Page 40 of Wanting Daisy Dead

Maddie

I had a shower after breakfast and returned to the kitchen later to find everyone gone, so checked in the bread bin and the fridge for leftovers.

I’m on the sofa spooning bright-orange marmalade on to a leftover croissant when Georgie wanders in and flops down next to me.

‘I was just writing up what I was going to say in my voice note condemning Lauren, stating that she killed Daisy because she wanted to steal her work and make loads of money – but I’m not sure I can do that. ’

‘Okay. Why?’

‘Because it probably isn’t true.’

‘Fair enough. I think right now we all just need to calm down and be kind to each other.’

She turns to me. She seems engaged for once, interested in what I have to say.

‘You know, Maddie, I envy you – no partner, no kids, you live a happy life teaching yoga. You never seem to get wound up or fall in love with the wrong people – and look at you. You’re gorgeous, and you don’t have to watch your figure. ’

My mouth is full of buttery croissant and tangy orange and I want to laugh at her perception.

I finish my mouthful and say, ‘Don’t look at me and see something that isn’t there. It will only make you unhappy – because you’ll think I’ve found the answer, and I haven’t, Georgie. I’m probably as unhappy as you – I just don’t show it.’

She looks surprised. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Maddie, but that’s deep ... I didn’t expect to hear that from you.’

‘Which is my point. We all have these perceptions of people, even our friends, and some people might see you as an angry, bossy, controlling person, but I just see frustration and sadness and ... disappointment.’

Her eyes suddenly fill with tears. ‘You’re right. On the surface people can’t see why I’m unhappy; I seem to have everything, but I have nothing.’

‘You just have to find what’s right for you, listen to yourself and work it out. Just knowing that another person can’t bring you what you crave is a start – and don’t be fooled by the phrase “you complete me”. It’s a con. It’s co-dependent drivel.’

‘Wow. You don’t need anyone, do you, Maddie?’

‘No – in fact I crave solitude more than I ever have. I listened to myself and discovered that’s what I need more than anything.

I don’t need other people, and there’s no shame in saying I don’t have any friends, and I don’t want any either.

Stop forcing yourself into other people’s ideas of what you are, what you should be – it’s such a positive energy when you let go and just do you.

People think because I’m childless and single I’m unhappy, but it’s the opposite – I have my career, and my memories, and Minty my cat . .. and that’s enough.’

‘Did you have a happy childhood?’ she asks, proving once more that these people really never took the time to get to know me.

‘Not really. I loved my mum, but my dad died when I was very young. I barely remember him. Like Daisy, it was always just Mum and me, and it was a struggle – that’s why she and I bonded as soon as we got to university, we could relate to each other.

But my memories before university are mostly sad, and the saddest are still from my days at ballet school.

Mum always loved dance, and was delighted when I got a scholarship to ballet school.

It was near London and we moved house so I could go there. ’

‘How good of your mum to do that.’

‘Yes, it was, but it also put pressure on me to succeed. And it wasn’t quite the Angelina Ballerina world I’d dreamed of.

’ I smile. ‘The training was gruelling, and starting as a six-year-old, most of my childhood was swallowed up. One of my earliest memories there is being told by my ballet teacher I was “too fat for a ballet dancer”,’ I say, looking at my croissant.

‘See, even now, eating brings on guilt and shame ...’

‘Maddie, that’s awful. I knew you’d been to ballet school, but I had no idea.’

‘It was brutal. I remember a teacher standing me in front of the full-length studio mirror and telling me, “If you don’t get those hips down, you’ll never be a ballerina.

” So when I say ballet school shaped me, I mean it both metaphorically and literally – because crap like that gets in your head and sits there forever. ’

‘I’m sorry you had to go through that,’ she says, sincerely.

I take a sip of coffee. ‘It wasn’t just the teachers; there was this competitive bullying culture which really became ingrained in an institution like that. By the age of nine we were openly body-shaming our friends, and privately body-shaming ourselves.’

‘Christ, I have two girls, it horrifies me.’ Her eyes are kind, and she’s genuinely concerned. Perhaps beneath the anger and sadness there’s a warm heart in Georgie – I just never saw it before. ‘So, what happened ...?’

‘Eventually I was given an ultimatum. “Lose a stone, or lose your place at ballet school” ... And by then my breasts had started to grow. They were full and cumbersome and one teacher even suggested binding them with bandages ... At eleven I was ashamed and embarrassed by my breasts.’

