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Out Of Control
Janice Macdonald
Happy birthday. Meet your new mother. Suffice it to say, Daisy' s childhood had been less than idyllic. It hadn' t been easy growing up the daughter of the great Frank Truman–a respected and prolific painter who was not what he' d appeared. Even fifteen years after his death, Daisy is still trying to deal with her mixed feelings, not helped one bit by the arrival of a persistent biographer.Nicholas Wynne wants to write the definitive account of the artist' s life, not stir up old ghosts for Truman' s daughter. He' d certainly never intended to fall in love. So what' s he going to do with his newfound revelations about Daisy' s secret and traumatic past?
Perhaps he’d built up an image of Daisy
that no actual woman could live up to
The golden-haired child basking in the sunlight of her father’s love had grown into an ethereal goddess…who had an ex-husband and a fourteen-year-old daughter and kept goats. And didn’t return his phone calls. Nick mulled this over for a while, tried to come up with some plausible reasons she might not want to talk to him. He sneezed. Difficult to think while sneezing.
He had lined up some other interviews, which he would do over the next few days. All peripheral to the biography, though. Truman’s relationship with Daisy as it reflected in his art was the central theme of the work; Truman was dead, so no one else really mattered but Daisy.
Dear Reader,
I sometimes think that if, in order to become a parent, we had to apply for the job, the world’s population would shrink considerably. I was very young when I had my children and, looking back, the only thing I knew at the time was that I wanted to be a mother. Many years later, with two beautiful and much-loved adult children—and a granddaughter—I wouldn’t have changed anything. But I still wish I’d been more prepared for the awesome responsibilities ahead.
In Out of Control, Daisy and Nick both struggle with the question of what it takes to be a good parent. Nick loves his daughter but is painfully aware of his shortcomings. Daisy, abandoned by her mother and raised by a decidedly offbeat father, wants her own daughter to feel the emotional security she herself never experienced as a child.
These days as I find myself caring for my ninety-year-old mother, I’m reminded of how cyclical the life process is. I hold my mother’s hand as we journey out, much as she once held my hand and as I held the hands of my own children. I haven’t always been the perfect daughter (just ask my mum!), just as I’m not always the perfect mother (just ask my kids!), so perhaps it’s just as well I never had to apply for the roles. But despite the mistakes I’ve made, the things I wish I’d done differently, I’m immensely grateful that I was given the opportunity. A life filled with love, compassion and a liberal sprinkling of humor is an invaluable ingredient for making it through the rough times.
I hope you enjoy Out of Control. I really do like hearing from you and do my best to answer every letter or e-mail. You can reach me at www.janicemacdonald.com or at PMB 101, 136 E. 8th Street, Port Angeles, WA 98362.
All the best,
Janice
Out of Control
Janice Macdonald
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janice Macdonald is an author and freelance writer who divides her time between San Diego and Port Angeles, Washington, where she lives in a cabin on the edge of the Olympic National Forest and watches deer graze when she should be writing! She recently discovered the joys of Bach and now listens to his music constantly.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PROLOGUE
October 6, 2003
Ms. Daisy Fowler
Chaparral Hills
Laguna Beach, California,
U.S.A.
Dear Ms. Fowler:
I am writing to let you know that I have been contracted to write a biography of your late father, Mr. Frank Joseph Truman.
I first became interested in your father’s work after seeing a painting in his Innocence series in a London art gallery. The portrait of a young girl on a sunlit bluff was exquisite; I recall standing in the wet chill of a November evening but feeling almost transported. For a moment, I’d felt the ocean wind that tangled the girl’s hair, tasted the tang of salt on my own lips. My captivation was complete when I learned from the gallery owner that this was a painting of the artist’s only daughter.
On a very personal note, having a daughter who is probably a year or so younger than you were when Mr. Truman painted you, I experienced what I can only describe as a connection to and a profound admiration for him as a father. I couldn’t help thinking that his love must have contributed to the magical beauty of the work.
I am the author of three previous biographies, most recently, Antonio Bongiovanni, the Italian Tenor, scheduled for publication later this year. I am also a frequent contributor to the London Times.
I hope you will agree that a well-researched, sympathetic biography of your father would be a tribute to his memory, and, to that end, I would like to schedule a time that we can meet to discuss this project. I will contact you when I arrive in Laguna the first of next month. I look forward to meeting you. For your information, I have also contacted Mr. Truman’s widow, Amalia née Rodrigues and his brother, Dr. Martin Truman.
Best Regards,
Nicholas Wynne
CHAPTER ONE
TRYING TO BE a good father was rather like trying to sing in key, Nick thought as he watched his twelve-year-old daughter pick suspiciously at her tandoori chicken. You could be close enough that almost anyone might recognize the tune, but no one was ever going to mistake you for Frank Sinatra. And, inevitably, you managed to strike a note that simply fell flat.
“I thought you’d like Indian food,” Nick said, trying not to sound reproachful. Their table was next to the window. Outside, the wet street reflected a string of red taillights and the neon sign from the cinema marquee. A waiter in black trousers and a white cotton jacket hovered nearby.
Bella set down her fork. She wore a yellow jumper that she’d coaxed Nick into buying on their last outing, and her hair was pulled back into a tight plait that came halfway down her back. “Did you ask me first?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Because if you had, I could have told you that Mummy already tried to make me like it, and I couldn’t stand it then and I still don’t like it.”
“Perhaps you should have said something before I ordered,” Nick suggested. “Even as we walked into the restaurant, perhaps.” Disappointment and a sense of failure made him feel churlish.
