Freckles(60)

Her eyes light up. I love barbecues.

And that’s how it happens.

I’m grateful Becky and the kids have gone out, I don’t need to hang my head in shame again as I exit.

Wow, Daisy says as we near the house, she leaves the path that I’m supposed to stay on for the privacy of the family, and moves closer to the house.

Don’t, you’ll set the alarm off, I say quickly.

She hears me but she keeps walking.

Daisy, I grab her arm and pull her back. They have an alarm set, sensors all around the house, I say. If you pass them, you’ll set off the alarm.

She laughs. I bet they’ve made it up.

It’s true, I say. It’s linked to a security company who alert the guards. Come on.

The guards, she laughs. You’re making that up.

I’m not.

She looks at the house as if it’s tempting her. She looks at it like a little child who’s just been told they can’t do something and they’re going to do it anyway. I watch her, that intense face, the selfish gaze of wanting what she wants because she wants it, because I said she couldn’t. All wrapped up in this ethereal-looking thing, in last night’s clothes that look fresh as, well, a Daisy.

Girls like her get away with murder.

She steps in front of the sensor. And the alarm instantly wails.

It’s the wide-eyed innocent whoops that makes me want to throw a whisk at her tits.

I don’t hang around for the guards to arrive. I text Paddy to see if it’s okay for me to bring a friend and he replies the more the merrier with two lines of food emojis. We stop at a shop on the way to get a present, it’s a fancy shop where they do expensive gourmet foods. Daisy trails along, tiredly, as I browse the shelves.

He loves marinades, I say to her, he’d marinade something for a year if he could. That and simmering. I think he simmered a lasagne for twenty-four hours. He loves food, he doesn’t stop talking about food and how he cooks it.

Do I sense a little … She raises her eyebrows suggestively.

God no, it’s Paddy, I laugh. Wait till you see him. I work with him. We’re not even friends.

I spend a bit more than I was planning to on the marinades. On behalf of me and Daisy, seeing as she doesn’t buy anything for him. I’ve never been to Paddy’s home. I’ve tried to imagine it a few times, what it would look like but other than his love of food, I don’t know very much about his life. As a blow-in to Dublin, Paddy proudly tells me all about where he’s from. The Liberties is a city neighbourhood. It’s the heart of the city, he’d say. On my first few weekends here I took his advice and explored the areas he told me to and he was right, the heart of the Liberties is the heart of Dublin’s history; art, political, religious, military history. And as Paddy says, full of the most down to earth, salt of the earth, honest to goodness, funniest people you’ll ever meet. He’d never leave it because he’d miss it something terrible.

We arrive at a ground-floor flat of a four-storey block of 1940s council flats. The flat next door has been boarded up, with smoke stains around the walls.

The last barbecue didn’t go so well, Paddy jokes when we arrive and takes the marinades with absolute glee.

The weather is balmy, it’s sunny and it’s perfect barbecue weather. We’re not the only ones with the idea, I can smell barbecues from every direction of the city. The flat has a small paved square yard, that proves to be a baking tin for the heat. A gate leads to an alleyway that runs behind the back yards. Kids play football, the gate rattles and bangs as the football occasionally hits against it. The gate’s rusted hinges are off and it needs a sand and repaint. Daisy takes a bottle of beer and leans against the splintered wood. She makes it look like a cool rustic location shoot, reclaimed wood is all the rage, and asks me for a photo. I’m fixing my hair, bringing it over one shoulder just as she’s done when she hands her phone to me and I realise she wants me to take the photo of her.

Paddy notices and takes the phone from me, pushes me in beside her and I awkwardly pose against the door, beside her, wondering how she manages to hide the fact that the rusted hinges hot from the sun are searing into her skin as it is with mine. She examines the photo, with a grimace.

Paddy has set up a small BBQ covered by a golf umbrella, which is dangerously balanced between two TK Red lemonade bottles.

It’s just us and Paddy.

Is anyone else coming, Daisy asks me.

My best pal Decko is in the loo, Paddy answers. Mammy is coming. Out for the day. And I invited Fidelma, he says, moving the sausages on the grill. She works with us. She’ll drop by later.

I’ve never seen Paddy out of his work uniform. He’s wearing a Dublin football jersey, a size too small and that’s being kind, with a sweat patch across his back and under his moobs. His glasses steam up over the barbecue and sweat drips down his face. His sandals are Birkenstock. I’m afraid to look at his toes. There’s no shade in this space, only the sizzling meat has the benefit of the umbrella’s shade.

Decko steps outside, head down, eyes on the ground, hands in his pockets then out again, then in again, then scratches his face, then his head. Fidgety, nervous. Paddy introduces us and he nods, howya, barely able to look us in the eye. Not rude, but achingly shy. I try making small talk with him, and he’s nice, he warms up a little, but Daisy is just achingly rude.