Nymphomation(12)

‘Stop that noise!’

And then her father hits her, right across the face. The young Daisy goes all silent for a frozen moment, until the voice in her head comes calling, ‘Fuck you, Father!’

But all that comes out is, ‘Nah, nah, nah.’

‘That’s OK. That’s fine, my child,’ says her father, stooping down to pick up the fallen bones. ‘I’m sorry for hitting you. Please forgive me. Let’s play again.’

Another swig of whisky. ‘Let’s play to win this time.’

The words came back to Daisy, as she rested, half asleep over her latest assignment. What had she been back then? A brain - dead child with no hope of ever winning anything. Really? The words in her head were superfine, but by the time they got to her lips…

‘Nah, nah, nah.’

The younger Daisy Love was a mental nightmare, a self- absorbed child, living only within her own head. How her father must have hated her feeble mutterings…

‘Nah, nah.’

‘Fucking choose!’

Daisy chooses, rubbing her smarting cheek. She takes her five bones from the pile and then lets her father choose his army. Memories… Her father viciously bangs down his final bone to her weak-brained double-five, with another shout of ‘Domino!’ The master. ‘Do you really think it’s only a game of chance, Daisy? Did your mother die in vain?’ Her father’s words, full of a distant longing, a love of some kind, an urging. ‘You see this, Daisy?’ He’s showing her his necklace again, on the end of which swings an old, old domino, the five-and-the-four, with the centre spot of the five pierced for the leather thong. ‘I won this when I was a kid. Look, this time I’ll play to lose, OK? I’ll play my worst domino every time. There are no winners without losers. Do you follow me?’

Nah fucking nah! An easy game, but still Daisy loses.

‘Won’t you ever shout out “Domino”, my daughter! What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nah, nah, nah!’ Meaning the game isn’t proper.

‘OK, now we play again,’ says her father. ‘But to win, this time. OK? Have you learned your lessons?’

‘Nah, nah.’

But Daisy doesn’t want to play anymore. She sulks her way into her bedroom, there to cry into her pillow, and then, suddenly, never to cry again. She opens her tatty exercise book, jots down a row of numbers, corresponding to the dots on all twenty-eight of the dominoes. Daisy works through all the possibilities of playing. Of playing to win. She can’t speak properly, she can’t communicate her problems to the world, but she can count, can’t she? She can count way beyond all the other children, and all the problems. Daisy lives within her own darkness, since her mother’s death, no words to comfort her, only the secret numbers making any kind of sense. Idiot savant, the doctors have called her. A mathematical, crazy genius, but totally unschoolable.

How the dumbness came.





Play to lose


Daisy had done some research, when she was old enough, into the exact circumstances of her mother’s death.

First, a faulty traffic signal on the road into Manchester. The chances of that, Daisy had worked out, were approximately 1 million to one. Bad chances, causing a free-for-all jam at the junction with Grey Mare Lane, lodged with cars too eager to get somewhere, throwing away the rules.

Secondly, the family Love was going into town to buy a puppy, thinking it would help five-year-old Daisy to make some friends. Average chances, the kind of thing concerned parents did for difficult children.

Thirdly, a lorry driver called Bob Tyler was late for a delivery of the marmalade he was carrying. Bob’s overseer had already called him to task twice that week for tardiness, so he was extra keen to make this appointment. He was speeding. Average chances, two to one, given the job prospects.

Fourthly, some roadworks at the junction had been left undone. More bad chances, according to Daisy’s calculations, but not too high given the council’s lack of funds: approximately fifty to one.

Fifthly, Daisy’s father had been drinking all morning. Odds-on favourite, because he always drank.

Sixthly, now he was drinking and driving. Chances: five to one.

Seventhly, he was swearing at his wife for wanting the puppy, turning his eyes from the road, just as he attempted to cross the obstruction, the roadworks, the traffic jam, against the dead lights. Chances: inevitable, given the drink and the anger and the hopeless love.

Eighthly, Bob Tyler decided he couldn’t wait any longer for his deliverance. Ten to one, maybe less, maybe more.

The chances of this, the chances of that. The chances of all these crazy circumstances coming together, according to Daisy’s constant calculations: ten billion bad chances to one lonely good one. Approximately astronomical. Hopeless chances you would never bet a puny on, never mind a lovely, never mind the old money, but happen they did.