We walk across to Grafton Street in silence.
‘You got the bus OK?’
Until we pass a baby in a little pram.
‘Ngaaawww,’ she says.
Evie’s interest in babies is so keen, it might be cause for concern, except for the fact that she is twice as interested in dogs.
She can not pass a baby without living a moment in their skin: ‘He doesn’t like the cold,’ she says, or, ‘Her hat is over her eyes,’ or just, ‘Ngawww!’ I think she is unusual in this, and I don’t know where it will all end.
‘Did you hear from your Dad?’
‘Em.’
‘Did he say when he was going to be home?’
‘I think he said he was on the plane.’
I leave her to the rows of smelly bottles; the untwiddling of caps, the sniffings and little rubbings that the shop requires. Moisturisers, toners, exfoliators: she is out of her depth, I realise, and a little disappointed by it all.
‘I think it’s time,’ I say. ‘To up your game.’ And I bring her down the street and into one of the posh shops, and a rack of perfume that she studies with quiet intent. The one she chooses finally is called Sycomore, which is so much the one my mother would have chosen, it makes me feel misplaced and odd.
‘My mother liked that,’ I say.
And she gives me a sidelong glance, as if to say that people my age should not have mothers. As, indeed, I do not.
‘My mother,’ I continue, because I am trying to push my way through something here, ‘wouldn’t buy it, of course. She would just try it – like every time she came into town – and then decide it wasn’t, you know, right.’
‘Cool,’ says Evie.
A fabulously tall sales girl rounds on us, walking past.
‘Yes? You would like to refresh yourself?’
Evie waves the bottle in vague apology, saying, ‘I’m just having a free go.’
And we move on; me pushing the small of her back, both of us trying not to laugh.
I bring her to the MAC counters, and she looks at me like this could not possibly be allowed. But I don’t care. She is tall enough now to pass for any age, if she wanted to – if, that is, she could just get the expression right, on her big, honest face.
It is Friday afternoon and, despite the weather, the place is stuffed. We are in a ruck of girls moving in slow motion towards and away from a maze of upright mirrors, turning their uncertainty into a stroke of this, a dab of that. They switch to the next brush and potion, then lean slowly in again: predatory, rapt.
‘You know what you want?’ I say.
Evie heads straight for a bank of foundation, picks one about two shades too pale, and she plies the brush, really working it in. I wonder what bedroom rituals led to all this expertise – I suspect Paddy’s dread hand – as she refuses highlighter, blusher, bronzer, to go for powder that is paler yet, and thick eyeliner.
‘Fabulous,’ I say.
All this while I try two different foundations, same shade, different texture, one on either cheek.
She selects an eyeshadow of deepest purple because, she says, it will make her eye colour ‘pop’.
I never know whether Evie will be good-looking. I squint a bit, trying to guess how she might morph over the years; the nose a bit stronger, the chin firmer. But I can’t hold it: her changing features drift away from each other and her future face falls apart.
All children are beautiful: the thing they do with their eyes that seems so dazzling when they take you all in, or seem to take you all in; it’s like being looked at by an alien, or a cat – who knows what they see? So Evie is beautiful because she is a child, but she is pretty ordinary looking too. The make-up brings it out in her – perhaps for the first time – her cheekbones will never be up to much, I think, and the nose is a bit of a blob. Though she still has those lovely, watchful eyes.
‘Is Megan into make-up?’ I say.
‘What?’
‘Megan. My niece.’
She doesn’t answer. Perhaps the relationships are too hard for her to draw. Then she says, ‘Actually Megan’s really into manga at the minute.’
‘Don’t do that,’ I say. She has unscrewed a lipstick that is so purple it is almost black.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘They might have cold sores.’
She looks me in the eye. ‘No they won’t!’
She is suddenly, immediately, spoiling for a fight. I have a glimpse of what her mother has to put up with these days – only I get the opposite. I get it flipped into:
Such violent emotion. And I have no reply.
She is quite correct: it was a stupid thing to say, and I am not her mother. I have no rights here. I can not mirror her mood, or throw it back at her. I see the next few years of my life, just taking whatever she wants to sling at me; a mute receptacle for her hate.
I say, ‘Wow, blue mascara.’
Evie puts the lipstick down.
‘Where?’
I slip off and buy the eyeliner for her – as a bribe, I suppose (more blood money), but it works. She is delighted. Evie was always easy to please and adolescence has not changed that. She scrubs off most of the make-up – ‘It always looks better after you’ve slept in it,’ I say – and we walk back to Dawson Street talking about tattoos, ear piercing, hair dye and the number of points you need to get into veterinary these days.
‘Your Mum,’ I say, in a palliative way, at least once. Possibly twice. Maybe three times.
‘What does your Mum say?’
‘I’d ask your Mum about that.’
‘I don’t think your Mum would like it.’
The zombie wife is back.
It is freezing cold. I bring her into a coffee shop for takeout and realise, in the queue, that she is too young for coffee.
‘Sometimes I have peppermint tea.’
I think I used to drink coffee at her age, certainly tea – I might be wrong. My mother is dead so I have no one to put me right on this.
After much peering at labels and signs, Evie settles on a hot chocolate. She takes her purse out of her backpack, and roots in it for money.
‘No, you’re all right.’
I pay at the till, remembering the day Aileen emptied out their joint bank account – what fun that was. How did she rear such a clear-hearted girl?
It is strange to me that Evie does not remember herself as a child, and I do remember her: Evie in Fiona’s garden, Evie on the beach. It is like she is always giving herself away, and keeps so little back for herself.
I hand her the hot chocolate and take her bag, and because it looks so cold outside, we tuck ourselves in at a table, and talk about dogs.
Evie says that when her Dad was growing up, he had a red setter that would steal eggs and his mouth was so soft and gentle, he could bring one home without cracking the shell.
‘Really,’ I say.
There is something so formal about talking to children: you have to be very polite. It is the only thing they understand.
‘Do you know how to train a guard dog?’ she says.
