THE CHILDREN CROWD ONTO the portico, their facepaint already smeared and fading, balloon swords and balloon flowers swishing frantically in farewell. Freya smiles and waves, smiles and smiles and waves and smiles as she manages the three-point turn and at last drives out of sight.
A few metres from the house, she pulls up on a squelch of muck and grass, and checks the next address – another posh one. She uses a crayon to write on the back of the envelope – 1pm Full Package €180: €80 Polly’s Parties /€100 Genie Gilly – and stows it in the door of the car.
She draws her hand down over her cheeks and jaw to ease out the cramp of all that smiling, scrapes a ridge of blue paint from under her thumbnail, and runs a wet wipe over the back of her neck. Chewing mechanically on an oat biscuit, she pulls down the car mirror to check her face, and rubs at the mascara that has made its way beneath her eyes. She sprays some of Cara’s deodorant into her armpits – it smells like vanilla; Grandma’s sponge cake.
Two more to go: another Southside now, and then a 5 pm in Naas. She flicks through the details. The next one is a christening party for a baby, Reuben-Alexander – lots of puppets and bubbles.
She types in the address. After baby Reuben-Alexander there’s a birthday party for a nine-year-old boy called Sweetness. The mother spoke in an accent that made the word ‘Sweetness’ sound hefty and regal and very earnest. She insisted on booking the standard package, even though Freya explained that there are way too many kids. Between painting twenty-six faces and making twenty-six balloons, there won’t be time for much of a magic show… but it’s the last party, no harm if she ends up going overtime a little, and they might tip. By the end of the day she’ll have three hundred euro – one for tax and savings, the rest will cover petrol, groceries, new shoes for Jem. And phone credit. Fucking nut-job client ran down her phone credit.
Two more gigs and then back to Jem. Her Jem. He’ll enjoy making the birdhouse, and he’ll have Grandma’s soup for supper so there won’t be an issue about Cara’s over-wholesome cooking. Two gigs to go and then she’ll pick him up – his great, clear eyes, the impossible density of his lashes, his bony limbs folding into her warmth – Mammy, the way he says it; that faith that she can continue to make his world, though it keeps expanding beyond anything she can possibly keep hold of – new shoes, and that mean boy at Montessori, and the bedwetting that hasn’t stopped. She needs to save more money.
Baby Reuben-Alexander will be an easy one and then Sweetness and all his cousins and his warm-voiced mother; that one will be fine. Then Cara will drop her home to Grandma with Jem; glasses of water by their beds; wool blankets and cool sheets. The smell of hyacinths from the landing, and Grandma waiting in the early dark, her girlish nightdress soft against the bony breast, and her night cream with a smell like crushed rose petals…