some of them for a drink. I shake my head. I have things to do. The library, a bookshop farther up Rathmines, some groceries to buy. No drinking this early. At least, not in company.
‘Come on, it’s only for a quick one.’
Two boys on bikes shout at Adam as they pass. He honks the horn in reply.
‘I’m sorry, not today.’
‘Oh go on. we won’t eat you!’
‘Another day I will, I just can’t today.’
Adam’s car is ancient, a Merc, all dents and patches of rust. Adam is someone I could have found attractive in another lifetime. Reddish hair, quite long for such a conservative school, hazel eyes, black frames to his glasses. Face still tawny from the warm summer. His clothes are a study in academic chic.
He catches me looking the car over. ‘Runs on vegetable oil.’ He pats the steering wheel as though it were alive, an overachieving child making its father proud. ‘You’ll have to come out in it with me. Quietest engine ever.’ He pauses to shout at another coterie of boys, then turns back to me. ‘Well, if you change your mind you know where we’ll be.’
If he had suggested coffee, I would have said yes, and would have quite enjoyed the company of my temporary colleagues, but I cannot sit in a pub with strangers surrounded by the fizz and clink of booze splashing over ice, unable to drink everything around me. My mouth burns for a drink, but it will be a solitary one, later. I dig my nails into my palms, a trick taught to me by my first sponsor to stifle the urge. For now, at least, it works. ‘Another time, okay?’ I smile at him. He is so very attractive.
Adam waves out the window at me and drives off. I duck down a back street so he can’t pass me again. The digger resumes its destruction of the concrete, the dust it throws up making me cough. A siren out on the main road splits the afternoon in two. For a second I think I see my brother running, just another boy in grey school clothes, running and laughing. But it’s a trick of the light, this autumnal sunshine that inexplicably has appeared almost every day. And Andrew hasn’t been a boy in a uniform for many years.
There is solace in the hush of the bookshop, the sweep of pages, the wash of ink. The smell of paper hangs on the quiet air. Picking up two books I want to read, I meander to the poetry section. I still check to see if my own books are available. They rarely are; the print runs ended, and because I failed to produce anything else my publisher just let me go. On occasion I’ve been known to search online for copies, and usually someone is selling, but the price of one penny isn’t good for my ego, and they hardly ever go for more than that.
My brother would have laughed at me, at my secret internet forays into the world of second-hand books, fortified by a few glasses of whiskey. I prefer Irish, but I’m not fussy. After the first few glasses I can hardly tell them apart. Malt, rye, bourbon ... they all blend into one pleasing analgesic blur.
I can’t write any more. I can do academia, but I am afraid to try poetry. I love academic writing, and relish the challenges of finding new slants on someone else’s material. The library is my friend, all those dusty corners filled with abandoned papers that other people wrote about other people’s work on other people, all of it essential to keeping the blood flowing through the department, justifying our expenditure. Not all of it is pointless, though. During my time in NYU, I discovered that I have an ability to influence others to think a little bit differently, something that gives me more than a little satisfaction. Despite my inherent reservation, I can stand up at conferences and deliver papers without ever losing my nerve.
But poetry?
The thing that got me through the blackest period of my life?
The one constant I believed would be my mainstay?
That disappeared a long time ago, and it’s not coming back. I’ve done my mourning, let its coat-tails trail out of
‘Come on, it’s only for a quick one.’
Two boys on bikes shout at Adam as they pass. He honks the horn in reply.
‘I’m sorry, not today.’
‘Oh go on. we won’t eat you!’
‘Another day I will, I just can’t today.’
Adam’s car is ancient, a Merc, all dents and patches of rust. Adam is someone I could have found attractive in another lifetime. Reddish hair, quite long for such a conservative school, hazel eyes, black frames to his glasses. Face still tawny from the warm summer. His clothes are a study in academic chic.
He catches me looking the car over. ‘Runs on vegetable oil.’ He pats the steering wheel as though it were alive, an overachieving child making its father proud. ‘You’ll have to come out in it with me. Quietest engine ever.’ He pauses to shout at another coterie of boys, then turns back to me. ‘Well, if you change your mind you know where we’ll be.’
If he had suggested coffee, I would have said yes, and would have quite enjoyed the company of my temporary colleagues, but I cannot sit in a pub with strangers surrounded by the fizz and clink of booze splashing over ice, unable to drink everything around me. My mouth burns for a drink, but it will be a solitary one, later. I dig my nails into my palms, a trick taught to me by my first sponsor to stifle the urge. For now, at least, it works. ‘Another time, okay?’ I smile at him. He is so very attractive.
Adam waves out the window at me and drives off. I duck down a back street so he can’t pass me again. The digger resumes its destruction of the concrete, the dust it throws up making me cough. A siren out on the main road splits the afternoon in two. For a second I think I see my brother running, just another boy in grey school clothes, running and laughing. But it’s a trick of the light, this autumnal sunshine that inexplicably has appeared almost every day. And Andrew hasn’t been a boy in a uniform for many years.
There is solace in the hush of the bookshop, the sweep of pages, the wash of ink. The smell of paper hangs on the quiet air. Picking up two books I want to read, I meander to the poetry section. I still check to see if my own books are available. They rarely are; the print runs ended, and because I failed to produce anything else my publisher just let me go. On occasion I’ve been known to search online for copies, and usually someone is selling, but the price of one penny isn’t good for my ego, and they hardly ever go for more than that.
My brother would have laughed at me, at my secret internet forays into the world of second-hand books, fortified by a few glasses of whiskey. I prefer Irish, but I’m not fussy. After the first few glasses I can hardly tell them apart. Malt, rye, bourbon ... they all blend into one pleasing analgesic blur.
I can’t write any more. I can do academia, but I am afraid to try poetry. I love academic writing, and relish the challenges of finding new slants on someone else’s material. The library is my friend, all those dusty corners filled with abandoned papers that other people wrote about other people’s work on other people, all of it essential to keeping the blood flowing through the department, justifying our expenditure. Not all of it is pointless, though. During my time in NYU, I discovered that I have an ability to influence others to think a little bit differently, something that gives me more than a little satisfaction. Despite my inherent reservation, I can stand up at conferences and deliver papers without ever losing my nerve.
But poetry?
The thing that got me through the blackest period of my life?
The one constant I believed would be my mainstay?
That disappeared a long time ago, and it’s not coming back. I’ve done my mourning, let its coat-tails trail out of
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