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CHAPTER ONE
Dublin 2016
Áine
Áine lit her cigarette, cupping the match to avoid the breeze of night’s approach. And yet, despite this comforting smell of smoke filling the alleyway, a stench of greasy chips wafted from the vent above like it had an undeterrable vendetta.
She scrunched her nose, dragging her top lip with it. She hated the smell. It clung to her pinafore uniform, now dotted in ash. It clung to her wild brown curls. When she vocalised her complaints to those who would listen, she swore it even clung to her soul. That people would visit her unkept grave and complain not of the stench of corpse but of greasyfuckingchips.
With a huff to accompany these woes, she balanced a bare leg and her back against the bricked wall of Dublin City’s apparent ‘finest’ B&B. She smoked meticulously slow, inhaling it like it was her own, lower-class form of breath-controlled meditation. Inhale—forget the bad moments. Exhale—damn the ones who caused them.
Smoking was also where Áine found peace. Though apart from said peace, she wouldn’t do it if there was no risk of it killing her one day. There was a sense of control to it she seldom found elsewhere. When on her second glass of pinot grigio, she’dadmit the risk was morbidly thrilling. When on her fifth, she’d have smoked the entire box in a single sitting and rejected that notion entirely not to panic.
Still, she hadn’t an ideation for death to find her sooner. Never that. Rather, it was just a bout of melancholy suffered from working a twelve-hour shift under the rule of a Dublin B&B owner. That and a portion of loneliness.
The door to back inside was wedged open by a tin of peas; above it she glimpsed the beginnings of drizzle spitting in the emergency exit’s glow.
“For fuck’s sake.”
Áine dabbed out the half-smoked cigarette on the wall where it was already marked black. When it rained the smoke hugged her clothes, and Paddy would threaten to dock her pay because she wasn’t presenting herself to the family business standard.
Every time this berating transpired, she held her tongue—literally, with her teeth. Because she was desperate to retaliate. Tell him that his B&B had worse issues than her smelling of smoke. Like it was halfway to derelict, and one room was indefinitely reserved for sex workers.
Áine wasn’t actually opposed to the room’s dedication. She was a feminist, and while the topic of prostitution was heavily debated in that world; the abolitionists saying they were contributing to the continuation of female oppression. Áine’s stance was if it was consensual, as in, the woman considered it unharmful, then surely the opposing argument was borderline inane.
Still, Áine always welcomed a good debate.
It was where she found thrills in said humdrum life. That and excellent sex.
She pressed her hand to her bottom to stop her pinafore pleats from rising and bent to grab the tin of peas.
Not even an empty alleyway needs to see my knickers.Although she had once spent a passionate night with a French woman who said, I love your flower. To this day, Áine wasn’t sure if she meant her underwear pattern or what lay beneath.
The peas sloshed like an overindulged belly as she stepped into the vacant kitchen, pumps echoing on tiles that might have been white at one point. When inside, a torrent of warmth touched her skin. She clenched her lips not to outwardly thank it. The winter months were no place for a compulsory pantsless uniform—or any season really. Paddy didn’t care about staff complaints. He’d say things with air quotes like, “Jesus, Áine, next you’ll be callin’ me sexist”.
The intended negation wasn’t lost on her, but she also needed the job, and so the tongue-holding only worsened. Left the tip of her tongue sensitive. She’d begun to run it against the back of her bottom teeth in bed at night by habit.
“Are you back, hun?” Daisy called from reception, her echo carrying it through two rooms.
Daisy’s melodic tone, too sweet, was a typical sign she wanted something she knew wasn’t deserved.
Áine headed through the stretch of industrial kitchen, venturing past the dining room Paddy refused to refurbish since it had been decorated in the ‘80s with pictures of Jesus and Padre Pio. She cursed the stupid layout like every other time she’d snuck out for a cigarette. This was her subliminal Catholic guilt haunting her into a fleeting state of annoyance.
The adjacent door across the room, past square dining tables with crockery laid out for breakfast was the foyer:
“I was calling you, hun.”
Daisy’s fingers twiddled her frustration around the main telephone cord. The phone was barely held away from her ear despite having a conversation. She was always talking to someone or listening to some music, claiming it was becausesilence made her uncomfortable. Áine couldn’t relate and was sure Daisy didn’t like herself very much if she suffered when alone for any amount of time.
To contradict, Áine didn’t particularly adore herself either despite her fondness for silence. Silence was something to be enjoyed and something she wanted much more of. Having six siblings created such a want, and was the very reason her debates whenincompany were convincing.
“What do you need?” Áine asked in a dry tone so Daisy might think twice about whatever favour it was this time.
A mere two seconds later anxiety painfully clamped Áine’s chest. She held her arm rigid so as not to dramatically grab it. Even now, as an adult, what had been ingrained into her in childhood persisted:Don’t be dramatic. Don’t be rude. Eat your carrots, and you’ll see better. Life is hard. Get over it.
Daisy held her hand over the phone’s speaker and mouthed the words with absurd emphasis, “It’s Tom Molloy. The guy with the big willy.” Her tongue stretched out of her mouth when saying both the doubleLs.
Áine cocked a brow when resting her elbows on the reception’s guest side, oak and scratched to death from wanderlust wannabes. “Oh, and what does Mr Tom want?” What she meant was,whendoes Tom want it?
