Freckles(26)

From who.

My cousin Stephanie. She recognised your dad when he was picking you up from the station a few weeks ago. She said, That’s Mr Bird, he’s a perv. He slept with a girl in my class. Bird the perv. They had a song. Bird Bird Bird, Bird is the perv.

My heart hammers. I ready myself. But she just stops talking. Go on, I say.

Well that’s it. He was a teacher, she was a student. That’s gross. They were out one night in a pub and other lecturers and professors were there, and him and her got talking and when my cousin was leaving her friend wouldn’t go with her, so they figured she was in safe hands and left her. Anyway they slept together. She told my cousin after that she totally regretted it. Then no one heard from her for months before the finals, she just disappeared. That’s all I know, she says with a shrug.

Do you know where the student is now, I ask.

How the hell would I know.

I mean, is your cousin still friends with her.

No it was, like, a million years ago, Freckles. Before you were born, not last weekend. Don’t freak out about it.

She hasn’t put two and two together. That Carmencita is my mother. That the Spanish-sounding name matches my Spanish-looking skin, my Spanish hair. But all she sees is the freckles that match my Pops.

And it wasn’t Limerick University, she adds, it was in Dublin. Stephanie was in college with her there. She says he shouldn’t be allowed to teach in Limerick. That she should do something about it. It’s like the priests, they all get moved around to different places. Look, it’s all I know, okay.

The train pulls into the station and she stands up, cocky again. Puts her bag on her back. You can think whatever you want, but my cousin isn’t a liar. Your Pops is a perv teacher who slept with a student, which is frankly totally gross but whatever. You’ll get me back on the team now. I told you what you wanted.

I follow her off the train, and out through the station. Pops usually waits outside in the car, but this time he’s in the station, at a vending machine.

Ah Allegra, there you are my love, and who is this.

I didn’t know Katie had stopped beside me and she’s staring at him like he’s a disgusting piece of filth, all the twisted hatred back in her previously scared little shit face. I hate her.

This is Katie. From school.

Nice to meet you Katie from school, Pops says with a chuckle.

Katie gives him a look as though he’s the most disgusting thing she’s ever seen and she hurries away as quickly as she can.

Interesting girl, did I say something wrong, he asks as he watches her leave, then turns his attention back to the vending machine. I watch him as he puts the coins in the slot, carefully counting them out, enters the number. I watch his fingers, his hands, the hands that Katie thinks are disgusting, the hands that reared me and that I see move over the piano keys and cello so beautifully.

She’s not my friend I say finally.

Pops looks at me over the rim of his glasses, concerned.

Is that so, well then consider her disinvited to any future gatherings. Here, I got you salt and vinegar Pringles for the car, you better share them with me.

He kisses me on the top of my head and wraps his arm around my shoulder, guides me to the car.

Katie told me nothing that I didn’t already know. I knew Pops was a lecturer at the university and I knew my mam was a student. We discuss everything openly in our household. He wasn’t her teacher though, but I didn’t bother saying that. I don’t think it would have made a difference. I also know he’s no pervert but the surprising thing that I learned in all of this was about myself.

I had wanted to find out where my mam is.

Pops and I have been sitting in the TV room all afternoon since the mice incident. He hasn’t budged once. I cleaned the mud off the floor and then joined him. He’s watching nature documentaries, a constant stream of one after the other. It’s what I was looking forward to, chilling out with easy company but after the welcoming scene, I’m not chilled. I’m tense. I’m watching him. Maybe he’s spent too much time alone. Maybe this is what happens to a person when they’re isolated for so long. Three months since I’ve visited but still, he has his work, his colleagues.

I think I’ll have a drink, I say finally, keeping an eye on the clock until it turns 5 p.m. An acceptable hour to start drinking.

He perks up. Time for a home brew.

I wasn’t thinking of tea, Pops. I need something stronger.

Oh no, it’s not a tea. It’s much better brew than that. It’s in the hot press, he jumps up, divilment in his eyes.

The hot press, I ask. Oh God what now.

He pulls open the storage space, and there on the slatted shelving built around the hot water system, among his towels and clothes that are drying, are large plastic buckets and the pungent smell of alcohol and gone-off cheese.

There it is, my own barrel of beer, he says, lifting a bucket out. It’s been bubbling away in here for a few weeks.

I look inside. Sugar, soapy beer fermented in a plastic bucket among the bedlinen, towels and underwear, heat, gases and liquid.

We sit in the conservatory in the back of the house, drinking the beer, watching the land, feeling calmed by the glimpse of cows and sheep in the farmland behind.

I can’t believe you’re brewing beer in your hot press, I say, giggling, taking a sip. It tastes rancid. Like dirty socks and melting plastic.