The Daisy Picker

by Roisin Meaney

  ‘Oh, right.’ Lizzie feels a jolt of disappointment – so much for her lucky break. But at least she can get directions to another B&B. ‘Is there anywhere else I could try around here?’

  The other woman shakes her head. ‘I’m afraid we’re the only ones in Merway, apart from the hotel, that are open all –’ Then she stops and looks thoughtfully at Lizzie. She says, more slowly, ‘Now, the only thing is, I have a – ah, no, you probably wouldn’t be bothered; it’d be cold – but I could put the gas fire on . . . It’s just that I don’t like to see you stuck . . .’ She trails off, looking uncertain.

  What is Lizzie being offered? The roof garden? The shed out the back? A tent on the beach? Whatever it is, she knows she’ll take it. The last thing she wants to do right now is get back into the cold car and head off in search of a bed. And Jones needs to come in; he’s been sitting out in that car for nearly an hour.

  She smiles at the woman sitting across from her. ‘I’m really not that fussy; whatever you’ve got will be fine.’ As long as it’s not a blanket on the floor under the stars – I’ve turned that one down already today. ‘I’ll probably be moving on tomorrow, anyway.’ And I have a rather large cat waiting for a roof over his head.

  The woman smiles back apologetically. ‘Sorry – you must be wondering what on earth I’m talking about. It’s actually a little caravan, out the back.’ She screws up her face in embarrassment. ‘We don’t use it much, but it’s quite sound and easy to heat – I just thought, if you didn’t feel like driving all the way to Seapoint . . .’

  Lizzie is intrigued – the last time she slept in a caravan was years ago, on one of the family summer holidays. They only did it a few times; the beds didn’t suit Daddy’s back. Could be a laugh; and she’ll more than likely be moving on first thing in the morning, anyway. She nods at the other woman gratefully. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine for the one night – thanks a lot. And my shepherd’s pie was wonderful, by the way. I presume you’re the cook.’

  The woman relaxes and smiles back at her. ‘Yes; cook, bottle-washer, landlady and caravan owner. Glad you enjoyed it; it’s one of the favourites around here. The secret’s in the garlic – I put it in everything.’ She puts out her hand. ‘My name’s Angela, by the way.’

  ‘Lizzie. Nice to meet you.’

  Angela stands up. ‘Give me about half an hour and I’ll have the caravan lovely and warm for you.’ She looks at the empty wine glass. ‘Sit there by the fire, and I’ll get Dee to bring you another glass of wine while you’re waiting. Did she offer you dessert?’

  ‘She did, and I turned her down; my New Year’s resolution.’ Lizzie grins. ‘But I won’t say no to another wine, thanks – it’s lovely. Take your time, I’m in no hurry.’

  No hurry at all. I’ve got all the time in the world; and Jones will survive another while – he’s probably fast asleep. She sits back and smiles into the fire, and winks at the little wooden clown.

  Forty minutes later she’s standing in the middle of Angela’s caravan, looking around. The gas fire is lit, and so are two green ceramic table-lamps with white shades. They throw a soft light on the little seating area with its rickety coffee table, the tiny kitchen with its doll-sized fridge and cooker and dinky sink, the built-in bookshelves – perfect for, say, a collection of cookbooks.

  Angela leads her into the one bedroom, with its double bed and enormous duvet taking up most of the space. She lifts the duvet to reveal two hot-water bottles. ‘You might want to wrap your nightie around them as soon as you unpack.’ Then she opens the bathroom door and Lizzie sees – wonder of wonders – a tiny shower in the corner. She doubts that anyone would be able to turn around in there, but what the heck; showers are for getting clean in, not doing gymnastics.

  As they walk back into the living-room area, Lizzie knows that it feels right; she can’t for the life of her explain why. It’s a tiny caravan, barely big enough for one, that just totally appeals to her. She has to stay here – at least for a few nights.

  She turns to her new landlady. ‘It’s fine.’ She pauses. ‘Actually, I might want it for a little longer than just the one night – would that be OK? Two or three nights, maybe?’

  Angela nods. ‘Of course; but I’m only full inside for the next two nights – the Americans are moving on then, and I can move you into the house if you decide to stay longer.’

