‘That’s security,’ Shermer says with a grimace. ‘Now, I’m under orders to tell you to clear out your desks, and under no circumstances is anyone to take any company property. There’s CCTV and you will be prosecuted. I’ll see you on 3 January. Oh, and Happy Christmas.’
The room erupts again with talk of lawsuits and calling Joe Duffy and does anyone know how much you could get for a filing cabinet and an eight-year-old PC on DoneDeal. I see Sadhbh leading Eilish towards the lift, her arm around her shoulder, and I feel the tears begin to prickle in my eyes. Six years I’ve given this company. Six years of emptying the dishwasher, six years of being the health and safety officer, six years of assisting the Christmas Party Social Committee and running out to buy emergency Secret Santa presents. And for what? To see my glittering career as a pensions administrator and my team-leader potential go down the toilet?
The room empties and I’m just about to swing out the door when I turn on my heel and stride across to the table, buoyed up by the injustice of it all. ‘Well, it would be a shame to see these go to waste,’ I say, my voice high and indignant as I grab the platter of pastries. Martin Shermer looks up from his phone and just stares back at me blankly.
Walking back to my desk, I can see everyone totting up in their heads how many years they’ve done and how much they could potentially get. Some of them even have calculators on the go. I catch Suzanne looking up massive trampolines online the second she sits down. Very unsafe if you ask me.
The lift doors open and Sadhbh brazenly rolls out of it on an office chair with a few others from upstairs, shouting that they’re all heading over to Dempsey’s for a few pints and a debrief. She knows none of those thicko security guards will say anything to her. And if they do, she’ll somehow manage to charm them into letting her keep the chair. She’s always getting refunds for clothes in shops despite losing her receipts immediately. And then she slags me for having a special Receipts Box in my bedside locker.
Yes, I think I need something to steady my nerves and a pint would probably do the trick. Of course, I’m only going Out, not Out Out, as in I won’t be in Coppers for the national anthem, so I mouth ‘I’ll follow you over’ at the closing doors.
I manage to hold in the tears until I can find a corner of the building not occupied by someone crying into their mobile. My fingers shaking, I hit dial.
‘Ais?’
‘I’ve lost my job, John,’ I bawl down the phone. ‘What am I going to do?’
Chapter 3
The door swings open and his big strong arms are around me in a split second. I threw all caution to the wind and got a taxi out to his house in Drumcondra, even though I could easily have gotten the last bus. I was driven to flinging money away by the traumatic job news and four pints I had in Dempsey’s. As I left, Sadhbh was sitting on Des’s knee and calling after me not to forget to pick up the balloons tomorrow. Tomorrow. Elaine’s hen party. We’ll have to make sure to be in good form despite everything that’s happened. She immediately WhatsApped us to cancel it in the wake of the PensionsPlus news, but I’ve organised thirty buns (I refuse to call them cupcakes. Since when were we too good for buns?) decorated with frilly bras, and after the shame I went through ordering them I’m not backing out now.
John’s hugs have always been like stepping into some kind of isolation pod. So broad and familiar. Walking into those outstretched arms and burrowing my head under his chin is what kept me going when we found our way back to each other after Daddy died. Auntie Sheila calls John my ‘rock of strength’, and she’s right. He’s helped out on the farm at weekends and has been so understanding about my midweek trips Down Home to stay with Mammy. He’s also been extremely patient at the things that have made me suddenly break down in tears – an ad for Bisto, Daddy-style slippers on sale in Dunnes, Phil Collins on the radio, anything at all to do with the impending Christmas. Here in John’s arms now, I relish the familiarity. The safety. And I wonder how much longer I can get away with standing in the middle of the supermarket with hot tears falling helplessly down my cheeks as he dutifully turns me away from the honeydew melons. Daddy’s Christmas specialty was digging out the melon baller and producing what he considered a very elegant starter, complete with a slice of ham on the side. He’d added the ham a few years back after seeing it on a menu in a fancy restaurant. Now, I never put the two into my mouth together, but he was very proud of it.
