The Daisy Picker by Roisin Meaney Read Free Book Online Page A

favour, but still . . . Anyway, this is the new Lizzie, the easygoing, chance-taking one. She can put up with a bit of smoke – it won’t kill her. She hopes.
    She inches down her window.
Sorry, Jones
.
    Pete reaches behind and pulls a pouch from a pocket in his backpack. He takes out a packet of cigarette papers, then starts to roll a cigarette. He winds his window down a few inches before
taking a lighter from the pouch and lighting up; he drags deeply, holds the smoke for a long moment, then turns his head towards the window and exhales slowly.
    A thick, sweet scent wafts towards Lizzie. She recognises it instantly from occasional dinner parties in the past, when some of the more daring couples would produce a few joints after the meal.
Lizzie was never tempted to try it – she’d felt sick for ages after trying to smoke regular cigarettes in her teens, and of course Tony never touched it – but she secretly liked
the musky smell that clung to her clothes for a day or two afterwards.
    She smiles to herself.
No wonder he’s so mellow. Probably high as a kite half the time. The cheek of him, using illegal substances in my car
. She bets the old woman from Kentucky
would have enjoyed a joint if she’d got the chance.
    She looks over at Pete the pothead, and he holds out the joint to her.
    ‘No, thanks.’
One major life change a day is quite enough
. ‘So what brings you to Rockford?’
    ‘Got buddies there, potters. They’re from the States too, but they been livin’ here a few years.’
    ‘And where have
you
been living since you came to Ireland?’
    He shrugs. ‘Oh, I been wanderin’. Here, there . . . wherever I can find some work. I’m comin’ from Tipperary today.’
    Lizzie is fascinated – his life is so different from hers. She imagines what it must be like to wander round a whole new country, live in a place for a few weeks, maybe, and then just up
and move. Pack your rucksack and go wherever the fancy takes you. And he thinks
she’s
being adventurous.
    ‘What kind of work d’you do?’
    He shrugs again. ‘Anythin’ that needs doin’ – farmin’ mostly, or construction, that sorta stuff.’
    ‘So now you’re going to visit Rockford for a while.’
    He nods. ‘Yeah. They tell me there’s good music there, so I brought along my tin whistle.’
    She’s intrigued. ‘You play the tin whistle?’ Definitely not a typical American.
    He grins back at her. ‘Sure do. Just picked it up from hearin’ guys in the bars here.’ He jerks his thumb towards the back seat. ‘Fancy a tune?’ He pronounces it
‘toon’.
    ‘Love one.’
And if he’s no good, Rockford is only five minutes away
.
    Pete pinches the end of the joint into the ashtray and puts the rest of it back in his pouch before turning to rummage in the backpack. His jeans are frayed at the seams. He pulls out a tin
whistle and settles himself again, and then he puts it to his lips and starts to play.
    He plays a tune Lizzie doesn’t recognise, and it’s sweet and slow and sad. She is amazed that a tin whistle can produce music like this, with every note so clear and pure. Then he
goes straight into ‘Ode to Joy’, and behind the dancing notes she can hear the orchestra. After that he plays a lively traditional Irish air whose name she can’t remember.
She’s back in the holiday pubs of her childhood, tapping along to the rhythms as she munches Taytos and sucks Fanta through her straw.
    When he stops she turns to him. ‘That was wonderful; really.’ She smiles. ‘You must spend a fair bit of your time in pubs to have learnt so well.’
    He grins back. ‘Hey, it’s no big deal; tin whistle’s easy. I taught myself guitar too – that was a little harder.’ He turns to put the tin whistle away.
    ‘Wow.’ Lizzie is impressed. She remembers Mammy sending her off to learn the piano when she was eight. She hated every minute of it, stamping off to the sitting room and banging the
door behind her whenever she was