I make for the Liffey. As I wait to cross O’Connell Bridge, I see a sign at the bottom of a tall red-brick building with a curly roof on O’Connell Street saying: “Witches’ Attic.” I look up and see a man wearing jeans and a grey T-shirt in the attic window, near the weather vane. I wish he was wearing a cape and a pointy hat, but maybe the modern warlock needs to go undercover. When I enter my house, the waft of myself hits me. I sniff around me, turning my nose to different pockets of air. The smell from upstairs is strongest, because I haven’t changed my sheets for a long time. I like them to smell properly of me, and I like to find papery shards of foot skin and debris from my body in the bed-nest. I heard on the radio that the rise in asthma is caused by an increase in the use of cleaning products, and I don’t want to get asthma. If I have to get a disease, I want one that contains multiple syllables and a range of vowels. I tuck my nose into my jumper and sniff. A pleasant sort of lived-in smell comes from my body, of meat and sweat and damp newspaper. I sit at the kitchen table and map my route and trace it onto greaseproof paper. Today I walked a slice of batch loaf with an aerial poking out.
I LOOK OUT the kitchen window at the giant pear tree in the back garden. I don’t like pears, so when the fruit falls in autumn it rots, and the garden is full of wasps and squelches. Now that the tree is bare, it’s as if pears don’t exist and autumn never happens. I open the back door and go outside to look at the treetop. I once read a children’s book about the magical lands at the top of a tree in an enchanted wood. I swing one leg onto a low branch and hoist my other leg up. I climb up a few branches, but there are no signs of elves or fairies or the little man wearing saucepans who appeared in that book. In Bernie’s garden I can see gnomes and ceramic swans, and a small concrete boy who used to piss into a concrete basin. Mary’s back door suddenly opens. I try to hide, but the branches are wintry-bare.
“Jaysus, Vivian, what are you doing up there? Are you stuck?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks. Lovely day, isn’t it?”
These are the wrong weather words, no sooner are they out of my mouth than I feel the damp chill of the air.
“Ah, Vivian, would you look at yourself, a grown woman up a tree on a day like today.”
Even if it wasn’t a day like today—if it was a day like yesterday or tomorrow—I don’t think she would have liked to see me up a tree.
“I’m looking for the lands at the top,” I say.
“The what?” She says “what” like it hurts her teeth.
“In the book The Magic Faraway Tree, the Land of Spells and the Land of Dreams and the Land of Topsy-Turvy appeared on the treetop. I’m trying to find those lands, you see.”
Mary doesn’t see, and she doesn’t really hear either. From this angle she looks neckless, like an up-tilted face mashed onto a body. Her mouth hangs open, and while she’s stuck in the gap between questions I climb back down and escape into the house. I look around the living room to decide which chair I will sit in today. The one with the plastic cover is quite scratchy so I say “No” to that one. I don’t want to hurt its feelings so I stroke its plastic back six times. I have to comfort the chairs in strokes of three, but three itself is uneven and unsatisfactory so I double it and stroke in sixes. Some of the chairs give off a homely smell, of boiled cabbage and unwashed great-aunt. I choose the dark green armchair. It’s ripped and the stuffing peeks through and there’s a great-aunt-sized dent in it, but it’s comfortable. Today I will search for jobs, but first I need to conjure up some company in the room. I turn on the television with the sound down. If I squint and stare at the laptop, the people on the television look like small live people on the other side of the room, a silent gathering which I am sitting apart from. The soap operas are best because the characters spend lots of time in kitchens and on living room sofas, but they argue a lot and even though the sound is down, it causes tension in my living room.
I open the laptop. If I’m in a serious mood, I type “Assistant” into the search box of the job website. I have no particular skills or experience, so I can’t be in charge of anything or anybody, but maybe I can assist with something. Today, however, I am looking for dream jobs. I type “Bubble-blower” into the search box. The computer doesn’t even pretend to search, which is a bit rude. A blank screen appears almost instantly saying:
“The search for ‘Bubble-blower’ in Dublin did not match any jobs.”
The bold type is mocking me, and the language is harsh. It advises me to “Sign up for email updates on the latest Bubble-blower jobs in Dublin.” I try “Walker” next because I’m good at walking, and two jobs appear: a vacancy for a “Dog Walker” in Lucan (I have enough bother controlling my own limbs when I walk, never mind an additional four) and a “Commercial Analyst and Management Accountant” for Walkers Crisps. I’d best not apply for jobs whose titles I can’t understand. Next, I type “Changeling” into the search box. A vacancy for “Graphic Design Print Manager” comes up. It’s suitable for someone who wants “Changeling Roles,” so I scour the print for a description of me. The applicant must have a: “Personality for Sales and Upselling to Clients. Great Personality with Energy. Excellent Communication and Interpersonal Skills.”
None of those things sounds like me. It must be a different kind of changeling they are looking for. I close the lid of the laptop; I never switch it off because that seems so final, like writing a will.
It’s between mealtimes, so I will cook a fry. Somebody has decided that breakfast + lunch = brunch, but I think lunkfast suits this meat-heavy meal better. I melt butter in the pan and cook sausages, rashers and black pudding. The sausages hiss and I’m glad. I like food that sounds like itself. I don’t know when the black pudding is starting to burn because black can’t get any blacker. When the skin of the pudding has hardened, I heap the fry between two slices of white bread. The bread turns soggy with grease—a damp towel of a sandwich—but sog is good in food. I think of other black foods: burnt anything, liquorice, black pepper, half a bullseye boiled sweet. Then I go through other coloured foods in my head until I’m struck with a plan: I will eat only blue foods for the rest of the day. I search the kitchen cupboards but they are bare of blue, so I put on my coat. It’s a heavy coat, packed with wool, and it feels like I’m putting on summer. I put my keys and some money in my bag, but it still seems empty, and I’m not quite sure what else to put in. I’ve seen women carry such big bags—what big lives they must have!—so I take two books from the shelf and put them in my bag. Now I’m someone who could pile six planets on her shoulders and carry them off.
I bang the front door loudly when I leave the house, to rouse the neighbours. I want to tell them about my plan, but no heads pop up from flower beds or peer out from behind doors. I walk to the supermarket, take a basket and move slowly up and down each aisle. I feel like I’ve won a competition where the prize is blue food. I find: blueberries, which are more of a nunnish navy; blue cheese, which smells of socks and tastes of wet dust; blue freeze-pops in mouth-ripping plastic tubes; and a blue sports drink the colour of an ambulance siren. I also pick up several multipacks of Smarties and M&Ms, so that I can sift out only the blues. At the till, a heap of giddy rises up my throat. The shop assistant starts scanning my food.
“Do