Freckles(70)

But why, what for. I’ve been with you since the start, you trained me in, you were, are my support on the road. Would they move us somewhere else together.

No. We’ll be split. It’s to prevent boredom and over-familiarisation. Maybe it’s a good thing, Allegra. For you. I don’t know what’s going on around Malahide, and frankly I don’t want to, but maybe a change of scenery is what you need.

I end the call, the tears welling in my eyes. I can’t be moved. I can’t leave Malahide. I haven’t achieved what I’ve come here to do yet. I’ve lost more people than even I knew I had and now I’ve hurt poor Paddy, the sweetest and kindest of them all.

Feeling low, I try to cancel this evening’s art session. I can’t go back there thinking at any stage Donnacha could walk in. I’m sure there’s someone else that Genevieve can ask. I’m sure there are people lining up to pose nude, waiting for their lucky break, but when I hear her disappointment I somehow manage to be drawn back in. They have a full class today and she’ll pay me more. I hear Becky, Donnacha and the kids out in the garden having a barbecue and I give in and agree to go to the gallery. It will be better to be away from here.

It’s a stunning evening, I imagine what it would be like at home, the sun over the Skelligs, the pop of yellow of the birds-foot-trefoil to the landscape, blackberry brambles lining the roads. I close my eyes and imagine breathing it all in. The screams and shouts from the kids outside bring me back. Cillín is in his full princess dress, the princess from Brave with an impressive Scottish accent, and heels. He’s climbing up ladders and jumping down fireman’s poles and neither the dress nor the shoes hinder him.

I keep my head down as I walk through the secret garden and exit their garden. Past his Range Rover and her Mercedes, neatly parked, gleaming in the sun. I walk to the bus stop and get on the number 42, upstairs and to the front row. I love to see over the walls and trees, into gardens and homes that are hidden from pedestrians. As the bus sways and rocks, I start to calm down and pick over the carcass that is my life.

I take out my gold notebook and pull the lid off my pen with my teeth and start writing a letter to Katie Taylor. A reminder that I’m here and that she hasn’t responded. The nib hovers over the paper, occasionally bumps against the page from the moving bus and the blue ink is dissolved by the page. A series of mistaken dots, but no letters, no words, no sentences come.

My heart isn’t in it. Katie didn’t reply to me because Katie doesn’t know me. I’m a stranger looking for connection, what’s in it for her. The same for Amal and Ruth. It hasn’t worked well for me when I tried to make new friends. Certainly not with Daisy, and Garda Laura thinks I break into houses. I’m getting something wrong here. I’m going about it the wrong way.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

I may not have friends here, but who do I actually spend the most time with.

I remember what Tristan said at the beginning, if you look outside of your family there are other influential people in your life who are having an effect on you that you possibly haven’t considered. Perhaps the people you spend the most time with are the people you don’t see. Look at what you’ve got and not what you don’t have.

I look down at my dotted blank page. Dots. Dot to dot.

I don’t want to write a list any more. This has always felt like a puzzle to me, a game of join the dots and so I draw the constellation Cassiopeia, the five-star constellation. In the shape of a w. Beside them I write a name along with my reason for the choice:

Pops



No denying that. I draw a line connecting him to:

Spanner



I see him every day. I know more about his personal life than anyone else’s here in Dublin and actually he knows just as much about mine. I connect the dot to:

Paddy



My work colleague. But I should have seen him as a friend. I link him to:

Tristan



Whether I like it or not. He started this chain of change in me. I stick the nib in the circle, and I slowly pull the pen to the next dot. The fifth. Then I stop. Nothing. And I want to cry.

I push the door open to Monty’s Gallery. I don’t even look up at Jasper. I trudge up the wonky stairs that creak and move beneath me, feeling heavy and uncertain of how to do this.

Hi Allegra, Genevieve sings.

Hi, I say quietly, going straight to the changing screen. I sit down and undo the laces of my boots.

Mind if I join you, she asks, head popping in through the side.

Yeah.

She disappears and there’s nothing. I frown and look around. Her head pops up at the top.

You sure, she asks.

Yes, I smile.

She disappears again. Silent. Pops back up in another direction.

Because you seem kind of down.

I laugh.

She disappears again. Popping up from another corner. That’s better, she says, of my smile. Thanks for being here. I’m sorry I bullied you into coming in.

You didn’t bully me. You guilt-tripped me.

I pull off my boot and drop it to the floor with a thud.

Bad day at work, she asks. I hope that guy with the flashy car isn’t bothering you again.

No not him. It’s not work. I took the day off, I say, and I hear the wobble in my voice.

Are you okay, honey.