is loud: their footsteps of the dying yellow grass almost deafening in its strangeness against only the distant sounds of farm-life, the morning birdsong and the cooling engine.
Daisy unlocks the front door with a key far too modern to be anything but brand-new and shoves the wooden frame hard when the door sticks, hefting a grunt of familiar annoyance at having to press her shoulder into it.
Daisy toes her steelies off at the door, throwing the keys on the stack of junk-mail on the side-table before heading through the house, flicking on lights in her wake, casting the dark house in a dank and mottled yellow.
Basira lines her own shoes up next to Daisy’s. She leaves her bag on the staircase before following Daisy’s trail to the kitchen, Daisy standing besides the kettle, two mugs and a jar of instant coffee out before her.
The kitchen-come-dining room is large, larger than most of the flats Basira’s lived in her whole life in London; a dining table fit for a family of six set before a huge fireplace, the kitchen with its counters designed for hearty meals, with its second sink designed for washing clothes, with its pantry to keep the house stocked through winter…
Basira washes her hands and dries them on a tea-towel she assumes Daisy’s found in one of the drawers, the fabric patterned with a painting of a country cottage not dissimilar to this one.
“Journey okay?” Daisy asks, arms crossed against her chest.
“Train was empty. Almost had the carriage to myself.”
Daisy hms, pouring out the water once the kettle has clicked. “Milk?”
“Sure.” Basira turns to the huge fridge behind her, opens it to see a not-unsurprisingly Spartan offering of essentials: milk, butter, orange juice, a few limp vegetables and a stack of ready-meals.
“Oat-shit’s expensive out here, so it’s just cow. We can drive to the big shop one day to stock up.”
“Sure,” Basira says again, taking a cursory sniff of the bottle before she pours a glug into both her and Daisy’s mugs.
Daisy leads them through to the only other room on the ground floor, the living room. It’s decorated like a cottage abandoned in the 80s would be, down to the vomit-like yellow-green colour scheme and uncomfortable faded-floral sofas, though little has been done to the original architecture of the building: the wooden beams still a feature through the ceiling and the walls. It’s almost comfortably ugly: everything disgustingly mismatched in a charming, anti-aesthetic way. Generations of mums have lived here, and they’ve made themselves known.
Daisy takes an armchair, which Basira thinks is a pointed comment in itself, so she posts herself on one end of the sofa, the furthest she can get from the armchair. Daisy’s hand reaches for the TV remote, and they spend the rest of the morning watching nothing-TV; cosy murder-mysteries on ITV until Basira can’t keep her eyes open anymore and thinks she’ll just rest them for a moment…
-
She wakes up in gloom and thinks she’s completely fucked her inner clock by sleeping through to night, until she catches a crack of sunlight through the patchwork-papered windows. She glances over to the armchair, but her brain pinpoints the sound of kitchen even while she confirms the chair is empty.
She turns the TV off and sits herself up. She exists in the silence for a moment, blinking slowly into wakefulness. She watches decades-old dust motes float in the beams of sunlight, runs her socked-feet through the thick, mangey carpet. The cottage smells strange. Like an old person’s home, one of the many she’s visited as a police-officer delivering bad news, but also like Daisy. Like Daisy’s home. Not quite like Daisy’s clothes, or Daisy’s skin, but like the mustier, deeper smell of Daisy.
Basira wipes a hand across her face then unwraps and unpins her headscarf, folding it and her underscarf on the arm of the sofa before unpinning her hair. As she follows the sounds of cooking back out to the kitchen she runs her fingers through the braids to loosen them, feeling her constant tension headache lessen slightly with the release of pressure from her scalp.
“Hungry?” Daisy asks, not looking up from the pot she’s mixing.
“I could eat.”
Daisy points at a pan of frying mince with a wooden spoon. “Weren’t Halal. Can keep it separate from the sauce if you want.”
“It’s fine. Thanks. Want me to lay the table?”
“It’s just spagbol so forks and spoons.”
Basira works her way through the kitchen drawers, satisfied to find utensils in the places she expects them to be. She lays out placemats and napkins too since they’re there, then pours two glasses of water. “Cheese?”
“If you can be bothered to grate it,” Daisy says, nodding at the cupboard with the grater in it.
Basira waits until Daisy has plated up two bowls of spaghetti before grating a cursory amount of cheese on top, dumping the grater into the sink with the pots Daisy is leaving to soak and joining Daisy at the table.
“Thanks for the food.”
“It’s just spagbol.”
“Yeah, well, thanks anyway.”
“... ‘welcome.”
They dip back into silence as they eat, Basira allowing herself to luxuriate in the richness of tomato and onion-fried beef, the creamy cheese melting into the sauce. It’s far from the best meal she’s ever eaten — undersalted and devoid of herbs — but it’s the first home-cooked meal Basira has had in… a while; especially one not cooked by herself. It tastes of canned tomatoes and slightly-raw garlic, of uni-meals cooked at midnight in a kitchen with a single, shitty hob: all 20p pasta and nearly-bad mince and it absolutely hits the spot. She eats it like a woman starved, and accepts Daisy’s offer of seconds without hesitation.
