Right Girl

by Ellie O'Neill

  ‘Yes. Turns out he does have a sense of humour. We’ve chatted a few times, and he’s been nice.’ She was walking around the shop again, trailing her fingers along the edges of vases. Her nervousness was making me smile.

  ‘That’s great, Mam.’

  ‘And I ran our numbers and they’re good, they’re very good, we might have a lot in common.’

  I felt a sharp stab in my belly. ‘Great.’

  She swung back to me, her eyes glowing with anticipation, with the adrenaline of stepping into the great unknown of a huge adventure ahead. ‘Seventy-eight per cent. Can you believe that number?’

  ‘Amazing, Mam.’ I tried to sound excited.

  ‘Well, you’d be the first to say BBest is never wrong. He might just be the man of my dreams. Maybe it is time for me to settle down. Maybe I should finish the dating merry-go-round.’ She was positively giddy with the promise of love.

  ‘Maybe just meet him and see if he’s nice. Sometimes the numbers are just numbers, you know.’ I spoke without thinking – I didn’t really believe that.

  She stopped for a moment and a heartbeat passed between us as she studied my expression before deciding that I was joking. Of course I was joking – wasn’t I? Her face melted into a smile and she laughed at me.

  ‘Oh, Freya, you are such a kidder.’

  She hopped towards me, planted another kiss on my cheek and, in a whirlwind of perfume, spun out of the shop.

  26

  ‘All very green, isn’t it?’ Cat bumped me with her shoulder and rolled her eyes at Mother Nature’s work.

  I grinned at her. ‘You’re just a city slicker. There’s so much to appreciate about rural life.’

  ‘Is that cow shit I smell?’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail. ‘I can’t believe you got me here this early on my day off.’ She tightened her denim jacket around her and buttoned it up, absentmindedly running her fingers under her eyes to catch any smudged mascara, of which there was none – her make-up was perfect, she looked great. She plucked her phone out of her pocket, lowered her head and started swiping.

  It felt good to be in the fresh air. It felt healthy, like I had just downed a kale and almond smoothie every time I filled my lungs with that crisp, country oxygen. There was a fullness to every breath that I realised I had been missing. Just being outdoors around untamed nature was liberating. I felt like I might shout some type of affirmation: ‘I am a strong confident woman, let’s do this!’ And plunge into some mud.

  You forget how beautiful the Irish countryside is when you’re holed up in Dublin. We were surrounded by a patchwork of fields, each a slight variation of green, each more luscious and more beautiful. The sun was glaring high in the blue sky, but it was cold, and I could see my breath when I exhaled. It was early, and it was chilly, but there was a promise in the breeze that it would warm up soon. I bent down and zipped up my oversized parka, which stopped just below my knees. I was wearing tight jeans, a fitted hoodie and welly boots for my day out.

  ‘Just look how huge my feet are in these boots,’ I said.

  Cat peered down. ‘They’re pretty substantial alright.’

  ‘They’re colossal, it’s like I have two John Deere tractors at the bottom of my legs.’ I heaved them off the ground with a grunt to emphasise their weight.

  I locked my van and we walked to a tent where some people were gathering.

  An elderly man in a black parka approached us. He wore a green flat cap that was so far down his nose I was surprised he could see out. ‘Are you here to volunteer? You can sign in at the tent over there, with the other volunteers. There’s some tea there too.’

  ‘Great, that will help warm me up. Cold start to the morning, isn’t it?’ I said, rubbing my hands together.

  ‘That it is.’

  ‘What are the chances of a soy latte?’ Cat said out of the corner of her mouth.

  We started to walk over to a small white tent that had a table set up and maybe ten people standing around, hugging cups of tea and chatting. A tea in a styrofoam cup found its way into my hand. I surveyed the land around us and spotted Patrick. He was halfway across a field, bent over a shovel, digging a hole. Even from this distance I was aware of the broad expanse of his back and the strength in his shoulders. I liked watching him; I liked that he didn’t know I could see him. He raised his boot to the shovel and forced it into the ground, breaking the soil with ease. He lifted the shovel and rhythmically and calmly repeated the movement. I could see from the side of his face that he was smiling, attractive lines bunched up at the corner of his eyes. This simple work was bringing him pleasure and pride. A little girl, maybe about nine years of age, approached him carrying a pot that held a spiky, unruly young tree with branches pointing every which way. He looked up to her and they started to talk. I imagined he was telling her about the species of tree, letting her know how one day it will be four times the size of him. She looked at him, her cheeks flushed pink with the cold, and grinned. Together they removed the tree from the pot, and he guided her as she slid it into the hole. They got down on their knees and he helped her settle the soil around the root, bedding the tree in.