  No; it’s the quirkiness of the caravan that Lizzie wants. She thinks quickly. Could she be working on a novel? Getting over a divorce? She needs some good reason for wanting to be out here on her own – something that will have Angela nodding understandingly and saying, ‘Of course, you just stay here as long as you like.’

  And then she decides to just leave things alone. For all she knows, she might hate Merway when she goes exploring in the morning. It might be rough and dingy-looking and totally not what she’s looking for. In the meantime, she has two nights to feel her way around the place; and if she loves it and still wants to stay, she can have another word with Angela. Surely they’ll be able to come to some arrangement; it’s not as if people will be queuing up for the caravan.

  So she smiles and nods. ‘It’s a deal – I’ll take it for two nights. Thanks so much.’

  Angela waves her thanks away. ‘The hot water comes on as you need it – you’re hooked up to the house supply. Same with electricity, if you’ve anything you want to plug in.’ She gestures towards the gas fire. ‘Now, did I show you how to work this?’

  Lizzie shakes her head. ‘You didn’t, but we have one at home exactly the same.’ And there, Angela, is where the similarity between this delightful little dwelling and the O’Grady homestead ends.

  Angela nods. ‘Right, I’d better get back. See you in the morning for breakfast – just come on up to the house when you wake. Hope you sleep well.’ And she’s gone, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Lizzie drops her bag onto the little coffee table and suddenly remembers Jones, out in the car. God, she forgot to mention him. She’ll just have to hope Angela doesn’t have a conniption in the morning. She finds her keys and heads for the car.

  Jones is asleep in his carrier; he stirs when she hauls him out. ‘Shhh – not a sound, now.’ She’s glad of the darkness as she crunches back over the gravel with her load. After depositing him on the floor of the living area, she heads back to the car to get the rest of her luggage.

  When she’s moved everything in and given Jones a saucer of cat food to settle him in, Lizzie walks back to the main street to find a callbox. If by any chance she does end up living in a caravan – her face breaks into a wide smile at the thought – she’ll probably have to invest in her first ever mobile phone.

  Pressing the familiar numbers, she can see Mammy and Daddy in the sitting room. The couch is directly facing the fire, but she can’t remember them ever sitting anywhere except on the two armchairs on either side of it – Daddy on the left, Mammy on the right. Daddy will be reading the paper, or maybe watching a match or the news on telly. Mammy will be dipping into her little dish of pink and white marshmallows and doing a crossword, or reading her book, glasses slipping down her nose. Lizzie offered more than once to have them tightened for her. ‘Ah, no, Lizzie, they’re fine the way they are.’ And that was that. Things were fine just the way they were. Life was fine the way it was. Why would you want to go packing in a good job and leaving a perfectly nice fiancé and heading off to the middle of nowhere? Where was the sense in that, Lizzie? Weren’t you fine the way you were?

  No, Mammy, I wasn’t.

  The phone rings four times.

  ‘Hello?’ Good – it’s Daddy.

  ‘Hi, Daddy, it’s me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good, Lizzie. We were a bit worried; it’s getting late.’

  It’s twenty-five past eight, Daddy – hardly the middle of the night. ‘Well, I’ve just landed now. It took me a while to get somewhere to stay, but I found a lovely place in the end – I’m delighted.’

  ‘Whereabouts are you?’r />
  I’m in Africa, Daddy. I just took the notion that I’d like a bit of sun, so I hopped on a plane. Hope you can hear me over the chimpanzees outside the window.

  ‘I’m in Merway – you know, a few miles from Seapoint. I found a lovely B&B.’ She leaves out the fact that it’s a caravan; what they don’t know won’t keep them tossing and turning all night under the blankets. If Mammy knew Lizzie was seriously thinking of spending the foreseeable future in a tiny caravan in someone else’s back garden, she’d be on Valium in the morning. ‘I’ll probably stay a little while here; it seems nice.’

  ‘Ah yes, I know Merway – I’ve passed through it a few times; nice little place.’ Before he retired, Daddy’s job in insurance involved a fair bit of driving, drumming up business and investigating claims. ‘Will I call your mother for a word?’

  If you must. ‘Do; thanks, Daddy.’ She hopes to God she isn’t going to get more of the why-won’t-you-see-sense routine.

