1
On the hottest day of the summer of 1947, twelve-year-old Daisie Chettle watched a bead of sweat gather on her twin sisterās forehead as they waited in the living room for their parents to stop arguing. The drop collected on Violetās brow as their parents exchanged tense whispers in the kitchen.
āAnother desperate promise. How many slices have you had since her?ā Daisie heard her mother exclaim in a hushed voice.
Edith Chettle then appeared through the kitchen doorway, her face flushed from heat and anger. It was the first time Daisie had seen her motherās calm faƧade broken. Red-faced, perhaps partially from shame, her father, Edward, also entered, pacing the living room carpet like a threatened dog, uneasy and stung. Guilt was written all over his stalking frame.
āSit,ā said Edith. Daisie hoisted herself onto the couch beside her sister as their mother gingerly lowered herself into Edwardās armchair. He lingered anxiously behind.
āOne of you will live with your father for a while.ā Daisie knew it was serious because sheād called him āyour fatherā. She always called him Ted, so this felt solemn and strange.
āDaisie,ā he said, unable to look her in the eye, āyouāll live with me. Itāll be me and you for a bit.ā
Daisie saw her sisterās face fall, and that sadness washed over her. She didnāt want to be separated from her sister or her mother, but she didnāt have the courage to do anything but nod. Daisie was accustomed to getting her way over Violet, yet the quiet delight she usually took in her sisterās jealousy couldnāt extend to this.
A month later, on their thirteenth birthday, Father brought home a white rabbit in a hessian bag. Daisie was delighted, naming it Nicholas after The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, which theyād seen that past weekend. At first the creamy white creature slept in her bedroom inside a milk crate, but as Nicholas grew, Fatherās cramped flat in Worcester Park proved to be no place for pets.
āThe hay and pellets attract cockroaches and mice,ā he complained. āAnd vermin beget more bloody vermin.ā
Six months later the trial separation ended, and Edward and Daisie moved back into the family home in Kingston upon Thames. Nicholas and his hutch took up residence in the cramped courtyard. The Chettle family settled back into their old patterns, but in the space between words something had changed forever.
Father continued to choose Daisie over Violet, whether it was taking her for tandem rides on his beloved motorbike, a fire-engine red Norton 20 that had taken him longer to restore than the war had run, or bringing her to work for the day at the brickworks.
On her and Violetās sixteenth birthday Father gave Daisie a packet of Gold Flake and took great pleasure in teaching her the right way to hold, light and inhale a cigarette. She vomited most of the afternoon. But in time she took to it, giving them another shared interest that excluded Violet. Sheād worked out that deep down Father had wanted a boy, at least one, and having twin girls had likely put paid to that.
In late November 1952, a few months after the girls turned eighteen, Nicholas contracted myxomatosis. The rabbit lost sight in his left eye and a large tumour started to form near his spine. Daisie knew that her beloved petās days were numbered, and her father agitated for its end to be hastened.
On the first Friday in December a smog as thick as tar descended, choking London and darkening its already grey skies. The charcoal mist penetrated their freshly washed clothes, giving everything the odour of rotting eggs. As Daisie brought the pungent washing in she noticed that the hutch door was open and Nicholas was gone. Despite her fatherās protestations, she convinced her mother to go out looking, dragging her from front garden to parked car along Grove Lane and Alfred Road. Neighbours were recruited to join the search. Although it was only three oāclock in the afternoon, the light dwindled under the blanket of mist. She relied on the headlights of passing cars to search the wild privet shrubs that lined Hogsmill Lane in Kingston Cemetery.
āI canāt see a thing. Perhaps we should return in the morning,ā suggested Edith gently, her breath steaming in the cold, still air. āHeāll be fine overnight. Having the time of his life, Iād imagine.ā
But Daisie ignored her, squinting in the faint light for any hint of the rabbitās snowy coat. Her back started to ache as she dashed from tree root to shrub, crouching under branches and driven by thoughts of the dogs and wild foxes that roamed the park at night.
āItās late. We have to go,ā her mother insisted.
Edith sighed as Daisie pushed on, searching diligently in the murky stillness until she reached the intersection of Villiers Road, where a row of juniper shrubs offered an enticing haven for a frightened rabbit.
āHeās here, I know itāā
Before the condensation from Daisieās breath had evaporated, Edithās foot caught on a spiky low branch. She stumbled forward through the shrub onto the roadway. The front wheel guard of a red double-decker rushed unseen from the mist, clipping her head and shoulders. Edithās body was flung with unnatural force against the granite cobblestones, where she stopped hard against the stone gutter.
It took an eternal moment for Daisie to accept what she had witnessed. The cracking sound of bone against rock found its home deep inside her.
The pastor told her not to blame herself, his intended gentle words of consolation shocking. Nobody else had mentioned fault, not even Father, for whom the rabbit was the sole culprit.
Except Violet. Resentment bristled in the silences she served in her daily routine to remind Daisie where the blame rested. Their relationship shifted into the darkness. Daisie didnāt have the fortitude to push back, so the guilt lodged, numbing her sense of self and virtue to a new normal.
