The Daisy Picker (16 page)

So it’s not a joke. Joe McCarthy is offering her a job in Ripe. She thinks fast. ‘How many days a week were you thinking?’ Please let her not sound as if this is the most
exciting offer she’s had in years.

‘Let’s see . . . say three days a week to start with, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from maybe nine or nine-thirty, three hours a day. I’ll pay whatever the going rate is. How
does that sound?’ He takes a swig from his glass and waits.

That sounds like music to my ears.
Lizzie pretends to consider; easy does it. ‘I think that would be fine . . .’ She nods slowly. ‘Yeah, I’ll take it. Thanks.
When would you like me to start?’

Joe beams at her. ‘As soon as you like. Is tomorrow too soon?’

Not a minute.
With great difficulty, she keeps a neutral expression on her face. Tomorrow she and the most fanciable man in Merway will be under the same roof for three solid hours.
She’ll be in the shop, and he’ll be only yards away, in the back room. She wonders briefly why the shifty-looking Charlie isn’t helping out, then decides it’s none of her
business. ‘That sounds fine. Let me get you another can to seal the deal.’

‘Thanks. Oh, and by the way –’ He picks another salmon roll off the plate. ‘– I did tell you about the uniform, didn’t I?’

Lizzie grins.
Here we go
. She leans against the table and waits. ‘Actually, no, Joe, you forgot to mention the uniform.’

He nods, studying the roll intently. ‘Oh, yes, it’s required by safety regulations. Black skirt, very short; little white frilly apron; very high heels – the ones you’ve
on there would do fine; black top, very low-cut; and shiny red lipstick at all times.’ Not a hint of a smile as he looks back up at her. ‘Does that sound OK?’

She nods thoughtfully, biting her cheek to keep the smile away. ‘Fine – except . . .’ Is she brazen enough for this? She is. ‘The only low-cut tops I have are see-through
as well; would they do?’ God, she sounds like a right brazen hussy; Mammy would faint in mortification if she could hear her.

Joe gives her his best dirty-old-man look and leans towards her. ‘I can see you’re a quick learner. I look forward to doing business with you, Miss O’Grady.’

The party is a big success. Everyone stays till well after midnight, even Big Maggie, who’s usually in bed by ten. Lizzie’s baby quiches and savoury mini-muffins – parmesan and
pine nut, cheese and bacon – and Angela’s salmon rolls, stuffed vine leaves and cheesy sesame squares are followed by a devil’s-food cake and a hazelnut roulade, with one fat
candle in the middle of each.

They drink champagne and wine and Guinness – Deirdre hides a glass of champagne from her mother, and Angela pretends not to notice – and Big Maggie
,
who brought Angela a
begonia with giant frilly-edged leaves in a shocking-pink raffia pot, sings ‘My Irish Molly’, slightly off-key. Dominic the artist, who gave Angela a charcoal sketch of The Kitchen,
recites ‘If Ever You Go to Dublin Town’ and makes them all join in on the ‘Fol-dol-the-di-do’ bit. Joe tells a totally ridiculous joke about a cross-eyed goose that goes on
forever and has them all in stitches. Angela sings ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ very sweetly. Marjorie, a friend of Angela’s from Seapoint, shows them a trick with matchsticks that
no one can figure out. Two of Angela’s overnight guests, an engaged couple from Austria, attempt to teach Angela and Dominic a Viennese folk dance. Another guest, a retired landscape gardener
from England, talks to Big Maggie about his prize-winning orchids, and promises to drop into Blooming Miracles in the morning for a look around.

Lizzie sits on the floor by the fire, shoes kicked off, arms wrapped around her legs, and watches them all. She thinks how much her life has changed in the past four months. She remembers
opening the magazine in the dentist’s waiting room and reading the words of the old woman from Kentucky and feeling that something was falling away from her, and being able to breathe again.
She remembers picking up Pete the American in her blue Fiesta, and listening to him play the tin whistle, and wondering about staying in the tumbledown house in Rockford. She remembers walking into
The Kitchen that first night and meeting Angela, and later stepping into the tiny caravan and feeling like she’d come home.