  ‘Right so, love. Keep in touch. I’ll get her now.’ He puts down the receiver, and Lizzie looks out at the deserted street and waits. In a few seconds she hears the phone being picked up.

  ‘That you, Lizzie?’

  No, Mother; didn’t Daddy tell you? It’s the President of America. He wants to visit Ireland and he heard you’ve a spare room. Get the Mr Sheen out, quick, and don’t forget to charge him well – he’s loaded.

  ‘Yes, Mammy. I’m fine. I was telling Daddy I got a lovely place to stay.’

  ‘I heard him saying Merway; I can’t say I know it.’ Her voice is guarded.

  Lizzie puts as much enthusiasm as she can into hers. ‘It’s lovely – quite small, right on the coast, near Seapoint.’

  The geography of Merway doesn’t seem to interest Mammy. ‘I hope your bed is aired. Did you have dinner? Make sure you feed yourself right.’

  As if there was the slightest danger of Lizzie ever going hungry. ‘I had a gorgeous dinner – shepherd’s pie. Nearly as nice as yours.’ Actually, twice as nice as yours, if the truth be told; I must tell you about garlic sometime. I also had two glasses of wine, and that I’ll keep to myself. And I’m not sure about the bed being aired, but I might just keep that one quiet too. ‘Jones says hello – he was as good as gold in the car.’

  Mammy isn’t diverted. ‘Make sure you keep warm, now; it’s bitter tonight. Did you bring your woolly dressing-gown?’

  ‘I did, yeah.’ But I clean forgot the thermal long johns, dammit. ‘Is everything OK there?’ Since I left ten hours ago.

  ‘We’re fine. Daddy’s knee is at him a bit tonight; I’d say it’s the cold. We’ve a big fire lit.’ She pauses. ‘By the way, I met Tony in the street today.’ Here we go. ‘He was asking after you.’

  I’m sure he was – after ignoring me the last time I met him. ‘Look, Mammy, I have to go – there’s someone waiting to make a call.’ Mammy won’t argue with good manners. ‘I’ll phone again in a few days. Look after yourselves. Bye, now; say bye to Daddy.’

  Lizzie hangs up before Mammy can remember that they’ve no number for her, and walks quickly back up the street. Her forehead feels tight; she rubs it with her fingers, trying to stretch it out. She breathes deeply, drawing in the cold, salty air, and forces her pace to slow to a stroll.

  That short phone call, just a few minutes, has brought it all back to her – the feeling of being suffocated, frustrated, with no way out. But there was a way out – thank God she finally found it.

  When she arrives back at the restaurant, a Bord Fáilte sign that she missed earlier catches her eye. She smiles – Daddy would approve. As she turns in by the side of the building, she feels a surge of the same exhilaration that propelled her out of Rockford earlier. She’s free; anything can happen.

  And she’s going to make sure that it does.

  Chapter Six

  After a Bran-Flake-free breakfast the next morning, Lizzie walks around her new surroundings and takes everything in: the rows of brightly coloured cottages on the outskirts, giving way to the parade of little shops and pubs – Dignam’s looks interesting – on either side of the winding main street; the square, with its two banks and its ivy-covered library and Burke’s, Merway’s two-star hotel; the little triangular park behind the square, with its shrubbery and trees and wrought-iron benches and a bronze statue of a waltzing couple that, according to the plaque underneath it, was donated by a long-dead local sculptor.

  The houses on the side streets are painted in more dramatic colours – deep pink, turquoise, egg-yolk yellow; the odd one is thatched, and some have hens clucking around the grounds. A creeper-covered stone wall hides the parish priest’s dormer bungalow from the one-storey primary school, with its tarmacadam yard and basketball hoop in front. Merway’s only supermarket stands between the tiny cinema that only opens at weekends and a yellow-painted chip shop.

  Back on the main street, there’s a fruit-and-veg shop called Ripe. The name over the door has been carved into a piece of wood and surrounded with beautifully fashioned strawberries, lemons and pineapples. The carving reminds Lizzie of the little clown on the mantelpiece in the restaurant – could they both be the work of the same person? She’ll have to ask Angela.

