Freckles(57)

She dips her head behind the screen, and gives me a once-over and asks if I’m ready.

I nod.

The session passes by surprisingly fast as I think about the conversation Daisy and I can have, which parts of me and my life I’ll tell her and which parts I’ll edit, and before I know it I’ve been captured … pensive, is the word I’d give their overall depictions of me. One is quite forlorn, I look lost in a whirlpool of pencil, and a man who has given me a sympathetic stare throughout has drawn my scars as deep incisions, battle wounds, raw.

I arrive at the restaurant early so that I can settle myself and my nerves, but Daisy is there already. Oh my God, Freckles, look at you! She stands up and opens her arms wide and gives me the tightest hug. She smells flowery and sweet. Her arms jangle with layers of delicate bangles, one with a star, one with a moon, one with the sun, one with a flower. She steps back and takes me in. You look amazing, your hair … She reaches out to touch it gently. Wow. It’s been way too long, can you believe it’s been almost seven years since we left. So good to see you, I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to, let’s sit, do you want a drink, I ordered tap water, the food here is delish, have you been here before.

No, never, are my first words as I sit down and she waves for the waiter. A pretty smile, a delicate movement of her hand. Can we get another glass for the table, it’s missing, thank you, here’s the wine menu, she offers it to me.

I wonder if I should drink even though she doesn’t. I order a glass of Cava and Daisy tells the waiter to bring a bottle.

We get down to the fine art of studying the menu before we begin the conversation. I order Manchego cheese with honey and traditional Barcelona spicy meatball with alioli sauce. She orders chorizo in white wine, prawns with garlic, chilli and olive oil, mussels with house marinara sauce and I lose track there as she signals for more throughout the meal.

We do the usual expected chat, talking about the big characters from school, who we’ve kept in contact with and who we’ve seen or heard about, what everyone’s up to. There’s no break in the conversation, I don’t know what I had to worry about.

So enough about everybody else, Freckles, she says, what have you been up to. When did you move to Dublin.

I moved to Dublin five months ago, I say. I just got the urge for a change. I’m working for Fingal County Council as a parking warden and really love the job.

This part of my life I’m proud of. I love my job.

Wow. A parking warden. She says, then her eyes run over me quickly and I’d love to know what she’s thinking. Didn’t you always want to be …

Detective Freckles, yes. We laugh. And you always wanted peace and equality in the world, I say.

Ha yes, she nods, and in real life that means building. I work with Brick-by-Brick, an international human rights organisation that focuses on building and rebuilding homes, schools, care centres, sanitation facilities and community buildings in developing countries. So I’ve gone from wanting peace and equality to making bricks, plastering and painting. She tenses her tiny little biceps in her arms. I can’t imagine her doing any of that.

That’s amazing, I say in awe. I spend my days distributing parking tickets.

All self-effacing, it’s no big deal, she wants to move on.

What an amazing job you have, I say, hating how much of a sycophant I sound but genuinely meaning it. Visiting somewhere different all the time. Seeing the world, helping people.

They are all things that I’d hate but that’s the point of the five people theory, isn’t it, they’re supposed to rub off on you in some way. I have Pops for honesty and for grounding me, he’s not a yes-man, and Daisy can be my source of inspiration, my person who can give me aspirational thoughts about being better than I am. It’s happening already. I mean, I don’t want to move to a developing country to build a school, but I’d like to think that I could find it in me to want to help communities fighting poverty and disaster. I could be that person.

Georgie, she says happily, all of a sudden.

A guy who has just walked in pulls a chair from the table next to ours, gives Daisy a kiss on the cheek, and sits beside us.

I’m with these guys, he says to the waiter in a posh Dublin accent. She asks if he’d like to see a menu and he says uh no thanks. I’m fine with the wine. He takes a wine glass from the empty table beside us and places it down beside him. Hi, he gives me a big smile, whiter than white teeth. Tanned skin. Smooth skin. Heavily moisturised. Shiny. I’m George. Friend of Daisy’s. He holds out his hand.

Georgie this is Freckles, Freckles this is Georgie.

Nice to meet you, I say.

Nice to meet you, he imitates my accent. A bad posh Dublin version of a Kerry accent. He makes me sound like Darby O’Gill. He laughs and drains his glass.

I hate him instantly. He oozes asshole.

Take a photo of us for Insta, she says, thrusting her phone at him and coming round my side of the table. She pushes her head close to mine, I feel her forehead against mine. Higher up, she tells him, and he stands and points it down at us at what feels like an unnatural angle so that I feel like I’m straining my eyes and looking up through my eyelids. I feel awkward, not sure if she’s smiling big or not at all, I want to look at her to check but don’t. I’m not sure what I settle on, but if I was to be painted, uncertainty would be the air.