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“What is it?” A hot paranoia struck her.
A noise that might have been a laugh came from his nose as he receded his daring fraction forward. “Ah no, it’s nothing. I just thought . . . well, I just thought it was really lovely the way it was.”
Her hand dropped, and all the curls came loose. “Oh.”
The foyer’s air became dense, his words making her mouth oval as she noted she’d remember this incredibly small compliment in years to come. Worried that made her vapid, she combated the silence usually relished by tapping her finger on the bookings page: “You’re in luck. There’s one room left.” She recalled his large bag, “But for the one night is all.”
He nodded slowly, grinning with angst she’d have placed on someone years younger than them. Someone more naive to the perpetual disappointment that stems from just living.
“You know, I don’t often consider myself a lucky man, if ever, but maybe tonight is the exception. Besides, one night is all I need, Áine Meaher.”
Áine’s brows raised from fox-like to arches, and her forehead creased with every line it had. Then breath left her in such an audible action she almost found herself grateful it forced her next words to be muted.
He remembers me.
CHAPTER TWO
Dublin 2016
Fionn
Fionn had gotten the late bus from Kilkenny with no one to wave him off. This didn’t necessarily bother him considering the weather was wet and his plans were discreet, but he also looked back to the empty bus shelter before stepping into the aisle, something more than the chill nipping at him. Loneliness maybe.
The damp floor squeaked against the rubber of his shoes, having commuters wince as he walked past them. Not that he cared. It was a near two-hour journey to Bachelors Walk in Dublin’s centre where his limited company was the tannoy that had managed to pronounce each stop wrong, and the late autumn darkness he didn’t fancy much.
In truth, his only cause for wanting daylight was that the dark had him suffer the sight of his hazed reflection from the window his head vibrated against. And it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his own company—he didn’t mind that at all, but he wanted to avoid the blatant self-awareness tonight. A night he wanted to numbly drift through, to not second guess the decision that had led him here—or temporarily here if the ‘here’ was Dublin City.
After Fionn arrived and thanked his retiring-aged bus driver to no response, he treaded with stiff legs through more rain. Or maybe the same rain.
An old gear bag hung over his shoulder from his glory days as walked aimlessly down the cobbled street, lit by unkempt streetlamps. It was a bed he wanted. Any bed. Or not a bed. Just somewhere to rest his head.
Even when veering onto the street with a sign for a nearby B&B, he thought he might have preferred a bench over the cost of something he didn’t get to enjoy. Bad dreams preyed regardless. Like little black bugs they crawled into his mind at night through his ears. It was the insomnia that bothered him more.
Because at least in the dreams his mam came to talk. She’d visit through memories of them baking in their cramped kitchen, but he was the only one who knew she would die soon after. So not to upset her, he’d play the part. Ask her normal nine-year-old questions as he tried to fold flour into eggs and butter. He’d ask what her favourite aeroplane model was and try not to cry when she pinched his shoulders all lovingly when she answered, “Ones that bring you to better places, love.”
Then he’d wake up somehow happy he got to see her at all.
A homeless man, reposing against the shutters of a closed FabPharmacyrose from his tatty sleeping bag just then. “Any cash, bud?” he rattled through worn teeth.
Fionn froze in motion like a shepherd’s hook had yanked his neck. Then he passed a crumpled tenner from his back pocket into the man’s pleading coffee cup before the internal debate came to mind; would the guy spend it on drugs? Or if Fionn gave it freely, was it no longer his to dictate the use of?
Sometimes he’d sway between both during the fork of perturbed decision, afraid he might be the cause of an overdose, but ultimately would give the money because he sympathisedwith the person behind the reaching hand. He had been that reaching hand before. He still kind of was.
The man’s sleeping bag, ripped at the end, caught Fionn’s narrowed gaze. He empathised for having long legs himself, among less trivial reasons. But it was the shoes so worn the man’s Swiss cheese socks were on show that made Fionn’s empathy mutate into a physical ache in his stomach. When this happened, he got the urge to look for a spoon as if the ache were something gloopy he could scoop out and scrape onto the bin liner. He knew now that he wouldn’t have preferred the bench to sleep, if it stretched longer than a night. Rather maybe he should get off his high horse.
“You get yourself a pair of shoes with that money, lad.” He made sure not to look at the man’s feet as he said it.
And a suggestion surely isn’t telling him how to spend the money?
“A tenner wouldn’t get me any bleedin’ shoes, bud.” The man’s voice again rattled like he might have a ghost inside him, and the realisation of his youth spurred something spontaneous to occur:
“Do you know what, fuck it! Take mine. I’m only heading down the road anyway.” Awkwardly dipping his foot into the back heel of his shabby ticked trainer, Fionn slipped it off, then the other.
The man didn’t protest.
When Fionn had learned similar, that pride could be corrosive to improvement, he was better for it.
“We look about the same size.” Fionn slid the shoes over and left it at that.