  In the stone church across the road, autumn-coloured stained-glass windows throw a mellow glow over the wooden seats. The post office is beside the church, and beyond that are the estate agent and the doctor and the hairdresser, and a whitewashed restaurant called The Kitchen, with a caravan round the back where Lizzie O’Grady, future master baker, now lives; then a final scattering of more red-roofed houses, the gardens getting bigger as they gradually peter out into the countryside.

  Walking around this charming little place, Lizzie feels, more and more, that she could settle in Merway. She wanders into Dignam’s pub around lunchtime and orders a glass of Guinness – What would Mammy say? – which she takes to a table at the bay window, not too far from the blazing fire.

  The pub is quiet; there’s just one other customer – a scruffy-looking young man sitting at the bar reading a paper, a half-finished pint in front of him. He glances over at her as she orders, then goes back to his paper.

  There’s a holiday air about the place – or is that just Lizzie remembering the childhood weeks by the sea? Maybe – but life does seem to move a little more slowly here. A man unloading boxes from a van outside the chemist’s stops to chat to a passerby. Three women amble past the pub window, one holding an open bag of wine gums, looking as if they have all the time in the world. Even the businesspeople don’t seem in a rush. Two men in suits are deep in conversation outside the library, which she can just make out from where she sits, and it doesn’t look like they’re talking shop – every so often they break into laughter. The butcher walks out of his shop and into the off-licence next door, still in his apron. Maybe he’s getting vin for the coq. A man comes out of a bookshop carrying a large, flat, rectangular package; is it the elderly man from the restaurant last night – the one who was last to leave? Most of his face is hidden under a thick scarf, so Lizzie’s not sure if it’s him. He carries the package – a sketch pad? a picture? – a little way down the street and then turns left, towards the beach.

  After the Guinness – she’s decided to skip lunch and save her appetite for dinner – Lizzie wanders down the street, peering in windows. When she comes to the library she goes in, finds the cookery section and leafs through a couple of fairly new-looking books, wondering whether she’d get yeast to rise in the caravan. The library is deserted, except for a teenage boy with two rings in his left ear behind the desk, who gives her a brief smile as she walks in, then goes back to his computer.

  She checks out the noticeboard, which looks like it hasn’t been changed in quite a while. Some theatre group put on Dancing at Lughnasa in Seapoint’s community hall last August. There was a table quiz in Doherty’s pub in November, to raise money for cancer research. Irish dancing classes for 7–12 year olds, phone Carmel for details – no date on that one, but Lizzie is will
ing to bet that Carmel’s pupils have well and truly mastered the hornpipe by now. A missing kitten called Doobie, friendly, black with white paws, reward offered; the notice looks like it was written by a child, or an adult who wasn’t great at spelling. She hopes Doobie turned up.

  She stands outside Furlong’s Bakery and Delicatessen, sniffing. There’s a faint baking smell, but nothing like the heady fragrance of just-baked bread and cakes that she wants to come wafting out of her bakery. She walks in; time for a bit of market research.

  There are salads and cooked meats behind glass on one side, breads and cakes on the other; jars and tins and bottles stacked on shelves around the room; a couple of dishes of olives on top of the counter. No tables for people to sit at.

  A dark-haired woman, fiftyish, stands behind the counter. She smiles at Lizzie. ‘Hello. Can I help you?’

  Lizzie looks at the meats and salads behind the glass. ‘Yes – could I get some cooked ham, please? Three or four slices.’ She needs something to keep the woman busy for a couple of minutes – and, between Jones and herself, the ham won’t go to waste.

  While it’s being sliced, she glances over at the bakery section. The usual assortment of bread and cakes: pan loaves, cottages, brown sliced; éclairs, doughnuts, cream sponges. Nothing out of the ordinary. No cheese-and-onion bread, or pumpkin-oatmeal-nut loaf. No chocolate-and-poppyseed plait. No lime coconut layer cake.

  Looking good so far.

  The ham is sliced and wrapped in greaseproof paper. As Lizzie takes it, she nods towards the bakery section. ‘Can I ask if you make the bread and cakes yourself?’

  The woman looks surprised. ‘God, no; we’ve no facilities here. We get them delivered from Fleming’s – it’s a big company just outside Seapoint.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ So you might just be interested in taking a few locally produced loaves and cakes – if the local supplier ever gets her act together. She smiles at the woman. ‘Well, thanks a lot.’