After, she does the dishes while Daisy methodically scrubs the hob, the counters and the dining table, then she follows Daisy upstairs for the tour. There are three small bedrooms: a master, a large twin and a box-room Daisy is using as storage, plus a family bathroom.
Daisy has posted herself in the twin-room: has pushed the two singles together into a corner — the bed still unmade from where she left it that morning.
The bed in the master room has been made up for Basira, clean sheets and plumped pillows left haphazardly where they should be, a towel clumsily folded at the foot of the bed.
“You can use whatever,” Daisy says as she shows Basira how to use the clunky shower, “Though it’s all basic shit. ‘m sure you have that fancy brand crap.”
With the grand tour done with, Daisy lets Basira to her own devices, disappearing back downstairs. Basira unpacks her belongings: a week’s worth of clothes, a bag of toiletries, a small arsenal of weapons to dot around the cottage to add to Daisy’s own.
Basira sits on the bed in the empty room, like if she stays still for long enough the ghosts of the house might filter through the walls, ancestors of the Tonner family settling back where they belong after the disruption of their descendant-and-guest.
Basira catalogues where there should be photos: marks in the dust on the tops of the empty vanity, the side-table, the sun-bleached walls still carrying the tell-tale marks of where family portraits had been nailed, and allows herself to wonder what those photos might have looked like. Whether Daisy featured in any of them — as an angry-eyed adult or as an awkwardly-gangly teen, maybe as a gap-toothed toddler or as a chubby baby in a perfectly white christening gown, yet to know fear.
Basira rubs her thumbs into the inner corners of her eyes, small concentric circles to ease some of the tension she’s carrying. She’s been avoiding thinking about Daisy in the lead-up to the now, had repressed the thoughts with a curt ‘you’ll have plenty of time for that later’, until later had caught up with her, and she’s not formed any sort of plan for what she is supposed to be doing, here.
Daisy had decided to leave. Had decided she had had enough, and that she was packing up her shit, quitting the police and its Section 31 bullshit, and left for her family’s old house up north. Had asked Basira to join her.
Basira had said no.
And then, for two years, Basira had regretted it. Had thought, every morning as she forced herself into her uniform, about how she had fucked up. Had thought, every evening as she collapsed, exhausted, into bed after another Section 31 case how she should just text Daisy to say “Yeah, you were right. Yes. Yes, you were right. Please tell me it is not too late to join you.” Had fantasised while patrolling of getting injured — so injured to be forced out of the job. Had fantasised of Daisy’s lips on her neck, of the soft sounds Daisy would make when Basira touched her-
Basira’s acrylics dig into her skin, physically cutting herself off from allowing herself to follow the rabbit down that particular warren of thought. Basira had fucked up, and Daisy had started a new life, and Basira had fucked it up again by getting herself sacked and sending Daisy a text that had only read: ‘on train to Scotland. arriv. 4:39 AM tomorrow.’
And Daisy had been there to pick her up.
Basira wishes she hadn’t been.
-
Basira walks through the house after taking a shower and changing into new clothes. She takes it slow, trailing a finger across the walls like she’ll find a secret door hidden behind the wallpaper.
She pauses at the bottom of the stairwell as her fingers feel notches carved into the wood, almost glances over the names until she remembers she’s looking for Alice not Daisy, and there she is, ages one to twelve carved into the bannisters to mark her growth. Little Alice had her first real spurt aged ten, shooting up to pass her brothers/cousins/named-but-unknown relatives, then she disappears from the record at thirteen. Basira wonders whether that had been a teenager’s choice, annoyed at silly sentimentality, or whether Daisy had stopped coming up here then.
The kitchen is empty, as is the living room, so Basira takes a look around the pantry. It’s stocked for the worst: tinned everything, smoked meat, long-lasting dried carbs, water, salt and vodka. A lot of vodka. And the first of Daisy’s stash of weapons Basira’s found.
They’ve been cleaned and impeccably maintained, oiled and kept ready.
Basira pokes around the other cupboards, in the storage room under the stairs, through the cabinets in the living-room but finds nothing but boring home-maker magazines, useless and broken cleaning utensils and more weapons.
She catches sight of smoke through the kitchen window, the corner of one newspaper peeled back.
She grabs her trainers from the front door and kicks them on as she goes outside, not bothering to mask her presence. Daisy doesn’t look up anyway, sat on the wet deck, one arm behind her to prop her up, lazily smoking a cigarette with the other.
“Ain’t your arse wet?”
“Mm,” Daisy shrugs. “Plastic chairs too covered in bird-shit. Need to do laundry anyway.”
Basira hms as she comes to crouch next to Daisy on the deck, following Daisy’s eye to where she’s watching a bird-feeder. There’s a squirrel perched on the wooden platform, completely unconscious of its audience as it devours a nut and seed mix.
Basira doesn’t have to take a closer look at Daisy to see the lounged posture is a hard-won charade, the tension in her forearm almost making the cigarette shake in her grip.
