At twenty past twelve on a Wednesday afternoon, a woman sat behind a desk in a shared office in Dublin city center, scrolling through a text document. She had very dark hair, swept back loosely into a tortoiseshell clasp, and she was wearing a dark-gray sweater tucked into black cigarette trousers. Using the soft, greasy roller on her computer mouse she skimmed over the document, eyes flicking back and forth across narrow columns of text, and occasionally she stopped, clicked, and inserted or deleted characters. Most frequently she was inserting two full stops into the name “WH Auden,” in order to standardize its appearance as “W. H. Auden.” When she reached the end of the document, she opened a search command, selected the Match Case option, and entered “WH.” No matches appeared. She scrolled back up to the top of the document, words and paragraphs flying past illegibly, and then, apparently satisfied, saved her work and closed the file.
At one o’clock she told her colleagues she was going to lunch, and they smiled and waved at her from behind their monitors. Pulling on a jacket, she walked to a café near the office and sat at a table by the window, holding a sandwich in one hand and a copy of “The Brothers Karamazov” in the other. At twenty to two, she looked up to observe a tall, fair-haired man entering the café. He was wearing a suit and tie, with a plastic lanyard around his neck, and was speaking into his phone. Yeah, he said, I was told Tuesday, but I’ll call back and check that for you. When he saw the woman seated by the window, his face changed, and he quickly lifted his free hand, mouthing the word Hey. Into the phone, he continued, I don’t think you were copied on that, no. Looking at the woman, he pointed to the phone impatiently and made a talking gesture with his hand. She smiled, toying with the corner of a page in her book. Right, right, the man said. Listen, I’m actually out of the office now, but I’ll do that when I get back in. Yeah. Good, good, good to talk to you.
The man ended his call and came over to her table. Looking him up and down, she said, Oh, Simon, you’re so important-looking, I’m afraid you’re going to be assassinated. He picked up his lanyard and studied it critically. It’s this thing, he said. It makes me feel like I deserve to be. Can I buy you a coffee? She said she was going back to work. Well, he said, can I buy you a takeaway coffee and walk you back? I want your opinion on something. She shut her book and said yes. While he went to the counter, she stood up and brushed away the sandwich crumbs that had fallen into her lap. He ordered two coffees, one white and one black, and dropped some coins into the tip jar. How was Lola’s fitting in the end? the man asked. The woman glanced up, met his eyes, and let out a strange, stifled sound. Oh, fine, she said. You know my mother’s in town. We’re all meeting up tomorrow to look for our wedding outfits.
He smiled benignly, watching the progress of their coffees behind the counter. Funny, he said, I had a bad dream the other night about you getting married.
What was bad about it?
You were marrying someone other than me.
The woman laughed. Do you talk like this to the women at your work? she said.
He turned back to her, amused, and replied, God, no, I’d get in awful trouble. And quite rightly. No, I never flirt with anyone at work. If anything, they flirt with me.
I suppose they’re all middle-aged and want you to marry their daughters.
I can’t agree with this negative cultural imaging around middle-aged women. Of every demographic, I actually think I like them best.
What’s wrong with young women?
There’s just that bit of . . .
He gestured his hand from side to side in the air to indicate friction, uncertainty, sexual chemistry, indecisiveness, or perhaps mediocrity.
Your girlfriends are never middle-aged, the woman pointed out.
And neither am I, quite yet, thank you.
On the way out of the café, the man held the door open for the woman to walk through, which she did without thanking him. What did you want to ask me about? she said. He told her he wanted her advice on a situation that had arisen between two of his friends, both of whom the woman seemed to know by name. The friends had been living together as roommates, and then had become involved in some kind of ambiguous sexual relationship. After a time, one of them had started seeing someone else, and now the other friend, the one who was still single, wanted to leave the apartment but had no money and nowhere else to go. Really more of an emotional situation than an apartment situation, the woman said. The man agreed, but added, Still, I think it’s probably best for her to get out of the apartment. I mean, she can apparently hear them having sex at night, so that’s not great. They had reached the steps of the office building by then. You could loan her some money, the woman said. The man replied that he had offered already but she had refused. Which was a relief, actually, he added, because my instinct is not to get too involved. The woman asked what the first friend had to say for himself, and the man replied that the first friend felt that he was not doing anything wrong, that the previous relationship had come to a natural end and what was he supposed to do, stay single forever? The woman made a face and said, God, yeah, she really needs to get out of that apartment. I’ll keep an eye out. They lingered on the steps a little longer. My wedding invite arrived, by the way, the man remarked.
Oh yes, she said. That was this week.
Did you know they were giving me a plus-one?
She looked at him as if to ascertain whether he was joking, and then raised her eyebrows. That’s nice, she said. They didn’t give me one, but considering the circumstances I suppose that might have been indelicate.
Would you like me to go alone as a gesture of solidarity?
After a pause, she asked, Why? Is there someone you’re thinking of bringing?
