#ch:lissa

2003

When she spoke with adults who didn’t know her, they usually asked Lissa what she did. And how about you? They’d turn to her, and in that small moment where the question hung in the air, she would feel the rush of panic, as though some lie she hadn’t actually told them was about to be revealed. The tightly wound spool of her persona unravelled around her ankles like a length of ribbon. People often wore these looks on their faces when in conversation with her, like they expected answers to impress them.

And she could go the route of honesty—say she was still in secondary school, and only worked her hotel job on the side. She could brag on about how she ran the restaurant floor like a military operation, and knew everything there was to know. Adults twice her age listened when she spoke, and she had become confident enough since turning seventeen to ignore the resentment on her colleagues’ faces, which, at that point in her life was still easier for her to mistake for mere jealousy than admit something more unsavory about herself.

But she wanted to impress strangers. Shame of herself and her age and maturity, left her falling back on a default response. “Hospitality,” she’d say, in a voice she hoped was adult and mysterious. People heard a word like that and nodded without asking questions, which she liked. Liked to picture herself through the lens of other people. 

On the patio on a bright midsummer’s day, her stepmother’s arty mates heard the word. Nodded. Shuffled their feet, pretended to be distracted by a passing plate of hors d’oeuvres, and a sharp laugh from another conversation. One that had not been poisoned by such a boring thing. Hospitality. Lissa burned with embarrassment. “In a restaurant, like,” she clarified. “management, sometimes. Sort of.” Which made things worse. There was no duller job than floor manager in a hotel restaurant. The most thrilling event that had happened that year was when a marmalade cake split in two, and all the staff were allowed to take a slice home each.

She employed great effort to hold her pleasant expression in place. Someone asked her a halfhearted question for the sake of politeness, then moved on to talking about something else. A magazine article she hadn’t read, which wasn’t surprising. She didn’t see value in that type of literature—celebrities, where they were going on holidays, wearing to the beach, et cetera. She understood too late who she was talking to. Trendy people. The fact she was delusional enough to believe would like her was astounding now, and as she glanced around for an exit route, she spotted one. Her brother, stalking through a crowd toward her with a scowl that might have turned a person to stone. 

“They want me to be in the pictures,” Alexander muttered. He was fourteen and mid growth-spurt, all ankles and wrists, with the tailored trousers that fitted him last month hovering absurdly over his shoes. “And I’ve said I don’t want to, but they’re all like, ‘You have to.’ I don’t have to, do I? Like, they can’t force me.”

He absolutely had to. Family photographs and family weddings went together. “You’ll stand for one,” she said in a clipped voice. “For mum. Then you can go.”

“She wouldn’t want a picture.”

Lissa knew that. “Just one.”

He kicked some loose stones about and grumbled, but didn’t argue. Lissa wasn’t worth arguing with. Their mum had left a space behind her that Lissa had naturally filled. If there were no parent with authority in the house, she would become a surrogate—to make plans, keep things in order, give permission and take it away. Alexander would stand for a photograph, and it would go on the wall in the hallway, where it belonged.

By the willow trees in the garden, beneath a tangle of bulb lights, her father and Jade stood together as a white cage sprung open, and doves burst into the sky, flat and blue like silk, their wings flashing in the sunlight. A press photographer rushed forward as Jade laughed, throwing her head back and fluffing her dress around her with the intention of a woman who knew she’d be in a tabloid special in a week, looking like a confection on Jarlath’s arm. 

Lissa’s father wore his linen jacket open, and the first few buttons of his shirt undone just enough to display his thatch of chest hair. It was a shame, the chest hair, but she couldn’t disparage him for it when he looked so happy. He was happy in a way that was strikingly unguarded. Loose, real, and not solely for the photographs. As much as Lissa privately resented him for, despite her best efforts, going through with this wedding, she felt that old familiar tug of loyalty towards him. His daughter, whether she liked it or not, and no matter the viciousness of the thoughts she had about him inside her head, she lacked the fortitude to actually hate him. 

“Oh, wow. I love an understated wedding,” a voice said beside her. 

She startled. Turned. He was her age. Tall and narrow, with a sharpness to his features that tugged her memory. Cheekbones, a narrow nose, shiny from the heat. Her brain ticked for moments, deciding whether they had met before. 

“That’s funny,” she said, eyeing his smart little suit. “Rumour has it Bono is stopping by later.”

“Oh, Christ, Bono again. How unexpected. They always cart him out at these fancy bloody weddings to make themselves look relevant, don’t they? I’m floored.”

Lissa bristled, but tried to cover it up with what she hoped was bracing wit. “Here's a suggestion. Maybe you should be aware of who you’re talking to. It’s my father’s wedding.”

“Ah,” a shrug, unbothered. She thought he was going in for a handshake, but he reached behind her to the table of glasses. He glanced dismissively at her outstretched palm. “So you’re the Mansfield’s daughter.”

“Bouchard-Mansfield,” she said. “Lissa.”

He seemed to enjoy that she said this. A private joke with himself. “A double-barreler.” He sipped his champagne, and his face twitched. “Why not just choose one name? You’ll have to eventually.”

“I won’t,” she said. “And I suppose even if I did, I’d choose my mother’s. Bouchard.”

“Surely Mansfield is the name that matters,” he said, and she ignored him. On the surface of her champagne, her face frowned back at her. She had been developing a line on her forehead that made her look stricken in repose. She forced herself to relax, satisfied when her brow smoothed.

“And your name, by the way?”

“Nick Lynott.” 

She was, absurdly, disappointed by its mundanity. 

“Our dads know each other,” he went on. He had a smooth, charismatic voice. “Mine’s Ben Lynott. A TV exec.”

“Right.” Yes, of course he was. She remembered now. Actually, Lissa was sure this boy had visited the house at least a decade prior, in the days when people visited constantly. She’d become an expert host at about seven years old, giving the tour of the snooker table, the garden, showing off all the toys she had. But he’d refused to play with her. He sat around saying deliberately cute things for the adults to coo at, while she studded the garage door with the tennis balls she’d hauled out. Renewed bitterness swelled toward him, both for rejecting her in childhood, and then forgetting all about it. Here he was again, Nick Lynott, with his smug face and a hand inside his pocket, already looking over her head for someone more interesting to speak to. 

“So,” Nick said. “Where are you living at the moment?” 

“Dublin.”

A snort. “Well, yes. I hardly thought you lived in the country.” He peered at the pastoral fantasy of rural Ireland around the manor, the tracks from a haybine running up and down fields in braids of spun gold, and wrinkled his nose like it was an offense to him. “Could you be more specific?”

“Right. Sandymount.”

“Ah, I walk there with my parents. I assume you’re on the seafront or something, are you?”

“No,” she said. “Further in. Close to the station. It’s…” She broke off with a sigh. “You’d know it if you saw it. It’s a Georgian place with a very… noticeable extension.”

Lissa resented the extension so much she got hot and agitated when she thought about it. A gleaming modern rectangular block, all reinforced concrete and floor-to-ceiling windows, had followed her stepmother, Jade Nolan, and all her interior design aspirations. Jade was not a talented person, Lissa thought, just a lucky one, now with access to enough money to fund her delusion. 

It’d been four months since workmen had broken ground in the garden, flattened the beds of pampas grass and torn down the games room and the orangery where she and her brother used to languish with their mother, breakfasts that stretched into the afternoon. Track marks ripped over her winter garden, and the tennis court she played matches with the neighbour ladies, in one afternoon, was reduced to chunks of fractured tarmac and twisted metal in a skip

“Oh, I know it. Fantastic,” Nick said, and went on this voice that begged to sound like an authority on property, parroting the adults who actually knew what they were saying. “You’d be mad not to build in this economy though, wouldn’t you? And it’s much better to be somewhere modern, where at least the heat isn’t flying out through cracks in the window frames. I just don’t care about ‘charm’ or whatever people say. Clean and functional is always better.”

She wondered whether she shared her sense that the conversation was not going well. Considered agreeing with him to be polite, but couldn’t bring herself to. “Some people prefer to live somewhere comfortable and traditional. Nothing wrong at all with that. Maybe to some, all that glass and steel is cold and uncomfortable. Do you really want the entire world looking in your windows as you lie on the couch?”