  He stood up, patted his hands on his jacket and turned to the white tent. Then he was bounding across the field like a Labrador chasing a tennis ball. He looked every inch a country squire, dressed in a green wax jacket and a tweed flat cap. He was waving at me, stretching his long arm into the air, and smiling a drop-dead gorgeous smile.

  Cat elbowed me in the ribs. ‘Oh, hello, now I see why I’m here. Screw the trees, check him out.’

  I felt a pang of jealousy. Cat was a free agent, Patrick was a free agent. I was not.

  ‘Isn’t he fabulous?’ I whispered to her.

  ‘I can see his muscles through his jacket. That can’t be normal, can it?’

  Patrick stepped up to me, slightly awkwardly placed a hand on my shoulder and stooped his head low to kiss my cheek. ‘Thank you so much for coming out.’ He smiled and then stretched his hand out to Cat. ‘Nice to meet you, I’m Patrick Rockford.’

  ‘Cat Delaney, nice to meet you.’ And I noticed a singsong quality to her voice that meant she was flirting with him.

  ‘Cat’s my housemate,’ I said swiftly.

  She ignored me. ‘Is that Rockford of the Rockford Estate?’

  Estate? What was she talking about?

  Patrick flashed a glance at me and I watched as his shoulders seemed to tighten uncomfortably. ‘Yes, my family are . . .’ He searched for the words and, after looking at his feet, he shifted his gaze to the green fields around him. ‘This area is on the outskirts of the estate, we’re donating it to this reforestation project, and getting the inner-city kids to come out and spend time digging in the dirt. They each get a row of six trees that they are responsible for, and there’s a veggie patch for each group. They can come out here whenever they want.’

  ‘Nice.’ Cat smiled, and I saw her hip jut provocatively towards him.

  He turned to me, and I saw the glistening sheen in his eyes that made my mouth curl into a smile. His enthusiasm was infectious.

  ‘It is nice. This work means everything, being outdoors like this, not stuck on your phone, getting to understand the planet. It changed my life as a kid, I’d love to pass that on.’

  If somebody had taken a photograph right then I’d imagine I was looking awestruck, eyes wide open and with a slightly dreamy expression on my face, gazing in admiration at Patrick and those big green eyes and that soft, kissable mouth. I imagined those large arms enveloping me in a crushing hug, and burying my nose in his neck and drinking in every inch of him. I bet he smelled really good.

  A shout from the tent interrupted my racing imagination. ‘Patrick, can you give us a hand?’

  The flat-capped man with no face was waving at him.

  Patrick looked at us. ‘Can you excuse me, please?’

  We nodded and watched as he plodded off happily in his wellies.
>
  I heard Cat breathe out. ‘Seriously? He’s from the Rockford Estate and he looks like that? How have I never heard of him?’

  ‘What’s the Rockford Estate?’

  She twirled her finger in the air. ‘This whole area. I’m pretty sure there’s a castle, but it’s private. I think there might be a waterfall that’s open to the public. These people are landed gentry, old money. The family stretch back generations, I think they had some connection to the English monarchy at some point a few hundred years ago. They’re probably titled.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘Old money is the very best kind of money. It’s the kind you can’t lose in a dot-com crash. And here we are, just a couple of paupers.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of them.’ I was shaking my head slightly in disbelief. ‘How is that possible?’

  Cat shrugged. ‘I don’t think these type of people normally mix with our type of people. How did you meet him, anyway?’

  ‘He’s a customer of Granddad’s. Actually, they’re kind of friends.’