Well, the girl I’m seeing, I suppose. If it’s all the same to you.
She said, Hmm. Then she added, You mean woman, I hope.
He smiled. Ah, let’s be a little bit friendly, he said.
Do you go around behind my back calling me a girl?
Certainly not. I don’t call you anything. Whenever your name comes up, I just get flustered and leave the room.
Disregarding this, the woman asked, When did you meet her?
Oh, I don’t know. About six weeks ago.
She’s not another one of these twenty-two-year-old Scandinavian women, is she?
No, she’s not Scandinavian, he said.
With an exaggeratedly weary expression, the woman tossed her coffee cup in the waste bin outside the office door. Watching her, the man added, I can go alone if you’d rather. We can make eyes at each other across the room.
Oh, you make me sound very desperate, she said.
God, I didn’t mean to.
For a few seconds she said nothing, just stood staring into the traffic. Presently she said aloud, She looked beautiful at the fitting. Lola, I mean. You were asking.
Still watching her, he replied, I can imagine.
Thanks for the coffee.
Thank you for the advice.
For the rest of the afternoon in the office, the woman worked on the same text-editing interface, moving apostrophes and deleting commas. After closing one file and before opening another, she routinely checked her social-media feeds. Her expression, her posture, did not vary depending on the information she encountered there: a news report about a horrific natural disaster, a photograph of someone’s beloved pet, a female journalist speaking out about death threats, a recondite joke requiring familiarity with several other previous Internet jokes in order to be even vaguely comprehensible, a passionate condemnation of white supremacy, or a promoted tweet advertising a health supplement for expectant mothers. Nothing changed in her outward relationship to the world that would allow an observer to determine what she felt about what she saw. Then, after some length of time, with no apparent trigger, she closed the browser window and reopened the text editor. Occasionally one of her colleagues would interject with a work-related question and she would answer, or someone would share a funny anecdote with the office and they would all laugh, but mostly the work continued quietly.
At 5:34 p.m., the woman took her jacket off the hook again and bade her remaining colleagues farewell. She unwound her headphones from around her phone, plugged them in, and walked down Kildare Street toward Nassau Street, then took a left, winding her way westward. After a twenty-eight-minute walk, she stopped at a new-build apartment complex on the north quays and let herself in, climbing two flights of stairs and unlocking a chipped white door. No one else was home, but the layout and interior suggested she was not the sole occupant. A small, dim living room, with one curtained window facing the river, led into a kitchenette with an oven, a half-sized fridge unit, and a sink. From the fridge, the woman removed a bowl covered in cling film, which she disposed of, and put the bowl in the microwave.
After eating, she entered her bedroom. Through the window, the street below was visible, and the slow swell of the river. She removed her jacket and shoes, took the clasp from her hair, and drew her curtains shut. She took off her sweater and wriggled out of her trousers, leaving both items crumpled on the floor. Then she pulled on a cotton sweatshirt and a pair of gray leggings. Her hair, dark and falling loosely over her shoulders, looked clean and slightly dry. She climbed onto her bed and opened her laptop. For some time, she scrolled through various media timelines, occasionally opening and half reading long articles about elections overseas. Her face was wan and tired. Opening a private browser window on her laptop, the woman accessed a social-media Web site, and typed the words “aidan lavin” into the search box. A list of results appeared, and without glancing at the other options she clicked on the third result. A profile opened onscreen, displaying the name Aidan Lavin below a photograph of a man’s head and shoulders viewed from behind. The man’s hair was thick and dark and he was wearing a denim jacket. Beneath the photograph, a caption read: local sad boy. normal brain haver. check out the soundcloud. The user’s most recent update, posted three hours earlier, was a photograph of a pigeon in a gutter, its head buried inside a discarded crisp packet. The caption read: same. The post had a hundred and twenty-seven likes. In her bedroom, leaning against the headboard of the unmade bed, the woman clicked on this post, and replies appeared underneath. One reply, from a user with the handle Actual Death Girl, read: looks like you and all. The Aidan Lavin account had replied: youre right, insanely handsome. Actual Death Girl had liked this reply. The woman on her laptop clicked through to the profile of the Actual Death Girl account. After spending thirty-six minutes looking at a range of social-media profiles associated with the Aidan Lavin account, the woman shut her laptop and lay down on her bed.