I look past John’s shoulder and see my cousin Cillian in the sitting room, catching up on the latest Scandi-noir whodunit. I’m not able for the subtitles, to be honest, on top of trying to keep track of the characters, who all seem to be wearing the same jumper. It’s always raining too. If I wanted a dose of misery I could just look out the window. No, give me Strictly Come Dancing any day. Nice bit of glam. Cillian is bet into it, though. He’s the man responsible for me and John being together. John was my seventeenth kiss at my twenty-first Down Home, and Cillian brought him to the party, a big strapping lad in a Knocknamanagh Rangers jersey. Even the fierce rivalry between my hometown, Ballygobbard, and Knock – six kilometres away from each other but light years apart when it comes to the hurling – didn’t stop my eyes following him around the room. That was eight years ago. Eight years of kisses and matches and holidays and rows and me always checking to make sure there’s something not too spicy on the menu if we’re going for dinner and him always inspecting the drinks to make sure the barman has given him Diet Coke for my vodka, not real fat Coke. Eight years minus the few months we were apart this year – our one and only break-up. I was so wild to get engaged and it seemed to be all that mattered. It drove us apart. Funny how things change. Then we got back together and, Jesus, my head was spinning between the grief and the love and the months that I’d missed him. Poor Cillian found my pants on the kitchen floor one Sunday morning a while back. Luckily I was able to scoop them up and pass them off as a tea towel before he got too close. The kitchen! It was like we were twenty-one again. Not that we ever did it in the kitchen when we were twenty-one, but the stairs in John’s old house saw a bit of action when we were certain, certain everyone was at least two counties away. Now, me and John are getting back to some sort of normality – apart from all my crying.
John pushes back from me and looks down into my eyes, as if he can sense me thinking away. ‘Are you alright?’
I’m not really alright, not at all. The panic of no job washes back over me, but as I open my mouth to respond, Cillian saunters out into the hall, giant burrito in his paw. He’s graduated from a diet of Goodfellas and Supermilk to burritos, Goodfellas and Supermilk. I heard him telling John that he never imagined himself eating ethnic food, and here he is practically a Mexican. I’m not sure if burritos qualify as ethnic but putting rice in what is essentially a sandwich seems very exotic to me.
‘What’s up, Ais?’
John motions at Cillian to retreat, gently saying over my head, ‘Loads of jobs gone at her place.’
‘Oh, right. Shite. That’s … shite. Sorry, Ais.’ Cillian paws awkwardly at my shoulder and backs into the sitting room. He might not know one end of the hoover from another, but he is a dote.
It is shite. Everything is falling apart.
My phone goes in my coat pocket and I reach for it. It’s Majella. Of course I texted her earlier to break the news, but she was out with her teacher pals, celebrating surviving the term and comparing war stories, (Majella probably won with her tale of one of her students piddling in her handbag in a fit of extreme boldness and the mother having to be called. It didn’t help when she saw the same child and parent in Tesco that Sunday afternoon. Maj had nine bottles of wine in the trolley and nothing else. She described the look the mother gave her as ‘caustic’.) I show John her name flashing up on my phone screen and he nods and squeezes my hand before following Cillian into the front room. I check the stairs for discarded jocks and sink onto the third step.
‘Hiya, Maj.’
‘Ais. Are you alright? I’m sorry I didn
’t get to ring earlier but my hands are in ribbons carrying bags of “best teacher ever” mugs and snowglobes. Just once I’d like a nice bottle of Baileys or someth–’
‘You’re grand, bird,’ I say, hugging my knees to my chest. ‘I’m over in John’s, so I can’t really talk. I’ll catch you up on it all tomorrow.’
‘Ah, no problem, Ais, but listen, don’t be worrying, you’ll be grand. Left here, please!’ she roars suddenly, and I swear I hear her taxi driver swerve and curse, mugs clinking away on the seat beside her.
‘Bye, Majella.’
‘Bye, Ais!’ There’s the sound of a tussle as she hangs up and a faint ‘Will you give me a hand with this poinsettia? Good man!’
John and Cillian are deep into a repeat of Great British Bake Off when I poke my head into the sitting room. ‘That rise is poxy,’ Cillian says confidently as a contestant pushes a loaf into an oven. ‘That’s an ambitious bake alright,’ John agrees. Two lads whose only real knowledge of bread is down to their life-long kinship with Mr Brennan and Pat the Baker. I was always suspicious of the likes of sourdough myself. It sounds manky, but Elaine convinced me to give it a go and, do you know what, it’s actually lovely.