The House of Commons later reported that more than six thousand Londoners lost their lives to the respiratory effects of the six-day Great Smog of December 1952. Edith was the only victim of the smog who did not pass to hypoxia.
2
Violet blamed Daisie for what had happened, an accusation made subtly yet insidiously via impatient glances and trivial acts, such as leaving dried rabbit droppings in her shoes.
The three remaining Chettles endured the funeral. For Violet, everybody elseās grief was the immediate burden. Daisie seemed to exist in a dulled state. Their father remained silent and withdrawn, too focused on withholding emotion to give a eulogy. It was left to Violet to take charge and greet the hundred-odd mourners who turned out to show their respects on a drizzly morning at St Johnās Church.
Despite the hushed mass of distant cousins, neighbours, friends and colleagues that crowded the small cathedral, only one member of Edithās immediate family attended. Aunt Maisel looked barely anything like their mother. She had the ruddy complexion of somebody who drank too much, and clomped across the church floorboards in orthopaedic shoes. She pushed by the pastor to grasp a handful of sandwiches from the table behind Violet and Daisie. It had been six years since Violet had seen her, yet she was wearing the same tired mink stole that smelled of unfinished taxidermy. Maisel cocked her head towards Violet, blinking in recognition as a slice of cucumber flopped across her grip.
āYouāve grown up,ā she gushed. āI missed your mother, but I missed you two the most. Such a shame what happened. All of it.ā
Violet recalled her mother being dismayed when Maisel had stopped replying to her letters after the separation, even though sheād initially taken her side over Fatherās. As the church emptied and the mourners circled the Chettles to nod their condolences, Violet watched Father navigate desperately away from Maisel through the crowd. But Maiselās hulking frame easily cornered the three of them in the vestibule.
āA great loss, Ted. For all of us. I was hoping Hazel would make it,ā Maisel said as she craned her thick neck to peer across the crowd. Father visibly blanched.
āHazel?ā asked Violet, her eyebrows flicking with curiosity.
āYou made your speech years ago, leave it, for Christās sake,ā her father told Maisel, his bony elbows steering the girls towards the exit.
Violetās eyes questioned her auntie as the musty smell of the flaccid mink filled her nostrils.
āWhoās Hazel?ā Violet said, while Father pushed her towards the mourners squeezing by, his hand against her lower back.
āHave I put my cursed foot in it again, Ted?ā Auntie Maisel worried.
āAbout what? What it?ā Violet persisted.
āSheās in Australia, banished to the colonies,ā Maisel said dismissively, as though it were the equivalent of being deceased.
Father grasped Violetās sleeve and pulled her out into the drizzle with her sister.
The three of them walked to the cemetery further along the way, her father staying apart from the line of mourners.
āHazel?ā Violet asked him again.
āNot now, Violet,ā he said angrily as they rounded the stone fence into the overgrown garden.
Soon enough the casket was brought and lowered a mere three hundred feet from where Mother had died. Father left the graveside before the pastor had finished the sermon and headed in the direction of the Spring Grove pub, leaving Violet with Daisie. Violetās eyes stung from restrained tears, but she took deep breaths and kept herself composed. Daisie was still in a trance of sorts. As soon as the final āAmenā was uttered, she turned towards home, leaving Violet to deal with the wake alone.
An hour later, as the drizzle settled, Violet returned to Grove Lane, exhausted of soul and mind. She carried a plate of leftover cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches that a neighbour, Mrs Bulvers, had kindly made. Sheād meticulously crafted them into round, bite-sized portions with tufts of dill dabbed into the cheese at the edges. It seemed a shame to waste them, particularly given the square edges of the bread had already been wasted to achieve the effect.
The living room was the place that felt the emptiest since her mother died. Violet glimpsed her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace and gasped; for a moment she had seen her mother staring back. She walked into the kitchen and slumped in a chair. Daisie had kicked off her wet shoes on the kitchen floor, as usual, knowing Violet would deal with them.
For the first time in as long as she could remember, the house was still. The absence of her mother, her new reality, started to sink in.
Then a soft murmur broke the overbearing silence. āSafe and sound at home again, let the waters roar, Jack.ā Violet could hear Daisieās low, scratchy singing voice. She carefully climbed the stairs, avoiding the creak of the fifth and eighth steps, to stop in the hall near the doorway of their shared bedroom. Daisie was inside, singing a sea shanty their mother would often croon while bathing. Violet closed her eyes and lost herself to sadness.
One more time with glad refrain, let the chorus soar, Jack.
Long weāve tossed on the rolling main, now weāre safe ashore, Jack.
Donāt forget yer old shipmate, faldee raldee raldee raldee rye-eye-doe.
Daisie stopped singing and the silence rushed back in. Despair landed heavily in the pit of Violetās stomach. She emitted an involuntary cry, giving her presence away and coughing to cover it up. Daisie closed the bedroom door, two feet from where Violet stood in the hallway.
Violet stopped at her parentsā bedroom door, sniffling back the last of the tears and wiping her eyes with a damp sleeve. She pushed open the door to the smal...