By now it was after eight o’clock in the evening. With her head on the pillow, the woman rested her wrist on her forehead. She was wearing a thin gold bracelet that glimmered faintly in the bedside light. Her name was Eileen Lydon. She was twenty-nine years old. Her father, Pat, managed a farm in County Galway and her mother, Mary, was a geography teacher. She had one sister, Lola, who was three years older than she was. As a child, Lola had been sturdy, brave, mischievous, while Eileen had been anxious and often ill. They’d spent their school holidays together playing elaborate narrative games in which they took on the roles of human sisters who had gained access to magical realms, Lola improvising the major plot events and Eileen following along. When available, young cousins, neighbors, and children of family friends were enlisted to take on secondary roles, including, on occasion, a boy named Simon Costigan, who was five years older than Eileen and lived across the river in what had once been the local manor house. He was an extremely polite child who was always wearing clean clothes and saying thank you to adults. Whenever Lola or Eileen misbehaved, their mother asked them why they could not be more like Simon Costigan, who was not only well behaved but had the added dignity of “never complaining.” As the sisters grew older, they no longer included Simon or any other children in their games, but migrated indoors, sketching fictive maps on notepaper, inventing cryptic alphabets, and making tape recordings. Their parents looked on these games with a benign lack of curiosity, happy to supply paper, pens, and blank tapes, but uninterested in hearing anything about the imaginary inhabitants of fictional countries.
The summer Eileen was fifteen, Simon came over to help her father out on the farm. He was twenty years old and studying philosophy at Oxford. Lola had just finished school and was hardly ever in the house, but when Simon stayed for dinner she would come home early, and even change her sweatshirt if it was dirty. At school, Lola had always avoided Eileen, but in Simon’s presence she began to behave like a fond and indulgent older sister, fussing over Eileen’s hair and clothes, treating her like a much younger child. Simon did not join in this behavior. His manner with Eileen was friendly and respectful. He listened to her when she spoke, even when Lola tried to talk over her, and looking calmly at Eileen he would say things like, Ah, that’s very interesting. By August, Eileen had taken to getting up early and watching out her bedroom window for his bicycle, at the sight of which she would run downstairs, meeting him as he arrived through the back door. While he boiled the kettle or washed his hands, she asked him questions about books, about his studies at university, about his life in England. They would talk for a little while, ten minutes or twenty, and afterward he would go out to the farm and she would go back upstairs and lie in bed. Some mornings she was happy, flushed, her eyes gleaming, and on other mornings she cried. Lola told their mother it had to stop. It’s an obsession, she said. It’s embarrassing. By then, Lola had heard from her friends that Simon attended Mass on Sundays even though his parents didn’t, and she was no longer at home for dinner when he was there. Mary began to sit in the kitchen in the mornings, eating breakfast and reading the paper. Eileen would come down anyway, and Simon would greet her in the same friendly manner as always, but her retorts were sullen, and she withdrew quickly to her room. The night before he went back to England, he came over to the house to say goodbye, and Eileen hid in her room and refused to come down. He went upstairs to see her, and she kicked a chair and said he was the only person she could talk to. In my life, the only one, she said. And they won’t even let me talk to you, and now you’re going. I wish I was dead. He was standing with the door half open behind him. Quietly he said, Eileen, don’t say that. Everything will be all right, I promise. You and I are going to be friends for the rest of our lives.
At eighteen, Eileen went to university in Dublin to study English. In her first year, she struck up a friendship with a girl named Alice Kelleher, and the following year they became roommates. Alice had a very loud speaking voice, dressed in ill-fitting secondhand clothes, and seemed to find everything hilarious. Her father was a car mechanic with a drinking problem and she’d had a disorganized childhood. She did not easily find friends among their classmates and faced minor disciplinary proceedings for calling a lecturer a “fascist pig.” Eileen went through college patiently reading all the assigned texts, submitting every project by the deadline, and preparing thoroughly for exams. She collected almost every academic award for which she was eligible and even won a national essay prize. She developed a social circle, went out to night clubs, rejected the advances of various male friends, and came home afterward to eat toast with Alice in the living room. When Eileen was in her second year, Simon moved to Dublin to study for a legal qualification. Eileen invited him to the apartment one night to introduce him to Alice, and he brought with him a box of expensive chocolates and a bottle of white wine. One night, when Alice wasn’t there, Eileen asked him if he had a girlfriend, and he laughed and said, What makes you ask that? I’m a wise old man, remember? Eileen was lying on the sofa, and without lifting her head she tossed a cushion at him, which he caught in his hands. Just old, she said. Not wise.
When Eileen was twenty, she had sex for the first time, with a man she had met on the Internet. Afterward she walked back from his house to her apartment alone. It was late, almost two o’clock in the morning, and the streets were deserted. When she got home, Alice was sitting on the couch typing something on her laptop. Eileen leaned on the jamb of the living-room door and said, Well, that was weird. Alice stopped typing. What, did you sleep with him? she said. Eileen was rubbing her upper arm with the palm of her hand. He asked me to keep my clothes on, she said. Like, for the whole thing. Alice stared at her. Where do you find these people? she said. Looking at the floor, Eileen shrugged her shoulders. Alice got up from the sofa then. Don’t feel bad, she said. It’s not a big deal. It’s nothing. In two weeks you’ll have forgotten about it. Eileen rested her head on Alice’s small shoulder. Simon was living in Paris that summer, working for a climate-emergency group. Eileen went to visit him there, the first time she had ever been on a plane alone. He met her at the airport and they took a train into the city. That night they drank a bottle of wine in his apartment and she told him the story of how she lost her virginity. He laughed and apologized for laughing. They were lying on the bed in his room together. After a pause, Eileen said, I was going to ask how you lost your virginity. But then, for all I know, you still haven’t, she said. He smiled at that. No, I have, he said. For a few seconds she lay quietly with her face turned up toward the ceiling, breathing. Even though you’re Catholic, she said. They were lying close together, their shoulders almost touching. Right, he answered. What does St. Augustine say? Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.
