The food is delicious. The best barbecue I’ve ever had. Even the gherkins are a taste sensation. I eat every morsel and lick my fingers and hold my plate out for more to a deliriously happy Paddy. George eats the steak, no carbs, and declares it to be smashing. But his overuse of the word dilutes its genuineness. Daisy demolishes her chicken and I see her wrap a sausage in a napkin and put it in her bag when she thinks no one is looking. I try at one stage to get a group conversation going about Daisy’s charity work. Her next trip is Nepal to help build and repair classrooms damaged by earthquakes. I’m sure Matilda would like to have heard about her building schools but the Happy Nomad is no more interested in talking about her volunteering adventures then Decko is in trying a barbecued banana for dessert.
Fidelma’s chest is burning in the sun. It’s sizzling and starting to bubble with a heat rash. She swiftly leaves with Matilda. I give Matilda a fiver, it’s all I have spare. Decko gives her something too. Paddy of course has a card ready for her, but Daisy and George don’t even notice the guests leave. The party is over but they don’t pick up on the social cue to go. Or even when I say let’s go.
Instead, George blares music from his iPhone and they begin dancing to ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ in their own worlds thinking they’re fun and fabulous, more fun than anyone ever placed on the universe. They look pathetic. Georgie’s boat shoe accidentally kicks the barbecue legs. The barbecue falls over, makes an almighty noise as it clatters to the ground. Mammy gets a dreadful fright, she starts crying. Paddy goes for Mammy, Decko goes for the barbecue, George and Daisy are almost peeing themselves laughing.
George’s boat shoe slips off and he trips over his own feet, falls back, his weight too much for the gate that is already hanging on one hinge, and the door falls inwards, towards Decko who is bent over picking up the barbecue.
I call out but it’s too late. It bashes against his back, he lets out a yell and along with the sound of the gate against the metal barbecue, it sends Mammy into further distress. George and Daisy’s wicked, twisted sense of humour perceives this Laurel-and-Hardy-like scene of devastation to be hilarious.
I look around the mess, the sound of Mammy crying, the sound of George and Daisy laughing uncontrollably, Decko groaning as he attempts to straighten his back, it’s all horrific. Paddy’s face.
Stop, guys, I say, but they don’t hear me. They’re still snorting at what has happened. They’re trying not to, of course, they know it’s wrong, but that only makes them laugh more.
Stop it, I yell at the top of my voice.
Everybody stops doing everything. Daisy and George stop laughing. Mammy stops crying. Decko pauses fixing the barbecue, Paddy stops comforting his mammy. Everyone stares at me.
I think you should both leave now, I say to them, quieter now. More in control.
They look at each other and giggle again but I can see Daisy is changed. Something nasty in her stare.
Freckles, I don’t even know why you brought me here, you said Paddy wasn’t even your friend, she says, eyes wide again.
Paddy’s face. It breaks my heart.
I leave through the hole in the wall where the rotten door was.
On the bus, I try to think of a message of apology to send to Paddy but I’m too embarrassed. There are no words that can fix what happened. He invited me into his world, I brought them into his world. I’m responsible. In my drafts in Instagram I have the photo of me and Daisy against the rustic gate along with the caption: old friends. New beginnings.
I delete it.
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
I do not want to be like her.
I unfollow Daisy.
And I’m back to having one out of five.
Twenty-Three
I drag myself out of bed after pressing the snooze button three times. Pops called me during the night. It was still dark so sometime before 4 a.m. I’m grateful that this time it’s not about the mice in the piano, though he’s not sure if they’re still there because he hasn’t played recently, which worries me. I feel that his music would ground him again but he says he’s had no time. He’s been busy. He rages about another post office being closed.
They’re ripping the heart out of Ireland, he says. Don’t they realise, they’re not just closing down a post office, they’re closing down communities. I’ve joined a group. We’re going on a march. In Dublin. I’ll let you know when. We’ll begin at Trinity College and make our way to Government Buildings, where I’ll demand to speak with the minister. The island’s being decimated, how is this place to attract a hub of new business if we don’t even have a post office. They’d want to fix the Wi-Fi for a start.