“Free-range rodent for dinner?” Basira asks, keeping her tone flat. It’s hardly a question, and she knows Daisy will take it for what it is: the closest they’ve come to Basira asking after Daisy’s health.
Daisy huffs a snort through her nose, then takes a longer pull of the cigarette, long breath working its way through her lungs and through her body until the tension seeps out of her with the exhale. Daisy shakes her head like she’s breaking a hypnotism then offers the cigarette over.
“Nah, I’m good cheers.”
“Suit yourself.”
Basira lets Daisy finish the cigarette, waits until she’s ground it out in the wet ashtray.
“Was thinking of going to the garden centre,” Daisy says to the sky.
“Pitchfork for the arsenal?”
A faint smile works its way onto Daisy’s face. “Thought maybe I’d clean some of this shit up,” she says, waving a hand at the thicket in front of the deck. “Somewhere under the shit there’s a vegetable garden.”
“Yeah?” Basira asks, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “Why?”
“Why do I know?”
“Why bother?”
Daisy wipes her damp hand against her jeans. “Dunno. Give me something to do. Free veg?”
“Hm,” Basira says again, thinking about the cupboard under the stairs. “Drive me to town, I’ll buy you a hoover.”
Daisy looks over at her at that, and Basira forces herself to keep her eyes forward, not wanting to have to think about what Daisy could be thinking.
“Sure,” Daisy says, and they stand up and go back into the house.
-
“Proper London, innit? Thinking it gets greyer the more North you go.”
“‘suppose,” Daisy says.
Basira’s got her hand gripped on the chicken handle above the window, used to Daisy’s driving but keeping herself safe regardless as Daisy swings between lanes, barely looking at her mirrors like she’s still got police-lights to excuse her.
“Did you? When you were a kid.”
“No.”
There’s a moment of silence and Basira thinks, well that’s that and goes back to looking out of her passenger window.
“Grew up in Grimsby. Not much greyer than Grimsby. Moved around a bit; Sheffield, Manchester, ended up in Preston. Going up to visit the gramps in Scotland was like visiting the sun.” Daisy undertakes a driver in a white van who blares his horn at her, and she leans on hers in reply.
“I moved north of the river once,” Basira muses. “Hated it. Left my lease early to move back down, ended up in Clapham.”
A year later she’d been sectioned, then it had seemed like too much effort to do anything like think about moving from the shitty flat she lived in, so she didn’t.
“How far do you want to go?” Daisy asks, tapping her fingers against the wheel. “Pretty sure the big Tesco in town sells vacuums, but we could go into Aberdeen for the John Lewis.”
“Ain’t it far? Aberdeen?”
“Sure. But if you wanted options.”
“Tesco’s fine. Is it near the garden centre?”
“Not really. It’s fine, if you don’t mind the drive.”
“Don’t mind it,” Basira says, letting go of the handle as Daisy slows her pace. “Wish we’d stopped at the petrol station though, I could murder a packet of salt and vinger crisps and a redbull.”
“I’ll stop at the next pull-off,” Daisy says, voice almost distant in its softness. A no-consequence deal between them. It’s the closest they’ve been in … a while.
-
It is startlingly clear that Daisy has no idea what she’s looking for at the garden centre. It’s a nice place: big, earthy, smelling of damp soil and greenery, the light pouring through huge glass panels in the ceiling, the air humid and definitely making Basira’s hair frizz, even through the scarves.
Basira holds their wheel-barrow of a shopping cart as Daisy hefts two huge, metal tools like she’s comparing spears, swinging them and testing their balance. Daisy’s got a look of single-minded concentration on her, her checked shirt tied off at her waist so she’s just stood there in a black vest, solid arms on prominent display.
Planted there with her weapons she looks like a Poseidon, a triton, a statue of a woman ready to spear her unworthy enemy.
Basira lets herself have the thought, lets herself lean against the wheelbarrow and drink it in, before she goes to find an old man in a dark-green flannel zip-up branded with the garden centre’s logo. “My partner’s looking for a garden thing,” she says to the dude, “What does that one do?”
The man takes one look at Daisy, takes a small step back, and comes one step closer to wetting himself. “Ah,” the old dude says, “Your, ah, wife, is using a mattock.”
“Like a pickaxe, right? Dwarves in the mine or whatever?” Basira says, choosing not to correct him.
“Oh, no,” the man says, “Or, no, er, I suppose one might use the, er, as you say, pick end to break up rough earth, but the flatter head is superb as a spade. Dual-use,” he says, growing his spine back as he slips into his helpful-merchant role.
“Can’t get much dirt on the flat bit.”
“Ah, yes, quite the rookie mistake,” the man says, obviously finding cheer in the ability to correct it, “A shovel is what one needs to move a lot of earth, the spade breaks it up. Good for digging.”
“Huh,” Basira says. “Didn’t know you’d need both.”
“To bury your husband— uh, wife,” the man says, then bites his lip. “I suppose you’d need more than a shovel to topple her, huh.”
“Yeah,” Basira says, almost feeding on the man’s discomfort. “What’s that one?”