  ‘Intergenerational friendship. Cool.’ Cat started walking to the tent. ‘Come on, let’s go plant some trees for the Hot Rock. Actually, make that the Rich Hot Rock.’

  I swallowed uncomfortably. I felt a bit strange about Patrick being rich, instead of a poor student, which is what I’d assumed he was. Now it felt a bit like he was up high in his castle eating marinated legs of organic lamb, literally, and I was down low in my shared house sucking on frozen vegetables and processed meats. All of a sudden there felt like a great divide between us. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself, he was still a very nice guy who was friends with my granddad. And anyway I had Mason. Shit, Mason.

  We joined the people under the tent and another lukewarm, milky, sugary tea was placed in my hand. I grimaced slightly after my first sip. Patrick was talking to the group, his voice loud and commanding, directing us, thanking us and promising a quick two-hour job followed by some sandwiches back at the tent. He said this with a smile, and followed it up quickly with, ‘It’s okay, I didn’t make them.’

  I laughed so loudly I swear my cackle bounced over the fields and into the neighbouring county.

  There was loading and unloading to be done, ring fencing, whatever that was, digging, turning the soil. Thankfully there had been no mention of manure. Patrick was splitting the group up into teams, and I felt myself excitedly gravitating towards him, and then disappointedly heard him declare that he was going to be floating around pitching in ‘here, there and everywhere’.

  Feeling mildly rejected, I joined a group of sprightly pensioners with Cat and we agreed to turn the soil. We were handed pitchforks. As I grabbed mine, Cat noticed my hand.

  ‘You’re not wearing your ring, Freya.’

  I had prepared for this question. ‘I was scared I might lose it in the mud.’ And I was, a little bit, but I also didn’t want to wear it in front of Patrick, because, because, because . . . Oh, I didn’t know. I just didn’t.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  You see? It was easy to lie.

  We strolled out to our field and Cat raised her pitchfork in the air and shouted, ‘Get off my land, you pesky kids!’

  We both started to laugh. Then, overtaken by the comedy, and with the fresh air definitely tickling our funny bones, we started to chase each other, threatening to plant a fork in the other’s bum. We raced around in circles, laughing hard, shouting and weaving in and out of the mucky ground. We fell, we got covered in muck and laughed until tears streamed down our faces.

  Cat offered me a hand up out of the squelch. ‘Come on, let’s go turn the dirt.’

  And so we did. For the next two hours we shook and stirred the dirt and lost ourselves in the job. And it was nice to be outdoors and to see our progress. The weather improved, the sun cracked through the clouds enough for me to strip to a T-shirt. I chatted happily to the pensioners on either side of me, and in between swings of my pitchfork, I caught myself scanning the land for Patrick’s shape, watching him again springing across the field to help another group. Of course, it was when I wasn’t looking for him that he appeared, but there he was, suddenly behind me as I was taking a swinging dig at the earth.

  ‘Whoa,’ he cried as though he was taming a horse.

  I turned around, recognising his voice and embarrassed by the vigour and power of my dig.

  ‘It’s my workout for the day,’ I apologised.

  ‘It looks amazing. Well done,’ he said with enthusiasm.

  I shook my head modestly. He handed me a bottle of water and a chocolate bar, which I ripped open and started to eat. I didn’t even stop to read the wrapper. I mumbled with my mouth full, ‘Thanks, this is hungry work.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that, what with all the chocolate . . .’ He blew air into his cheeks, mocking me.

  I swallowed. ‘You’re not funny. This is hungry work.’

  ‘Good thing I’ve got more chocolate then.’

  ‘Well, don’t be giving it away to everyone, they’ve done nothing all morning.’ I waved at my teammates, who were hunched over their shovels and forks, working away. ‘Bone lazy.’

  His eyes smiled back at me mischievously. ‘Good thing I’ve appointed you chief chocolate officer then, you can organise who gets what.’

  ‘I’ll have to sample the produce.’

  We were flirting, and I was loving it. I was also loving the dimple on his cheek that seemed to appear and disappear, and how his flat cap had fallen slightly off his head and was now sitting at an angle, and how, even though I was five foot nine, I nearly had a pain in my neck from looking up at him. And unless I was crazy, which I could be, I felt like he was really looking at me, the whole me, and he liked me. But then again, I was probably crazy.