Bella seemed unaffected by his mood, her eyes—the same light green as her mother’s—conveyed her disdain. Set against the olive complexion she’d inherited from him, the impact was striking. He’d look at her and envy anyone with even a modicum of artistic talent. In his head, he could wield a paintbrush in a way that captured the subtle nuance of expression, the play of light across her face. In reality, he couldn’t even take a decent snapshot.
“But you enjoyed the art exhibit?” he asked. Please tell me I’m doing something right. Last week he’d read an article about a support group for divorced fathers. They met Monday nights in a church hall about a ten-minute walk from his North London flat. He might have made it a point to stop in, but he was leaving town—leaving the country, in fact. By the next meeting, he’d be in California, gathering material for the Truman biography that he was now under contract to write. The exhibit he’d taken his daughter to see had been a Truman retrospective.
“God forbid you’d waste a Saturday afternoon with your daughter doing something nonproductive,” Bella’s mother, Avril, had remarked.
He banished his ex-wife from his thoughts. “The girl in the picture was the same age as you when—”
“Her father painted it,” Bella filled in. “And her name was Daisy.”
“Sorry,” Nick said. “I forgot I’d already told you.”
“About a hundred and fifty times.”
“I’ve told you about two hundred and fifty times not to exaggerate,” Nick said, straight-faced. “And her name is Daisy.”
Bella looked at him.
“She’s still alive and kicking,” he said. “So her name is Daisy.”
“Well, it’s a very old-fashioned name,” Bella said, as though that justified using the past tense. “It’s like a name from a fairy story…. Or of somebody’s dotty old auntie.”
“Actually, she’s probably just a year or two younger than me.” He drank some water, and set his glass down. “Which I suppose in your books makes her an old crone.”
The glimmer of a smile broke across his daughter’s face. He watched her fight it. He’d angered her and, as far as she was concerned, done nothing to warrant her forgiveness. She desperately wanted to go to Laguna with him even though he and her mother, for once in agreement, had explained all the reasons why it wasn’t feasible. Nick suspected that she still thought he’d ultimately relent.
Having given up any pretense of eating her chicken, she was now watching him intently as if for a clue to his final decision.
“Stop it,” he said. “I know exactly what you’re doing and it’s not working.”
Her eyes widened. “What am I doing?”
“You’re trying to make me feel guilty.”
“No one can make you feel guilty.” Her voice sounded eerily like her mother’s. “Only you can do that.”
He regarded her with something close to wonder. How could a child almost a quarter his age sound so much like the parent? Still, she had a point. Of all the emotions he felt as a father, guilt was uppermost—he constantly berated himself for not spending enough time with her, for putting his work first, for not always being attentive when he was with her. Ironic, considering he’d been taken with Truman’s portrait as much for what it suggested about the man as a father as for his skills as an artist.
For a while he’d been almost obsessed with Truman, attributing to the artist all the fatherly qualities he himself seemed to lack. And then one of the ex-wives, now dead, had written a memoir portraying Truman as a bitter, angst-ridden man who practiced the piano incessantly in case his talent as a visual artist should abandon him, who obsessively hoarded everything from toilet paper rolls and fingernail clippings to cans of food. A man who was apparently incapable of conceding he was wrong about anything.
Truman’s second wife, Amalia, a one-time Portuguese fado singer, had offered a completely different perspective when Nick had reached her by phone. “Franky,” as she called Truman, had all but walked on water. Amalia had appeared on the scene when Daisy was about ten; Nick had found a picture of the three of them in the archives of the weekly Laguna Beach newspaper over a wedding announcement.
The identity of Daisy’s mother was still something of a mystery but one he expected to resolve once he got to the States.
“Daddy?” Bella treated him to her most soulful look. “Please?”
“Bella, I am going to Laguna to work,” Nick said. “I’ll be out interviewing people and, when I’m not doing that, I’ll be writing. There would be nothing for you to do.”
“I could watch television and go to the beach.”
“And the little matter of school?”
“I’ll catch up when I come back. It’s only six weeks.”
“We’ve gone over this so—”
“I hate this chicken.” She glared at him. “I hate this place.”
In a flash, she was up out of the booth, dragging the edge of the cloth in her haste to leave. Silverware and a water glass clattered to the floor. Nick quickly made apologies and paid the bill before going after her.
“Well, Nick, I’m sorry for stating the obvious—” his ex-wife said when he dropped a sullen and uncommunicative Bella off later that night “—but it was your choice to write about an artist who lived halfway across the world. I don’t suppose it occurred to you there might be subjects here in England…just a little closer to home?”
ON HIS FIRST DAY in Laguna, even before he’d unpacked his files and computer, he walked into the village and spent a great deal of money on two cotton dresses, a skirt and three shirts that the shop assistant said would be perfect for a twelve-year-old girl.
IN THE SMALL WAITING ROOM off the emergency department, Daisy Fowler tried to slow her breathing.
Amalia would be fine.
Daisy breathed deeply, sending healing thoughts to Amalia, who had just been wheeled off on a gurney, her head split open and her face the color of parchment.
Slow, deep breaths.
Amalia had called her last week, giddy with excitement. Someone was going to write Frank’s life story. Daisy had also received a letter from the biographer. Same letter, very different reactions. They’d had a huge fight, and Amalia hadn’t spoken to her since.
An hour ago, she’d got a call from the hospital that Amalia had fallen from her dune buggy and was in the emergency room.
