Hannah
Jason.
She moved around the shop, gathering the components.
A long, narrow brush designed specifically for cleaning reusable water bottles.
A set of tongs with bristles in the clasp for dusting the leaves of houseplants.
A brush for wine decanters, able to fit down the neck but also to curve around the bulb.
A feather duster made of ostrich feathers.
The book brush. She laid them on a sheet of kraft paper, the feather duster in the middle, and played with the arrangement until she was happy.
She wrapped them and tied them at one end with a piece of twine, shaping the cluster like a bouquet of flowers.
Jason seemed almost mesmerized, as if her wrapping skills had bewitched him, but she caught a flash of shock when she told him the total was over a hundred euro.
The brushes were all hand-made, she explained, using materials like goat hair and the aforementioned ostrich feathers, and she had to import them from Sweden.
‘If it’s too much, we could take out a couple?’ she suggested. ‘Or just wrap the feather duster really, really nicely?’
‘No, no, no,’ he said, handing over his credit card. ‘This is great. This is perfect.’
But he was looking flustered, which confused her. This guy owned his own company. His credit card was platinum.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Because, honestly, it’s no problem if—’
‘It’s not the price,’ he said. ‘And it is the price. But it’s not really the price.
Oh God.’ His face was flushing red. ‘Sorry, I’m just not …
Look, at the risk of having to relocate to another country after this, I’m just going to be honest. The truth is …
Well, people who leave Shreddr don’t get anything, except maybe a couple of drinks in the bar after work.
My aunt got out of hospital three months ago, and when she did I bought her two hundred Marlboro Lights in duty-free because that’s all she wants – and yes, that is why she was in hospital.
And while I do know someone with a new home, I already gave him a doormat that said “Live, Laugh, Leave”.
So before this gets completely out of hand and I start inventing an entire cast of imaginary people, and spending a fortune on things I’ll just bring home, would you, by any chance, have dinner with me? ’
She suggested Friday night.
He insisted on buying the brushes anyway.
Hannah took the afternoon off so she could luxuriate in getting ready – so often that ended up being the best part. A long shower, one of her good face masks, a new dress. But the dress was plain black and she kept the make-up muted, because this was just a dinner.
She kept telling herself this even as she wondered if, come tomorrow morning, everything would be entirely different.
Were these the last few hours of this life?
She didn’t know what she wanted the answer to be.
Jason was already at the restaurant when she arrived, a French-bistro-style place hidden down a side street.
She found him in a curved, candlelit booth down the back and wondered how he’d wrangled them a space for six diners on a Friday night.
January, she supposed, or maybe all the foodie guys in town knew each other.
He looked nice and he smelled nice, and it was nice to see him again, and to be out in town on a Friday night with all the other people seeing other people. Esther would demand better descriptors for her debrief about this come Monday morning, but that’s all Hannah could think about it for now.
That this was nice.
‘So,’ Jason said after the waiter had poured their wine. ‘How was Christmas?’
He didn’t have to clarify that he meant for Curated.
‘Insane.’ She told him about the queues and the empty shelves. ‘But I love it. I love the buzz of it. And you’ll never catch me complaining about us being too busy. Not after everything it took to get us here.’
‘This is our Christmas. At Shreddr. All those New Year’s resolutions. If you’ve anything to do with health or fitness, January is your busiest month.’
‘I don’t do resolutions. I prefer plans.’
‘Evil ones, or …?’
‘Mostly,’ she said with a grin.
‘Do tell.’
‘Are you sure? You might have to testify then. At the trial.’
‘That’s only if you get caught.’
‘Well, prepare yourself. It’s pretty revolutionary.
This year, I would like’ – Hannah paused for dramatic effect – ‘a better work–life balance. I know, I know. Radical stuff. But I want to enjoy running my own business as much as I enjoy running my own business. That doesn’t really make sense, but you—’
‘No, I know what you mean. You don’t want to pull back because you love what you do, but you also want to start making time to enjoy the spoils, to take advantage of the freedom of not being in a nine-to-five.’
And indeed, that was exactly what she’d meant.
