Page 27

‘Have you got a booking?’ A woman dressed entirely in black and holding a tablet appeared from nowhere as Daisy loitered in the doorway.

‘Uh, no,’ Daisy said.

‘Well, I’m afraid we’re fully booked. Unless you want to wait for half an hour? Is it a table for two?’

‘I actually just wanted a drink,’ Daisy said, gesturing to the bar to her right, at which point, the woman crinkled her nose.

‘Oh, right? The bar entrance is at the other end, but no worries. Take a seat wherever you like up there.’

With that, the woman turned around and scurried back to the restaurant.

With her pace substantially slower than it had been, Daisy moved over to the bar. There were over half a dozen barstools along the length of the marble counter, though only two were occupied. Still, she took one at the farthest end, as far away from the other patrons as she could and had barely taken her seat when the barman appeared on the other side.

‘What can I get you?’ he said.

‘A large glass of your house white,’ Daisy replied instantly. ‘Averylarge glass.’

He tilted his head to the side and eyed her with curiosity. ‘Well, two of our large glasses only cost five pounds less than the entire bottle, if you’d rather go down that route.’

‘Are you encouraging me to drink an entire bottle of wine by myself?’ Daisy said, gesturing to the sign at the side of the bar that said:

We encourage responsible drinking only and have the right to refuse service.

The barman snorted a brief chuckle of laughter.

‘No, I was just trying to save you a bit of money, that’s all. You’ve got the face of someone who looks like they plan on staying here a while.’

‘Is that right?’ Daisy said.

‘Perhaps the face of someone that’s got a man on her mind? Or maybe a woman.’

Daisy felt her breath quivering as she held the air in her lungs. Part of her wanted to tell the barman to go and shove his pop psychology and get her the glass of wine she had asked for. But at the same time, he had been spot on. It would probably take her at least two glasses before she felt anywhere near ready enough to deal with Theo. So with a long sigh and not a hint of a smile on her face, she said, ‘Fine, then. Make it a bottle.’

39

Daisy was sitting on the barstool with a topped-up glass of wine and the rest of the bottle in an ice bucket. For a minute, she just stared at the drink, holding the stem between her fingers. She had no idea where she was. That was the truth of the situation. She had walked in pretty much a straight line from the campsite to reach the pub, but any further than that, she really didn’t know. She didn’t even know the name of the village the campsite was in. It wasn’t like she was lost or anything. She could easily ask the barman the name of the place and probably get him to call her a taxi back to the campsite if it came to that. It was just a strange situation to be in. It certainly wasn’t how she imagined spending the second night of her engagement.

After a moment longer, she picked up her glass and took a long sip. When she was done, she moved to put the glass down only to change her mind and take another sip, this one even longer than the first.

‘I’m sure they’re not worth it.’

Daisy looked up to find the barman staring straight at her. You could tell the restaurant was swanky from his clothes – a sharp white shirt with brightly coloured braces of all things.

‘Who said I was drinking because of man problems?’

‘Well, I didn’t. I was thinking it might have been a terrible boss or something, but now, judging by the way you responded, I would say it’s definitely a man. But my statement still stands. He’s not worth it.’

Daisy lifted the drink back to her lips, only this time she didn’t take a sip. Instead, she let out a deep breath that steamed up the inside of the cold glass. The thing was, she wasn’t sure whether the barman was right or not. If you had asked her forty-eight hours ago, she would have said he was certainly wrong. Theo, she had believed, was the best guy she had ever met, but was that just an illusion she had wanted to see? Was the fact she had said yes to spending the rest of her life with him all it took to reveal the real him? The him that would put words in her mouth? Perhaps the ring hadn’t been a forgotten error, and he remembered his proposal to Heather all along. And if that was the case, did she really know the man she planned on marrying at all?

‘You know, I’m a good listener,’ the barman said. ‘Comes with the job. You wouldn’t be the first person to sit on one of those stools and unload.’

Daisy scoffed. There was no way she wanted to share the intimacies of her relationship with this complete stranger, she thought, only for her to consider the idea for a moment longer. The problem with talking with any of her friends or her mum was that they already knew Theo. They, like her, might be able to dismiss things as a one-off or be clouded by their own preconceptions of the man they knew. Perhaps a stranger’s opinion was exactly what she needed.

‘Okay,’ she said, putting her glass down and straightening her back as she looked at the barman. ‘Maybe you can answer a question for me?’

‘I can definitely try.’

She nodded before taking another quick sip of her drink, although this time, it was more for courage than any other reason.