The Daisy Picker (6 page)

‘Yeah? So there’s no one to take the pressure off. All the expectations are restin’ on your head.’

She looks over at him, amazed. ‘Exactly; that’s exactly it. I never had anyone to – I don’t know – dilute them with, I suppose; do you know what I mean?’

Pete nods again. ‘Sure.’ And he really seems to understand. ‘So what made you make the break?’

She smiles as she remembers the dentist’s waiting room. ‘Oh, just something I read; it made me realise that I was letting my life slip by, when I could do something about it if I
wanted.’ As she talks, she begins to feel the same excitement bubble up in her again. She looks over at Pete. ‘I was engaged, too, for years. And I worked with my fiancé, in his
family business.’

‘No kiddin’?’ He shakes his head. ‘So you finished with him?’

She nods. ‘Broke off the engagement, packed in the job.’ She can’t believe she’s telling so much to a perfect stranger. Is it because she knows she’ll be waving
goodbye to him in about ten minutes? ‘So here I am, car packed with all my worldly goods, heading off to God knows where. I have no idea where I’m going to end up, don’t even know
where I’m going to sleep tonight.’ She darts a look at him. ‘What do you think – am I daft?’

He smiles widely at her, showing his perfect American teeth again. ‘I think that’s a heck of a move you’re makin’ there. I think you’re gonna have a blast. Sounds
wonderful.’

She laughs; that’s exactly what she wanted to hear. ‘I’m going to head for the coast; I’ve decided I want to live by the sea.’

He nods slowly. ‘Yeah, good start, I guess. The ocean is a special place – and you’ve got some pretty cool coastline here.’ He puts his hands behind his head and
stretches his long legs out as much as the little car will allow. Then he closes his eyes with a deep sigh.

Lizzie sneaks a proper look. He’s a bit younger than her; she guesses he’s somewhere in his mid-thirties. Sallow skin, slightly tanned; whatever work he does – if he does any
– is probably out of doors. Nice cheekbones, dark-blond stubble around his chin. No coat, in the middle of winter – mind you, that jumper looks like a blanket, and he’s probably
got loads of layers on under it. Hair in need of a good cut, but thick and clean-looking. Fingernails not too bad. A gold claddagh ring, and a battered leather wrist-strap with what she thinks is
‘Leo’ stamped on it. No wedding ring. She gets a faint smell of damp wool, and something sweet and vaguely familiar.

Suddenly he sits up. ‘Hey, mind if I smoke?’

‘Em . . . OK.’

Lizzie has never let anyone smoke in her car. But she can’t say no outright to a stranger. Well, she could – it
is
her car, after all, and she
is
doing him a
favour, but still . . . Anyway, this is the new Lizzie, the easygoing, chance-taking one. She can put up with a bit of smoke – it won’t kill her. She hopes.

She inches down her window.
Sorry, Jones
.

Pete reaches behind and pulls a pouch from a pocket in his backpack. He takes out a packet of cigarette papers, then starts to roll a cigarette. He winds his window down a few inches before
taking a lighter from the pouch and lighting up; he drags deeply, holds the smoke for a long moment, then turns his head towards the window and exhales slowly.

A thick, sweet scent wafts towards Lizzie. She recognises it instantly from occasional dinner parties in the past, when some of the more daring couples would produce a few joints after the meal.
Lizzie was never tempted to try it – she’d felt sick for ages after trying to smoke regular cigarettes in her teens, and of course Tony never touched it – but she secretly liked
the musky smell that clung to her clothes for a day or two afterwards.

She smiles to herself.
No wonder he’s so mellow. Probably high as a kite half the time. The cheek of him, using illegal substances in my car
. She bets the old woman from Kentucky
would have enjoyed a joint if she’d got the chance.

She looks over at Pete the pothead, and he holds out the joint to her.

‘No, thanks.’
One major life change a day is quite enough
. ‘So what brings you to Rockford?’

‘Got buddies there, potters. They’re from the States too, but they been livin’ here a few years.’

‘And where have
you
been living since you came to Ireland?’

He shrugs. ‘Oh, I been wanderin’. Here, there . . . wherever I can find some work. I’m comin’ from Tipperary today.’