“That would be a scythe,” the man says, barely hitting the floor with his fluffy white hair intact as Daisy takes a swing like a golfer.
-
The Tesco’s only got a Henry hoover, so he gets crammed in on top of all the soil, sharp instruments, buckets and bamboo canes in the back of the car. Basira’s footwell is crammed with terracotta pots, and she’s got a plastic tray of assorted plants on her lap, cradling them to prevent their dirt from going everywhere.
“Would make for a pretty gruesome crime-scene,” Daisy notes when they’re nearly home. “If we had a crash. Spiked with all the tools, plant roots soaking up all our blood. Pretty gnarly.”
“Would definitely make the breakroom top ten,” Basira says, leaning back in her seat to imagine the photos the detectives would take of their bodies. Dirt would be smudged up Basira’s cheek, shards of terracotta pot dug deep into her skin.
Daisy drives noticeably slower after that, cruising the final miles up towards the cottage.
-
It’s solidly night by the time they’ve dumped their wares in the rotting garden shed and washed up, so they microwave some curries from the fridge and eat them on their laps in front of the TV, catching an episode of some police drama that’s obviously three quarters of the way through the plot.
“I’d slap him,” Basira says as a Captain yells at a young policewoman, spit flying in her face. “Proper give him a clap ‘round the face and kick him in the balls for good measure. Wanker.”
Daisy doesn’t join in on Basira’s running commentary, but she doesn’t seem to hate it, giving soft huffs of laughter at Basira’s growing disbelief at the gross incompetence performed on screen.
“I can turn it off,” Daisy offers after a more angry outburst, but Basira only grumbles a “don’t you dare” in return.
-
Basira lies awake in the darkness and wonders how the fuck Daisy’s done this for two years.
It’s silent out here. Basira’s lived in South London her entire life; rocked to sleep by the comforting regularity of police sirens and neighbours shouting through paper-thin walls, the nightly childhood game of ‘is that a fox being fucked or has a woman been shanked’, the constant traffic even at the dead of night, the Rasta-man blaring music from the stereo strapped to the back of his bike, the stream of airplanes and police helicopters and just, life existing around her.
It’s silent, here. No Heathrow, no teenage clowns doing MDMA in the stairwell, no kid getting stabbed. Basira can’t take it. She hears a distant moo of a cow and it nearly breaks her, like a taunt designed to enforce the feeling of absolute nothingness upon her.
Daisy’s making no sound either: either she’s still awake or she doesn’t snore, and Basira’s ignoring the mobile stashed at the bottom of her drawers so she doesn’t even have that to distract her.
She sits up and wishes for the first time in her life that she’d brought a book, or a puzzle, or had a fucking magazine -
She makes her way downstairs, collecting information on which floorboards creak as she goes. She doesn’t want to walk silently through the house, she doesn’t want Daisy to stab her thinking she’s an intruder, but it’ll be useful to know when — if, they ever get attacked.
It’s cold in the living room now that the life has gone from it, and Basira pulls a couple of the floral blankets from the backs of the chairs onto one sofa. She collects every magazine she can find on the shelves: gossip rags from the 80s, cooking magazines, happy home guides, and settles into her nest, wishing she knew how the fuck to start a fire in the hearth.
-
Basira hears Daisy make her way towards the kitchen at 5, kettle switching on, cups and bowls clattering on the kitchen counter. Basira’s gone through the stack of magazines four times that night and has begun counting colours in the happy-home guide. She’ll take a photo of an example living-room and she’ll go through it, counting every purple item, every white item, every yellow item, then she’ll turn the page and start again. It’s like the world’s worst game of Where’s Wally, but her brain doesn’t get bored of it, so she keeps it up until there’s a coffee and a bowl of Crunchy Nut on the side-table beside her.
Basira blinks, long and slow, re-moisturising her eyes as she realises how dry they are from staring at the pages in the near-darkness of the room.
“Find the culprit?” Daisy asks.
“What?”
“You’re staring at it like you’re missing a clue. Wondering who the serial killer is.”
“Oh,” Basira says, finally pushing the magazine away and noting that Daisy’s the one who’s joking with her, now, asking if she’s okay. “Yeah, defo section 31 this one.”
“Yeah?” Daisy says, bringing a spoonful of cereal to her mouth.
“Yeah. Case of the over-use of lavender.”
“Creepy.”
“Downright villainous,” Basira says, dropping the magazine onto its pile and replacing it with the coffee. “Cheers.”
“No biggie. You want the TV on?”
“Eh, whatever.”
“It’s…” Daisy takes a pause. “It’s mostly news on at this time, so I usually don’t bother.”
Ah, Basira thinks. Explains the car radio. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
“There’s a portable radio in the kitchen,” Daisy says a couple of mouthfuls later. “It’s got a cassette player in it, and there’s a fuck tonne of my gramps’ music up in the attic. It’s shitty music, but. If you want the sound, you’re welcome to it.” Daisy takes another bite, then as she’s chewing, remembers “probably analogue though, so it won’t pick up the actual radio. You could have it playing static or something.”
