The evening after she received this email, Eileen was walking through Temple Bar toward Dame Street. It was a fine bright Saturday evening in early May and the sunlight slanted golden across the faces of buildings. She was wearing a leather jacket over a printed cotton dress, and when she caught the eyes of men passing by, young men in fleece jackets and boots, middle-aged men in fitted shirts, she smiled vaguely and averted her gaze. By half past eight, she had reached a bus stop opposite the old Central Bank. Removing a stick of mint gum from her handbag, she unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. Traffic passed and the shadows on the street moved slowly eastward while she smoothed the foil wrapper out with her fingernail. When her phone started ringing, she slipped it out from her pocket to look at the screen. It was her mother calling. She answered, and after exchanging hellos, Eileen said: Listen, I’m actually in town waiting for a bus, can I call you later on?
Your father’s upset about this business with Deirdre Prendergast, said Mary.
Eileen was squinting at an approaching bus to make out the number, chewing on her gum. Right, she said.
Could you not have a word with Lola?
The bus passed without stopping. Eileen touched her forehead with her fingers. So Dad is upset with Lola, she said, and he talks to you, and you talk to me, and I’m the one who has to talk to Lola. Does that sound reasonable?
If it’s too much bother for you, forget about it.
Another bus was drawing up now and Eileen said into the phone: I have to go, I’ll ring you tomorrow.
When the bus doors opened, she climbed on, tapped her card and went to sit upstairs near the front. She typed the name of a bar into a map application on her phone, while the bus moved through the city centre and southward. On Eileen’s screen, a pulsing blue dot started to make the same journey toward her eventual destination, which was seventeen minutes away. Closing the application, she wrote a message to Lola.
Eileen: hey, did you not invite Deirdre P to the wedding after all?
Within thirty seconds she had received a reply.
Lola: Lol. Hope mammy and daddy are paying you good money to do their dirty work for them.
Reading this message, Eileen drew her brows together and exhaled briskly through her nose. She tapped the reply button and began typing.
Eileen: are you seriously disinviting family members from your wedding now? do you realise how spiteful and immature that is?
She closed the message application then and reopened the map. When instructed by the dot on the screen, she pressed the stopping bell and made her way downstairs. After thanking the driver she got off the bus, and with frequent cautious glances at her phone began to walk back up the street in the direction the bus had come, past a hairdresser’s, a women’s clothing boutique, over a pedestrian crossing, until a flag appeared on-screen
with a line of blue text reading: You have arrived at your destination. She deposited her chewed gum back into its foil wrapper then and threw it into a nearby waste bin.
The entrance was through a cramped porch, leading onto a front bar, and behind that a private room with couches and low tables, lit entirely by red bulbs. The appearance was quaintly domestic, like a large private living room from an earlier era, but drenched in lurid red light. Eileen was greeted at once by several friends and acquaintances, who put their glasses down and rose from sofas to embrace her. At the sight of a man named Darach she said brightly: Happy birthday, you! After that she ordered a drink and then sat down on one of the faintly sticky leather couches beside her friend Paula. Music was playing from speakers affixed to the walls and a bathroom door swung open at the end of the room periodically, releasing a brief flood of white light before swinging shut again. Eileen checked her phone and saw a new message from Lola.
Lola: Hmmm do I really want to hear about how immature I am from someone who’s stuck in a shitty job making no money and living in a kip at age 30......
Eileen stared at the screen for a while and then pocketed her phone again. Beside her a woman named Roisin was telling a story about a broken window in her street-level apartment which her landlord had refused to fix for over a month. After that, everyone began sharing horror stories about the rental market. An hour, two hours, elapsed in this way. Paula ordered another round of drinks. Silver platters of hot food were brought out from behind the bar: cocktail sausages, potato wedges, chicken wings glistening in wet sauce. At ten to eleven, Eileen got up, went to the bathroom and took her phone from
her pocket again. There were no new notifications. She opened a messaging app and tapped on Simon’s name, displaying a thread from the previous evening.
Eileen: home safe?
Simon: Yes, was just about to text you
Simon: I may have brought you a present
Eileen: really??
Simon: You’ll be glad to know the shop on the ferry was doing a special offer on duty free Toblerone Simon: Are you doing anything tomorrow night?
Eileen: actually yes for once...
Eileen: darach is having a birthday thing, sorry
Simon: Ah ok
Simon: Can I see you during the week then?
Eileen: yes please
That was the final message in the thread. She used the toilet, washed her hands, reapplied lipstick in the mirror, and then blotted the lipstick using a square of toilet roll.