Lizzie is fascinated – his life is so different from hers. She imagines what it must be like to wander round a whole new country, live in a place for a few weeks, maybe, and then just up
and move. Pack your rucksack and go wherever the fancy takes you. And he thinks
she’s
being adventurous.

‘What kind of work d’you do?’

He shrugs again. ‘Anythin’ that needs doin’ – farmin’ mostly, or construction, that sorta stuff.’

‘So now you’re going to visit Rockford for a while.’

He nods. ‘Yeah. They tell me there’s good music there, so I brought along my tin whistle.’

She’s intrigued. ‘You play the tin whistle?’ Definitely not a typical American.

He grins back at her. ‘Sure do. Just picked it up from hearin’ guys in the bars here.’ He jerks his thumb towards the back seat. ‘Fancy a tune?’ He pronounces it
‘toon’.

‘Love one.’
And if he’s no good, Rockford is only five minutes away
.

Pete pinches the end of the joint into the ashtray and puts the rest of it back in his pouch before turning to rummage in the backpack. His jeans are frayed at the seams. He pulls out a tin
whistle and settles himself again, and then he puts it to his lips and starts to play.

He plays a tune Lizzie doesn’t recognise, and it’s sweet and slow and sad. She is amazed that a tin whistle can produce music like this, with every note so clear and pure. Then he
goes straight into ‘Ode to Joy’, and behind the dancing notes she can hear the orchestra. After that he plays a lively traditional Irish air whose name she can’t remember.
She’s back in the holiday pubs of her childhood, tapping along to the rhythms as she munches Taytos and sucks Fanta through her straw.

When he stops she turns to him. ‘That was wonderful; really.’ She smiles. ‘You must spend a fair bit of your time in pubs to have learnt so well.’

He grins back. ‘Hey, it’s no big deal; tin whistle’s easy. I taught myself guitar too – that was a little harder.’ He turns to put the tin whistle away.

‘Wow.’ Lizzie is impressed. She remembers Mammy sending her off to learn the piano when she was eight. She hated every minute of it, stamping off to the sitting room and banging the
door behind her whenever she was sent in to practise. She lasted eight weeks, never getting past a stumbling ‘Blue Danube’. Eventually Mammy gave in and stopped the lessons. Now Lizzie
would give anything to be able to play the piano. Or to play anything at all.

She sees the sign announcing Rockford, and feels disappointed; Pete’s been good company. ‘Here we are. You’ll have to direct me to your friends’ house.’

He turns back from his rucksack and shakes his head. ‘Hey, no way. The main street’ll be fine. You’ve done enough by bringin’ me here, honest.’

She looks sternly at him. ‘You’re not exactly dragging me across New York. It’ll take about thirty seconds to bring you wherever it is.’ Rockford straggles along half a
main street and meanders down two little lanes off it. ‘Tell me which way to go – I insist.’

He grins. ‘OK, thanks a lot. I gotta look out for a store on a corner and go right.’

They find it and turn; after a hundred yards or so, Pete says, ‘Guess this is it; they said the one with the pump.’

Lizzie stops and looks at the abandoned cottage he’s pointing at, with the rusty pump at the side.

‘No, it can’t be this one.’ He’s got the directions mixed up, or his pals must have moved. Waist-high weeds tumble over themselves in what was probably the front garden
fifty years ago. The roof was once thatched – now it’s more holes than roof. The front door, blue paint peeling away, hangs half off its hinges, leaning outwards. The flaking
whitewashed walls look pretty solid, but that’s about it. A condemned building – no doubt about it. Lizzie pulls in, thinking that they’ll have to go back to the bit of a main
street and enquire.

But suddenly, incredibly, she notices a wisp of smoke coming from the remains of the chimney – and Pete has already stepped out and is hauling out his backpack. ‘I’m pretty
sure this is it.’

She sits speechless; how can someone live like this? Then, from behind the house, a man about Pete’s age comes sauntering; one of the potters, presumably. He’s equally skinny and
hairy, with identical jeans and a green army jacket, striding towards the car in big, solid-looking boots – sandals are obviously not the thing in falling-down houses.

‘Hey, man, you made it.’