Basira can’t quite help the smile that flicks across her face at that. “It’s not that bad yet.”
“Oh yeah?” Daisy says, not needing to look at the stack of shitty rag-mags before Basira’s den.
“Alright, fuck off. Not all of us can be well-adjusted to the country lifestyle on day one.”
“Country lifestyle?”
“Yeah, country lifestyle. Fucking Spring Watch up in here.”
“Alright,” Daisy says, stoney face showing cracks of humour in the corners of her eyes. “Microwave meals in front of the TV; we’re practically living in the stone age.”
“Fuck off.”
Daisy fully smiles in her win, drinking the sugary milk straight from the bowl. “I’m gonna get started on the garden. You’re welcome to join, if you want.”
“Whatever,” Basira says, burning her tongue on the coffee and squinting her eyes at it like it’s personally attacked her.
“Wouldn’t want the young missus to break her nails in the mud, though.” Daisy’s smile turns absolutely smug as Basira turns her murder-eyes on her, practically skipping out of the room with her mug and empty bowl.
-
As soon as Daisy’s gone out into the garden, the house starts to seem like it’s closing in again, the thick walls dampening all sound. Basira replaces all the blankets, then thinks better and decides they could do with an airing.
She walks from room to room collecting dusty fabric and chucks them into a laundry basket she’d spotted in the pantry so she can carry them outside. Daisy watches her out of the corner of her eye as Basira finds the green plastic line coiled up on the wall of the house, and she walks the line through a thinner path through the thicket, through the garden until she reaches a pole in the centre, where she ties the other end of the laundry line.
Basira hangs each piece of fabric up, then takes one of the bamboo canes they’d bought the day before and starts going down the line, beating the fabric: dust exploding into the early morning air.
It looks like it’s going to be a clear, if not particularly warm day — perfect for an airing with little risk of rain. When one arm starts to get tired, she switches to her other, and when her sense of decorum disappears she lets herself grunt with each strike of the cane, frustration freely channeled into the movement.
She finds a home-made fabric pouch full of wooden clothes pegs at the bottom of the laundry basket once she’s hung them all up, so she goes back down the line, securing the throws against the wind.
When she moves to go back inside, Daisy’s on the deck smoking again, watching her.
“Ain’t you got shit to do?” Basira asks, basket resting on her hip.
“Some angry woman started beating the shit out my nan’s blankets,” Daisy says, angling her breath away so the wind carries the smoke away from the laundry line. “Shit like that don’t happen every day, thought I’d catch the show.”
“Whatever,” Basira says, rolling her eyes as she returns through the thicket. “You’re next.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” Daisy calls out over her shoulder, and it’s too late, Basira’s already inside the house, she can’t risk looking around to get a glimpse of Daisy’s expression.
-
Cracking open the windows takes more effort than Basira’d thought. She tries to avoid ripping the newspaper at first, far too lazy to have to go ‘round and replace it all, but it becomes increasingly clear that the paper’s so old it’s practically cracking under her touch, and in trying to get some airflow through the rooms, the paper crumbles in her hands.
Eventually she decides enough is enough and begins ripping the paper down. It’s not like people who pass the house will ignore the car outside, or the clear sound of a vacuum and assume the place is still empty.
Over lunch Daisy tells her she’d been hiding the car half a mile down the road and walking up to the house to avoid being noticed; that bringing Basira the day before was the first time she’d stopped the stealth act.
“I could have walked,” Basira says, mortified that she’s been treated like something fragile — something broken. “We should have walked. Shit. I made you give up your fucking cover.”
There’s something distant in Daisy’s eyes as she continues to eat her soup. “It’s fine.”
“No, it ain’t. I came to your safehouse and blew it the second I got here.”
“It’s fine.” Daisy dunks a hunk of bread into her soup, the bright-orange of the carrot soaking into the farmhouse white.
“Daisy-”
“Basira,” Daisy says with finality. “I’m telling you it’s fine. It’s fine. Take the newspaper down. It’s time.”
Basira finishes the rest of her soup in an angry silence, pissed at Daisy, pissed at herself. Pissed at the stupid house.
-
“Come help me with something,” Daisy says after they’ve finished drying the dishes.
Basira follows Daisy out into the garden and into the shed. Basira had missed it yesterday while they’d been stowing everything from their shop, but the floor of the shed is piled with clocks, a din of mismatched ticking in a heap. It’s almost mesmerising, the sound, hands clacking against each other from where they’ve been dumped.
“Used to be at least two clocks in every room,” Daisy explains. “Drove me up the walls, had to take them down. Didn’t know where to put them, so.”
“That’s a lot of clocks,” Basira says, not really knowing what else to say.
“Grandps used to collect them. He’d walk around the house every day, stand before each one with his watch, would make sure they all ticked to the exact second. Had a key for each one.” Daisy taps one with her steel-capped boot. “Always thought he was mad.”
“Surprised they’re still running.”
“I was going to take all their batteries out,” Daisy says, “But that felt like…” she crouches to pick one up, the wood a deep brown and, Basira is relatively shocked to admit, beautiful. “Kinda felt like I was killing Gramps.”