After graduating, Eileen started a master’s degree in Irish literature, and Alice got a job in a coffee shop and began writing a novel. They were still living together, and in the evenings Alice sometimes read aloud the good jokes from her manuscript while Eileen was cooking dinner. In Paris, Simon had moved in with his girlfriend, a French woman named Natalie. After her master’s, Eileen got a job in a bookstore, wheeling loaded trolleys across the shop floor to be unloaded and placing individual adhesive price stickers onto individual copies of best-selling novels. When they were twenty-four, Alice signed an American book deal for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She said that no one in the publishing industry knew anything about money, and that if they were stupid enough to give it to her she was avaricious enough to take it. Eileen was dating a Ph.D. student named Kevin, and through him had found a low-paid but interesting job as an editorial assistant at a literary magazine. At first she was only copy editing, but after a few months they allowed her to start commissioning new pieces, and at the end of the year the editor invited her to contribute some of her own writing. Eileen said she would think about it. Lola was working at a management-consultancy firm by then and had a boyfriend called Matthew. She invited Eileen to have dinner with them in town one night. On a Thursday evening after work, the three of them waited forty-five minutes on an increasingly dark and chilly street to be seated in a new burger restaurant that Lola particularly wanted to try. When the burgers arrived, they tasted normal. Lola asked Eileen about her career plans and Eileen said she was happy at the magazine. Right, for now, Lola said. But what’s next? Eileen told her she didn’t know. Lola made a smiling face and said, One day you’re going to have to live in the real world. Eileen walked back to the apartment that night and found Alice on the sofa, working on her book. Alice, she said, am I going to have to live in the real world one day? Without looking up, Alice snorted and said, Jesus, no, absolutely not. Who told you that?
The following September, Eileen found out from her mother that Simon and Natalie had broken up. They had been together for four years by then. Eileen told Alice she had thought they would get married. I always thought they were going to get married, she would say. And Alice would answer, Yeah, you’ve mentioned that. Eileen sent Simon an e-mail asking how he was, and he wrote back: I don’t suppose you’re going to find yourself in Paris anytime soon? I would really like to see you. At Halloween, she went to stay with him for a few days. He was thirty by then and she was twenty-five. They went out to museums together in the afternoons and talked about art and politics. Whenever she asked him about Natalie he responded lightly, self-effacingly, and changed the subject. Once, when they were sitting together in the Musée d’Orsay, Eileen said to him, You know everything about me, and I know nothing about you. With a pained-looking smile he answered, Ah, now you sound like Natalie. Then he laughed and said sorry. That was the only time he mentioned her name. In the mornings he made coffee, and at night Eileen slept in his bed. After they made love, he liked to hold her for a long time. The day she arrived back in Dublin, she broke up with her boyfriend. She didn’t hear anything from Simon again until he came over to her family home at Christmas to drink a glass of brandy and admire the tree.
In the summer, at a party in their friend Ciara’s apartment, Eileen met a man named Aidan. He had thick dark hair and wore linen trousers and dirty tennis shoes. They ended up sitting in the kitchen together until late that night, talking about childhood. In my family we just don’t discuss things, Aidan said. Everything is below the surface, nothing comes out. Can I refill that for you? Eileen watched him pouring a measure of red wine into her glass. We don’t really talk about things in my family, either, she said. Sometimes I think we try, but we don’t know how. At the end of the night, Eileen and Aidan walked home in the same direction, and he saw her to her apartment door. Take care of yourself, he said when they parted. A few days later, they met for a drink, just the two of them. He was a musician and a sound engineer. He talked to her about his work, about his flatmates, about his relationship with his mother, about various things he loved and hated. While they spoke, Eileen laughed a lot and looked animated, touching her mouth, leaning forward in her seat. After she got home that night Aidan sent her a message reading: you are such a good listener! wow! and I talk too much, sorry. can we see each other again?
They went for another drink the following week, and then another. Aidan’s apartment had a lot of tangled black cables all over the floor and his bed was just a mattress. In the autumn, they went to Florence for a few days and walked through the cool of the cathedral together. One night when she made a witty remark at dinner, he laughed so much that he had to wipe his eyes with a purple serviette. He told her that he loved her. Everything in life is incredibly beautiful, Eileen wrote in a message to Alice. I can’t believe it’s possible to be so happy. Simon moved back to Dublin around that time to work as a policy adviser for a left-wing parliamentary group. Eileen saw him sometimes on the bus, or crossing a street, his arm around one good-looking woman or another. Before Christmas, Eileen and Aidan moved in together. He carried her boxes of books from the back of his car and said proudly, The weight of your brain.
