Freckles(50)

I’m glad you ripped up the letter to her, he says. I don’t know what you wrote but that won’t have been the best way to get her – you’ll never know if she opened it or if it was delivered, too many variables. So your hangover is not in vain. But I see what you were doing, you can’t just rock up to the salon and say, Hey, I’m your daughter. Okay, he drums his fingers on his Prada trainers, what’s the best way for us to do this.

I smile at the use of us.

He examines me, our faces are so close.

Do you look like her, he asks, and it’s as if he’s scanning me for comparisons to her as his eyes run over me. I feel goosebumps rise on my skin under his gaze. Do you not think she’d guess who you are, he asks. I’ve seen her a few times. I mean, you look Spanish. And your age.

I’m silent.

Say it, he says.

How do you know I’ve something to say, I ask in surprise.

When do you never have something to say, he says.

Okay. Some people see themselves in other people, how they’re similar, and some people only ever see their differences. I feel like she’s the type not to see herself in me. But because of that I thought she’d know me straight away. Because when I look at myself, I don’t see her, I see my Pops’ freckles.

Rooster babe, the door bursts open and Jazz rushes in. Hey, she looks at him and me on the couch, heads close, lips even closer, not actually doing anything but it doesn’t look good. We’re having an intimate chat about how I approach my long-lost mother, there’s bound to be a mood. I couldn’t give a fuck, especially as she has just called him babe and it’s a confirmation they’re together, which is so predictable and annoying. She’s shit at her job but she’s hot. Why else would she be here. He sits forward, as if he’s been caught doing something. He’s made it look worse than it is.

I was just showing Allegra the new wreckage game, he says nervously, nodding at the paused screen, eagerly, gently. It’s pathetic.

She looks at me. I smile. I like it, I say. It’ll be better when the organs fall out of the bodies and self-combust though.

He actually sniffs a laugh because he didn’t mention anything about exploding organs.

So … Katie and Gordo are getting married, she says, eyes wide. Getting fucking married. She sits down on the footstool in front of him, long shiny legs straddling his. And guess where the wedding is.

I don’t know.

Rooster, guess.

She’s from Kells, isn’t she, so—

Ibiza baby, she says, doing an excited little jiggle, her mouth open in a silent cheer. It’s gross and I have to leave now.

Thanks for the tour, Tristan, I say, standing up.

Tristan, Jazz says in a sneering way. No one calls him that. Only his mother.

Well she’d know, wouldn’t she, I say easily, and Rooster is a big boy now, so he gets a big-boy name. I look at him. Remember to tell Jazz about her nail appointment being changed. I pick up the brown envelope that he’s unknowingly carried from room to room since he took the message downstairs. And uh-oh, don’t forget to mail this. I drop it on the table.

Tristan peeks in the top and slides the paperwork out. It’s the parking permit form. Jazz, he says with a sigh.

I’ll see myself out, I say.

Cool. Don’t forget your high-vis jacket, Jazz says.

What a fucking day.

I’ve never been so pleased to see Paddy as I am at the end of the work day when he pulls over at the bus stop opposite the church on Main Street.

Hop in. What happened here, he says, looking out all of his windows, concerned.

The gathering crowd stare at me as I get into the car.

They look angry, Allegra.

They are angry, Paddy.

What did you do.

I sigh. A fella pulled into the bus stop. I issued him a ticket. He’d been there four minutes with his hazards on.

That was decent of you.

I thought so, I say. But I don’t think Paddy really does think it was decent. He’s the kind of guy that trawls cafés and shops, looking for parking offenders to let them know they’re out of time rather than give them a ticket. Paddy’s a popular character around the village. They hate it when they’re stuck with me, and I don’t care.

There’s no grace period with that malarky, he says. You did the right thing. What was his excuse.

He’d pulled over to help an old woman who’d fallen, I say.

He snorts. Pull the other one.

That was actually true.

He looks at me in surprise. And you gave him the ticket, he asks.

Paddy you were my supervisor, you trained me yourself and you were the one who said, Without mercy; we’re paid to be impartial upholders of rules. We want to make sure traffic is flowing and drivers are doing the right thing, we want to make sure everything is perfect, not be distracted by sympathy.

Yeah, I know, I know, he says quietly.

People would miss us and there’d be chaos on the roads … I repeat everything he taught me. The guy went apeshit, I told him to appeal it, that’s what the appeal system is for. I was only doing my job.

He’s silent and I feel his judgement.

I issued loads of tickets today. Did you, I ask. All along the estuary. You’d swear everyone thought it was a Sunday. Everyone wants something for free.

Paddy’s silent, thoughtful. Did you check to see if the pay and display machine was working, he asks.