Pete lets his rucksack drop and they bear-hug, slapping each other’s back. Then they separate and Pete gestures towards Lizzie, still sitting dumbstruck in the car.

‘Sure did, thanks to Lizzie, my chauffeur. Lizzie, this is Brett.’

His pal gives her a ‘Hey’ and lifts his hand. Lizzie says, ‘Hi there,’ and waves back as she starts the engine.

Pete leans in the car window. ‘Hey, you’ve got no place you gotta be – why don’t you take a few days here in Rockford?’ He turns to Brett. ‘OK if Lizzie stays
a while?’

Brett smiles the same slow, lazy smile as Pete. ‘No problem.’ He’d probably take in the Irish soccer team if they turned up looking for a few beds for the night.

Lizzie can imagine the inside of Brett the potter’s house: blankets on the floor, everyone grouped round the fire, looking up at the stars through the hole in the roof. A six-month supply
of pot somewhere handy. Probably all the mice Jones could catch, if he were in any state to run after them.

For a second she hesitates – Pete strumming his guitar in the firelight
is
pretty tempting – but then forty-one years of four walls and a bed at night kick in. Too much; and
much too soon.

She smiles at them. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll keep going.’

Pete leans in and hauls Jones back into the front seat. ‘Hey, big guy, you’d like to stay, wouldn’t you?’ Jones blinks out at him from behind his wire. Pete looks back at
Lizzie.

‘You sure we can’t tempt you?’

No. Not a bit sure. Not at all convinced that I’m doing the right thing. One thing I
am
sure of, though – that old Kentucky woman would stay in a minute. She’d be
out of this car before you could say ‘thermal vest’
. She wonders if Pete ever came across that woman in the States. How far is Kentucky from Tennessee?

She puts the car in gear – she’s really not ready. ‘I’m sure, Pete, but thanks again. Look me up when you get to the ocean.’

Pete stretches over and takes her hand; his is surprisingly warm for the day that’s in it. ‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Thanks a lot, hon. Have a good adventure.’ He rubs
Jones’s head. ‘Bye, buddy.’

A smile, a wave, and he’s gone, striding with his friend towards the ruined house. No glass in most of the crumbling window-frames, roof open to the skies, front door practically
collapsed, but a fire in the fireplace. Unbelievable.

She’d love to see where they sleep. Or maybe she wouldn’t.

She liked the way Pete called her ‘hon’, even if it meant nothing. Tony called her ‘love’ or ‘pet’. Somehow ‘hon’, in an American drawl, sounds a
lot more romantic.

As Lizzie turns the car around and drives back into Rockford, a thought hits her. Through all the years she was living her standing-still life in the house where she grew up, through all the
nights she spent doing crosswords with Mammy and Daddy, or having a glass of wine in the local with Tony, or poring over her bakery books, other lives were whirling by, full of doings and
happenings and experiences. Hearts were breaking, mountains were being conquered, barriers were being torn down, love and hate and everything in between were being flung around willy-nilly. People
were tightroping between laughter and tears, without a safety net in sight. Pete and his friends were smoking pot in ruins of houses, with nothing between them and the stars.

She’s reminded of something – what? Then it comes to her: Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
. The bit where she’s sitting on her bed, looking at the hurdy-gurdy madness
outside her window – cows and wicked women on bicycles and rocking chairs, all spinning crazily past. She’s been like Dorothy, looking on all these years while life hurtled by
outside.

She shakes her head – it’s useless to dwell on the time that’s gone by; from now on, she’s thinking of the future.
I’m only forty-one, for God’s sake
– if I’m lucky, maybe just halfway through life. Who knows what’s around all the corners I haven’t turned yet?

Plenty of daisies left to be picked
.

Suddenly she feels a surge of exhilaration, and she beeps the horn twice in Rockford’s bit of a main street. A woman talking on a mobile phone looks over at her; Lizzie smiles and waves
cheerily as she passes, and the woman smiles vaguely back at her, turning to look after the car. Probably wondering who the heck that was.

As she leaves Rockford, Lizzie O’Grady wonders how long it’ll take her to find the perfect place. She’ll know it when she comes to it; she’s sure of that.

And when she gets there, she’ll walk out of the house and into the tornado.