The Daisy Picker Read Online Free PDF Page B

when she needs something a bit
posher than faded jeans. She wore it to her school twenty-year reunion and spent the night trying to remember names, and looking at photos of babies, and trying to sound convincing when she
explained why she’d been engaged for eight years and why it didn’t bother her a bit.
    But her calves are a bit hefty and she feels better when they’re well hidden from public view. And she loves her jeans. They probably do nothing for her (Mammy says they do nothing for
her; Mammy loves her black velvet dress), but when she climbs in they wrap themselves tenderly around her and hug her curves.
Hello, Lizzie, here we are again; just snuggle in and get
comfy
. Thank God for denim, in all its glorious blue shades.
    Right, she’ll have tousled hair and jeans and no make-up. She takes out her two lipsticks and her eye pencil (the same one that she used to join up her freckles) and the ancient tube of
foundation that she never uses anyway, and leaves in a tube of even more ancient hair gel so she can scrunch her wet hair and make it look all tossed and dead sexy.
    After a minute, she puts back the eye pencil and the hairdryer. Maybe she’ll have sleek, shiny hair instead, and dramatic eyes. Then she puts back the lipsticks; sleek hair and dramatic
eyes would look funny without a bit of colour on the lips. But that’s it; she puts her foundation and a half-full pot of powder blusher in the bin, and before she can change her mind she
lifts the plastic bag out of her wastepaper basket and brings it down to the big black bin in the garage.
    She goes back upstairs and has another rummage. After a minute she goes downstairs to get the foundation and blusher out of the bin. You never know when you might need perfect skin and a rosy
glow. It’s not as if they’re heavy; and she can always dump them later if she finds she’s not using them.
    As she goes back up to her room again, Lizzie wonders for the millionth time if she’s a little insane – heading off without an idea where she’s going to end up. Maybe Mammy is
right – maybe she
should
just go to someplace like Lanzarote, or somewhere more exotic like Barbados, for a week. On the other hand, the fact that she hasn’t a clue where
she’s going means that she can go wherever the hell she likes. And she knows well that a week of lying on warm sand in the sun might be pure bliss, but it isn’t going to fix
what’s wrong. She needs to make a complete change, whatever that takes. A fresh start. She likes the way that sounds – like something just out of the oven, fragrant and steaming.
    She passes Tony in the street the day before she’s due to leave, and she says hello. He looks through her.
    The following morning, on Monday the sixth of January, Lizzie stands by the open car door in her old navy winter coat, rubbing her gloved hands together and freezing quietly. In the boot of the
Fiesta are her rucksack, her telly, her CD player, Jones’s litter tray, her bag of baking books and a couple of jackets. On the passenger seat, safely belted in, is Jones in his carrier. She
debated leaving him until she got settled somewhere, made sure he’d be welcome; but the thought of taking this giant leap without him was just too scary – she needs his furry, lazy bulk
beside her to go through with it. She’ll just have to find a cat-friendly place to live in.
    She looks at him sitting in his carrier, looking faintly bored.
He’s
not scared of a giant leap – well, in theory, anyway; she doubts that he’d manage a baby leap, let
alone a giant one, in real life.
    Beside the car are her parents, standing close together on the frozen path. Lizzie stamps on the ground to get some feeling back into her toes.
    ‘Well, I’d better get going, I suppose.’
Before we all solidify
.
    ‘Did you take the holy water?’ Mammy is still dead against the move, but she’s concerned about her daughter’s immortal soul.
    ‘I did, yeah.’ It’s sitting on