“Well, I say move on, dinosaurs. Reject tradition. Embrace the new millennium, already.” What a worldly thing to say. He spoke with complete authority, as though there was no point even coming up with a retort. To conclude, he tilted his head back and drained his glass. 

Lissa intended to respond anyway. The captain of her debating team at school, she was no stranger to annoying, arrogant boys, but before she could respond, Alexander was hauled towards them by Angela, a family friend wielding a digital camera. She’d forgotten about her brother—evidently having wandered off in hopes he could hide from the lens.

“Come on,” Angela said. “Just one. For your mum. Lissa, tell him.”

Lissa said nothing, just stood there with him while he scowled. She smiled until her face ached.

“Oh, you look smashing, the both of you,” Angela cooed. “Diane is going to love these.”

Lissa was not convinced. She’d gone through an intense period of questioning while preparing for the wedding—the way she’d done her hair, whether the colour of dress complimented her skin, her makeup, which, the more she caught sight of herself, the more clownish it seemed. The makeup artist had done it at some ungodly hour that morning and kept saying it looked so natural, while glueing strip lashes around her eyes. Lissa had been too tired to protest. It was fine. Who was going to care?

But now, staring into the lens that would immortalise this look, she realised her mother would. She was so good at dressing them both. Choosing things from little French boutiques that had things nobody at home could get, and then they’d put them on and spin around the living room while she applauded and told them they were the most elegant children in town. 

Looking bad was a new and terrifying possibility for Lissa. Those pastel striped boutique bags from Diane, tied up with satin ribbon, had disappeared with her, replaced within the year with new things from Jade. Things with cut-outs and zips, snakeskin bags and sequined tops. Sure, Jade said she looked good, but what Jade thought was good was meaningless, and often, in Lissa’s opinion, blatantly wrong.

“And where’s mum today?” Nick said, and Lissa was surprised he was still standing there. 

“Oh,” she said. “France.”

“Ah, yeah, I remember hearing something about her moving.”

“Yes, Provence.”

“And I suppose her being here would be awkward, would it? It was an acrimonious divorce, right?”

Lissa frowned. “Do you always go around asking highly personal questions to strangers?”

And he shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t really asking. I was just repeating what I heard around the place. Whatever. It’s a pity she’s not here to see you do…” he waved his hand at her. “Whatever you were doing. Were you a flower girl? No, not flower girl. That sort of thing.” 

She felt a prickle. “No, I think it’s obvious I was not the flower girl. I’m too old for that.”

“Oh, well,” He flattened his mouth and pulled this silly, careless face that pissed her off. “Dunno.”

“We’re the same age.”

He squinted at something in the distance. The fact he wasn’t even bothering to look at her was making her angrier. Already one foot out of the conversation, while casually annihilating her confidence. “Oh, that’s funny,” he said. “I thought you were maybe fifteen, sixteen at a push.” 

She couldn’t think of what to say, or focus on anything but her boiling face, surely turning a ferocious shade of puce. “Right, well, um, good for you.” She wished she’d come up with something better, that she were quick, clever enough to handle such situations, but it hardly mattered, because she was already walking away from him, mumbling about a photographer waiting for her. 

It didn’t matter what Nick Lynott’s opinion was, she reminded herself. After today, she would surely never see him again. And if she did, it wasn’t as though he’d remember.

Still, she could feel exactly where his words had landed, like a thumb pressed into a bruise she hadn’t known was there. As she moved back toward the noise of the party, she kept her shoulders stiff and high, as if he might be watching, though she never once looked back to check.

“You don’t have to carry that—wait.”

“It’s fine, Nick, I can manage.”

He made a show of taking the box, hoisting it onto one shoulder and smiling, looking around to see if anyone could see him being chivalrous. 

“It’s not like it has far to go.”

“No, no, Lissa. I’ve got it. You shouldn’t have to carry anything.”

In the lift, she looked at him, darkened patches on the underarms of his t-shirt, admiring his own strength in the mirror. It wasn’t that he was exceptionally muscular or anything like that—he didn’t go to the gym or participate in exercise more rigorous and consistent than whacking balls around a squash court with his work mates once or twice a week—he simply had the natural, virile durability of a twenty-one-year-old man, which Lissa supposed in some way was a thing to be proud of. 

“Here we are.” He unlocked the door, and she squinted against the sunlight streaming through the windows. Outside was a view worth half a million, as Grand Canal Dock gleamed in the brilliance of summer. A skyline of cranes and glass office blocks: the broad ascent of Dublin’s tech empire in clear view from the living room. 

Nick set the box down, and it rattled with the contents of his material possessions. He always fancied himself a minimalist—a few books, a digital clock radio, one or two unique looking glasses he’d swiped from bars, and in the middle of a large, empty living space, it was impossible to imagine how he would ever fill it. 

“There’s the kitchen,” he announced with a flourish, though Lissa knew that. She could see it—glossy acrylic cabinets, chrome hardware, and a space where a fridge would go someday soon, to be filled with bottles of champagne and leftover takeaways. 

“Maybe one of those American ones with two doors,” he said. “With that dispenser for the ice, what do you think?”

“Mm. Lots of exciting possibilities,” said Lissa, and he beamed this huge, boyish grin he was usually too cool those days to grant her. A homeowner, he was. How novel. She smiled back, astonished anyone had convinced him this was a good idea. 

“I have grand plans, Lissa, grand plans.” 

“And the mortgage is what?”

“God, loads. It’s fine. My parents are helping me out with it until I get promoted at work, you know? The inevitable progression…” He glided his hand through the air like an airplane taking off. “It’s only up and up, really.”

“But really, then, it’s their apartment, isn’t it?”

Nick pouted. “Well, no, actually, it’s mine. Dad helped with the down payment, obviously. It’s not like I had, what? Fifty thousand euros lying around. But I secured the finances. It’s in my name… at least jointly.”

“Oh, wow. Good luck,” she said, though really, she scoffed it, and then felt guilty when he rolled his eyes before turning his face away. She didn’t know why she was like this with him sometimes—provoking and bad-tempered. It was as if she wanted him to argue with her, which, of course, she did not. It was the first time she’d seen him in two weeks, so why the urge to piss him off?

“The gym downstairs is a nice addition,” she admitted. “I haven’t—I didn’t know they were putting that kind of amenity in apartment blocks these days.”

“Yeah, it’s all very slick. Can you picture me down there lifting weights with the lads from Google?” 

“I can, actually. And you’re all talking about mortgages and investments… trading stocks.”

“Please, not me. I’m a creative.”

“Nah, I can just see you out there, those benches on the river, you and your tech friends drinking your fancy coffees in takeaway cups…”

“Can you, now.”

“Yeah. And you have some girlfriend from the building across from here. Her name’s Gretchen, and at night she leaves the blinds open so you can see her walking around naked.”

“Gretchen,” Nick savoured the name. “I could go out with a Gretchen.”

“Gretchen is too smart for you, actually, but don’t worry, she’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“Nice, nice. Of course she will.”

“It’s a whole new life for you, Nick. A life of American-style fridges. You’re moving up, aren’t you?”

“Well, not really. It’s just… it’s just an apartment. They’ll hand these out to anyone these days, won’t they?”

Lissa hesitated. “An asset is an asset.” 

“Yeah. Come on. Let me show you the best part. You’re going to love it.”

He led her across the hallway to a room, as blank and nondescript as the last. Rectangular. A window. Skirting boards. They stood there in its echo, just looking, until she became aware he was anticipating a reaction. 

“A room,” she commented. 

“Yes, Lissa,” he said. “For you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, look,” he entered a second door to reveal an ensuite bathroom, with small, brown and mirrored tiles , and opened the cabinet under the sink with the flourish of a magician unveiling his legless assistant. “A place for your things—your, your whatever—your face creams. No more complaints about them going missing. And see,” returning to the bedroom, he gestured broadly at an empty wall, “I’ll put a chest of drawers here, for your spare clothes and pyjamas. You won’t have to borrow my t-shirts anymore, how about that?”