  ‘Is that chocolate?’ Cat transported herself to my side. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t. Gimme a little bite of yours, Freya? Actually forget it, you’d never give me a bite. I’ll just have a nibble of a bar.’

  Patrick dipped into a bag and handed her a bar.

  ‘I have to say, I’m enjoying the work. Don’t think I’d do it every day but you know, it’s good to be outside working,’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Patrick said.

  Cat bent down, cleaning some muck off her boots with a bit of tissue. ‘You’d never get Mason out here, Freya, not in a million years. He hates the outdoors, doesn’t he?’

  My tangled web of lies had caught up with me and viciously grabbed me by the throat. I couldn’t breathe. The air was pulled out of me as I frantically tried to order my scrambled thoughts.

  Patrick looked at me quizzically. ‘Mason?’

  Cat was bent over scrubbing her boots vigorously.

  Somehow my lying, deceitful brain fired up. ‘My cat,’ I whispered and then turned it into a cough.

  Patrick smiled as if he knew the ways of cats, and I thought I’d gotten away with another lie, but Cat sprang up and creased her brow, staring at me but saying nothing. I looked away, feeling utterly ashamed.

  When I looked back, she had her phone in her hand, poised, index finger hovering over the screen. ‘Is it okay if we connect on BBest, Patrick?’

  ‘Sure, sure.’ He scratched the tip of his nose, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped away, accepting her connection.

  ‘I’ve already got your details, Freya, we don’t need BBest to connect.’

  I felt a slight shiver run through me, and almost inaudibly, I responded, ‘We’re already connected.’

  He heard me, I was sure he heard me. A smile appeared on his face and he stared deeply into my eyes. And like that, I was gone, falling deep, deep down somewhere I had never been before.

  A shout came from the field: ‘Pass that chocolate over here, would you?’

  Patrick swung around, and I saw him swallow almost anxiously. ‘I better feed the masses before they get angry.’ He walked away and Cat and I watched him move.

  She sighed heavily. ‘So disappointing.’

  ‘What is? What are you talking abo
ut?’

  ‘We’re not a match.’ She flashed her screen at me. ‘Twenty-eight per cent. Zip. Incompatible. Not even worth asking him on a date.’ She took a much bigger bite of her chocolate. ‘I would have made a great lady of the manor too.’

  I smiled weakly at her, realising that I felt relieved, and wondered what the hell I was playing at.

  27

  I spotted Colin a mile up the path of the canal. He was pushing Hugo’s purple buggy, his head bobbing up and down as he jogged slowly towards me. We did this once in a while, met up for a jog along the canal in the centre of Dublin, a lovely green, leafy spot, where ducks and joggers converged on a Sunday morning. The water was lined with oak trees and quaint bridges that swung open for barges passing down and it followed a pathway through back roads, past shops and beautiful old-fashioned red-brick mews houses. We were meeting at the Patrick Kavanagh canal bank seat. Kavanagh was a poet who loved the canal and wrote beautiful words about its comings and goings. Now there was a life-sized statue of him sitting on a bench, where he had kind of nudged up a little bit to give you room to sit beside him to enjoy the mysteries of the water. I knew that right then I should be stretching out but his face looked so inviting that I plonked myself down beside him, and under my breath uttered the words, ‘Howerya, Paddy?’

  I was pretty sure I was not the only eejit who had found themselves talking to him.

  ‘Grand day for it.’

  I heard Colin breathing heavily before he was beside me. Hugo looked up happily from the buggy, his cheeks red from the fresh air, chewing on a Liga biscuit that was in his hair and all over his jumper. I bent down into the hood of the buggy and didn’t exactly kiss his cheeks as press my nose into them. He giggled and pushed a Liga-smeared hand onto my face in response.

  ‘Perfect weather for this.’ Colin smiled, embracing the early morning sunshine. ‘You ready to go?’

  I did a quick lunge, pretending to stretch.

  ‘Good man, Paddy.’ Colin leaned across and gave Patrick Kavanagh’s statue a familiar slap across the shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s go.’