For the next three years, Eileen and Aidan lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the south city center, illegally downloading foreign films, arguing about how to split the rent, taking turns cooking and washing up. Lola and Matthew got engaged. Alice won a lucrative literary award, moved to New York, and started sending Eileen e-mails at strange hours of the day and night. In December, Simon called Eileen and told her that Alice was back in Dublin and had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Eileen was sitting on the sofa, her phone held to her ear, while Aidan was at the sink, rinsing a plate under the tap. After she and Simon had finished speaking, she sat there on the phone, saying nothing, and he said nothing. They were both silent. Right, he said eventually. I’ll let you go. A few weeks later, Eileen and Aidan broke up. He told her there was a lot going on and they both needed space. He went to live with his parents, and she moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a married couple. Lola and Matthew decided to have a small wedding in the summer. Simon went on answering his correspondence promptly, taking Eileen out for lunch now and then, and keeping his personal life to himself. It was April, and several of Eileen’s friends had recently left or were in the process of leaving Dublin. She attended the leaving parties, wearing her dark-green dress with the buttons, or her yellow dress with the matching belt. In living rooms with low ceilings and paper lampshades, people talked to her about the property market. My sister’s getting married in June, she would tell them. That’s exciting, they would reply. You must be so happy for her. Yeah, it’s funny, Eileen would say. I’m not.
One Thursday evening, Eileen attended a poetry reading at an arts center hosted by the magazine where she worked. She sat behind a little table selling copies of the most recent issue, while people milled around, holding glasses of wine and avoiding eye contact. Just before the event began, an elderly man leaned over the table to tell her she had “the eyes of a poet.” Eileen smiled and, perhaps pretending she had not heard him, said she thought the reading was about to start. Once it did begin, she locked her cash box, took a glass of wine from the table, and entered the main hall. Twenty or twenty-five people were seated inside, leaving the first two rows entirely empty.
The event featured five poets, loosely grouped together around the theme of “crisis.” Two of them read from work dealing with personal crises, while one addressed themes of political extremism. A young man in glasses recited poetry so abstract that no relationship to the theme of crisis became clear, and the final reader, a woman in a long black dress, talked for ten minutes about the difficulties of finding a publisher and had time to read only one poem, a rhyming sonnet. Eileen typed a note on her phone: the moon in june falls mainly on the spoon. She showed the note to Paula, a woman about Eileen’s age who worked at the venue. Paula smiled vaguely before turning her attention back to the reading. Eileen deleted the note.
After the event, Eileen and some of the other staff went for a drink in a nearby bar. Eileen and Paula sat together, Paula drinking a gin-and-tonic served in an enormous fishbowl glass with a large piece of grapefruit inside, Eileen drinking whiskey on ice. They were talking about “worst breakups.” Paula was describing the protracted end stage of a two-year relationship, during which time both she and her ex-girlfriend kept getting drunk and texting each other, which inevitably resulted in “either a huge argument or sex.”
Eileen swallowed a mouthful of her drink. That sounds bad, she said. But at the same time, at least you were still having sex. You know? The relationship wasn’t completely dead. If Aidan were to text me when he was drunk, O.K., maybe we would end up fighting. But I would at least feel like he remembers who I am. Paula said she was sure he did remember, seeing as they had lived together for several years. With a kind of grimacing smile, Eileen answered, That’s what kills me. I spent half my twenties with this person, and in the end he just got sick of me. I mean, that’s what happened. I bored him. I feel like that says something about me on some level. Right? It has to. Frowning, Paula replied, No, it doesn’t. Eileen let out a strained, self-conscious laugh then and squeezed Paula’s arm. I’m sorry, she said. Let me get you another drink.
By eleven o’clock, Eileen was lying alone in bed, curled up on her side, her makeup smeared slightly under her eyes. Squinting at the screen of her phone, she tapped the icon of a social-media app. The interface opened and displayed a loading symbol. Eileen moved her thumb over the screen, waiting for it to load, and then suddenly closed the app. She navigated to her contacts, selected “Simon,” and hit the Call button. After three rings, he picked up and said, Hello?
Hello, it’s me, she said. Are you alone?
On the other end of the line, Simon was sitting on a hotel-room bed. To his right was a window covered by thick cream-colored curtains, and opposite the bed was a large television set affixed to the wall. His back was propped against the headboard, his legs stretched out, and his laptop was open in his lap. I’m alone, he said, yeah. You know I’m in London, right? Is everything O.K.?
Oh, I forgot. Is it a bad time to talk? I can hang up.
No, it’s not a bad time. Did you have your poetry thing on tonight?