Lissa felt something stuck in her throat. Of course, it was what she’d rallied passionately for those days in Merrion Square—her own room, her own moisturizer and specific shampoo, knickers that stayed where she’d left them—but now, Nick would never again pull some scandalous, hot pink g-string out of a heap and say “Is this not yours, no?” leaving her privately delighted that he thought her the kind of girl to wear it. It was a specific loss she couldn’t verbalise. 

“Oh, finally,” she said. “Thank God for that.”

“I’ll make it nice, too, Lissa. When you’re back from France, it’ll be ready, and you’re going to love it—you’ll love what I’ll have done with the place.”

Lissa just smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure I will.”

As the last hour of the year began, Lissa stood in front of a mirror. Balancing against a wardrobe, she gingerly slipped her good foot into her shoe. It made her leg appear long and elegant. Sleek like a panther in a silver heel that matched her dress. Her bad foot, on the other hand, was grotesque. She could not put weight on it, and made her look dumpy—swollen toes poking out of the bandages, and purple bruising over the bridge.

On the bed, Joshua laid out a tie. A tie. What kind of man wore a tie to a house party? Sometimes she feared he took fashion inspiration from Norman Rockwell paintings and aspired to look as square as possible. She resented that, and she supposed he resented her. They had been arriving at this for months. If she were honest with herself, she would have admitted she had chosen her New Year’s dress to spite him. It was short and low-cut and had the potential to stir up an argument ferocious enough to channel her rage.

He turned to look when she asked him what he thought. “A bit much, don’t you think?” he said. 

She didn’t answer. 

“How’s your ankle?”

“It still hurts.”

“Lie down then, if you can’t handle it. What’s with the shoes?”

“I’m fantasizing about the complete outfit.”

“Right. Will you be using your crutches?”

They were propped against the wall. Matte medical grey. “No,” she said. “I’ll stay sitting down all night.”

“Brilliant plan.” He slung a towel over his shoulder. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Alright,” she said. 

In his absence, she started her makeup. Frosty silver eyeshadow, glittery blush. She wanted to be an ice queen. Joshua hated lip gloss and the way it stuck to his face. She added a second layer in rebellion. 

The shower hummed in the ensuite, and even the sound of him washing himself annoyed her. In there, shampooing, thinning at the temples already. 

She loved him, didn’t she? Then why was she always convincing herself?

His phone was going off on the bed, set to vibrate. She let it ring out. Ran her fingers through her hair and brushed it over her shoulders. It went off again, one brief buzz for a text message, and this time she grabbed it. 

1 New Message: Albert 

Was phoning to wish you a happy new year. Everything fine at hospital. Sending Nuala home tomorrow, all going well. Ring tomorrow and we will catch up with all your news. Mum asking for you. Hope you are enjoying France.

Ring tomorrow.

Not tonight. Not for the entire hour that Joshua paced, voice low through the ceiling.

So who had he been talking to?

The phone was a grenade in her hand. 

Drop it. Something within her urged. Put it down now. 

But she couldn’t. She thumbed the buttons on it—his stupid, corporate BlackBerry thing that she could never figure out how to work, but with shaking hands and brute force of will, she located his call log. 

And there it was. 

31/12/05 - 11:45am - Carley - 1hr 46mins

30/12/05 - 10:03pm - Carley - 1hr 17mins

30/12/05 - 2:15pm - Carley - 43mins

29/12/05 - 8:47pm - Carley - 2hr 04mins

29/12/05 - 11:23am - Carley - 1hr 32mins

Carley, Carley, Carley. Pages and pages of Carley, going back through autumn, summer—a stark record of Lissa’s stupidity. There were so many logs her thumb ached from the button. 

And naturally, Lissa appeared occasionally—a two-minute call, a twenty-second one, like a gnat in Joshua’s ear, interrupting his hours on the line with Carley with insufferable buzzing. Hey! Remember me? Call me, baby! 

She dropped the phone and sat with it on the blanket beside her. The bedroom was very quiet. Downstairs, someone laughed.

She grabbed his wallet, splayed open on the bedside table. Rifled through it indiscriminately, yanking MasterCards and visas out onto the bed. Out came his golf club membership, a Barbour gift card, a receipt, tucked conspicuously into the coin pocket with its corner sticking out. The euros he kept for the driving range flew out with it, rolling onto the floor and around her thighs. 

WEIR & SONS 

Custom Silver Necklace 

Engraving: CB. With Love.

€450

Date: 12 December 2005

Lissa went still. The receipt crinkled in her hands, and without a notion of what else she was supposed to do, she simply dropped to her side on the bed, staring at the wall. She felt as though she’d died. 

The shower stopped. 

Footsteps, and Joshua opened the bathroom door wearing a towel, steam all around him. 

“What are you doing?”

Lissa just lay there surrounded by his cards and coins, unable to think of a sufficient response. 

“Lissa? Hello?” His voice was sharp. “Have you gone through my wallet?” Snatched the gutted thing from the floor. “What on earth? I would never do that to you. Go through your purse…”

She opened her hand to reveal the receipt, and his face paled. “Carley Bennett?” she said, her voice hollow. “You’ve bought her a necklace?”

He stood for a long moment, looking at the crumpled thing in her palm. “Oh, it’s not what you think.”

She was aware that she was smiling. Strangely serene on the bed, gazing up at him while water trickled from his hair. “Carley Bennett? The drip from school?”

“We’re friends. We’ve gotten close, sure, but it was—”

“You call her for hours every day. I saw it on your phone.”

His face twitched.

“You’ve obviously been seeing her, Joshua, so I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie. It’s boring.”

“Can you let me—” he gestured to himself, naked under his towel. “Give me a minute.”

He turned away and dressed himself. She heard the rustle of clothing, zippers, and belt buckles. She knew she should leave and take a minute for herself, but found herself unable to move. Downstairs, Diane’s party thrived. Voices rising, music thumping.

Joshua returned in stockinged feet and tossed his towel into the bathroom, where it landed atop his trail of wet footprints. 

“You should pick that up,” Lissa said. “It’s rude to leave things on the floor at someone else’s house.”

He didn’t move. “Why are you being weird?”

“I’m being weird?” 

“Yes, the things you’re saying are weird. And you’re just lying there.”

Lissa sat up obediently, and more coins slid onto the floor. 

“So, go on then. You’re seeing her,” she said. 

He watched her distrustfully. “We’ve been spending time together.”

“Since when?”

“The summer sometime.”

“You’ve been seeing two women at the same time, then.” 

“God, no, Lissa. It wasn’t like that. Carley needed time. She didn’t want me to—” he stopped.

“To what? No, go on. To break up with me until she was ready to commit?”

He said nothing. 

“So you kept me around as backup, in case she changed her mind.”

“Lissa…”

“Have you slept with her yet?”

Joshua scoffed. “What? Why is it always about that for you?”

“What does that mean?” 

“See, this is the problem, Lissa, your mind always goes there. Asking me questions like that–”

“Well, have you? It’s a simple question.”

“No,” he said, and Lissa enjoyed a slight moment of relief—or was it something uglier—vindication, before Joshua added: “She wants to wait.”

A laugh burst from Lissa. “Sorry, she wants to wait? What, until marriage?” 

He scowled. “And that’s funny because?”

“Joshua, are you serious?” 

“She’s a Christian, and so am I.”

“Oh, come off it. You’re not a Christian. Not in that way.”

“I am!” he cried. “I’ve realised I am because Carley’s helped me to see it. You’re the one who suppressed that side of me. For years.”

Now she was quiet. 

“You were always pushing for it, pushing for more, interested in trying new things,” he spat those words as though experimentation was an unutterable sin. “I didn’t think you were like that. If I’d known it from the start, I wouldn’t have gotten involved with you, but you were so much different back then, I…”

“When I was thirteen?”

“You really were sweet,” he said. “Everyone was laughing at me last night when I said it, but you were. Then at some point you changed.”

“And when did I change?”

“I don’t know. But I realised you weren’t who I thought you were.”

It occurred to Lissa that it would have been preferable if he’d just punched her in the guts and packed his bags. But this was how they were going out—with her entire being, her personality and her values strewn across the floor while she fought to keep her face in check. Her stomach convulsed. She might throw up if she said anything else.