‘Shit.’ She’s shaking her head.

‘They suggested Mum put me on diet pills. I lost loads of weight and everyone was pleased. For a few months everything was fine again, I had huge amounts of energy, my body felt right, my training was going well. The teachers were thrilled, constantly telling me how great I looked now, which made me think I must have looked horrible before. I didn’t tell anyone, but the pills made me jittery, unhappy, like I had this huge emptiness inside, and though my dancing was the best it had ever been, I lost me . ’

‘That sounds horrible, and you were only a kid ... What, about twelve?’

I nod. ‘I told Mum how I felt and she immediately took me off the pills. But they were speed – I’d been on them for months and was now coming down and feeling hungry again.

Starving, actually. That’s when I began to self-medicate with doughnuts and crisps and chocolate, all the things I hadn’t been allowed to eat most of my life. ’

‘That explains the mountain of crisp bags and chocolate wrappers I used to find hidden in the bottom of the bin. I was the only one who ever emptied the bins, and no one would ever own up to the wrappers.’

‘Yeah, that was me.’ I remember we’re in a recording area, and whisper, ‘I’m ... bulimic, and I tried to hide what I did, but it still lives with me, controls my days and my nights. It’s like having a demanding partner – I can’t go out or do anything without checking in with my bulimia first.’

‘Maddie, is this your secret?’ She takes my cue and whispers back. ‘Because if it is, you need to start sharing it, and getting help.’

I nod, ashamed of myself, and she reaches out, hugging me warmly, and I want to cry.

‘I’ve never told anyone ... Please don’t ...’ I say into her neck.

‘I won’t.’ She lets go and, holding me by the shoulders, searches my face. ‘As long as you promise you’ll get help,’ she says quietly.

‘I will,’ I lie, knowing I’ll never do that. It might kill me, but I’d rather die than live without it. I guess that’s how love feels.

Suddenly Dan appears in the doorway. ‘What are you two doing?’ I think he’s surprised to see Georgie hugging someone.

‘Nothing,’ I say tearfully, and go to my room, where I continue to think about the past, and it all floods back.

I left ballet school at twelve for a very different world at the local comprehensive, where I was a novelty.

The girls asked me questions about my life as a ballet dancer like I’d just floated in from another planet.

The boys just looked at my breasts. At first the girls were friendly, not competitive and mean like my ballet friends, but because I’d had to live ballet for most of my life, there wasn’t much left of me.

It was the late nineties, and though I’d heard of the Spice Girls and Madonna, I’d never listened to their music.

My new friends loved someone called Ricky Martin, and I asked if he went to our school.

I’d never heard of him, and that’s when they realised I wasn’t a novelty – I was different.

That’s when the bullying started. I simply didn’t fit in, and instead of fighting it and trying to be someone I wasn’t, I stayed true to myself. I was seen as a loner, and when the boys grabbed me and touched me in places I didn’t want to be touched, no one believed me because I was ‘weird’.

I think that continued when I got to university, but doing drama I used to hide behind characters.

This weekend has brought it all back: the not belonging, the lack of acceptance, and Daisy, the only one who really knew me.

She could be mean, she sometimes picked on me publicly, but that’s because she didn’t want anyone else to know we were friends.

I remember her in freshers’ week: she was standing in the student union, long fair hair, perfect skin and a soft, curvy body.

A light from the DJ booth was shining behind her, and she looked like an angel sent from heaven.

I’d been flirting with religion around this time, and I saw it as a sign that she had been sent from God.

We just got each other, and I can’t believe I’ll never see her again – in this life, anyway.

Even now I keep expecting her to come running out of her room in high heels, tugging her short dress down, with dark lipstick and those smoky eyes.

She just made me smile, and I wanted to spend every moment with her. I wanted to be Daisy.

I could see she was heading down a dangerous path, sleeping with a married lecturer, but she wouldn’t listen.

Then Dan came into her life. The night she went to meet David down on the beach, Dan called and asked if they could meet, and she said no, she was going to see David.

She was angry; she told him to stop calling her or she’d tell Georgie.

I told her that neither of them were good enough for her, that she should just tell them both to get lost and give herself time to work out what she wanted.

But she wouldn’t listen to me. No one ever listened to me.

And that night she went out, and never came home.