Afterwards, I hang out in the car until I muster up the courage to call my dad. I could go around the corner and let myself into the house, into his office, but I would rather avoid looking right into his face.
There is a click as he picks up the phone.
“I need more money,” I say flatly, then stare at the air freshener, swaying side to side as he shouts at me for about five minutes and smacks his hand repeatedly against the desk. I say that I am sorry at various intervals, which is a meaningless thing to him. He doesn’t care about it. Eventually, the side of my face gets hot from the battery, so I lay my phone on the dashboard and let him assassinate my character on speaker while I peruse the car manual.
I have decided to invent a story about my car breaking down, about smoke billowing cinematically from the hood by the gate to some farmer’s land, and having it towed to a garage on the back of a truck. I tell my dad I don’t know what’s wrong, maybe the radiator, or, I flip to a new page, the battery or the oil, or all of them, or something, I was too traumatised to absorb what the mechanic was telling me.
“It’s a brand new car. How has this happened?” He splutters. He sounds a bit maniacal, and I’m glad I’m not in his office wiping frothy beads of spit off my face and having him wave his fists at me in hollow threat. “How are you like this? What has gone wrong in my life for me to have a son who messes up so consistently? How is this fair to me?”
“Dunno. It’s a bit of a lottery, isn’t it?”
I offer to pay the money back, which he takes offence to like it’s an abnormal suggestion to make, and he says something vaguely ominous about speaking to my mother about this, which I’m certain won’t happen. He might try if he can catch sight of her during one of her rare appearances in the house, but the conversation will meander back to Fergal, and, as always, devolve into another tiresome screaming match across the kitchen island.
“How is Ivy?” I say in the middle of a rant, and he seems surprised by the irrelevancy of my question.
“Ivy?”
“Yes, my sister. Remember her?”
“She’s fine.”
“Can I say hi?”
“She’s not home. She’s with that friend again.”
“Ella?”
A scoff. “I don’t know.”
“Sorry, yeah, an extremely stupid question. Can you tell her I called when she gets home?”
“Are you visiting soon?”
“No.”
“Well, if you want to see your sister…” I zone out as soon as he starts talking like a dastardly Scooby Doo villain embroiled in a kidnapping scheme, let my mind drift away like paper on the wind, and tug two chewing gums out of a packet with my teeth.
“The money,” I say, “You’ll send it today?”
“Yeah, but you better listen up, because-”
“Deadly,” I stab the decline button with my finger and cut him off.
Later, when I return to the beach house, I check my online account and find another thousand euros successfully deposited. I send him a message.