She looks across at Joe McCarthy, who’s sitting the wrong way round on a chair, arms draped over the back of it, chatting to Dominic. As she watches him, he turns his head towards her and
meets her gaze.

Lizzie looks back steadily, brave with wine and champagne. She sees him turn back to Dominic and say something; then he takes his glass and goes to the drinks table. He picks up a bottle of red
wine and holds it up questioningly. She smiles and nods, and he walks over and sits on the floor beside her, long legs stretched out in front of him.

He pours wine into her empty glass. ‘I probably shouldn’t be doing this; you need a clear head for your new job in the morning.’ At the thought of the job, her heart leaps. Joe
puts the bottle on the floor and raises his glass. ‘Here’s to our new regime. May you never forget who’s boss.’

‘And may you never forget to pay me,’ Lizzie says, laughing and clinking her glass against his. ‘I hope you know I expect a good pension scheme, too, and holiday
pay.’

He snorts. ‘You’ll be lucky. And you’re the tea lady as well as the shop girl, in case I forgot to mention that. Tea at half twelve, when you finish up.’

She raises her eyes to heaven. ‘I suppose I’ll be expected to supply the biscuits to go with the tea.’

He looks at her over his glass. ‘Why do you think I chose you, darling?’

Darling.
Her heart is doing back-flips. She has to touch him. Her hand slides brazenly over and finds his on the floor. No one can see; the room is dim, all candles and firelight.
‘I’ll bring goodies on one condition.’

Joe makes no attempt to pull away. ‘Are you trying to bargain with the boss, by any chance?’ His face, warmed by the fire, is very close to hers. She looks steadily into the bluest
eyes in Merway.

‘I want free fruit and veg – and you do the washing up.’ What a hussy all that wine has turned her into.
Sorry,
Mammy.

He leans over, and for a second Lizzie thinks he’s about to kiss her. Then he puts his lips to her ear. ‘It’s a deal.’ His breath against her skin is hot; her ear tingles
when he draws away, and she lifts her glass to cover her flaming face.

She feels his eyes on her as she drinks, and she imagines walking into Ripe in the morning and being practically in the same room with him for three hours a day, three days a week.

And she wonders how long it will take.

Lizzie puts her head round the open door. ‘It’s twelve-thirty, Joe.’

He’s bent over the workbench with something that looks like a chisel in one hand. ‘Good – I’m ready for a break. Let’s hope they leave us alone for ten
minutes.’

Us.

He puts down the tool and the piece of wood he’s been working on, and brushes the shavings from his faded grey flannel shirt and jeans. The floor around him is littered with bits of wood.
The room smells like a forest. Then he stretches, arching his back and easing out his shoulders with a satisfied grunt.

Lizzie forces herself to look away from him. She’s trying to be professional and not remember how she grabbed his hand the night before. Such a shame the party broke up just after that,
when things were getting interesting.

She glances around the room; Joe showed it to her when she arrived at half nine, but she didn’t get a proper look. It’s fairly small, with a door at either end – one leading
into the shop, the other into his house. His workbench, and two long presses above it, take up practically one entire wall, leaving just enough space at the other side of the room for a sink, a
fridge, a small square table with a few chairs around it, and another press above the sink. Under the workbench are several crates filled with blocks of wood in varying sizes.

She takes the kettle from the top of the fridge and fills it. ‘How’s the work going?’ Under the woody scent of the room she can smell his aftershave.

‘Good. It’s great to get a run at it like this, with no interruptions.’ He’s still loosening his shoulders, arching his back; it must be pretty tough to stay hunched over
like that for a few hours.

She plugs the kettle into the socket beside the fridge and goes over to the bench. Taped to the wall above it, just under the long presses, are several sketches of pigs in various poses. A
collection of wooden animals – elephants, monkeys, ducks, kangaroos – is scattered along it. She picks up a duck and runs her fingers along its curves. It feels slightly rough.