John shifts over on the couch and pats the cushion beside him. I squeeze in between him and Cillian and try to focus on the telly, Majella’s words about being grand ringing in my ears. John nudges me and mouths ‘Alright?’ as Cillian leans forward, unconsciously muttering, ‘Come on, good lad’ as a contestant slides a focaccia out of the oven. I smile tightly at John and try to concentrate on Bread Week, but my thoughts wander to tomorrow. The hen. Do we have everything ready? Do I have my good Oasis dress …?
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I exclaim, thumping my head back onto the couch.
‘You’re dead right, Ais – he’s mad to put thyme in that,’ Cillian replies without turning away from the telly.
‘What? No, I’m not on about the bread, you gom. I … I just forgot to get my dress cleaned for Elaine and Ruby’s hen tomorrow.’
It’s been hanging in my wardrobe since my cousin Doireann’s twenty-first a few weeks back, and while I’m sure it’s grand, I like a fresh dress for a hen. It’s respectful.
‘Jesus, you never stop going to weddings. When is that one?’
‘New Year’s Eve,’ John pipes up. ‘Dublin on New Year’s Eve, if you can credit it.’
John’s found it tricky to hide his disbelief at having to be in Dublin so soon after Christmas. There’ve been a few tense words about it. Our first hint at a real row since we got back together. But instead of letting it spill into a fight and bring reality crashing down, I’ve promised him that we can just drive up on New Year’s Eve and that Elaine and Ruby will definitely have normal beers at the afters, not just alcoholic wheat shots or whatever they were planning in the apartment the other week.
‘And are yourself and Sadhbh house hunting already or what? It’s fairly competitive out there, or so I hear. Jesus, that needs to prove for at least another twenty minutes!’ Cillian exclaims.
Elaine hasn’t said it in so many words, but I know that me and Sadhbh are going to have to look for somewhere else to live. She and Ruby are going to be a married couple. They’re not going to want to look at someone else’s pants and tights drying on the clothes horse while they’re firing strawberries at each other in their nighties or what have you. I know she won’t turf us out on our ears, but we’ll have to go sooner or later. I’ll miss Chez SEA something fierce. It’s been some craic and a real escape from the sadness Down Home. I hate the thought of having to gather up my good cushions and take down the Live Love Laugh decal above my bed when it feels like I just moved in yesterday. I’ll even miss arguing with Elaine about her frankly reckless use of bags for life – the key is in the name, Elaine. You’re not supposed to buy six every time you go to the supermarket. But most of all I’ll miss the girls. It’s hard to believe that only a year ago I barely knew them.
‘Yeah, we’ll have to move alright. I’m trying not to think about it this side of Christmas.’ Cillian is already busying himself bringing burrito wrappers and pint glasses into the kitchen, though, making the most out of a lull in Bake Off. John squeezes my knee and gives me a supportive smile, but the elephant in the room is practically sitting on the arm of the couch.
Cillian sticks his head back around the kitchen door. He’s obviously been deep in thought in there. ‘Here’s an idea, Ais. You could move in here? Piotr’s room is empty – you could have a walk-in wardrobe.’
****
‘You can stay here as long as you like, you know?’
John’s voice is muffled as he pulls his Knock Triathlon T-shirt over his head. It’s been washed so many times that it’s as soft as any pyjama top, and that’s what he uses it as.
I pretend not to hear him as I slide into his bed. I wonder did he feel me stiffen when Cillian mentioned Piotr’s name. I don’t let myself think about Piotr. Well, not if I can help it at all.
‘Ais? You can stay here as long as you like,’ he repeats.
‘Oh, thanks, I know. Thanks, love.’
Neither of us mentions Cillian’s suggestion that I actually move in. We could have talked about it many times, ever since Elaine and Ruby set the wedding date, but we’ve danced around it. A year ago I would have jumped at the chance – it was all I wanted. A month ago I might have jumped at the chance too, when we were still in the grip of getting back together and knickers in the kitchen. But now I feel like not mentioning it at all.