Eileen told him about the event. She gave him the “moon in June” joke and he laughed appreciatively. And we had a Trump poem, she told him. Simon said the idea made him earnestly wish for the embrace of death. She asked him about the conference he was attending in London and he described at length a “conversation session” entitled “Beyond the E.U.: Britain’s International Future.” It was just four identical middle-aged guys in glasses, Simon said. I mean, they looked like Photoshopped versions of each other. Eileen asked him what he was doing now, and he said he was finishing something for work.
It’s not good for your health working so late, she said. Where are you, in your hotel room?
Right, he replied. Sitting on the bed.
She pulled her knees up so that her feet were flat on the mattress, her legs making a tent shape under the quilt. You know what you need, Simon? she said. You need a little wife for yourself. Don’t you? A little wife to come up to you at midnight and put her hand on your shoulder and say, O.K., that’s enough now, you’re working too late. Let’s get some sleep.
Simon switched the phone to his other ear and said, You paint a compelling picture.
Can’t your girlfriend go on work trips with you?
She’s not my girlfriend, he said. She’s just someone I’ve been seeing.
I don’t get that distinction. What’s the difference between a girlfriend and someone you’re seeing?
We’re not in an exclusive relationship.
Eileen rubbed her eye, smudging some dark makeup onto her hand and onto the side of her face above her cheekbone. So you’re having sex with someone else as well, are you? she said.
I’m not, no. But I believe she is.
Eileen dropped her hand then. She is? she said. Jesus. How attractive is the other guy?
Sounding amused, he replied, I have no idea. Why do you ask?
I just mean, if he’s less attractive than you, why bother? And if he’s as attractive as you are—well, I think I’d like to meet this woman and shake her hand.
What if he’s more attractive than I am?
Please. Impossible.
He settled himself back a little against the headboard. You mean because I’m so handsome? he said.
Yes.
I know, but say it.
Laughing then, she said, Because you’re so handsome.
Eileen, thank you. How kind. You’re not so bad yourself.
She smiled then, too, wryly, reluctantly, and pushed her hair back from her forehead. Are you in bed yet? she asked.
No, sitting up. Unless you’d like me to get in bed while we’re still on the phone?
Yes, I would like that.
Ah, well. That can be arranged.
A few weeks later, Eileen was walking through Temple Bar toward Dame Street. It was a fine, bright Saturday evening in early May. 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. When her phone started ringing, she slipped it from her pocket. It was her mother calling. After exchanging hellos, she said, Listen, I’m waiting for a bus, can I call you later on?
Your father’s upset about this business with Deirdre Prendergast, Mary said.
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 it.
Another bus was drawing up now and Eileen said, 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 center and southward. On Eileen’s screen, a pulsing blue dot started to make the same journey toward her eventual destination, seventeen minutes away. Closing the application, she wrote a message to Lola.
Within thirty seconds she had received a reply.
Reading this message, Eileen drew her brows together and exhaled briskly through her nose. She tapped the reply button and began typing.
She closed the message application then and reopened the map. When instructed by the dot on the screen, she pressed the 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 from until a flag appeared onscreen 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 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. Eileen checked her phone and saw a new message from Lola.
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 more than 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.
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 paper. Someone knocked on the bathroom door and she said, One second. She was staring wanly into the mirror. With her hands she pulled the features of her face downward, so that the bones of her skull stood out harsh and strange under the white fluorescent light. The person was knocking on the door again. Eileen put her bag on her shoulder, unlocked the door, and went back out to the bar.
Sitting down next to Paula, she picked up her half-empty drink. All the ice had melted. What are we talking about? she asked. Paula said they were talking about communism. Everyone’s on it now, Eileen said. It’s amazing. When I first started going around talking about Marxism, people laughed at me. Now it’s everyone’s thing. And to all these new people trying to make communism cool, I would just like to say, Welcome aboard, comrades. No hard feelings. The future is bright for the working class. Roisin raised her glass then and so did Darach. Eileen was smiling and seemed slightly drunk. Are the platters gone? she asked. A man named Gary who was seated opposite said, No one here is really working class, though. Eileen rubbed at her nose. Yeah, she said. Well, Marx would disagree with you, but I know what you’re saying.
People love to claim that they’re working class, Gary said. No one here is actually from a working-class background.
Right, but everyone here works for a living and pays rent to a landlord, Eileen said.
Raising his eyebrows, Gary said, Paying rent doesn’t make you working class.
Yeah, working doesn’t make you working class. Spending half your paycheck on rent, not owning any property, getting exploited by your boss, none of it makes you working class, right? So what does, having a certain accent, is it?
With an irritated laugh he answered, Do you think you can go driving around in your dad’s BMW, and then turn around and say you’re working class because you don’t get along with your boss? It’s not a fashion, you know. It’s an identity.
Eileen swallowed a mouthful of her drink. Everything is an identity now, she said. And you don’t know me, by the way. I don’t know why you’re saying no one here is working class, you don’t know anything about me.
I know you work at a literary magazine, he said.
Jesus. I have a job, in other words. Real bourgeoisie behavior.
