After leaving Sally’s responsible Rathgar home, with responsible furniture, her responsible husband with a responsible car and job, who’d talked to her over a responsible breakfast about his responsible golf trip away the previous weekend, Kitty left the responsible child-minder with Sally’s eighteen-month-old and walked with Sally into the city. At 7.30 a.m. it was already warm, with a light breeze in the air. Though there was no need for a coat, Sally was wearing a thick sweater, had a raincoat hooked over her arm and was holding the largest umbrella Kitty had ever seen.
‘Are you planning on providing housing for the homeless?’ Kitty asked, eyeing up the umbrella.
‘It’s Douglas’s golf umbrella.’
‘I see that. Do you also hire it out for marquee events?’
Sally ignored her.
‘It’s warm today.’ Kitty took off her cardigan.
Sally looked up at the clear blue sky. ‘Supposed to have torrential rain today.’
‘Not likely, though, is it?’
Sally smiled a knowing secret smile as if she alone held the country’s weather secrets in her head. ‘So what are you doing today?’
‘I’m having breakfast with an ex-convict, brunch with a personal shopper, an afternoon with a hairdresser to the sick, an evening at a nursing home and then a date tonight with manure and a bucket of bleach.’
‘Well, you can’t say your life isn’t boring.’
‘No, it’s definitely not that. And somewhere along the way I need to find a new place to live.’
‘You know you’re very welcome to stay with us for as long as you like,’ Sally offered.
‘I know that, and thank you, but I can’t. I need to sort myself out.’ Kitty tried to hide her worry. She wasn’t going to be able to afford anywhere by herself, she would have to revert to sharing accommodation, and just when she thought she was moving forward in life with a larger salary and a shared rent, she found herself with little money to survive on alone. She wasn’t sure if her job at Etcetera was in jeopardy, but assumed that it was despite the fact that Pete had been surprisingly kind and supportive the past two days, if not a little cosier than usual. She knew that the magazine was under pressure from advertisers not to print her stories. If she didn’t publish stories, she didn’t get paid, it was as simple as that, and she didn’t think there were many other publications queuing up for her freelance services.
Sally’s cheeks were flushed, she puffed a little and then rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. Kitty tried not to smile. Before they parted ways, Sally reached into her pocket, retrieved a business card and handed it to Kitty.
‘Daniel Meara. That name’s familiar,’ Kitty said, reading it.
‘He works at Ashford Private College.’ The college where Kitty and Sally had met five years previously. ‘He recently got in touch with me asking if I’d be interested teaching some night classes. I told him I couldn’t but that I’d send some people to him who were equally qualified.’
Kitty looked at the card and swallowed. It was as close to a handout as she could get and she didn’t like it, but knew that Sally, with her breezy attitude, was trying to make it sound like anything other than that.
‘I don’t have experience in teaching,’ Kitty said, still examining the card.
‘Doesn’t matter, you have experience in television. That’s all they need: someone who has first-hand experience and can tell them exactly what goes on behind the scenes. Besides, who cares? Let them be the judge of your teaching skills. It’s good money.’
Kitty nodded.
‘Just call him, give it a go, see if it’s for you. It might not be but you know, it’s worth a try.’
Kitty nodded again and finally looked up from the card. ‘You’re sure you don’t want to do this yourself?’
‘I can barely cope as it is,’ Sally smiled. ‘With work all day, and the occasional weekend shift at the station, I’m not seeing Finn enough already. Not to mention Douglas. You go for it.’
‘Thanks.’ Kitty hugged her friend.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sally hugged her tight in return, ‘we all have our blips. Remember when we first met?’
Kitty recalled Sally had just learned that Doug had had an affair, she was piecing her marriage back together, trying to do something new for herself in television and every day was a struggle for her.
‘See, we all go through it, now it’s your turn. It’s only fair.’ Sally kissed her on the forehead and they parted.
Kitty made her way to the Brick Alley Café in Temple Bar, excited to hear the remainder of Archie’s story, and found him sitting at the same counter on the same stool, half-turned so that he could keep an eye on the room and eat at the same time.
‘I suppose you expect me to pay for that again today,’ she said, sitting beside him.
He smiled.
‘Fruit and water?’ the waitress from the previous morning asked.
‘Yes, please,’ Kitty replied, surprised she remembered her order.
‘They’re a dying breed,’ Archie said, chewing the rind of his bacon. ‘Not enough places like this. They know what you want and they leave you alone. A winning combination.’
The door opened and the mousy woman from the previous day entered.
‘It’s like Groundhog Day in here,’ Kitty remarked.
The woman looked around, the hope visible on her face, then sat down, disappointed.
‘The usual?’ the waitress asked her, and the woman merely nodded.
‘Why don’t you just go over to her?’ Kitty asked.
‘What?’ Archie snapped out of his trance and pushed his plate aside, embarrassed to be caught.
‘The woman,’ Kitty smiled. ‘You’re always looking at her.’
‘What are you talking about?’ His cheeks flushed. ‘Always. Sure, you’ve only been here twice.’
‘Whatever,’ she smiled, and let the dust settle before she moved on to more serious topics.
‘I came prepared today,’ she said, taking out her notepad and recorder.
The way he looked at the apparatus made her nervous he would back out, and she could have kicked herself for her error. Many people became uncomfortable around recording equipment. If the camera was the asshole magnet, her recorder often brought the shyness out of people. Nobody liked the sound of their own voice – well, most people didn’t – and the recorder brought out the self-conscious realisation that their words were being listened to, less like a conversation and more of an interview.
‘I don’t have to use this if you don’t want me to.’
He waved his hand dismissively as if he didn’t care.
‘So we were talking about your daughter’s death—’
‘Her murder,’ he interrupted her.
‘Yes. Her murder. And how the guards focused on you during the case and you felt that it distracted them from finding the real killer.’
He nodded.
‘I thought we could talk a bit more about that. How you must have felt, how frustrating it must have been to have vital information that wasn’t being listened to.’
He looked at her with that amused gleam in his eye again. ‘You think that would interest