Mix Tape – Daniel 26

 

[For back story go here: Story so far and especially the last one.]

[Relevant back story links also within text.]

Daniel was playing some music to calm himself down. That, at least, was the idea. Problem was rather than calming him down it was irritating the hell out of him. Spotify thought it was possible to chill out to music and that was all well and good but when you felt like the world and its ex-wife was against you the last thing you really needed were some light strings playing some pseudo classical nonsense with a huge wedge of echo effect and tinkly bells on. Had Spotify taken one step further and suggested pan pipes the app and device would now be severed from each other and probably stamped upon.

“What have you been teaching Daisy?” he began, with what was possibly not the most diplomatic of openers for a phone call. “The teachers say she’s swearing.”

“Swearing?” said Chrissy. “She got that from you.”

“I don’t…. swear!” Said Daniel, stopping himself from swearing. “I have been studious in not swearing in front of her I made a crib sheet – I say things like shed and bucket. Harmless things.”

Chrissy giggled down the line. “You say shed?” She laughed, “I’d love to hear you say shed.”

“And she’d doing it in French,” said Daniel, pressing his point home.

“Oh. Oh, well, yes maybe that’s a point,” said Chrissy. Although the tone of her voice clearly didn’t imply she thought it was a point any more serious than saying shed or bucket.

The stress of the conversation lulled slightly as the two of them pondered how they might be able to reverse engineer their daughter’s linguistic talents, and whether there were other words they might encourage her to say instead. In French or any other language. Apparently she didn’t do this at the other school she’d been to this year, the one round the corner from Chrissy, but she had been very quiet and kicked up a fuss about whether to go or not every morning. Just one deciding factor in Chrissy letting her go and stay with her father for a bit.

Ultimately they decided Daniel would have to take the lead on taming Daisy’s language and for good measure there would be a video chat with Chrissy in which she would also support the main messages and try to encourage Daisy to take a more friendly approach to those around her.

It felt as though they were about to get out of the conversation just fine but then, almost in closing Chrissy said: “Of course, you’ll soon realise that looking after a child is more than just fun and games. You have to take responsibility too.”

There was a deathly silence across the phone line. And then Daniel asked Chrissy exactly how responsible it was to take a small child out of the country in the middle of a pandemic without asking her father’s permission or indeed telling him that it was going to happen? And precisely where on the responsibility scale was the idea of hiring someone else to go and pack a travel bag because you were too scared to go to your own house and do it yourself? Where did any idea of responsibility fit in that scenario, he wondered?

“You’ve never made things easy,” said Chrissy, “either for yourself or for other people. You have a natural talent for screwing things up and for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Always have. Always will. Why else are you asking my advice now over something you should easily deal with yourself?”

“You really want to have this conversation now?” retorted Daniel. “You don't think you might just be on a small bit of a back foot here or does it always feel like you’re right? My only problem is I’ve never believed you.”

“Still the same old arrogant Daniel,” said Chrissy. “Well, this is the last time I help you out…”

“Help? If this is help then I can well do without it.”

“Don’t worry you will. Unless there’s something that is actually to do with our child and not with your incompetence don’t call me.”

That had been five minutes ago. The chill out music really hadn’t helped since then. To be honest, thought Daniel, chill out music is the work of the devil. It just tries to make you ignore the truth of everything around you. Don’t worry about this or that, just chill, it’ll be OK. Yeah right. Stuff that and stick your pan pipes.

Daniel really just wanted to scream at it all, so he flicked on ‘War’ by Idles and jumped around the kitchen. Later he would make a very shouty playlist for himself called ‘Now That’s What I Call Lockdown 2’. He wouldn’t play it that often and he certainly wouldn’t share it with anyone else, but it would make him feel better just knowing that it was there.