She inhaled and waited for the wave to pass. “Let’s be honest, Joshua,” she said. “You haven’t felt the same about me since we started having sex. That’s when you began to hate me.”

“I never hated you.”

“Okay, then you hated that I wanted it, even though it was to your benefit, wasn’t it? You wanted it too.”

“I don’t—”

“And you liked it. You used to say that.” 

He glowered at her. “Wanting and liking something doesn’t make it right. I went along with it because I thought that’s what boyfriends did—I was sixteen. It’s all the other boys in school were talking about. And you were, and all the other girls and—”

“And Carley’s not like other girls, basically. She’s not a slut.”

He said nothing. 

“That’s how you’ve thought of me, is it?”

Lissa thought of the summer before it happened—Diane in the window with the vineyard behind her, whispering as if at a slumber party about boys and kissing and sex. She told Lissa what she might expect, how it might happen, and there she was at her mother’s feet, listening on with anxious anticipation. Then there was the parcel that arrived in Dublin that autumn—a care package with condoms, though her French doctor had already fitted the implant, expensive chocolates, a scented candle, and a CD of romantic songs. They’d waited until the right moment—when Jarlath was in Geneva and Alexander was with the babysitter. The house was quiet, and everything about it was perfect.

But now Lissa saw that what had been a cherished girlhood memory for her had been shameful and morally wrong for Joshua. 

He took in her makeup, her dress. “Well, you’re always trying to… I don’t know. Seduce someone. It’s not appropriate.” 

A knock on the bedroom door made Lissa jump. 

“Lissa, darling?” It was Anika. “Sorry to disturb you, but do you have hairspray?”

She couldn’t think of how to respond. 

“Um, no,” she called back. “Sorry. Ask my mum.”

“Your mum’s on the wine. I don’t think she can help me.”

“Go look in her room. You can just root around. She won’t care.”

“Yeah okay. You alright?”

“Fine, thanks.”

And she continued down the hall. Another knock followed—three quick raps as someone passed.

“Half an hour,” that was Nick. “Don’t miss the countdown, folks.”

The party was picking up below—voices louder, music cranked higher. As Nick and Anika’s voices faded down the stairs, Lissa knew what Joshua was about to say to her.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “The two of them. They basically represent the person you’ve become.”

“Oh, come on. There’s nothing wrong with them.” 

“Anika—you pretty much want to be her, from what I can tell, running around naked and sleeping with every man who asks, and as for Lynott…”

“What about him?” 

“The way you go on about him. It’s obvious you’ve got some sort of weird fascination.”

“What are you on about? There’s no weird fascination. Why do you say things like that?” 

“He’s just waiting for you to make it easy for him. That's all.” Joshua looked satisfied now that he’d come up with an appropriate cosmic punishment. 

And now there were tears of rage in the corners of her eyes. “Why don’t you end it then?”

“I’ve been waiting for the proper moment.”

“The proper moment wasn’t the second you had feelings for someone else?”

He looked at her. “I’ll pack my bags tonight, and I’ll be gone in the morning. I’m going to call my dad and then arrange an early flight.”

He opened the wardrobe and began taking his things out of it. “This is for the best, really,” he said in a measured voice. “You can focus on your studies. Keep doing your college work, spend time working at the hotel. And I can—”

“You’ll be with Carley Bennett.”

“Yeah.”

She waited for an apology, or a flicker of regret, but his face was blank. He folded his clothes into a neat pile. 

“So what?” She pressed. 

“So, I’m breaking up with you now. It’s over.”

She felt herself split into before and after—a guillotine cleaving her life in two, and a series of years rising up into the future ahead. Frightening, unknowable years in which she’d become the woman she couldn’t yet imagine.

And now, what was she supposed to do? Sit there? She had the sense that if she didn’t do something useful, some hideous, unpredictable emotion would come surging out. 

In her palm, the receipt was mangled to death. Ruined with the sweat of her hand, but she smoothed it anyway and slotted it back inside Joshua’s wallet. Then she took the visas, the MasterCards, the golf club memberships, and put them back one by one. 

“What are you doing?” he said. “Leave it. Just—here,” he took it from her and tossed it onto the bed. “Go have your party. Leave it.”

“The party?” Absurd. 

“Yeah, just go. I want to pack.”

“Right. Okay.” She stood, and her ankle screamed. With one inelegant hop, she grabbed her crutches and hobbled out of the room. 

She was early to Nick’s, which she never liked to be. He was among the camp of people cool enough to invite you for nine when he actually meant ten—who had some secret, magical knowledge of the exact right time to arrive at a party and when to leave. Not Lissa. She was half an hour early for everything, no matter how she tried. 

He had told her five, and it was eleven minutes to four. Eight, by the time she’d attempted the mathematical equation in her head, battled her anxiety, and weighed up whether it was worse to call on him before he was ready to receive her, or loiter nervously on his doorstep for two hours staring at her reflection on the brass knob. 

She pressed the bell. 

Several moments passed, then his voice was low through the speaker. “Yeah?”

“It’s me.”

He buzzed her in. 

She went to his floor, where he was already waiting with the door open, messing with his hair in a way that felt oddly self-conscious, as though caught off guard. 

“Are you early?”

“I am—sorry. The thing at the hotel ended sooner than I thought, and I didn’t want to just sit in some cafe.”

“No, no. It’s fine, come in. I was just snoozing, basically.” 

It looked that way. His apartment had that smell—the stuffy, human smell she’d come to know from the rare moments she’d entered Alexander’s lair. Nick had the TV on, some quiz programme playing for background noise, and a rumpled mass of material on his bed, where he’d clearly passed out on the contents of his open suitcase. 

“You’ve not unpacked, I see.” 

“I kind of did. I’m just—” he yawned. His arms and stomach were brown from Ibiza. “I dunno if I’m jet lagged or what, but I’ve crashed since getting home.”

“Yes, you must be. That single hour is a killer.”

“Yeah. C’mere. I missed you.” When he hugged her, he squeezed so tight her feet left the floor. 

“You missed me after two weeks?”

“Yeah, course I did. I still wish you’d come.”

“Right. Can you picture that? Me in Ibiza with—I don’t know—a glow-band around my neck and some nuclear green shot dribbling down my chin?”

“One hundred percent. Come with me next time.”

“Next time?” Lissa sank onto the sofa, pulling a stack of papers from underneath her. “Two weeks didn’t satiate you?”

“It was—I mean… I don’t remember every moment, but it was… yeah. Mad, basically.” He was nodding a faraway look in his eyes—back in some den of iniquity screaming Shots! Shots! And posing for a photo next to someone’s arse tattoo. 

She’d opted not to go when he’d floated the idea, claiming busyness, but she knew the debauched shores of Ibiza was not the place for a person like her. She’d hold him back somehow, looming in the corner of a club with her generally judgemental air, then suggesting they take a guided tour of the old town while he was still vomiting the remains of the previous evening off the side of the balcony. 

But maybe she was just scared of what might or might not happen once they’d left the confines of their routine. A choice between moral vertigo and crushing rejection that she was not prepared for. 

“Maybe when we graduate, we could do an Ibiza holiday together. 2008. Our last free summer. What do you think? You think I could handle it?” 

“Ha. Yeah,” Nick said. Busy, suddenly, in a search through the miniature bottles in his toiletry bag. “We’ll see. Maybe.”

“Like, I’m just getting used to the club thing, but maybe in two years I’ll be a veteran. Do you reckon?”

He pinched his nostrils. “You act like it’s a quantifiable skill. I don’t know if it’s something you can study for.”

“So you’re saying I won’t ace the exams.”

Again, he dodged her eye. “Mm. I’m going to take a shower, is that cool?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, you can… do whatever. TV is yours.”

He shut the bathroom door, and she heard the hum of the shower, the splash of water over the tiles. Sighing, she reached for the pile of papers—the remnants of his holiday, tossed onto the cushions. Boarding pass, bus tickets, hotel booking. Inside the sleeve of his passport was a postcard with a colourful illustration of a white sand beach. She turned it over in her hands. 

4th September 2006. 