Darach said he thought they were just using the same term, “working class,” to describe two distinct groups: one, the broad constituency of people whose income was derived from labor rather than capital, and the other, an impoverished, primarily urban subsection of that group with a particular set of cultural traditions and signifiers. Paula said that a middle-class person could still be a socialist and Eileen said the middle class did not exist. They all started talking over one another then. Eileen checked her phone once more. There were no new messages, and the time displayed on the screen was 23:21. She drained her glass and started to put on her jacket. Blowing a kiss, she waved goodbye to the others at the table. I’m off home, she said. Happy birthday, Darach! See you again soon. Amid the noise and the conversation, only a few people seemed to notice that she was leaving, and they waved and called out to her retreating back.
Ten minutes later, Eileen had boarded another bus, this one returning toward the city center. She sat alone by a window, slipping her phone out of her pocket and unlocking it. Opening a social-media application, she keyed in “aidan lavin,” and tapped the third suggested search result. Once the profile loaded, Eileen scrolled down mechanically, almost inattentively, to view the most recent updates. With a few taps she navigated from Aidan Lavin’s page to the profile of the user Actual Death Girl and waited for that to load. The bus was stopping at St. Mary’s College then, the doors releasing, and passengers alighting downstairs. The page loaded, and absently Eileen scrolled through the recent updates. As the bus pulled off, the stopping bell rang again. Someone sat down next to Eileen and she glanced up and smiled politely before returning her attention to the screen. Two days previously, the user Actual Death Girl had posted a new photograph, with a caption reading: this sad case. The photograph depicted the user with her arms around a man with dark hair. The man was tagged as Aidan Lavin. As she looked, Eileen’s mouth came open slightly and then closed again. She tapped the photograph to enlarge it. The man was wearing a red corduroy jacket. The woman’s arms around his neck were attractive, plump, shapely. The photograph had received thirty-four likes. The bus was pulling up to another stop now and Eileen turned her attention out the window. A look of recognition passed over her face, she frowned, and then with a jolt she got to her feet, squeezing past the passenger beside her. As the doors opened, she jogged her way almost breathlessly down the staircase and, thanking the driver in the rearview mirror, alighted onto the street.
It was approaching midnight now. The windows of apartments showed yellow here and there above a darkened storefront on the corner. Eileen zipped her jacket up and fixed her handbag over her shoulder. As she walked, she took her phone out once more and reëxamined the photograph. Then she cleared her throat. The street was quiet. She pocketed the phone and smoothed her hands firmly down the front of her jacket, as if wiping them clean. Crossing the street, she began to walk more briskly, until she reached a tall brick town house with six plastic wheelie bins lined up behind the gate. Looking up, she gave a strange laugh, and rubbed her forehead with her hand. She crossed the gravel and rang the buzzer. For five seconds, ten seconds, nothing happened. Fifteen seconds. She was shaking her head, her lips moving silently, as if rehearsing an imaginary conversation. Twenty seconds elapsed. She turned to leave. Then from the plastic speaker Simon’s voice said, Hello? Turning back, she stared at the speaker and said nothing. Hello, his voice repeated. She pressed the button.
Hey, she said. It’s me. I’m sorry.
Eileen, is that you?
Yes, sorry. Me, as in Eileen.
Are you O.K.? he asked. Come up, I’ll buzz you in.
The door-release tone sounded, and she went inside. The lighting in the hall was very bright and someone had left a bicycle leaning up against the postboxes. While Eileen climbed the stairs, she felt at the back of her head where her hair had come unravelled out of its clasp and carefully refixed it. Then she checked the time on her phone, which showed 23:58, and unzipped her jacket. Simon’s door was open already. He was standing there barefoot, frowning into the light of the hallway, his eyes sleepy and a little swollen. Oh, God, I’m sorry, she said. Were you in bed?
Is everything all right? he asked.
She hung her head, as if exhausted, or ashamed, and her eyes closed. Several seconds passed before she opened her eyes and answered, Everything’s fine. I was just on my way home from Darach’s thing, and I wanted to see you. I didn’t think—I don’t know why I assumed you’d be up. I know it’s late.
It’s not, really. Do you want to come in?
Staring down at the carpet, she said in a strained voice, No, no, I’ll leave you in peace. I feel so stupid, I’m sorry.
He closed one eye and surveyed her where she stood on the top step. Don’t say that, he said. Come in, we’ll have a drink.
She followed him inside. Only one of the lights in the kitchen was switched on, illuminating the small apartment in a diminishing circle outward. He closed the door behind her while she was taking off her jacket and shoes. She stood in front of him then, gazing humbly at the floorboards.
Simon, she said, can I ask a favor? You can say no, I won’t mind.
Sure.
Can I sleep in your bed with you?
He looked at her for a moment longer before he answered. Yeah, he said. No problem. Are you sure everything’s all right?