Daisy hefts the clock in her hand, as if she isn’t sure whether she’s supposed to be cradling the thing or throwing it to the floor. “Stupid, I know.”
It is, but Basira shrugs instead of saying it. “I’ve not got a gramps with a sentimental clock collection.”
Daisy sighs. “Yeah. Well. I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t want go chopping them up for firewood, but I don’t exactly want to start a fuckin’ garage sale in our front lawn.”
“Anyone else and I’d say sell ‘em for a mint on Ebay, but...” Basira thinks about the logistics of that, of having to appraise each clock, lug them to the post-office, even the effort of starting the online shop. She’s not seen a laptop in the house, though she knows Daisy must still have a phone. “Charity shop?” she suggests.
“Yeah,” Daisy says, though her tone sounds uncharacteristically hesitant. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“I can take ‘em inside and give them a clean if you want.” Basira eyes the rotting shed, the drip that’s thus far managed to avoid ruining what she can see of the clocks. “Get them all boxed up, take the batteries out and match ‘em to their keys. Ready for selling, if you want to.”
Daisy scratches at the back of her neck, then looks at Basira and gives her a helpless shrug.
Basira is almost pinned by the sudden wave of vulnerability that Daisy is making plain on her face. It’s like turning to a lion and finding it’s actually a cub, sword half-way to its throat. Distress claws at Basira, her brain telling her that she’s been locked in a room with a complete stranger, unfamiliar and weak.
Basira has to drop Daisy’s eye. “I’ll do it and if you don’t like it, you can put them back.”
“Okay.”
“Should probably knock this shed down and put a new one up, too. If you don’t want your new tools getting rusty.”
“Mm,” Daisy says, her tone renewed with interest. “I want to build a shed.”
“You could probably just buy one,” Basira says, but it’s clear Daisy’s already decided she’s got to build it, so Basira leaves her to it and goes to get the laundry basket so she can start ferrying the clocks inside.
-
She’s barely got the last one up in the box room when she hears a crack, and she makes the split-second decision not to jump for the gun stash to dart outside unarmed.
She finds Daisy with the mattock over her head, swinging back down again into the already mostly-destroyed shed. Shards of mossy wood go fracturing across the garden as the metal head collides with all of Daisy’s strength, the woman hitting through the shed like the mattock’s a cricket bat and she’s making the ball fly through the crowd.
Basira watches Daisy destroy the shed in less than thirty seconds, and she thinks she probably has the same expression as the one Daisy had, watching her beat the throws: disbelief tarred with a vein of worry.
Daisy’s barely broken a sweat when she’s done, using the mattock to scrape the wood left over into a pile.
“We should probably build a plan,” Basira says into the quiet.
“Hm?”
“Like, buy wood for a new shed before you destroy the old one. So you can store the tools in it over night.”
“Hm,” Daisy says, thoughtfully.
“And whether you’re going to build the shed first, or clear the weeds first. Or do the clocks. Or help clean the house.”
“Hm,” Daisy says again. “Guess I’m doing the shed.”
“Guess you’re doing the shed,” Basira agrees. “Give me a second to get my scarf on, and we can go find wood somewhere.”
“Yeah,” Daisy says. “How big do you think the shed was? 2 by 2?”
Basira watches Daisy pick out a piece of timber not completely shattered and measure it against herself, and Basira feels herself smile.
-
It turns out that, despite all their Section 31 shit, all their hunts, all Daisy’s slaying, neither of them knows where to buy wood in the Scottish countryside. They drive around a bit, sort of hoping they’ll just come across a farm that’s advertising timber, but they don’t.
“Okay, don’t laugh,” Basira says once they realise both of them have left their phones back at the cottage, “But in that film, you know, Withnail and I?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t they go into like, the village and ask the people at the tea room or whatever.”
“Never seen it.”
Basira sighs. “Or like the post-office or whatever. Town village, they’ve got to have maps and shit, right?”
“Probably.”
“You’ve never been?”
“Been to the corner shop to get milk, went to the post office once to pick up a package.”
“And?”
“They looked at me funny, so I bought my milk and went home.”
“Sure. Look, let’s just go ask someone.”
“Mm,” Daisy says, sounding like a toddler being told to eat its vegetables.
“Daisy, if I’m willing to walk into some random Scottish village and ask for some wood and a hammer, you’ve got no excuse.”
“Mmm,” Daisy grumbles again, but she starts the car and turns towards the village anyway. It’s not far, less than ten minutes at Daisy’s speed, but Basira watches Daisy turn herself into knots on the ride up.
“Something you not telling me?” Basira asks as Daisy parks.
Daisy shakes her head.
“Will it be dangerous for me?”
“No,” Daisy says immediately. “At least, I don’t think so. No, that’s not the … reason.”
“And the reason is…?”
“Alison Jemima Tonner, is that you?”
Basira has to bite her lip hard to try to contain the shit-eating grin trying to force its way over her face. “Jemima?” She says with as much innocence as she can muster, turning to watch as an absolutely archetypical little-old-lady waddles her way over towards them.