Lissa, 

He’d written it for her. She sat up straighter. 

It’s a cliche to write ‘I wish you were here,’ but I do, actually, wish you were. You’d hate it, but at least we’d be laughing about it in between moments of pure horror. Thinking of you on your birthday. I’m glad you’re not wasting your 21st here, but sad you’re not wasting it with me. I’ll buy you dinner when I’m home. 

Did I write ‘when’? I meant ‘if’. No guarantee I’ll survive.

Love, 

N. 

Beneath was someone else’s juvenile scrawl. Dowdall, no doubt, or one of his other barely literate friends who went exclusively by their last names and had seized control of the pen.

Love you Lisa. XXxXxx Your a sexy bitch I fancy you from Nick. 

Then there was another message. Smaller, bubblier font with little circles over each i occupied a portion of the postcard. 

Nick, you’re amazing! Had the greatest week ever with you. Text me! Message me on MSN. 

Don’t forget me! XxXxXx

Sharon. 

Ah, of course there was a Sharon, for where there was a Nick, there was a Sharon. Yes, Sharon, Lissa narrated. I’ll give you this postcard, and you can put your details there. I won’t send it to my friend. She won’t mind. 

And Lissa didn’t mind, not really, because he’d followed through on his postcard promise and was actually buying her dinner that night. They were ordering Chinese. Nick never actually would call Sharon, because he never got around to things like that—distance made relationships inconvenient. 

The bottom of the pile was his notebook—the one he carried with him sometimes, often pulling it out to scrawl observations into it. Smell of turf smoke–earthy?? Was one. Asics tracksuit pants in the canal. Ice cubes look like molars. Dog shit isn’t white anymore? The fractured ramblings of a madman. 

He never minded her snooping. She’d asked him once or twice what he was writing when he had the book out on the bus or at brunch, and when he’d showed her, she’d regretted having an interest. It was rarely something that made any sense to her, like, say, a juicy account of his most private feelings. She wasn’t actually sure he had private feelings at all, just blatant and very public ones. “You’re hot,” she’d actually heard him say once to someone in lieu of an introduction. “Do you mind if I kiss you?” and the girl said yes to him. He was like an alien. 

So she pulled a folded paper free from the pages—one of his printed pieces—and flipped it open. 

An essay. 

Mick’s taxi smells like cigarettes and pine-scented air freshener–the kind that hangs from the mirror and never exactly works. He’s been driving the city for over forty years, and knows the veins of this city like the ones on the back of his own hand. 

“I’ll tell you about Dublin,” he says to me. “Used to be you knew everyone. All the local characters. You heard about Johnny Forty Coats?”

I have, but anecdotally. For I was raised in a different Dublin—a city post Johnny Forty Coats and Bang Bang, the man who shot finger guns at passengers of Dublin Bus. I’ve come up amongst the flash and excess of the Celtic Tiger, exposed to more wealth than my ancestors could imagine. It’s different for Mick. He remembers life before the boom.  

“Now it’s all tourists, tech lads who think they own the place. Look, like your man over there.” 

He is pointing to a young lad with a backpack, speaking on the phone as he crosses from North Earl Street to the Spire. I don’t know what it is about him that’s caught Mick’s attention, but I am aware he looks a bit like I do. For a moment, there I am. Conscious of myself—a gentrifier in the back seat of the car.

Mick’s observational, not bitter. There’s truth in—

The bathroom door opened, and Nick emerged wearing a towel. Lissa reflexively folded the paper and tried to slot it back into the notebook. 

He barely cared. “Oh, you’re reading that thing.” 

“Yeah,” she hesitated. “I really like it.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it for?”

“Oh, some college thing.” He crossed the room to pick through his clothing, and Lissa knew to keep her back to him while he changed. “I didn’t finish it.”

“You didn’t hand it in.”

“Nah.”

“Well, you should have. It’s interesting.”

“Mick was cool, yeah. Bit of a wildcard. Eventually, he started going on about conspiracy theories, though, kind of derailed the interview.”

“That’s why it’s unfinished?”

“No, I just didn’t get around to it. I was doing other things.”

Lissa fought a wave of frustration. What was more important than his college work? Especially when he was so clearly good at it, when it was so easy for him, but she held herself back from scolding him because she knew already that Nick did what Nick did, regardless of her opinion.  

“Well, I’d like to read whatever you write in future. You should email me your college work.”

“Serious? Thought you weren’t into that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing? Literature?”

“No. Articles. Interviews. Got the impression you’d rather self-immolate than read a magazine piece.”

She risked looking at him, mercifully clothed already, pulling his socks on. “Yeah, an article about Katie Price and her husband, sure, but I’d read your work. Whatever genre it is. If all magazines had writing like this, I’d clear the shelves.”

There was a razor-thin line to tread when speaking to Nick about his work—balancing between patronising encouragement and total dismissal. You had to hit exactly the right tone, or he disengaged. 

She bit her lip and watched him disengage. Took his paper from her and tossed it onto the coffee table. “C’mon, Lissa. Boring.” He flopped onto the sofa beside her. “Do you want to watch this programme? You like quiz shows, yeah? You should be on one. Smarty pants.” 

She didn’t, so he switched to Judge Judy, and they watched quietly, Nick’s shoulder pressed up against hers, his damp hair leaving an imprint on the cushion behind him. 

“What’s with the clothes?” he said, pinching the steel grey cotton of her slacks. 

“It’s just what I wore. I wanted to look professional.”

“Oh, the hotel,” looking at her, she couldn’t look back. His face was too close to hers. “How did it go?”

“Fine. There’s not much to it.”

“Running an actual hotel, like?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. The work is obvious. Dad just made a heap of phone calls and strolled around feeling smug about himself.”

“Nice. That’s the life.”

She huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Not mine. I really don’t think I’m cut out for the job.”

“Hm. You just don’t want it.”

“Mm.” 

“Did you see Phil?”

“I did.”

“And? What’d he say? That he hot-tubbing with fourteen Russian models with double-Ds?”

“No. Barely said anything, actually. Thank God.”

“Good. So you didn’t get a whiff of his gingivitis.”

“You should write about him in your next essay. He’s the kind of character you’d do justice, do you think?”

Nick’s expression shifted. Stood up suddenly and went into the kitchen. “Do you want a glass of wine? I’ve got some Pinot open in the fridge.”

She watched him. “Yeah, okay.”

“And then we can order dinner. Hang on, I’ll find the menu.”

“Okay. I’ll just order the prawn—”

“Yep, I’ll get the menu.”

“I know what I want.”

“Hang on.” His face was hidden from her behind the kitchen island as he rummaged through the bottom drawer. 

“Nick, are you alright?”

“Yeah, of course. All good.”

“You sure? You seem a bit…”

“Yeah, tired,” he said, before changing his answer to: “Wired, maybe. I dunno, yeah. I’ve barely slept since before Ibiza. Maybe I’m a bit manic.”

“...are you on drugs?”

“Yeah, Liss, I took a yoke on the flight. Of course not. I’m just looking for the menu, wait a sec.”

Sunday morning was sweltering. Jade leaned over the door of her Mercedes, roof down, reggae pop-thumping through the speakers. She was mid-flirt with two men in their twenties when Lissa stepped onto the street. 

“Lissa!” she waved as she came down the steps, and the men eyed her up like she was a contender for their fantasy threesome.

“This is my stepdaughter,” she said, shifting the scenario into slightly more pornographic territory than needed. “Lissa, this is Robbie and Cian.”

She gave them her gruffest greeting and got into the car, where the leather seats burned the back of her legs. Immediately, she turned down the music. 

“I think poor Lissa’s a bit hungover, are you, hon? She was out late.”

“Clubbing?” said Robbie or Cian.

“Yes.” Obviously. She was twenty. It was 2006. “Jade, can we head?”

“Now she wants to leave,” she told them with an eye roll. “No patience, hm?”

One of them looked into the car as she started the ignition. “You around later?” he said, adding: “either of you, like,” when he remembered Lissa was there. “We’re having a party.”

“On a Sunday night, boys?”

They grinned devilishly. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jade said. “Busy, busy, you know. I’m working on a very important project at the moment…”

“Oh yeah? Sounds… very important.”

