Page 9 of The Snag List
Ugh, just his name sent a spasm of anxiety through Ailbhe’s chest.Not a near miss any fucking more.Ailbhe quickly swiped through Aidan’s page looking for something to distract Holly. She could really run with an idea, especially if it was bugging Ailbhe – the downside of their whole sisterly bond thing.
‘The marital rocky patch definitely suits Aidan,’ Ailbhe remarked, clicking into a more recent post and turning the phone back to Holly.
‘Oooooh, yes, brooding.’ Holly leaned in. ‘The eyes say “I’ve seen some shit” but the well-cut jeans and five o’clock shadow say “I’ve been upcycled by a previous woman – she’s done the work so you don’t have to”.’ Holly picked up Ailbhe’s foot again and started massaging her arches. Ailbhe rested her head on the back of the sofa to fully appreciate the sensation.
‘You should write that on his post,’ she murmured.
‘You know, I should.’ Holly rolled her knuckles up and down the soles of Ailbhe’s feet. ‘Second-hand men are the best – some other poor bitch has had to break them in.’
They lapsed into silence and Ailbhe was grateful to dodge any more of Holly’s commentary. This time next week, she would be out in Monteray. Then all she had to do was kill a couple of months and she’d be in America with an ocean between her and her Old Ailbhe Bullshit. She just needed to stay the hell off her socials.
3
‘WE’VE BEEN LIVING HERE A WEEK AND I STILL DON’T get exactly where the hell Monteray Valley is.’ Roe fiddled with the radio trying not to sound like a petulant child especially as Eddie, her partner, was driving her all the way back into Dublin for her shift at work. It felt like they’d been gliding over mile after mile of grey dual carriageway for an age. It didn’t even feel like their city out here. ‘Are we still actually in Dublin, Ed? I’m not getting a signal at all.’
He shot her a look. ‘Don’t be like that. Of course it’s still Dublin – the westerly side of the compound tips the county border to the west. Also, so what if it’s not Dublin?You’renot even from Dublin.’
That could explain part of her aversion. These featureless, monotonous roads reminded her of going to her parents’ house in Kilshannagh. The anxious, jangly feeling in her arms that accompanied her infrequent trips home was the exact same.
Home. Why did she even still call her parents’ house that? Home was with Eddie. She reached over and brushed the soft auburn hair from the nape of his neck. Without taking his eyes off the road, he caught her hand and drew her fingers round to his mouth to gently kiss them.
‘You just hate change – don’t hold it against Monteray,’ Eddie said firmly, relinquishing Roe’s hand and changing lanes to take the exit for the south side of the city centre.
‘Everyone hates change,’ Roe persisted.
‘You didn’t want to move to Warren Street at first, and by the end you were desperate to stay, even though we were still having to cut through the toilet to get to the kitchen.’
‘Opening the fridge from the loo is convenience personified!’ Roe remarked. ‘With an upgrade, Warren Street would’ve been perfect.’
‘C’mon, babe! It was a pokey one-bed. Great location but remember we were hardly going to be out having brunch every weekend once you got pregnant. Monteray makes sense. It’ll be our forever home.’
Why does ‘forever home’ sound so terminal, Roe thought darkly.So stifling. Warren Street had always felt a bit like camping. It was safe in its lack of potential, its impermanence. The heating was temperamental. It had been too small to even get a dog, which suited Roe. She didn’t like the constricted feeling she got when anything, even a supposedly cute thing like a dog, threatened her familiar, secure routines.
‘We’ve been living on top of each other since college,’ Eddie carried on.
‘Maybe I like being on top of you –bawm chicka wowow…’ Roe wriggled playfully in her seat doing cheesy seventies porno music. ‘Also what about Liberatchi?’
The Warren Street yard was home not just to the patio furniture but a rat they’d christened Liberatchi, after Liberace, one of Roe’s many musical heroes.
‘The new owners won’t understand that he likes to summer there,’ Roe continued, only half-joking.
‘Getting sentimental about the rat, Roe? Really?’
She shrugged unhappily and stared out the window. The monotony had at last given way to the leafy canal on Dublin city’s south side. Their place. Their relationship could be mapped by the different landmarks they passed. Cans at the locks during summer evenings when they were younger. Strolling down Camden Street shopping for Friday night’s dinner – shelling out for one single cheese at the counter in the fancy food store before retreating to the Aldi up in Rathmines because, let’s face it, who could afford to do the full shop in Mayor’s. Of course in recent years their money situation had changed dramatically. Not only was Eddie in constant demand as a barrister but a judicious investment of his in an online events platform years before had catapulted them into major money just as the rest of the world was going to shit.
The money had changed things between them. Eddie had always made more than her but had always insisted that his money was their money. However, in practice, it was hard to navigate, especially when it came to the house. From the moment Eddie had got the Monteray Valley plans up on the iPad, Roe had felt in her gut that these plans just did not seem to chime withtheirplans. Though, being honest, she knew that ‘their plans’ had always been Eddie’s plans. When they’d got together in college, it had been a relief to have someone so certain of the next move, and Roe had gratefully followed. Eddie was finishing his law degree while Roe was fannying around with a half-hearted arts degree – a degree her parents had insisted on, having dismissed singing and theatre as being too unrealistic. Eddie was exactly the kind of prospect her parents would approve of. And they did, which should’ve made things easier for Roe after the difficult years in her teens, but, strangely, ending up with Eddie had somehow managed to make her feelings towards her parents even more thorny and complicated.
It was painful when Roe detected her parents’ approval rating rising once she was with Eddie. Maura and Pat had palpably relaxed, dismissing her ‘girl stuff’ as a phase, and it confirmed for Roe that their love had conditions. They were relieved she had ‘settled down’ with a man, apparently believing this ‘cured’ her of her bisexuality. Though, as it began to dawn on them that Eddie and Roe didn’t plan to get married, the tide of approval turned again. Whatever. Roe had spent years in therapy at this point trying to come to terms with the fact that their acceptance, particularly her mother Maura’s, was an always-shifting horizon and not a destination she would ever reach.
‘Roe.’ Eddie was now parking in front of DeLacey’s, the restaurant where she worked. Forward, forward, swivel the wheel, back, back, back. ‘I don’t want to be a dick about this, but you cannot pass-ag me out of a house we’ve moved into! I showed you the plans. You acted like you liked it.’ Eddie paused to check the wing mirrors before turning the wheel for final adjustments to the car’s angle.
‘And now the decision is made,’ Roe huffed. She looked up at Eddie.Shit, he’s definitely teetering towards pissed off. ‘Look,’ Roe scrambled to add, ‘I’m sorry. I guess when it was on paper it didn’t seem so real, and actually knowing Warren Street is now sold just seems so final. And being out there this week, it’s so …’ Roe considered her next words carefully. Generic? Boring? Culty? When their life curator, Yannick, had detailed the laundry service that came into your home to gather dirty clothes and, by the sounds of it, whip the knickers right off you for the wash, Roe had nearly expected him to say ‘April fool!’ even though they were two weeks into April already.
‘It’s so … uniform,’ was the adjective she went with eventually.
‘Uh-huh, so it’s an aesthetic issue?’ Eddie cocked an eyebrow and Roe felt what little energy she’d had for this argument abruptly ebb.
‘No, I know they’re nice houses. They’re huge, though, and it’s so far from the restaurant. I’ll be spending more on petrol than I earn in a night.’