Joe takes a brush from where it leans against the wall and starts sweeping up the shavings. ‘Watch out for splinters – those ones aren’t sanded yet.’

‘Where did you learn how to do this?’ She’s fascinated by his ability to take a block of wood and turn it into a thing that’s full of charm.

He smiles, empties the shavings into the bin. ‘Picked it up along the way, really. I liked drawing at school, but I always felt I wanted it to be more . . . 3-D, more solid than just a
thing on a page. I think it was only a matter of time before I had a knife in one hand and a bit of wood in the other. Then I just . . . learnt as I went along.’

Lizzie is astonished. ‘You mean you were never taught? Never went to woodwork classes or anything?’

He laughs. ‘Woodwork classes in Merway? Hardly. We were happy to have maths classes.’

She puts down the duck and picks up the pig he was working on when she came in; it’s still warm from his hand. The little chubby head is finished, poking out of the rest of the block.
‘He looks like he’s just about to wriggle out. But how do you know what to do? I mean’ – she points at the pictures stuck to the wall – ‘how do you know you have
to work from a picture, and not just from your head? And do you draw the pictures from your imagination? And what kind of wood do you use? And where –’

He puts up his hands, amused. ‘Steady on; one at a time – I’m still a bit addled from being bent over that bench for the past three hours.’ He pauses, massaging the back
of his neck. ‘What was the first question again? Oh, yes – whether or not to work from a picture. Well, that depends; some things I can manage freehand, others I need help with. I get
my images anywhere I can find them – books, magazines; the Internet is a great source – and then I draw something simple based on those. Dominic has a good photo collection that he lets
me use. And
National Geographic
is great for the animals, of course. The fuchsia I did for Angela’s birthday – I found that in a gardening book in the library. The same book I
used for the frame you wanted, actually.’

He picks up an elephant from the workbench and rolls it absently between his fingers. ‘I get my wood from a few different sources – some locals have their own trees, a pal
who’s with Coillte gives me some. I mostly work with beech or sycamore, although occasionally I . . .’

Lizzie watches him rolling the little elephant backwards and forwards in his hand. His fingers are long and slender – craftsman’s hands. His grey shirt is rolled up to the elbows,
and the hairs grow black and thick on his arms. She looks at the triangle of skin above the opening of his shirt, and sees a few black hairs wandering up from his chest. She wants to slide her
fingers in between the closed buttons and feel him catch his breath.

‘. . . and I never really have to go too far to find it.’ Joe drops the elephant. ‘Now, I suppose there’s no chance of a cup of tea?’ The kettle is singing.

‘Not yet.’ She gestures towards the workbench. ‘Why all the animals?’

‘Noah’s ark; almost done.’ He opens one of the presses above the bench and Lizzie sees several more wooden animals, and more toys – trains, cars, puppets, boats, dolls.
‘I’m just about to send off the first batch.’

‘You’ve done an amount of work,’ she says in admiration. ‘It must have been hard, with no help in the shop. It’ll be great for you to get paid for doing what you
love – like me baking for Angela.’

Joe smiles. ‘Provided the children of Cork decide they’d prefer wooden trains to PlayStations. We’ll see what happens when this stuff is actually put out for sale.’

‘Ah, go on – I’m sure it’ll walk off the shelves.’ Lizzie puts two cups out on the table and gets a little jug of milk from the fridge. ‘Such a talent –
you’re lucky.’

He washes his hands at the sink, then takes two teabags from the box on top of the fridge and puts one in each cup. ‘You’re just as talented in your own way. It’s not everyone
who can bake like you.’ He puts a hand on his hip and crooks his other wrist. ‘I just can’t get my scones to rise.’

She laughs, pouring the water into the cups. ‘Ah, it’s not the same, though. Most people could learn how to bake in a couple of months. What you have is special; and the stuff you
make will be around for a long time. My baking doesn’t last more than a day or two. Speaking of which –’ She takes a Tupperware box from her bag. ‘Here’s some I made
earlier. Hope you like ginger.’ She puts the box on the table and sits down.