“Yeah, you can tell us about it later,” his friend said, and they both cracked up at their genius. While they yelled out the address, Jade waved goodbye, an arm stacked with gold bracelets and rings jangling as she steered the car onto Mount Street.

Lissa burned with secondhand embarrassment. She could never understand why Jade acted teenaged when she was old—like, forty-one—nor why young men responded so enthusiastically. Yes, she was conspicuously attractive, blonde, big-boobed, but so were many girls of their own age. It was a mystery, honestly, whether men just wanted her attention, or if it was in the zeitgeist—this cougar fascination they all had. 

“So, Nicky’s again?” She swung the car onto the canal, the grass yellowing from the hot, dry weeks they’d been enjoying, Lissa already sighing before Jade finished speaking. “What’s all that about?”

“Nothing.”

She scoffed. “But he’s cute! Don’t you think so? That dirty little smile of his. Whatever happened to that girl he was seeing? That nice Indian girl.”

“Anika’s long gone. She gave up on him months ago—met someone better.”

“Better?”

“More committed, I meant.”

“Oh, so he’s a bit of a playboy?”

Lissa thought about this. “He probably fancies himself as one, yeah. I suppose it’s a bit like… he’s obviously not in the headspace for a relationship, or anything related to that. He’s more into going out five nights a week and meeting different people.”

Idling at the lights, Jade examined her reflection in the rear-view mirror, tugging anxiously at the skin around her eyes. “Have you ever thought you could have fun with him? One night, just to see. Are you not curious?”

“Jade—”

“It might clear all that sexual tension.”

“The sexual tension is nonexistent.”

She smiled at herself. “You know, I’ve never had a male friend who didn’t secretly want me.”

And now Lissa laughed, shaking her head as she watched the traffic stream past. “Yeah, I believe you,” she said. 

“I’m serious. The truth always comes out eventually.”

How ominous. 

The drive took them out of the city on long, straight roads with little of any interest to look at. The country outside Dublin was unfamiliar to Lissa, who normally only left on an Aer Lingus flight, so had rarely seen the tedious grass borders of rural motorways. 

They rolled into little towns—grey, gloomy places where their gleaming convertible made her feel like she was in a UFO. Heads were turning, and she couldn’t tell if they were curious or disdainful. The music didn’t help—the Sean Paul album she had surrendered to once the top 40 hits stations were out of range, and they entered a strange land of folk music and grim voices reading out local obituaries. 

“This is really where you and my dad stayed?” Lissa said as they coasted past a forlorn pony, watching through its enclosure. 

“Not far from here, yeah. It’s actually quite idyllic once you get down to the sea.”

“What’s wrong with the sea in Dublin?” she sounded like Nick—all his Dollymount Strand, Vico Baths snobbery—but it was true. You didn’t need to leave Dublin to look at the sea, let alone drive two and a half hours. 

“The air is fresher out here. It just… I don’t know what to say. It tastes different.”

They wound through the narrow streets of a whitewashed village, and the deep blue slash of the Atlantic through a channel of thatched roofs was pleasing to look at. By the pier, fishing boats bobbed happily against a dramatic sky, and matching houses overlooked the bay—quaint names on their garden walls, like Pebble Cottage, Seagrass House—it was making Lissa anxious. 

“This is where you’re building?” she said. “Like, actually?”

“Yeah! We found this amazing spot just on the cliff’s edge—almost there now. You’ll see.”

And see it she did. A supervillain’s lair loomed up ahead, all angles and glass, reflecting the quaint village back at itself as if to mock it. Lissa sat mortified as they swept down the driveway to the basement garage, and Jade pulled out a fob, thrilled as the door slid open like a sci-fi fantasy. “Isn’t that amazing?” she said. “That’s the future right there.”

Lissa was impressed superficially, but spiritually repulsed. From the vast living-cum-dining area, windows displayed the ocean—bluer than anywhere else on earth, she was sure, with its seabirds and whales, seals and dolphins, the same creatures that had trailed their boat majestically on a trip to the west coast as children, awed by how they sparkled in the sun. Silvery grasses waved in the wind among rugged coastline, and the ruins of an old cottage perched weather beaten on the edge, gradually returning its rocks to the sea as time ravaged the cliffs. It looked like it belonged. 

Jade was pointing at loose wires dangling from freshly plastered walls, talking about the size of the TV she was going to put in, her heels clacking on bare concrete, while Lissa looked at the shell of the kitchen. Glossy cabinets still covered in plastic film from the factory. Spotlights hung on wires like detached eyeballs. “What was here before you built this?”

“Some pokey, old fashioned little place. The thatched roof was completely rotten. I saw it and just thought, yuck! My skin was crawling thinking of all the vermin that must have been living up there, and inside there were mouse droppings everywhere.”

“Mm. I can imagine.”

“This place,” Jade sighed happily. “It’s honestly perfect. My dream. And mine. My own thing. Do you know what I mean?”

She led Lissa through empty rooms, each with the same bare walls, concrete floors, dangling spotlights. From atop a pile of unlaid marble tiles, Lissa took an invoice, her eyebrows raising at the price per square metre. How large was the house? She attempted a rough calculation in her head and was frightened by the number she came up with.

“Media room,” Jade said. “Projector there. Surround sound. Recliner seats.” She grinned and nodded to prompt the correct reaction. 

“... yeah,” Lissa said. 

“Yeah, right?”

She pushed through another door. “And this will be the gym. What do you think about that? A home gym? I could do my classes from here.”

Lissa shivered. On such a warm day, it was freezing. Like being inside a cave. “Your classes? Will you be bringing your personal trainer on your holiday?”

“Well, I suppose I could find someone else from the village, couldn’t I? Keep up the routine. That’s what the magazines say—stick to your routine even on holiday!” She looked doubtful. “Though I don’t know if I’d really want to.”

“How often will you actually be here?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Weekends? Maybe a week in the summer? It’s not exactly the point. It’s just like your mum with her two big houses.”

“Dad has other houses too,” Lissa pointed out, trailing her up the stairs to the master bathroom, and the promise of a half-installed rain shower. “Fifteen, actually.”

“But those are his boring old investments. Rentals, and I wouldn’t actually want to holiday in any of them.”

It was fair. Jarlath’s investment portfolio was about the least glamorous thing about him—an uninspiring selection of apartments and townhouses collected like Monopoly pieces, managed by an estate agent and filled with tenants who were always asking for new appliances and getting locked out. 

And of course there was the apartment with the pool and the palm trees in Marbella, but Marbella’s coast was cluttered with restaurants and nightclubs, thousands of deck chairs lined up on the sand, and someone with a boom box. Ireland was a desolate beauty, windswept and raw and quiet. So quiet that while she went onto the balcony, she barely breathed. 

“I know some people might think it’s too modern for the area.” Jade examined speckles of rust that had already bubbled up on the steel railings. “But that’s the whole point. It’s the shock factor, you see? That little bit of unexpected glamour. Why can’t beautiful old villages have beautiful new things? And I just knew—when I saw the place, I thought, well, if I don’t build here, someone else will. And at least I’m doing it with taste.”

“Yeah,” Lissa said mildly. She was small. So small in the grand scheme of things—the ocean, nature, the vastness of the world. 

“I’ve had an idea for a business, actually. Buy plots, build modern homes and sell them to Dubliners looking for weekend places. There’s so much demand—everyone is looking to invest. And Phil—you remember Phil? He’s been helping me with the numbers. 

Yes, Lissa remembered Phil. Jade’s unsettling cousin, who had been her father’s accountant since November. Phil was always kind of sweating. Lissa recalled his hair slick with it when they’d had dinner with him, and how he kept disappearing to the bathroom mid-sentence. He spent the entire evening yapping about some scheme he was getting off the ground in Bulgaria, and all the Brazilian waitresses in the hotel bar with huge boobs who allegedly wanted him urgently, and Lissa was forced to engage with him out of politeness and proximity. His breath was awful. “It’s actually feminist to wear a really small bikini,” he’d said at one stage. She had been ducking into doorways to avoid him since. 

