Roses, Lilies, Daisies

The shopkeeper examines the handful of flowers that I carefully place on the counter. “The usual?” he says, with a smile. 

Roses, lilies, daisies. 

I saw her at the corner of a bar, brightly dressed in a white dress and a pink hat, looking down at the floor. 

“What’s your name?” I slid my arm onto the counter, but the surface was slick with spilt drinks and I slipped forwards so that my face pressed into her torso. Sitting back up, my face was burning hot and the words tumbled out of me. “I’m - I’m so sorry.” 

“Daisy,” she said, a laugh in her smile, “That’s my name.” 

“Its -” I paused, “It’s a pretty name.” 

She laughed. “I’ve been told. And yours?” 

“Oh. I’m Gordon.” 

She moved close, so close that I could smell her perfume. “I can’t hear you. It’s too loud,” she said.  

We stepped outside where the music was a drone in the background. The white glowing orbs of the streetlights merged with the faraway studs of stars in the night sky. The street smelt of drink and smoke.  

“What do you do, Gordon?” She leaned against the wall. 

“I’m a musician.”

“Oh really?” Her nose was wrinkled up. “I’m musical too. Play me a song.” 

I stood still, thinking. I hadn’t got my guitar with me. I half thought she’d leave then. The thought of it was too terrible. So I started out singing, unaccompanied, my voice rough from drinks. 

“In the early morning rain, with a dollar in my hand…” 

The notes were sluggish, the tone thick, but Daisy smiled and clapped her hands. She joined in, humming a harmony, tapping her leg for a drum. My future flashed before my eyes. Our voices intertwined and the notes bounced around the empty street. I met her gaze. 

We went on the road, me playing my guitar, Daisy singing. She was always the better singer, after all. But I sang some bits, some harmonies. My favourite song was the first we had sung, and we both sang on that one, the last of our set, our voices melding into a glorious chorus of sound. She had the voice of a nightingale, me the voice of a crow, but both are birds, and we flew together, all across the country and abroad. 

We didn’t have money. Pubs often paid us in bed and board, and otherwise we slept in the car, our limbs all tangled together, human blankets and misted up windows in the mornings. From Milan to Budapest to Los Angeles, we drove and flew on wings of hope, our bellies often empty but our hearts and eyes full. 

Lily was born early on a rainy morning. She was just like a lily, too, filling up with love and life, blooming into a plump little bundle. 

Just like a lily, she was gone too soon. A complication. A rare disease. Daisy wept, and I wrapped her up tight in a hug, but nothing I could do could warm the eternal cold spot that had set upon her heart.

Our shows floundered. We were getting older, greyer - my dear nightingale’s lustrous voice had migrated south to be replaced by a brown garden warbler, and my fingers couldn’t strum the strings the same way they once had. We barely scraped by. Once, we had dreamed of making it big. Now even making a small gig was a victory. The audiences were the worst part. And they ripped into Daisy the most. People stood up and left. They threw things, and words too. Her wings grew tattered with holes that I tried but could not mend, no matter what loves and kisses I blew over my dear Daisy. 

And it was the audiences that got her in the end. She turned to me one winter’s night, with the stars shining above her face - a face wrinkled by smiles and by the grimaces of the years. Still beautiful as ever. “I can’t do it anymore, Gordon.” 

I shook my head, dug deep inside me for some long forgotten memory. In a tiny voice, I started singing, tapping it out on my legs. “In the early morning rain, with a dollar in my hand…” I reached forward and took her hands in mine, raising them up to form a roof of arms between us. 

But Daisy tore her hands away and turned away from me. “No, don’t do this. You were always an awful singer. I’m done. I can’t live like this anymore, Gordon.” 

She strode away from me, into the night streets, turned a corner and - and well, I never saw her again. I always held her in me, the ghostly impression of her face. I hoped that one day, perhaps if I walked the same street that we had parted - visited the same club we had first met, that I would run into her once more. But no matter how many times I ended up traipsing down our old haunts, I never was visited by more than remembered ghosts of our past. 

It was a black, inky rose printed on the letter that they sent me in the mail. 

You are invited to the funeral of Daisy Mcmilly. 22/3/2021

I pass my money across the counter, pick up the sheathed flowers. Roses, lilies and daisies. It's an early morning. Rain spatters on my hair as I make my way from the shop towards the church, mixing with my tears. I hum that long forgotten song, but the words are wispy on my dry lips, and I can’t help sobs leaking out between notes. 

“In - the early,” 

Daisy peeking out from behind her hands, gazing at the little baby sitting on the seat. Lilly giggling, falling backwards. Me, there to catch her as she falls. 

“Mooorning rain,” 

Daisy dancing on the stage, swirling in a blue cape, red in the face, her mouth open wide, gaping, notes of pure joy flowing forth, me on the side, humming along, waving my head and my body, my hands plucking the strings that I know so well.

“With a dollar-” 

Holding each other round the waist, bowing together, bowing low, the audience whooping and screaming for an encore. Me, looking to the side, her, already there, her eyes meeting mine. The fizz of electricity, the buzz of joy, the music still echoing in my ears. 

“In - my,” I sob, kneeling by the gravestone. 

“Hands.” I reach down to drop the flowers by the grave, but the ground is slick with rain and I fall and the flowers spill out. Roses and lilies and daisies. A kaleidoscope of colours spread over the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” I say, in a small voice. And I swear, in the gentle churring of a nightingale, I can almost hear her reply.