‘Which is difficult,’ he added, ‘because you feel like you’re always on.’ A sigh. ‘That’s why I like escaping to Doolin. The house has no wifi and there’s crappy reception, so I’ve no choice but to completely switch off.’
‘Is it yours?’ she asked. ‘The house?’
When they’d talked about it at the Chamber of Commerce event, he hadn’t mentioned where he stayed when he went to Clare.
‘My business partner’s parents’. They bought it a couple of years ago, intending to do it up, but planning permission is proving a bit of an ordeal.
The thatched roof alone is causing all sorts of issues.
They use it in the summer but it’s a bit, let’s say, rustic for them at other times of the year.
I was looking for somewhere to just go and chill a while back and T – Thomas – suggested I go there.
He has no interest in it himself and his sister lives abroad, so until the work starts, I’m more than willing to take advantage. ’
She wanted to say something like And you go there by yourself, or …? but there was no place in that question to hide the reason she was asking it. The waiter arrived to take their food orders before she could convince herself to ask anyway.
‘We could go there,’ Jason said when they were alone again. ‘To the house.’ Seeing her face, he added quickly, ‘Not to stay. I mean, just for the day. A road trip. Leave early, be back late. Tomorrow?’
She thought he was joking, so she said, ‘Sure, yeah. Let’s go.’
‘I’m serious.’
Hannah raised an eyebrow. ‘You want me to drive across the country with you, a man I barely know, to a cottage you’ve described as remote, that has no wifi and crappy reception?’
‘I promise I’m not a serial killer.’
‘That’s exactly what a serial killer would say.’
‘Not a very good one.’ He smiled briefly. ‘It’s really nice there. Peaceful. I think you’d like it.’
Hannah pictured rolling green fields reaching for a shimmering seascape, protected by jagged cliffs.
Hours on the road in his car, stopping somewhere for lunch, a wintry walk on the beach.
Doolin … She didn’t think she’d ever been.
Maybe her parents had taken them to the Cliffs of Moher when they were children, but if they had she’d no real recollection.
Saturdays were busy on the shop floor but not behind the scenes, and it was still quiet in general after the Christmas hangover.
She was fairly confident the two staff she’d rostered for tomorrow would be able to handle it by themselves, so …
Maybe.
Jason had taken out his phone and was checking the weather forecast.
‘Full disclosure,’ he said. ‘We’d be freezing our arses off. But the sun will be shining and there’s a fire we can light.’ He looked up at her. ‘Would it help at all if I threw in a couple of Shreddr buddha bowls?’
‘I’m not sure that’s ever helped, in any situation.’
‘We do breakfast burritos too, you know.’
‘But healthy ones, right?’
‘We can add grease upon request.’
Hannah took another sip of her wine. She looked at his face and tried to imagine him disappointing her, but she couldn’t.
She thought, Fuck it.
She said, ‘Well, in that case, what time do we leave?’
The sky was only beginning to lighten as Hannah walked down Grafton Street, weaving her way around council clean-up crews and idling delivery vans.
They’d arranged to meet at a Shreddr to have breakfast before heading west. She was looking in the window, scanning for him, before she realized she was looking at him – Jason was sitting right behind the glass, waving now, with two green paper bags at his elbow.
He stood to hug her hello in the same way he’d hugged her goodbye last night: tight but brief, just friends, buzzing with an undercurrent of something more to come.
The three-hour drive didn’t feel like it.
They stopped once along the way for a bathroom break and to grab a coffee to drink in the car, then didn’t stop again until the car park in Lahinch.
There, they took in the sea views until their eyes watered in the wind, then hurried through the cold to a pub he promised did amazing toasties – and they did, although it was the seats right by a roaring fire that Hannah liked most. The plan was to hang out at the house for a couple of hours and then head on to Doolin for some dinner before hitting the long road home.
Their route from Lahinch to the house began by twisting through fields and around clusters of modern homes.
But then the road began to rise, widening the sky.
Hannah felt the parameters of her own life expanding along with the vista.
What had she done last Saturday? Nothing worth remembering.
