The ground floor that faces me is almost entirely glass. Floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that open up like they’re a brasserie in the summertime. Bring the outside in, bring the inside out. You don’t know which is the house and which is the garden and then you shake it all about. That kind of designer waffle. I can see into every room. It’s like an advertisement for Dyson. White circular futuristic-looking things in each room, either sucking in or pushing air out. What the window wall really does to the house now is reveal the mayhem in the kitchen as Becky rushes around trying to get the three children ready for school before she drives to work, somewhere in the city I think. I call her Goop, to myself. You know, one of those women that has kale and avocados on their weekly shop. Sneezes chia seeds and poops pomegranates.
They feel sorry for me, them in their sprawling mansion, me living in one room above a gym. In their back garden. Wearing a high-vis vest and a lightweight operational safety shoe. I let them feel that. My room is stylish, it’s clean and warm and I’d have to pay the same amount of rent just to share a space with three others anywhere else. They would have to lose everything to ever find themselves in my position. That’s the way they see it. For me, I kind of left everything behind to gain this. That’s the way I see it.
I’m not lonely. Not all the time. And I’m not free. Not all the time. I look after Pops. Doing that from two hundred and fifty miles away isn’t always easy but I chose to live here, this distance from him, so that I can be closer to him.
Three
I try not to look into the kitchen as I pass but Becky lets out an almighty roar for everyone to hurry the fuck up and impulsively I glance inside and see the kitchen island covered in milk and juice cartons, cereal boxes, lunch boxes, the makings of lunches, children in various states of dress, cartoons blaring on the TV. Becky’s not dressed yet, unusual for her; she’s in pyjama shorts and a vest with lace trimmings, no bra, her boobs low and swaying. She’s lean though, she works out from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. most mornings in the gym below my bedroom. She’s one of those women that women’s magazines talk about. The lean-in woman. When I hear that phrase I picture Michael Jackson doing that tilted dance move. Gravity-defying. Then you hear his feet were clicked into the stage and it wasn’t real at all.
Donnacha sits on a high stool at the breakfast counter reading his phone as if nothing is happening around him. Time is no obstacle. He’ll drop the kids to school and then will dilly-dally in the studio with his bowls. Just as I’ve safely reached the front of the house, about to walk down the long driveway lined with their expensive cars, where palatial gates protect the house, and wild rabbits scarper as they see me coming, Becky calls my name. I close my eyes and sigh. At first I wonder if I can get away with pretending I haven’t heard her but I can’t do it. I turn around. She’s standing at the front door. Her nipples in her flimsy vest are hard as they hit the morning air. She tries to hide one behind the door frame.
Allegra, she calls, because that’s my name. Can you babysit tonight.
It’s not a regular babysitting night and I’m not in the mood. It’s been a long week and I’m more tired than usual. Spending a night with kids who keep to themselves in their bedrooms or sit motionless with their heads in computer games isn’t taxing but it’s not the same thing as relaxing on my own. If I tell her that I can’t and they see me in my room, then I wouldn’t be able to relax either.
I know it’s late notice, she adds, giving me an out, but before I get the chance to take it, she points out firmly that it’s nearing the first of May. We need to discuss the rent, she says, all business now. I did say we’d evaluate it after the first six months. All assertive and power-stancey, even though she’s hiding her hard nipples. It sounds like a threat. The only time I haven’t been able to help her out is when I’ve travelled home to Pops, which I’ve given her advance notice of. I’m always available, but I don’t bother saying that.
About the rent-evaluation thing, I say, sure. But I still can’t babysit, I have plans tonight. As soon as I’ve said it, I know I have to make plans, which is annoying.
Oh Allegra, I wasn’t implying, she says with a shocked expression at my accusation that a discussion of my rent was a thinly veiled threat. Not so thin at all, flimsier than her PJs. Really, people are all so transparent I don’t know why we bother to fuck.
Have a good night, whatever you’re doing, she says before closing the door, wobbly boobs and all.
I can’t afford a small increase in rent but I can’t afford not to live here either. I haven’t done what I came here to do yet.
Maybe I should have said yes to the babysitting.
To get to the village I walk through Malahide Castle grounds: mature trees and landscaped walkways. Benches with brass plaques in honour of those who walked here, sat there and looked at this and that. Immaculately kept flower beds, no litter in sight. The occasional grey squirrel. Curious robins. Mischievous rabbits. A blackbird doing its morning vocal warm-up. It’s not a stressful start. I mostly pass the same people at the same places, at the same time. If I don’t it’s because they’re running late, not me. A man in a business suit, wearing a backpack and enormous headphones. A woman with an alarmingly red face who jogs as though she’s falling sideways. The leaning jogger. I don’t know how she does it. Stays upright, keeps going. The first few days she used to catch my eye, as if in a hostage situation seeking rescue from her ambition, but now she’s zombified, in the zone, staring into the distance and chasing something that keeps her going, an invisible carrot on a stick. Then there’s the dog walker and the Great Dane, followed by an old man with a wheelie walking frame accompanied by a younger man who looks like he’s probably his son. They both say good morning, every morning without fail. Good morning, he says, good morning, says he, good morning, I say to them both.
My shift begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. It’s relatively quiet in the village itself, until the school traffic mayhem kicks in. Before I begin, I go to the bakery on Main Street every morning. The Village Bakery. It’s owned and run by Spanner. He always has time for a chat when I’m there, because I’m there earlier than most of the crowd. It gets momentarily busy when the 7.58 Dart arrives and everyone gets off and scrambles into his place for a coffee. He’s been there since 5 a.m. baking bread and pastries. You can barely see him over the top of the counter that’s filled with a dozen type of breads, twisted and braided, puffed up, polished and decorated in sesame, poppy, and sunflower seeds. They’re the kings of the bakery, in prime position above the glass cabinet of cakes. He insists I call him Spanner, even though it’s Dublin slang for idiot. He did something stupid one time during his school days and it stuck. Maybe more than one time – I know he served time in prison. Said that’s where he learned how to bake. So I told him I once had a nickname too, at school they called me Freckles. And he took it upon himself to start calling me that. I didn’t mind. After moving to Dublin it was kind of nice to have something here that was familiar, like somebody here knows me.
Morning, Freckles, the usual, he asks, barely looking up from guiding dough through a machine and folding it over. Danish pastries, he tells me before I even ask. Apple and cinnamon ones, fuckin machine broke this morning. I’ll have them ready for lunchtime instead. Good enough for them.