Jade was still pretending there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Phil, explaining the ins and outs of her business proposal, and Lissa nodded and thought of her lectures on financial risk management. 

“How much did this cost?”

“Oh, I’ve no idea. Phil handles all that. It’s an investment! These houses will triple in value in five years, just wait and see.”

“Okay, so like, is it under the hotel umbrella, then?”

“Hm?” 

“If Phil handles it.”

“Oh, it’s all sorted. Your dad has it set up very cleverly actually, you know what he’s like.”

Lissa let it go. She pictured the cliff side like a futuristic landscape, packed with colossal cubes of glass and steel. Underfloor heating. Televisions that came down from the ceiling at the push of a button. An ominous red sky that signalled the end of civilisation. 

“This will be amazing, won’t it? An exclusive community, of course. I wouldn’t sell to just anyone. I’d have to make sure they had taste.”

“Do you think the locals like it?” Lissa said. 

Jade looked briefly troubled. “God, I hope so. I don’t want to be that woman in the village. I mean, they might not be used to modern architecture, but once they see how beautiful it is...?”

“Have they objected?”

“Oh, one man. He had some sort of problem with… what word did he use? Poor proportions or something. It’s sorted. Your dad had a word. Anyway. I’ll show you the other rooms. Guest room, guest room, Alex’s room, your room,” Lissa paused at the door. It had an ocean view. “If you want. If you think you’ll actually come.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll cut you a key. It’d be nice if you would use it. I know we’re... I know it’s been hard, me and your dad. But I want you to feel like this is yours too. You could come even if we aren’t here. Bring Nick.”

“Jade…”

“I know. I’m not saying. There are so many bedrooms. I’m saying come down and have a weekend, not that you have to share a bed with him.”

Lissa couldn’t decide whether she was more unsettled by her vision of Nick, bored and agitated at the house, or the prospect of selling the idea to him. Magnificent views. Nothing to do. Ballycotton? He’d say. Can we not just go to Prague?

“I don’t know,” Lissa said. “Let’s drop it.”

There was a brief silence. “Your dad talks about you all the time, you know. He’s so proud… he really wants everything to work out,” Jade said. Was there a wobble in her voice? Emotion? With a shiver of discomfort, Lissa turned her face away. 

“Yeah, okay.”

Jade took a breath, as if to say something else, then stopped. Gave up, maybe. She sighed and dug the keys from her pocket. “Alright. Come on then. Let’s lock up.”

Lissa took one last look at the ocean through the bedroom door, then followed her stepmother down the stairs.

That same night, they lay in bed. Shivery and sweating all at once, there was no balance to be found. Lissa’s leg was outside the duvet. Then her arm, then both back in, where Joshua’s body was radiating so much heat her fitful nightmares featured scenes of her boiling slowly in a hotel bath. 

After brushing her teeth twice, her mouth still tasted of vomit. Disgusting. And worse for being next to Joshua, who shouldn’t have to smell it on her breath. When she turned her back to him, he didn’t follow, or put his arms around her to nuzzle into her hair as she expected. He was too silent to be asleep. Maybe he was staring at the wall like she was.

A dim light glowed through the voile blinds and made her room look ghostly. She thought of the time, the hours ticking away until morning, when she would rise and shower, finally shower, and go to a lecture, to sit there nursing her hangover, like one of the in-crowd. How exciting for her.

She heard the heavy outside door first. That inevitable thump, and the echo in the tiled foyer. Pulling her knees to her chest, she braced for the scrape and jangle of keys in the apartment door.

Anika and her guest whispered a path to the kitchen. Through poorly built walls, each sound came through, and Lissa followed the sequence—Coats. Shoes. Fridge. Cupboard. Glasses. The muffled pop of a cork. Soon, she thought, once the preamble had wrapped up, she would hear every sordid beat of the sex they were about to have, and lie still, feeling embarrassed and somewhat bitter about the fact they were having it. 

She had never actually heard anyone else having sex before she lived with Anika. Never endured the shock of someone allowing themselves to be heard like that. No—with Joshua, she waited until nobody was home, with no chance of a return within the next hour. Having him over at all was embarrassing, if she was in the wrong mood, because then she worried about what someone might think they were doing, even in the absence of any actual… doing. 

But Anika lived out some sort of erotic fantasy in her room—the very one with clothes all over the floor and a No War for Oil! Don’t Attack Iraq! poster poised in the street-facing window. She didn’t even stuff a pillow behind the headboard to mute the rhythmic sequence, and the accelerando before the finale as Lissa hid helplessly in the dark, thinking about those enthusiastic men. Always expressing how delighted they were to be there, oblivious to the nonconsenting third party on the other side of the wall.

As the banging began that night, in sequence with the pulsating headache in her temple, she had no energy to move—attempt some futile noise, as she sometimes did, to remind her housemate she was home. She lay and stared. 

Joshua sniffed. 

“Sorry,” Lissa whispered. “It’s… not ideal.”

His profile was austere in the half light. “Why is she always doing that?”

She didn’t know, but felt she had to volunteer something. “I suppose it’s a certain lifestyle.”

“Well,” he whispered. “Don’t you ever think she’s a bit…”

Lissa shifted. “What?”

“I don’t know. A bit much.”

She knew he wasn’t trying to sound judgmental, and there was genuine curiosity behind his question, nevertheless, it landed awkwardly between them.

“I don’t think about it,” she said. 

The bed frame knocked more rigorously, and Anika uttered something that sounded like “Kevin,” which made the entire ordeal abruptly less sexy than it already was. Joshua rolled to face her finally. His hand warmed her hip through her pyjamas. 

“Is it different each time? Like, are they all different guys?”

“I don’t know,” she said. 

He waited, as if she might elaborate. 

“I’ve never seen them,” she added, in case her silence condoned it. “Maybe. All I know is that one is Kevin, evidently.” She gave him a thin smile, which he didn’t return.

“You don’t mind her doing that?” He said, and Lissa shrugged. 

“A bit, but it feels like, I don’t know… something that just happens in college.”

“For some people, maybe. It’s just…” he inhaled, like forcing something back. “It makes me uneasy.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you thinking that’s normal. And to be honest, if I can just say, I’m getting worried, because you didn’t seem like you tonight, Lissa. At the pub.”

It was her instinct to reach across the divide and touch him, the solid rise of his cheekbone, and the texture of his unshaven face. She’d loved him since he had the soft, downy cheeks of a boy—first year, when he’d waited until the Ferris wheel stopped all the way at the top to kiss her. Her very first. 

“Lissa Mansfield,” he said, because she was still single-barrelled. “You are perfect.” What remained since was an ever-growing compulsion for things to remain that way, how they were when she was thirteen and touching the sky, and her parents were still together. It was unbearable—the thought of becoming someone strange and disappointing, to him or to anybody. 

“I was me,” she protested. “I just lost track of what I was drinking.”

“But if I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened. Nobody was looking after you. I didn’t even know you were there in the first place, and it scares me to think of you with those… people, who don’t have any concern for your safety, while I think you’re safe at home.” 

She wondered what he meant to say instead of ‘people’.

“I was totally fine, really. They were nice to me. It was my fault I drank too much. It felt like it happened quickly, like… nobody would have really noticed at first.”

“Yeah, but think of what might have happened. Anyone might have taken advantage.” His hand was clenching and unclenching on her pyjama leg, creasing a gloomy reminder of their conversation into the fabric. 

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I just didn’t love the whole situation, and an unknown number, I—” he broke off. “It didn’t feel great for me… just being phoned like that.”

“What?” She laughed, and he remained completely expressionless. 

“That’s hard for me to admit, Lissa.”

“Okay, sorry. I don’t mean to mock you. I’m just surprised it bothered you. The guy who called you was the one actually helping.”

A long silence, then; “Did you talk to him? Before you got that drunk, I mean.”

Lissa didn’t know how to answer. 

“I was just wondering if you’d been chatting,” he pressed. “If that’s why he knew he could call me.”

“Not really. I was already pretty drunk by then, so I don’t even know what we were saying.” She stroked her thumb across his cheek, and he batted her away impetuously. “He was just… making small talk, I think. I don’t remember.”

“Well, that’s not exactly what I want to hear, Lissa.”

