I’m about to input the information into my ticket machine when a sudden chafing sound behind me gives me a fright.
There you are, says Paddy, breathless.
Jesus, Paddy, I jump, startled, heart pounding at feeling caught. It was his protective rain gear, the sound of the fabric as his thighs brushed against each other.
He looks at the car and whistles. He walks up and down beside it, looking in the windows nosily. A Lamborghini, is it, he practically presses his face up against the glass, hands shielding the light, leaving fingerprints and breath marks on the clean window.
Ferrari, I correct him, uncomfortably, looking up at the building. I see a figure at the window, great big curly blond hair on his head. He looks out at us and then disappears. Terrific, the lookout tower has given me away. I need to be quick.
Did you not get my message, Paddy asks, face still nosily pushed up against the driver window. I texted you last night saying I’d take this zone today.
No I didn’t, I say, distracted.
Another person has come to the window, two young guys now. They look like they’re in a boy band. None of them my Ferrari fella.
I’ll take over here, Paddy says.
No, I’ve got this, I say abruptly. I log the location, the zone, FCM, and the offence. I take a photo. I issue the ticket. Paddy’s talking but I’m not listening to a word he says. I’m conscious of hearing a door open from the building beside me.
Hey, a guy calls.
I don’t look up, I pull the ticket from the machine, wrap it in plastic to protect it from the rain and elements. My fingers are shaking as I do it, my heart is pounding, Paddy is oblivious to it all. I place it under the windscreen wipers and actually step away, feeling breathless, slightly dizzy. Done.
What’s going on, the fella from yesterday asks.
Paddy looks at me.
No pay and display, unfortunately, I say politely but firmly.
I’ve been here since six o’clock this morning, it’s free parking, I don’t need a ticket until nine. I’ve got ten minutes, he says, looking at me as if I’m a piece of shit on his wanker Prada trainer.
I point at the signage. Pay and display begins at eight in this zone. I feel the quiver in my voice and it surprises me. This whole thing has the adrenaline pumping around my body. I put the ticket machine strap over my shoulder like it’s my gun in its holster.
He stares at me. He’s wearing the red cap. The Ferrari one. It’s down low, like I wear mine and his eyes are barely visible but I can see them enough to know they’re filled with utter hatred. It’s difficult to hate a person you don’t know, but I can feel it emanating from him to me. I swallow.
This is some car you have here, Paddy says lightly. Whose is it.
I look at Paddy, surprised.
It’s mine, the guy snaps. Why else would I be standing here asking about the parking fine.
Excuse me, Paddy says offended and all sensitive, fixing his cap. Thought it was your boss’s. He looks past him to the building.
I am the boss, the guy says, and there it is, that privileged white male whine that I deplore so very much. Poor little rich guy got a parking fine because he couldn’t bother to check the rules and put a euro in the parking meter. Now the whole world is out to get him. Boo fucking hoo. It’s probably the worst thing that will ever happen in his week.
He lifts the wiper and grabs the ticket. He lets go of the wiper and it smacks against the glass. He glances at it briefly but he doesn’t need to read it to know what it says exactly, he already received two just like it on Friday a few hours apart, and one every other day for the past two weeks.
Have you a vendetta against me, he asks.
I shake my head, no vendetta, I say, just doing my job.
What’s your problem, he asks again, more angry, as if he didn’t hear my answer. He steps closer to me. Shoulders square and wide. I’m tall but he’s taller.
I don’t have a problem, I say, sidestepping the situation now, I don’t like it. It’s too tense, he’s too angry and his aggression levels are rising. I should move but I can’t. I’m stuck, frozen on the spot.
You power-tripping fucking wannabe garda, he growls suddenly.
I look at him in surprise. Part of that sentence is correct.
Now now, Paddy says. Come now, Allegra.
But I’m stuck where I’m standing. This is like a road accident, I must slow down to see clearly, all the grotesque details that my mind doesn’t need to see. The blood and guts. I’ve trained for this moment, for the moment someone gets aggressive. A week of intensive training on the meanings of kerbside stripes and squiggles and also on conflict management. I’m supposed to stand side-on and be prepared to walk away but my training goes out the window. I’m stuck to the spot, head-on, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights. Waiting for more.
They say you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, he says, glaring at me, nostrils flaring like a wolf. Doesn’t say a lot about the company you keep, does it. That’s one, he points in Paddy’s direction. I wonder who the other four losers are in your life.
He slides the parking ticket from the plastic slip and proceeds to rip it up into pieces. They flutter to the ground, a confetti storm. He takes the steps in twos back into his office and slams the door.
My heart is pounding. It’s in my actual ears. Like there’s been an explosion and my ears are ringing.
Jesus Christ, Paddy says, giving a wheezy nervous laugh and moving to me as quickly as his chafing legs will allow him. The inner legs of his trousers have risen to the line of his socks and are all bunched and gathered around his crotch.
I look at the bits of paper on the ground. The parking fine in smithereens.
It takes a while for the blood to rush out of my head and back around my body, for my heartbeat to calm, for the panicky feeling to subside, and when it does my body is left shaking.
She’s still standing out there, I hear somebody say loudly, followed with a laugh. A mocking laugh. It has drifted out of a window from the office where a few of them have gathered to watch me, smiles on their faces. The two familiar lads and a few new faces. When I look at them, they disperse.
I’m going to avoid this terrace for the time being, Paddy says. You take St Margaret’s and everything west. Okay, he asks, when I don’t respond.
I nod.
I wouldn’t let him get away with that, Paddy says, or he’ll think he can rip up every fine he gets and he won’t have to pay, but we’ll leave it for the time being. Let him cool down. I’ll come back later and check on it. I’ll ticket him if he hasn’t learned his lesson.
I still can’t move my feet. My legs are shaking.
You didn’t take him to heart did you, he asks, watching me.
No, I finally speak, and it comes out all croaky and choked. I didn’t even know what he was talking about.
And that’s true.
When he was saying it, none of it made sense. Just a bunch of angry words too ridiculous and drawn out to be an insult. But that’s why I had to think about it more, I had to re-hear his words over and over in my head for the rest of the day, and well into the night, to make sense of them.
His insult was like a song that you don’t like when you hear it first, but grows on you the more you hear it. It’s an insult that didn’t really hurt the first time I heard it. The words were too complicated to be powerful. Not an easy F you. But the more I hear his words, the more they grow on me. And they hurt more each time. Like the wooden horse of Troy, his words innocently passed through my boundaries, and then bam, deceived, all the troops jumped out, hitting me hard, one after the other, spearing me again and again and again.