They passed the Cliffs of Moher visitor centre, its car park almost empty, only a lone coach tour up for torturing tourists with a trip to the viewing point in this wintry wind and icy cold.
Then the road curved suddenly to the left, into a short descent, and a shimmering grey-blue sea stretched out before them.
An ocean, technically speaking.
It was breathtaking.
She said, ‘Oh, wow,’ out loud.
‘I told you.’ Jason had a smile in his voice.
From the outside, the house didn’t look as bad as she’d feared, but inside it was so much worse.
Bare, damp walls. Exposed flagstone floor.
Tiny, grimy windows with thumbnail views of the sea.
The kitchen looked like it’d been salvaged; a spray of black mould was climbing up the cabinetry.
And the kind of cold that felt permanent, a chill that would never be banished.
But then Jason directed her down the hall and out into a room made of glass.
A modern conservatory had been added to a gable end of the cottage, offering panoramic views of the rugged landscape rolling away from them into an endless ocean.
There were enticing leather armchairs, a wood-burning stove and a basket of woolly blankets.
‘I’ll light the fire,’ Jason said. ‘Before we freeze.’
On freeze there was an angry buzzing sound.
His phone, vibrating in his pocket.
Again.
He’d been getting texts all day. She’d heard a buzz when they were in Shreddr, well before nine o’clock in the morning and on a Saturday.
That, to her, said it was personal, although he’d only taken out the phone, glanced at it and put it away again.
Maybe, she’d thought, it was a reminder.
But another message had arrived while they were in the car, his phone in the holder mounted on the dash.
She’d seen it pop up and that it was from someone called DEIRDRE HARRINGTON.
When he ignored her message, she’d tried calling him.
He’d ignored that too, although Hannah suspected he’d made a call when he went to use the bathroom back in the pub in Lahinch.
He wasn’t gone very long, but he’d seemed different afterwards.
Anxious. Jumpy. Flustered.
Now, as he took his phone out of his pocket, Hannah glimpsed the same name on screen.
‘Do you need to take that?’ she asked. ‘It’s fine if you do.’
He looked apologetic. ‘Do you mind? I’ll be quick.’
‘It’s grand. Take your time.’
Jason went outside, his footsteps crunching loudly on the gravel. Hannah went into the kitchen to put away the bits and pieces they’d bought, and discovered four bottles of supermarket champagne in the otherwise empty fridge.
‘We came here for New Year’s Eve,’ Jason explained when he came back in. He’d only been gone a couple of minutes. ‘Those must be the leftovers. Shame we can’t open one, seeing as I just bought a house.’
‘You …?’
He held up his phone. ‘That was the agent telling me my offer was accepted.’
‘Wow, that’s …’ She didn’t quite know what to say. ‘Congratulations.’
Hannah was bursting with questions. Was it to live in himself or an investment property?
Was this his first ever home? Where did he live now?
Was it alone? She didn’t even know that basic information, but it hadn’t come up naturally and she hadn’t brought it up for the same reason she hadn’t enquired about his Christmas.
She went with, ‘Where is it?’
‘Dundrum. Off the main street. An old labourer’s cottage. It’s a bit of a mess but …’ He exhaled. ‘You’re the first person I’ve told. The only person. No one even knows I was trying to buy a place. I actually can’t believe I got it.’
He looked shell-shocked.
‘Well, look,’ she said, heading for the fridge. ‘It’ll be a while before we drive back, so … You can have one glass. And you should.’
She pulled out one of the bottles, popped the cork, and poured two mugfuls because she couldn’t find glasses, then handed him his so they could clink.
‘I can’t believe this,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe I’m here, with you, for this.’
And then he pulled her towards him with his free hand and bent his head to hers, and when they kissed it didn’t feel new or strange or even exciting, just familiar and safe and right.
In that moment, they were time travellers, flash-forwarding to their future selves, the versions who had first experienced this moment long ago and were here, now, returning to it, coming home.
She thought, This is my last first kiss.
And then, because that was pure insanity, What the hell is in this champagne?
In the end, they stayed the night.