“It is!” the woman says, little face brightening with recognition and with the absolute warmth of an old woman looking at a small child. “Now there I was thinking, that can’t be my little Jemima-duck, with her little blonde curls,”
“Jemima-duck,” Basira parrots, her hand coming up to cover her mouth in pure delight.
“And here she is, a full-grown adult!” the little old lady has grabbed Daisy’s hands in her own, and is practically vibrating with excitement. “Looking the spitting image of your old mum, too!”
“Hey, Mrs. Baker.”
“And now who’s this young lady?”
“Afternoon Mrs. Baker,” Basira says, putting on her best Pleasing Old White People voice. “I’m Basira.”
“Basira! You been taking care of our Jemima-duck up in that old Tonner house?”
“Daisy’s been kind enough to let me stay for a bit while I’m between jobs,” Basira says, not missing the flash of cunning that goes through the old woman.
“‘Daisy’, eh?” Mrs. Baker says, “Little Jemima-duck’s old enough to be someone’s Daisy, it really does make an old woman’s heart warm.”
“Alright Mrs. Baker, we really have to go,” Daisy says, trying to extract her hands from the old woman’s. “Plenty of tasks to be getting on with, tea to make, you know how it is-”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Baker says, “Just wait until my Brian sees you. He always did have a soft spot for you. Now Basira dear, you’re going to have to excuse me. We don’t have anything special in, but how do you feel about a vegetable stew for tea?”
The desperate look in Daisy’s eye is more than enough to make Basira’s grin spread. “Sounds lush, Mrs. Baker.”
“Now dear, what was it you were looking for, a carton of eggs?”
“Daisy’s building us a new shed,” Basira says as she hooks her arm through Mrs. Baker’s, heading across the green. “We were trying to find her some wood.”
“Wood? Now, my Brian might be able to help you there, his friend Jerry works down out the yard,”
-
“Jemima-duck,” Basira says to herself in the car home, a self-satisfied little half-laugh settling over her as she flicks between the 6x4s she’s been gifted by her new best friend in the entire world.
The first is of a little Alison Tonner, aged three, sat on her granddaddy’s lap, grinning up at him, blonde curls falling into her eyes as she holds a child-sized pink plastic watch against his, a clock on the mantelpiece behind them.
The second is of a little Alice Tonner, aged six, sat in the mud in the garden patch, hair pulled back into a dishevelled pony, a decapitated barbie being given an elaborate death sentence almost incredibly reminiscent of a hunt Basira had joined her on.
The third is of Alice Tonner aged twelve, post-growth spurt with her little curls shorn off, a grumpy look on her face as she’s made to wear her new school uniform. Basira can hear the off-camera voice telling the little girl to smile for the camera, and it makes Basira’s whole face hurt with how much joy it brings her.
“The second you’re asleep I’m burning them,” Daisy threatens, though with far less bite now that she’s been worn down by both Brian and Doris Baker over dinner.
“That’s fine, I’m going to take photos of them as soon as we’re back in the house. They’re going in the cloud and you’ll never be able to take them from me. Archived forever.”
Daisy’s sigh is long-suffering but warm and full, the pair of them plied with not just heaping servings of Vegetable Stew and dumplings but a rice pudding and a nip of scotch for Brian and Daisy for afters.
“If Brian’s friend Jerry is bringing the wood and tools tomorrow, and he reckons a job like that won’t take you more than a couple days, I guess we can start on the weeds by Thursday, get it looking decent for making beds with the leftover wood by the weekend.”
“Mm,” Daisy agrees.
“Doris was saying she’s got a shit-tonne of seeds stored from her garden, that she’ll pop over next week with some easy ones. And she’s going to give me some of her sourdough starter; apparently it’s been in her family for generations.”
“Mm,” Daisy says again.
“I think I’ll be good at baking bread. You’ve got to knead the shit out of it, right? Reckon I've given enough drunk wankers headlocks in my life to wreck gluten’s whole schtick.”
“How long are you planning on staying?”
Basira’s thoughts die in her head, feeling like the golden glow’s been sucked out of the car. She feels herself deflate, not having noticed how much straighter she’d been sitting, how proud her chest had been stuck out.
Right.
Basira’s arrived in Daisy’s life again, made her life living hell again. Basira’d packed for a week, not…
Not whatever Basira had just been planning, of sourdough starters passed through the family and framing little Alice on the wall of their house.
“I guess… I guess until I can find a job,” Basira says. “Can’t exactly go back… no, no. I don’t want to go back. And I don’t know how far the Section 31 shit runs. Who they know, you know?”
But of course Daisy knows. That’s why she’s been living in ass-fuck nowhere, Scotland. Only, unlike Basira, Daisy owns a family home, doesn’t have to pay for anything but what she needs, has been supporting herself on her savings; spartan life able to sustain her for a while longer until she needs to start seriously searching for a job in the village.
