Freckles(31)

No not that, please, I say with a wince, still feeling it in my head. I bought red wine.

He examines the label and searches a drawer for a bottle-opener.

It’s a twist cap, I say. Then, I don’t know. I mean, I did know. But now I’m not so sure. I pour the juices from the tray into the pot of gravy and stir.

Probably why it’s at you, so. Let me have a go at guessing, he says, sitting down. Pouring the wine and sipping. Marion of course. Jamie, even though … Cyclops, Pauline and, maybe me.

He asks that with such hope I want to squeeze him to death in a hug but I’m carrying the gravy. Absolutely you, I say. You are my one sure thing. I place the gravy down on the table. We sit.

Allegra, this is delicious. He raises his hands in the air ceremoniously. And I’m glad he’s back to being him again. So how did I do, with your five.

Bang on.

Do I win a prize.

Jamie and Marion are having a baby, I say.

Together, he asks.

I nod but I don’t look at him. I might cry if I do.

Ah well. Would have been a shocking coincidence if not.

I slice the lamb, the buttery potato, scoop the mint peas on to my fork. I haven’t heard from Cyclops since I left this island, I say, before putting it all into my mouth.

I see him driving around in a van with a speaker on the top, dressed as a monster, Pops says.

Chewbacca, I say with a hollow laugh. DJ Chewy. From Star Wars. He takes people out on a boat to Skellig Rock dressed as Chewy so they can see the Jedi hideaway.

More of that Star Wars nonsense.

It’s giving people work. Bringing tourists. We need them.

It’s turning us into Disney World is what it’s doing. We’ll have a McDonald’s before you know it.

What does it matter if they’re here for puffins or Star Wars.

He grunts a nothing response.

I’ve fallen out of touch with Pauline, I say. She visited me in Dublin twice, but only for the day and we barely had time to do anything before she was going back to the train station.

She’s keeping her distance, I suppose, letting you get on with it.

She hasn’t called me since she visited. We haven’t texted each other.

Takes two to tango, he says. What about in Dublin, he says.

I push my food around the plate, because I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and a lump in my throat and I feel like I’m going to cry at the realisation that I don’t have five people, not in Dublin and not here. I could have pretended in Dublin, that they were still mine and I was trying to despite the niggling, but here it’s obvious. That’s why the phrase hurt me. Because some deep primal instinct inside of me knew, faster than my head did, that I don’t have five people.

It’s clearing up now, he says, looking outside, changing the subject.

Yeah.

Turning out to be a nice day.

I clear my throat. There was a marathon on this morning. A 10k, to Chapeltown and loops around.

Pops looks out at the weather as if imagining the journey for the poor sods, then spears a potato, runs it around the peas trying to pick up the mint sauce and puts the entire thing into his mouth. It’s a baby potato, he has a big mouth.

Delicious dinner, Allegra, thank you, he says as soon as he’s swallowed it.

You’re welcome. Happy Easter, Pops, I say, feeling happy and sad at the same time. Devastated not to have five people. Elated and feeling blessed to have one.

Happy Easter, he says with a grin, whatever that means.

We clink our wine glasses together.

Gerry told me your car hasn’t been working for weeks.

You met Gerry.

This morning.

In town, he asks.

He was home.

Pops fishes through the sea of gravy with his fork for a clove of roasted garlic, squeezes it out of its skin and eats it whole.

You went to see Marion, he asks, licking his greasy fingers.

I went to see Gerry.

What did he say.

That your car has been out of action for weeks. Maybe months.

He keeps eating.

You haven’t been going to work, I say.

I’m retired.

Semi. You’re the busiest retired person I’ve ever met.

You’re too young to know retired people.

The music school, the funerals, the Mass, the choir. You haven’t been working for months, Pops.

He bangs his knife and fork down against the plate and it gives me a fright.

I hold my breath.

You can’t look at a woman sideways without being labelled a pervert.

My heart is pounding. What happened, I ask.

Nothing! That’s the point!

Something happened or you wouldn’t have lost your job.

That’s what Gerry told you, is it. Well he’s wrong. He can have his bloody mousetraps back because, like him, they’re faulty. He thumps his thick closed fist down on the table, rattling the cutlery and tableware. I didn’t lose the job, he says. I talked with Father David and it was discussed between us that I go of my own accord. I was not fired.

I look at this man. This fading man. His spritely joie de vivre gone. Slithering down his face and off his bones like his skin. He catches his breath then sits back in his chair.

Majella, he says. She works in the church. Office administrator. Lets me know the funeral times, the songs the families favour. We always got along well. Always had a joke and a laugh, he says, while I try to hide my horror at what might come next. I asked her if she’d like to come over and try my home brew – this is a few months back, you’d been gone a few weeks, and it would have been nice to have the company. It’s just as well she didn’t because the early stuff was bad, even worse than it is now – and she said no, and then I leave it at that and the next day I’m preparing for the funeral, no sign of Majella, and Father David tells me to come in to his office for a chat and he says to me that Majella is very upset. And there you have it.