Without raising her eyes, she nodded. He filled her a glass of water from the tap and they went into his room together. It was a neat room with dark floorboards. In the center was a double bed, the quilt thrown back, the bedside lamp switched on. Opposite the door was a window with the blind pulled down. Simon turned out the lamp and Eileen unbuttoned her dress, slipping it off over her shoulders, hanging it over the back of his desk chair. They got into bed. She drank some water and then lay down on her side. For a few minutes they were still and silent. She looked over at him, but he was turned away, only the back of his head and his shoulder dimly visible. Will you hold me? she asked. For a moment he hesitated, as if to say something, but then he turned over and put his arm around her, murmuring, Here, of course. She nestled up close, her face against his neck, their bodies pressed together. He made a low noise in his throat like: Mm. Then he swallowed. Sorry, he said. Her mouth was at his neck. That’s O.K., she said. It’s nice. He took a breath in then. Is it, he said. You’re not drunk, are you? Her eyes were closed. No, she said. She put her hand inside his underwear. He shut his eyes and very quietly groaned. Can we? she asked. He said yes. They took their underwear off. I’ll get a condom, he said. She told him she was on the pill, and he seemed to hesitate. Oh, he said. Like this, then? She nodded her head. They were lying on their sides, face to face. Holding her by the hip he moved inside her. She drew a quick breath inward and he rubbed the hard fin of her hipbone under his hand. For a few seconds they were still. He pressed a little closer to her and she whimpered. Hmm, he said. Can I put you lying on your back, would that be O.K.? I think I could get a little bit deeper inside you that way, if you want that. Yes, she said. He pulled out of her then and she turned onto her back. When he entered her again, she cried out, drawing her legs up around him. Bearing his weight on his arms, he closed his eyes. After a minute she said, I love you. He let out his breath. In a low voice he answered, Ah, I haven’t—I love you, too, very much. She was moving her hand over the back of his neck, taking deep, hard breaths. Eileen, he said, I’m sorry, but I think I might be kind of close already. I just, I haven’t—I don’t know, I’m sorry. Her face was hot, she was breathless, shaking her head. It’s O.K., she said. Don’t worry, don’t say sorry. After he finished, they lay in each other’s arms for a while, breathing, her fingers moving through his hair. Slowly then he moved his hand down over her belly, down between her legs. Is this all right? he asked. Yes, she murmured. Moving his middle finger inside her he touched her clitoris with his thumb and she was whispering, yes, yes. After that they parted and she rolled over, kicking the quilt down off her legs, catching her breath. He was lying on his side, his eyes half closed, watching her. All right? he asked. She let out a kind of trembling laugh. Yes, she said. Thank you. Languidly he smiled then, his gaze moving over her long, slim body stretched out on the mattress. Any time, he replied.
In the morning his alarm rang at eight and woke them both, Simon sitting up on his elbow to turn it off, Eileen lying on her back, rubbing her eye with her fingers. Around the edges of the blind leaked a rectangle of white daylight. Do you have plans this morning? she asked. He put his phone back on the bedside table. I was going to go to the nine-o’clock Mass, he said. But I can go later, it doesn’t make any difference. She lay with her eyes closed, looking happy, her hair disarranged on the pillow. Can I come with you? she said. He glanced down at her for a moment, and then answered simply, Of course you can. They got out of bed together and he made coffee while she was in the shower. She came out of the bathroom wrapped in a large white towel, and they kissed against the kitchen countertop. What if I think bad thoughts at Mass? she asked. He rubbed the back of her neck where her hair was damp. Like about last night? he said. We didn’t do anything bad. She kissed the shoulder seam of his T-shirt. He made breakfast while she got dressed. At a few minutes to nine, they left the house and walked to the church together. Inside it was cool and mostly empty, smelling of damp and incense. The priest read from Luke and gave a sermon about compassion. During Communion, the choir sang “Here I Am, Lord.” Eileen let Simon out of the pew and watched him queue with the other members of the congregation, most of them elderly. From the gallery behind them the choir was singing: I will make their darkness bright. Eileen shifted in her seat to keep Simon in sight as he reached the altar and received Communion. Turning away, he blessed himself. She sat with her hands in her lap. He looked up at the vast domed ceiling above them, and his lips were moving silently. With a searching expression she watched him. He came and took his seat beside her, laying his hand on hers, and his hand was heavy and very still. Then he knelt down beside her on the cushioned hassock attached to the pew. Bowing his head over his hands he did not look grave or serious, only calm, and his lips were no longer moving. Lacing her fingers together in her lap, she watched him. Simon blessed himself once more and sat up beside her again. She moved her hand toward him and calmly he took it in his and held it, smoothing his thumb slowly over the little ridges of her knuckles. They sat like that until the Mass was over. On the street outside they were smiling again, and their smiles were mysterious. It was a cool, bright Sunday morning, the white façades of buildings reflected the sunlight, traffic was passing, people were out walking dogs, calling to one another across the street. Simon kissed Eileen’s cheek, and they wished each other goodbye. ♦