It’s not like Basira’s going to be able to live here, in this cottage like a farmer’s wife for the rest of her life. She doesn’t hate the countryside, but she’s a girl from London. She needs something to do. She needs sirens and foxes and rasta-men on bikes. Sitting here, going to dinner at little old houses, that’s doing nothing to fix what Basira’s done with her life so far. To fix the… everything that comes with Basira Hussain, ex-policewoman.
“Yeah,” Basira concludes. “Yeah, I’ll get out of your hair as soon as possible.”
“Oh,” Daisy says, which is not entirely what Basira is expecting. “Sure.”
God, being a human is fucking hard, sometimes. Basira heaves a sigh. “What did you want me to say?”
“What?”
Basira puts the photos on the dashboard and turns to look at Daisy, who keeps her eyes on the road. “Why did you ask?”
“Hm.”
“Like, I’m not trying to be funny, but I’m tired of trying to second-guess shit, trying to figure out what people are actually saying instead of saying things to my face.”
“Hm,” Daisy agrees. “Think we’ve both earned straight answers.” The corner of Daisy’s lip flickers into a wry, wolfish smile. “Or not, as it were.”
“Or not, as it were,” Basira repeats, but she keeps her expression serious.
Daisy’s attention flits to Basira in the rearview mirror, then flits back to the road. “Was hoping you’d say you were sticking around for a while.”
“Why?”
“Why? ...Because we both made it out. Because I thought you wouldn’t. Gave up on you. Felt guilty that I didn’t try harder to help you.” Daisy lets out a long breath. “I abandoned you, Basira. Left you there with the Section 31 shitbags, knowing what they’d do to you after I’d left. But I’d struggled so hard to get out, and when you said no, I was shitty enough to be relieved.”
“Hm.”
“Didn’t think you’d ever want to hear from me again. So when you texted, I thought… Thought you might still… Or at least, want to talk about it. I’ve thought about it every day, here. About you. About abandoning you, about… well. You’ve probably guessed.”
“I haven’t.”
Daisy’s eyes immediately come to meet Basira’s again, and there’s that familiar hunter in them, the start of a hunger. “Basira.”
“Yeah. Yeah,” Basira can only say in reply.
“Basira, how long are you planning on staying?”
“Ask me to stay.”
“Stay, Basira. With me. Please.”
“Pull over, Daisy.”
Daisy doesn’t need to be told twice, barely sparing a glance in her mirrors as she spins the car to the side of the country road, switching the engine off and unbuckling herself to remove her hoodie.
“Cool it, cowboy,” Basira laughs, watching as Daisy’s hands pause at the hem of her vest. “I’m not fucking you in your car, Daisy.”
The look of almost pure confusion on Daisy’s face makes Basira grin. Basira unclips her seatbelt and pulls Daisy towards her with a hand to the back of Daisy’s head, pressing a kiss to Daisy’s neck, then a softer one to Daisy’s bottom lip.
“To be clear, we’re not about to fuck?” Daisy asks, opening up her neck for another kiss.
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Because your car is filthy. Clean it and we can go dogging in the mountains or whatever it is you white people do in the countryside.”
Daisy makes a needy noise, resting her forehead against Basira’s collarbone like she’s taking a moment to decide whether she’s about to beg.
“I thought about you too. Every day. About how I wish I’d said yes. How I wish I’d tried.”
Daisy presses her face closer, like she can reach into Basira and wrap herself around her heart if she just tries hard enough, but then composes herself, buckles Basira’s belt back up for her, and returns to her seat with that single-minded doggedness Basira recognises as Daisy Tonner. “But to be clear,” Daisy starts, “There will be fucking.”
“Yeah,” Basira says with a snort. “And we’ll talk.”
“And we’ll talk,” Daisy agrees.
-
It’s still strange, sometimes, to come downstairs in the mornings and to find Daisy Tonner, de-clawed and pawing at the dirt, blunt fingernails thick with dirt, pushing not bodies but seeds into the earth. It’s odd to watch her sit on the deck with that glint of red in her eye as she holds herself back from stalking a mouse through the undergrowth, muscles going taut and lithe as she phantom-hunts her prey, body swaying as if she’s planning her route to its inevitable death.
It’s also strange to be sat on their gross floral sofa after a long day’s work out in the garden-that’s-turning-out-to-be-a-field with Daisy’s head in her lap and to realise that she’s spent more time that week with Jemima-duck than with Detective Tonner.
It is strange to hoover the Tonner house. To find an Andrex dog toy that baby Daisy saved up all her coupons up for. To go into town to buy photo frames so she can hang the photos of baby Alison, with dog, on their bedroom wall. It is strange to build not just a vegetable garden but a revolving plan for crops, for ducks, for bees, eventually. It is strange to be taught how to bake bread by a woman with a family recipe, and it is strange to teach a rogan josh she’s cribbed from the internet to the same woman with a frankly surprising spice rack, mutton fresh from the neighbour.
It is surprising, and Basira still reaches for her weapons when she hears the distant gun-shot of a hunter across the fields, and it is different to learn to fall asleep without the traffic, but slowly it stops being different, and it starts being home.