“Sorry. No, I wasn’t chatting to him. He’s just a random guy Anika knows, who happened to run into me when I needed a bit of help.” She felt like she would cry and pawed for him again. He huffed and turned to his other side. 

“Forget it. I wish I hadn’t said anything.” 

“Joshua…”

He didn’t touch her again. 

She felt a lurch of emotion, like getting sick, and might have actually vomited if there was anything left in her stomach. 

Through the wall, the mattress squeaked. Anika and Kevin giggled, then finally, the flat went quiet.

But Lissa put off the invitations. As summer turned to autumn and college resumed, she carried with her some dim hope that friendships would eventually materialise for her, like they used to. Occasionally, she’d entertain fantasies where she’d strike up a conversation with approvably cool types in the library, in the dining hall of the scholars’ housing, or the queue for the vending machines. The visions were sharp. She’d sidle up and say something so observationally witty and approachable that they’d invite her to a party, or to come hang out, or join them for lunch. She’d play it cool for a little while, give it a few weeks, then casually drop the invitation to her chalet. Yes, in the Alps. I go skiing there if you fancy it. No big deal. It’s whatever.  

And in fact, the cool types were in no short supply. She’d spotted them in the library, the dining hall and the queue for the vending machines, but discovered rather swiftly that these visions she was indulging in, as lucid as they were, did not contain the script she needed to actually be witty, interesting, or frankly, say anything at all. Usually, by the time she’d thought of something, they’d already left.

So she was eating meals alone. 

 A few times a week she would see Joshua when he wasn’t already doing something else. No girls allowed at the boat club meetup. Tired after rugby. Too much study to do—finance is no joke. Business and Law was no joke either, but she always found the time for him. She had so much time. Endless evenings just dragging on, reading books, watching The Sound of Music again, with a sudden and fierce yearning for Maria Von Trapp’s life—she had so many people to talk to.

Sundays, she’d go to Joshua’s house—a visit that had recently taken on the quality of a mandatory appointment. Lissa would wince in preparation for the grim look on Barbara’s face as she answered the door. Oh, she’s come again. Better let her in. 

Even their Scrabble games lacked the gusto they used to have. These days, when Lissa chose a risky word, there was no theatre. Nobody was standing up and pointing in anyone else’s face, or having arguments over the validity of NANOHERTZ that escalated until Barbara insisted on a ten-minute break to cool down. A few weeks before, Lissa played the word BLONDIE and Cyril coldly passed her the dictionary without a word. She removed the tiles one by one, and they resumed the game in silence. 

In October, an email came from Diane.

My Darling, 

Confirming New Year’s plans. How many friends? Need to prepare the chalet before snow makes things difficult. 

Bisous. D.

So Lissa invited Joshua, the obvious choice. 

He grimaced. “Your mum’s? I can’t. I have plans with Albert and Nuala at Christmas. I’ll be staying until after New Year’s.”

“Oh, right.”

“You understand, right? Family obligation?” He said it with a barbed look in his eye that suggested she somehow didn’t. 

Then in November, out of the desperation that followed a second, less patient email from her mother, Lissa texted Anika. 

Hey! Long time! Want to meet for coffee?

She sounded far too intense. Why was she using exclamation marks? No matter. Anika responded with polite enthusiasm. 

Hi :-) Yes, lovely! When?

They chose a Wednesday—a dreary afternoon, when the sun seemed in a hurry to set, and wind sprayed noncommittal rain sideways into one’s head. The lights of a cafe glowed over the wet concrete outside, and Lissa and Anika sat by the window with matching foamy cappuccinos, unable to think of much to say to one another. The conversation had dried up after the portion of small talk. It’s been ages, yes, yes, and how are you? Lissa began to fear that the only thing they ever had in common was a flat. 

“And how’s Joshua? Are you still together?”

“Oh, yes. We’re doing fine, thanks.”

“Ah, good. That’s good. I’m glad you…” she hesitated before adding: “Yeah.”

“Hm?”

“No, I was just saying I’m glad things are well since Trinity Ball. I think that was the last time we properly chatted about things, so.”

“Was it?” Lissa did not like to think about that night, which led her down a rocky psychic path and dragged up feelings she preferred not to have. But indeed, it had been the last time she and Anika had spoken. Those final days—the moving-out days—had been busy enough with packing that she could avoid conversation. To pretend she hadn’t heard her over the sound of the vacuum bags as she wondered aloud whether it would be weird to continue sleeping with Nick. No. As if it wouldn’t be the least weird thing to ever happen. A total inevitability. 

“I was surprised when you texted me,” Anika stirred her coffee. “You pretty much just disappeared at the end of the year.”

Lissa’s face heated. “Oh, I was so busy. It was a crazy summer with work and travelling and all that.”

“Oh, nice.”

“And you? What did you get up to?”

“I was just home in England. Oh, it was boring, to be honest—just rained constantly.”

“Yeah? Did you see friends?”

“Yeah—my mates. The usual. I suppose that was quite nice, catching up.”

“What about Nick?” Lissa couldn’t help it. “Did he visit you?”

A micro-expression crossed Anika’s face—a crooked, ironic sort of smile that made Lissa feel instantly foolish. “No. No, he didn’t come. He was doing some work experience at his dad’s TV studio. Awfully pleased with himself, he is.”

“Ah,” she thought a moment, trying to come up with a delicate way to put it. “So, like, you’re not together?”

“Well, we’re friends, mostly, and then sometimes—” Anika shrugged. “It’s hard to know what he wants. I don’t know.”

The bizarre dynamics of modern relationships frightened Lissa—this post-millennium singles scene that was apparently crawling with those eager to remove their clothing for people who might only call them back the next day if they felt like it. What had happened to real love? 

Silence fell between them. Outside, the rain intensified, and droplets raced down the glass. 

“Actually,” Lissa said before she could stop herself. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“My mum’s got this chalet in France. She’s been insisting I invite people for New Year’s… you know, like, for a party. Would you want to come?”

Anika’s eyebrows rose. “To France?”

“Yeah, just like… we could go skiing if you wanted. My mum is a terrible cook, but…” she trailed off. Why did this feel acutely humiliating? 

“Oh, that’s so nice of you to ask.” But Anika looked confused. Tension on her face, like deciding whether to decline, and if so, the politest possible way to do so. “Is Joshua going?”

“No, he has other plans.”

“Ah,” she pursed her lips. “Would it be alright if I brought someone? Like, if it wasn’t just me? Just because… you know. It might be a bit—”

“Like who?”

“Well, Nick, if that’s okay. We had plans to meet up over Christmas already, so…” she watched Lissa carefully. “Or would that be weird?” 

“No,” Lissa said. Too quick. “That’s fine. Completely fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, yes. Mum won’t mind at all. The more the merrier, really,” and she was talking far too much. “The chalet is huge.” 

Anika smiled. “Alright then, I’ll ask him.”

They finished their coffee and wrapped things up. Anika, with plans to meet someone else, and Lissa, with none, and nobody to see. 

While walking home, she pulled the collar of her coat to her chin, bracing glumly against the wind, a sick feeling brewing in her gut. 

Anika had the idea to invite Nick, but why hadn’t she said no? Or made something up about girls only. She wanted him there, and Anika probably knew it. And Joshua—he didn’t know—wouldn’t know. She wouldn’t tell him, and then somehow pull it all off in a spectacular ruse, and come out with her hands clean. 

It was like one of those nightmares she occasionally had about herself, in which she’d done something unforgivable or illegal in public, and like a Scooby Doo villain, her mask had been ripped off, and nobody had been surprised to see her underneath. 

Manipulator, liar, all that. It didn’t make her feel good, but at least she felt real. Fully alive. Tangible. No more a ghost with a scrabble rack on her lap.

But underneath the guilt something murmured—the faintest heartbeat of anticipation. She pictured Nick at the chalet, charming Diane at the dinner table. On the balcony watching snow fall, breath clouding in the cold air. Feet up by the fire, that funny snaggletooth flashing in his mouth each time he smiled. 

Was he sitting with her? 

The sick feeling intensified. Dread and anticipation tangled together. A two-headed beast. 

She kept on walking.