‘Do you work with those two men that were with her?’
‘No.’
‘And you were the only one from work at the bar for her party?’
‘Well, I was out with the new boys from our room.’
‘Nobody went, Natalie.’
‘What?’
‘She’s obviously saving face by denying inviting people.’ Darina drains her drink and gets a second.
Maybe nobody went to Kelly’s party? That’s why she said she didn’t invite anyone? Jesus.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Darina says.
I nod.
‘I mean, I’ll go to meetings if it gets out of hand. It looks bad but I have it under control, I swear.’
‘What?’ I blush. ‘Wait, no, I was thinking about Kelly.’
‘It’s okay, Natalie, I know I’ve a drink problem but I’m not an alcoholic.’
‘No, I was honest-to-god thinking about Kelly.’
‘Do you want one?’ Darina offers again.
‘No, I better go back to the office. Then I’ll probably go to the pool after work.’
‘You’re so healthy with the swimming, Nat. I wish I was healthy like you.’
‘Healthy like me?’
I walk out of the hostel stunned.
I observe Kelly from my cubicle. She’s at the photocopier, talking to one of the women from accounts.
I would probably have declined her invite, after all. I was coming up with ways to get out of it. Obviously, everyone else did too.
She threw a party and nobody really went.
Kelly gathers sheets from the side tray of the machine and smiles that condescending smile of hers to the woman.
Maybe it’s not condescending, maybe it’s desperate?
Maybe it’s the shape her face makes?
After I finish work, I swim lengths and think of Lawrence, his childhood spent in the pool, how disappointed he must have felt missing the cut off for the Olympics by a fraction of a second.
I resist getting something to secretly munch on as I walk home but I stop in front of Darina’s bar, peer through the glass. She grins and serves a tray of shots to a group of men in suits, downs one herself.
Everyone with their own secret pain, their own coping strategies.
The wind rises and whips the branches of the street’s pohutukawa trees.
The fuck-bus is loading up as I turn the corner to the hill. Aaron queues, sombre, headphones on, head down. I see Jake cross the road, going over to him.
They look at each other and then Jake hugs him. They stay in that embrace, Aaron’s face beaming. Jake’s eyes are closed.
My heart tingles. Imagine being rejected and loved again.
Clear
‘Have you cabin fever in the west yet?’ Kim asks and sips from her apple cocktail. We’re in a newly opened Dublin bar. The staff are tattooed and have nose piercings and give out sticky sweets popular in the nineties with drink receipts.
‘Not really.’
‘Post-travelling blues?’
‘Not really,’ I say. ‘Glad to be back.’
‘And the job?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘I think the fitness centre has gotten into you. It’s a cult. Sporty people are in a cult,’ Kim says. ‘You’re drinking vodka soda lime for Christ’s sake.’
‘They’re not really, Kim. They just like moving.’
‘It’s bizarre that you’re not on longnecks and ordering pizza.’ She pokes at the ice in her drink with her straw. ‘I’m worried.’
‘It’s the environment I’m in, it’s rubbing off on me.’
‘Should I be worried? I don’t like the sound of this Andrea.’
‘She’s cool, Kim. You would like her if you met her. She’s sound.’
‘Do you want another one?’ she asks, tilting her glass in my direction.
‘I’ve got plenty left here.’
She flicks her gaze upwards and slinks out of the booth to the bar.
Fionn’s the other side of me. He asks, ‘What does she mean?’
‘I found a job in my hometown’s leisure centre. Doing admin and office work. It’s pretty dull. But I’ve made friends with one of the instructors and Kim’s jealous.’
‘Must be a good place to work.’
‘It’s fine. I can swim for free when my shift ends. That’s quite nice.’
‘It must be fun to work.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘To see people daily, have stuff to do.’
I pause. ‘It’s grand, yeah. I’m living with my grandmother at the moment to save up. Very chilled between life with her and the job but I don’t really know what to do with myself.’
‘Me neither. I’m so fucking blue in this city. I feel like I’m choking.’
‘Do you work?’
‘Not in that traditional sense. Actually, not in my own non-traditional sense either. Since my collection came out, I can’t write. I’ve seized up. The city is pulling me down. I’m straddling the deep.’
‘The city is great but I’m not long back from New Zealand. I never realized what a lovely part of the world I came from until I went out into the world. The pastel skies here, blanketing, comforting. I never appreciated it. All the fields and trees. All the plants and animals. Ireland is beautiful. I never even noticed before.’
‘I’ve never been to the west. Hear it’s nice.’
‘You’ve never been?’
‘Nope.’
‘It’s only two and a half hours away by car.’
‘I think we went to Limerick once but no, I’ve only been across the water. All around the UK. Same price sure might as well go to a right country.’
‘Ireland is a right country.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Fionn says. ‘Tell me more about your place.’
‘Well, it rains all the time. But it’s pleasant rain. Or at least you can have a fire on and not feel guilty about doing nothing all day. Like, it’s quiet. Boring if you want to look at it that way. But sometimes quiet and boring are underestimated, don’t you think?’
‘Yes. My life has been too turbulent. I crave serenity.’
‘My gran, she’s old enough now. Very sweet. A little old stereotypical grandmother. She’s cute. You’d like her. Everyone likes her.’
‘I am great with grandmothers.’
‘Sometimes in the evenings, she’ll be cooking up tea and I’ll go outside to watch the sun setting over the fields of sheep and I feel so lucky to be able to breathe easily.’
‘That sounds delightful.’
‘It is.’
‘When I look out the grimy window of my bedsit that I can barely pay for with me dole, at the fucking dismal day outside, I wonder am I suffocating with panic?’
‘I used to panic a lot too. Annoyingly, I think the swimming helps it.’
‘Why is it annoying?’
‘Because it’s what’s recommended, isn’t it, movement as a way to heal? With my anxiety, I know the unease is there lurking, like in a box that I feel curious to open but if I do it jumps out and catches me by the throat so I swim and leave the box closed.’
‘Do you reckon I could come to the west sometime?’ he asks.
‘Yeah. Totally. It’d be cool to have you there. We’ve a spare room. My gran won’t mind. She often tells me to invite friends to visit. I think she doesn’t want me to leave so she gives me these incentives to stay.’
‘Thanks, Nat,’ he says and I smile.
Kim leaves a drink down in front of my half-filled glass and scooches back in beside us. ‘You’ll drink that when you’re done. I’m not queuing at the bar again.’
I didn’t think we were being serious, me and Fionn, thought it was only the drink talking, but he texts me to confirm it when I’m on the train home. I say he’s welcome whenever. He messages me about getting there Friday.