Irene picked her way across the graveled surface in front of the garage. Heels were a curse sometimes, but it would take more than a bit of gravel to make her give them up. She pushed open the office door and there he was standing at the desk, writing something on a sheet of paper. He raised his head as she walked in.
“Hello,” Irene said, ignoring the girl who sat behind the desk. “I believe you have a car for me.”
“It’s out the back,” he told her, and led the way through the workshop and out the rear door. Irene’s car sat in the concrete yard with several others. She crouched and examined the paintwork.
“That’s great,” she said. “It’s perfect.” She ran a finger along the metal. “I can’t feel a thing.”
“That’s the idea,” he said. “Even rush jobs are done well here.”
She straightened up and took a €50 note from inside her jacket. “I appreciate it,” she said, folding the money and slipping it into the breast pocket of his overalls. “Where do I pay the bill?”
“Office,” he said. “They have the keys. Thanks for that.”
“No problem.” She began to turn away, and stopped, as if something had just occurred to her. She reached into her bag and pulled out a card. “If you ever want a trial session,” she said, handing it to him. “Costs nothing, doesn’t tie you to anything, you don’t have to join up.”
He took the card and read it. “Personal trainer,” he said, and she saw the different way he looked at her.
“That’s right.”
“Weights and stuff, is it?”
“Exactly.” She held eye contact for just long enough before turning away. “Thanks again.”
She wondered how long it would take him.
—————
“I’ll have…”—the girl played with a strand of her hair as she studied the menu behind Zarek’s head. Her fingernails were long and purple, with silver stars in the center of each—“…a chicken mega burger—or, no, a cheeseburger.” She frowned. “Or will I? I can’t decide.” She looked directly at Zarek, twirling her hair around her index finger. “Help me out here,” she said.
Zarek had never tasted as much as a chip in the café. Being surrounded by the smell of hot fat from the minute he walked in effectively killed his appetite, not that he’d ever been drawn towards fast food. “The chicken is good,” he said.
She held his gaze, her hips thrust forward to push against the counter. “Is that what you like?”
A snort from the table behind her, where two of her friends sat.
“Is good,” Zarek repeated, keeping his expression neutral. He was well used to the flirtations, accustomed to the young girls who did their best to tease and tantalize.
“Where are you from?” she asked, all pretense of wanting food suddenly gone.
“Poland,” he told her, taking a cloth and wiping the counter that was perfectly clean. Her scent, much too sweet, trailed across to him.
She twirled her hair lazily. “You got a girlfriend?”
Zarek was ready. “Yes,” he said, injecting what he hoped was the right amount of regret into his voice. “In Poland I have fiancée.”
Her hand dropped abruptly, and for an instant Zarek felt ashamed of the lie. But what else could he do, to avoid the blatant propositions? Wasn’t an imaginary fiancée kinder than admitting that he simply wasn’t interested?
She turned without another word and swayed her way back through the tables, followed by her friends, who completely ignored Zarek as they got up and left. He waited until the door had closed before coming out from behind the counter and clearing their table of shredded napkins and chewing gum wrappers.
—————
Michael looked up as the shop door opened. Oddly, the sight of them caused him no surprise, and he realized that he’d been expecting them to return. He put down his pen and folded his arms and waited.
They were dressed in precisely the same clothing as before. The sleeves of her black top were pushed to the elbows, her jeans so tight he wondered how she got them on and off. The boy stood beside her, his hand in hers, brown trousers several sizes too big, legs rolled up at the bottom, scuffed canvas shoes beneath. He gazed solemnly at Michael, a thumb stuck into his mouth. His hair had been clumsily cut. His face was unnaturally pale.
They approached the counter, the boy moving closer to his mother. A half-full black plastic sack dangled from her free hand.
“Sorry,” she said. “I know you don’t want us, but we got nowhere else to go, I swear.”
Close up, he could see that her chin was pitted with small red marks, and near one corner of her mouth was a cold sore that he didn’t remember from their last visit. Her dark blonde hair was pulled tightly off her face.
Michael shook his head. “I told you to stay away.”
“I know you don’t want nothin’ to do with us.” She spoke rapidly, in a low voice that Michael had to strain to hear. He winced at the flatness of her vowels, her dropped th’s, her deplorable grammar.
“You don’t believe what I told you,” she said, “but it’s true, I swear to God.”
Michael’s eyes flickered to the boy, who stared impassively back.
“I wouldn’t blame you,” she said. “You don’t know me, you never seen me before, but I’m not lyin’, I swear.”
The shop door opened then, and immediately she stepped to one side, pulling the child with her, and stood silently, her gaze on a stand of bird food. The customer looked inquiringly in her direction, and Michael said shortly, “She’s not buying anything.”
As soon as the man had left Michael turned back to her.
“You have to go. This has to stop.”
“It’s not for me,” she said. “I’m not lookin’ for nothin’ for me, it’s jus’ for him.”
Michael glanced again at the boy who was clutching the end of her top, a dark smudge under each eye, a long thin whitish stain running down the front of his sweater.
“I know you haven’t got no proof,” she said, “but I’m askin’ you to believe me, because it’s the truth.”
“Why should I?” Michael demanded. “You’re a drug dealer, you told me yourself. Truth means nothing to your sort.”
She shook her head. “I’m not dealin’ anymore—I gave that up, I told you, I gave it up for the child. And he is who I say, you can do any kind of test you—”
“Why don’t you go back to your family?” Michael cut in. “Why are you bothering me? Go back to them: You’re a stranger to me.”
Her expression hardened. “No way,” she said. “My father…if you knew what he done to me…I can’t say it here.”
She was tiny, hardly five feet tall, and scrawny with it. Was she twenty? Michael was no good at putting an age on females. His daughter was twenty-four, but there was a world of difference between Valerie and this girl who stood before him.