John climbs into bed beside me, first lying on his back and then curling his body around mine in that familiar way of his, moving his hand up and down my thigh. I think about responding, but I’m just so tired. It’s been a while, though. I start to turn to face him but as I do he rolls onto his back and sighs.
‘Will we watch something? West Wing?’
I watch his face as he watches the telly, the flashing images lighting up his furrowed brow. My lovely John. I close the half a foot between us in the bed and rest my head on his chest, but no amount of Jed Bartlet can make me feel better.
Chapter 4
Twenty past five and we don’t even have the Micra packed yet. I didn’t get home to Chez SEA until this afternoon, after a fitful night of troubling dreams and sweating in John’s bed. Piotr featured heavily after Cillian mentioning him, with his strong arms and eastern European turn of phrase. I could hardly look at John when I woke up. He doesn’t know about me and Piotr and that kiss we had not long after Daddy died. It was a moment of pure madness, but I know it would kill him.
Sadhbh was out late herself. She said it was close to three when she finally rolled – literally, she was still on the office chair – out of Dempsey’s. She opened her handbag earlier and out poured Sharpies, Post-its and all the best stuff from the third-floor stationery press onto the kitchen island countertop. I hope I’m not somehow considered an accessory to her crime. The last thing I need now is never being able to get a visa to go to America.
We ordered a much-needed pizza for a late lunch (ham and pineapple on one side for me, blue cheese and a type of sausage I’ve never heard of for Sadhbh) and multiple cans of Diet Coke and analysed how much redundancy money we might get. Sadhbh’s HR head means she’s in the know about all this and she thinks the deal could actually be worth loads. I’ve estimated €20,000 but that could actually be conservative by her reckoning. A few people took voluntary redundancy last year, and if the holiday Siobhán from Client Services went on with Michael from Sales is anything to go by, the company was very generous and went way beyond statutory payouts. Michael’s wife was less generous about it, by all accounts. So surely we’ll get the same? I can feel my hopes rising and decide to nip that in the bud. I always like to keep my expectations low to reduce my chances of being disappointed. I honestly don’t know how Americans go through life with their ‘positive mental attitude’ craic. What a nightmare. I also asked Sadhbh if she’d given any thought to what’s going to happen to C
hez SEA once Ruby and Elaine are married, and she admitted she knows disbandment is on the cards, although we’re both hoping beyond hope that maybe the fact that Elaine and Ruby haven’t mentioned it means they want us all to live together as one big happy family. Maybe they’d want one of our eggs for their babies. Although, as Sadhbh reminded me, they have enough eggs between them. But I’ve been thinking of trying to do a bit more charity work, so I’ll make sure they know the option is there. It’s more likely that Elaine and Ruby just haven’t had time to think about it. The engagement and wedding planning has been so fast. Who knows, though? Ronan Keating was dead right about life being a rollercoaster. You just gotta ride it.
‘Would you not just move in with John?’ Sadhbh enquires as she picks up the first load of hen-party paraphernalia to head down to the underground car park – the feather boas, pink cowboy hats and the three-foot E and R balloons. We were going to spell out their full names until I found out they were €14 each. Feck that.
Sadhbh balances the box on her knee as she looks at me quizzically.
‘Ah, I don’t know. We’re not that long back together. It might be a bit … soon.’
‘Soon? Ais, you’ve been together practically since you were in nappies …’ but she sees my doubtful face and changes the subject, marvelling at the vibrancy of the L-plate necklaces. She’s good like that. She heads out the door with the box and I retreat into my room to get the rest of the stuff. I still have to bring down the bunting and the sashes and the inflatable ball and chain. I bought willy straws too – it was almost like a reflex – although, in hindsight, they probably won’t go down well at a lesbian hen. Or maybe they will – you never know with this gang.
Sadhbh clatters back into the apartment and sticks her head around my bedroom door. ‘It’s getting tight in the boot, Ais,’ she says, before I see her eyes falling on the packet of willy straws lying open on the bed, and she trails off. They’re very detailed, to be fair. You can see every vein. She looks up and raises an eyebrow.
The Importance of Being Aisling Page 3