“It’s jus’ for the child,” she said then. “If you could jus’ take him in, jus’ for a while till I get meself sorted—”
“Take him in?”
“Only at night, jus’ to sleep,” she said. “It would only be—”
Michael looked at her in disbelief. “You’re asking me to take your son into my house? You’d hand your son over to a stranger?”
“You’re not a stranger—you’re his grandfather,” she shot back, her voice rising, a flush spreading across her pale cheeks. “You’re all we got. I wouldn’t ask only I’m desperate.” Her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and she brushed roughly at them with her sleeve. “Please,” she said. “I’m beggin’ you. I got nowhere else to turn, we been put out, we’re on the street, this is all we got—”
She was willing to let her child off with a strange man, someone who’d shown them the door already, someone who’d ordered her off his property. She must indeed be desperate—that much, at least, must be true. Assuming he was her child, and not some ragamuffin she’d commandeered to gain sympathy.
“Can he talk?” Michael asked then.
She frowned, blinking away more tears. “’Course he can talk, he’s not stupid.” A thumb swiping quickly under each eye, a loud sniff.
Michael came out from behind the counter. “I can’t possibly take him,” he said brusquely.
She narrowed her eyes at him, defiant now. “Why not?”
“Because,” Michael replied through gritted teeth, “you could have some cockeyed scheme up your sleeve. You could say I kidnapped him, or abused him in some way. You could be planning to go running to some lawyer and tell all sorts of lies about me, just to try and get your hands on some of my money.”
Her head began shaking slowly from side to side. “God,” she breathed, “the way your mind works. I wasn’t thinkin’ nothin’ like that. I’m jus’ tryin’ to keep him off the streets, that’s all.”
“Sorry,” Michael said, crossing to the door. “It’s not a chance I’m willing to take.”
“Look,” she said rapidly, “I jus’ want—”
He opened the door. “Out,” he said. “There’s nothing for you here. Don’t bother coming back, the answer will be the same.”
Her face crumpled, the color rising in it once more, tears welling again. “He’ll have to sleep rough,” she said desperately, “or I’ll have to go back to dealin’, I got no choice if you won’t help.”
“He’s not my problem, and you’re not either. It’s nothing to do with me.” He held the door open and waited for them to walk out.
“But he is your problem, he’s your grandchild—”
She reached for his arm but Michael pulled it out of her reach. He took his phone from his trouser pocket and began jabbing at buttons.
“Jesus,” she cried then, “you’re some bastard.” She swept through the doorway, tears running unchecked down her face, the black plastic bag bumping against Michael’s knee as she passed, the little boy trotting to keep up with her. Michael watched them hurrying down the street—and as he turned to go back inside he narrowly avoided a collision with a woman approaching from the opposite direction.
She looked uncertainly at him as he moved out of her way, and he knew she’d witnessed at least some of what had just happened. He nodded curtly at her and held the door open while she walked inside.
“I was just…” She stopped. “This might not be…”
“What do you want?” Michael attempted to keep the exasperation out of his voice.
“I bought a little dog from you last week,” she said, “on Saturday. You lent me a carrier, I brought it back on Monday.”
He waited. Probably looking to give back the damn pup, not what she wanted after all. Fat chance.
“It’s just,” she said, fiddling with her hair, smoothing her skirt, making him almost twitch with impatience—“well, to be honest, she’s a bit…unruly, and I just—”
“I’m not taking her back,” Michael said. “No returns.”
She looked shocked. “I don’t want to give her back, for goodness’ sake—I just wondered if you, um, might have some…I don’t know, advice about how I could manage her a bit better, that’s all.”
“You want some advice,” Michael said evenly.
“Just a few pointers. I’ve never had a—”
“Get a book,” he cut in. “Go to the library, or go to a bookshop and pick up a book. That’s my advice.”
He turned on his heel and walked back to the counter, and by the time he’d resumed his place behind it she’d vanished. He slumped on his stool and rubbed his face.
He’d done the right thing. She was an addict, she couldn’t be trusted. They weren’t his problem. He’d done the right thing.
After a while he opened his newspaper and returned to the crossword, but for the life of him he couldn’t make sense of a single clue.
—————
Audrey banged the frying pan onto the cooker. The nerve of the man, the absolute cheek. She had a good mind to go straight back to that shop and give him a piece of her mind. How dare he take that tone with her, how dare he think he could treat people like that and get away with it.
She sloshed olive oil onto the pan and pulled open the fridge, her blood still boiling, nearly an hour after the encounter. And that poor girl, rushing out in floods—he’d obviously upset her too, and a young child with her. Audrey tore the plastic from a half pound of sausages and stabbed them with a fork and flung them on the pan. Such an ignoramus.
She yanked the lid off a tin of beans and upended it into a saucepan. She couldn’t for the life of her understand how he stayed in business. Surely no right-thinking people would willingly shop there? She wondered if there was anywhere she could lodge a formal complaint. There must be someplace consumers could go to report rogue traders, or whatever you’d call him.
She shook the pan and the sausages hopped. When they were brown all over she lifted a plate from the dresser and opened the oven door and pulled out the tray of chips. She tossed them onto the plate and plonked the sausages beside them, and splashed the beans on top.
She took her plate and brought it out to the garden and sank onto the garden seat. She was not going to let him ruin the rest of her day. She’d get a little bottle of wine to have with her dinner, even though she never normally had a drink during the week. But this was an exception, this she needed.
She left her plate on the seat and went back inside—and in the thirty-four seconds it took to open the wine, pour it into a glass, and return to the garden, Dolly managed to dispatch one and a half sausages and an impressive amount of beans.