Chapter 3
3
Jess didn’t own a car. There really wasn’t much need for one when she could walk nearly everywhere in the city. Besides, Dublin’s roads were congested enough without her adding to the problem. Not to mention the fact her budget didn’t stretch to paying for a permanent parking space in Riverside’s underground garaging. She’d soon learned after arriving in the city that she could get to wherever she needed faster on foot than she could in a car or on public transport, especially come rush hour, and it kept her relatively fit at the same time.
After slamming the main doors of Riverside Apartments shut behind her, she stared for a moment at the steady flow of cars. Some had people half hanging out the windows, waving flags. Obviously victorious after the morning’s football match, she thought, before setting off at a steady pace along pavements that had seen better days. Her new trainers were almost neon in their whiteness, and she hoped they wouldn’t give her blisters as she passed under the shadow of the domineering Four Courts building.
The bodies of those who partook of the hard stuff and slept rough in the building’s grand entranceway had all shuffled off for the day. All except one chap who was still huddled under his grey greatcoat. Jess paused; it was so sad to see – with all that grey, he blended into his surrounds. Most passers-by wouldn’t even notice him. She rummaged in her bag then stuffed a tenner into the paper cup next to him. She hoped he’d use it to buy food and not his next fix.
A Saturday afternoon stroll down the Quays was usually a much more relaxed affair than an early morning weekday walk when the traffic was at its worst. Once, she’d almost been knocked down by a car mounting the pavement to get out the way of an ambulance. The emergency vehicle had been trying to manoeuvre through the middle of the two-lane traffic on a road that had originally been designed for a horse and cart. After she’d got over her fright, she’d fervently hoped that she was never in a position where she needed help in a hurry.
Jess reached the Ha’Penny Bridge in good time and rocked from foot to foot as she waited her turn to cross to the Southside. Even from this distance, she could see that the bridge was thronging with its usual horde of both tourists and what her mother would call ne’er-do-wells. He was there in his usual spot, too, she realised, wrinkling her nose as she spied the chap with the gingery locs sitting on his piece of cardboard. His back was pressed up against the iron railings, and he was decked out in what some might call an alternative style and others might call the wastrel uniform of army fatigues and Doc Marten boots.
In the past, she’d always done her bit for him – flicking a couple of euros into the tin cup he’d hold out whilst worrying about the likelihood of him getting piles from sitting so close to the ground. That was until the day she’d spotted him fine dining with a lady friend in the latest hip little French bistro to open in Dublin. So much for on the bones of his arse – he was creaming it! Jess shot him a disgusted look as she marched past, carrying on to her destination of Tara Street Station.
The train didn’t keep her waiting long, and she settled back to enjoy the short ride. This was her favourite route on the Dart and not just for the scenery but for the celebrity spotting, too. She was busy trying to spot signs of life down in U2 guitarist The Edge’s pink house, which perched resplendently on the rocks overlooking the sea, but she was distracted by the couple sitting across from her. She gave the woman’s frumpy floral, nylon housecoat the once-over. Hubby looked like he would be called Errol and wore a brown suit. There was no need for him to stand up for Jess to know it would be an ill-fitting one. He had an impressive comb-over going on, too, which was presently flapping up and down as his wife gave him a couple of slaps about the ear hole before calling him a ‘fecking eejit’.
Jess sighed happily; she did so love Dublin public transport theatre. It was great fodder for her column – a Kiwi girl’s take on life in Ireland’s capital. Take, for instance, the occasions when she caught the bus. The harried housewives travelling on it seemed to incorporate the word ‘fecking’ into every sentence, pausing momentarily in their cussing to cross themselves as they passed St Patrick’s Cathedral.
Now, though, the husband beater turned toward her and muttered something about, ‘Fecking useless eejits.’
This was Jess’s cue to smile in polite agreement before averting her gaze back out the window. Dublin public transport theatre was all well and good so long as she wasn’t on the receiving end of it.
The waves below the tracks were crashing onto the rocks, but even on a grey day, the view from the train’s smeared window was a stunning one as it hugged the rugged coastline. As they neared Enya’s castle, which wasn’t really a castle but an impressively purpose-built pile of rocks, Jess risked a glance over to her right. She always hoped to spot the singer wandering ethereally around the grounds in a billowing white dress. She refused to believe that she was more likely to be decked out in jeans and a sweatshirt, pulling weeds or hanging out her washing like every other mere mortal. There was no sign of Enya today, and catching the husband beater’s eye, Jess swiftly returned her gaze to the sea and shuddered. God, she hoped she didn’t wind up like her. Still, at least the woman had someone, whereas she was well on her way to spinsterdom. She’d really have to help herself by getting out and about more.
Nora was forever offering to escort her to various speed-dating events or nineties-dance-revival nights at her local pub, but it was all a bit of an effort these days – putting on her glad rags, only to be jostled back and forth in a crowed pub. Or, if the lights were dim enough, being chatted up by cubs in search of a bit of cougar action. Nora was blatantly proactive in her search for a mate. Her pretty, soft features – blonde hair, blue eyes – breathy Monroe voice and petite build all combined to give men the false impression that here was a woman in dire need of their protection. However, having clawed her way up the professional ladder into a high-flying career in cinema management, Nora was in actual fact what you could call a strong woman. Or, to put it more plainly, she had a tendency to frighten men off with her ‘say it like she saw it’ manner because they never saw it coming.
Brianna and Jess had referred to their friend fondly as the Praying Mantis – an insect who bites the head off its mate after sex – ever since the night they’d first borne witness to Nora in all her glory.
The three women had been propping the bar up in some pub buried deep in the cobbled zone of Temple Bar when a chap had bravely stepped forth from the crowd and offered to buy Nora a drink. She’d acquiesced like a queen accepting a bouquet of flowers from a commoner by going on to order the most expensive drink on the menu. She’d then delved deep into her handbag, and just when the girls thought she’d never come up for air, she’d resurfaced, waving a business card as if she’d won the lotto. It wasn’t just any business card, mind; oh no, it belonged to her dental hygienist.
‘She’ll sort your halitosis out lickety-split, love,’ she’d told the poor sod, placing it in his shirt pocket before accepting the drink he proffered and cheerily raising her glass.
Brianna, by contrast, reminded Jess of Bambi. She was pretty and sweet of nature yet tall and gangly, and her bobbed chocolate hair and big round brown eyes suited her perfectly. Her olive skin was most definitely that of her ancestors – the Celts. Brianna was also the first of the trio to say ‘I do’ to anything other than the offer of a drink, and for the past seven years, she’d been happily married to Pete, who was both big and burly and loved the bones off her.
Five years ago, Harry had arrived in the world, and while his mother professed that he drove her potty, he was a child Jess actually did really like. He was by no means saintly – as Brianna often attested – but he had such a sense of fun, not to mention a penchant for make-up. He was a veritable magpie where cosmetics were concerned, and when his two spinster aunties, Jess and Nora, weren’t spoiling the little boy rotten, they were keeping a tight hold of their make-up bags. ‘He’ll grow out of it, Brie, and if he doesn’t, who cares?’ Jess had assured her the last time he’d been caught red-handed – literally – with her new Bobbi Brown lippy. ‘Honestly, my nephew used to do some unspeakable things.’
‘What does he do now then?’ Brianna had asked hopefully.
‘Oh, more unspeakable things. My sister says that if you try to analyse what your children do, you’d send yourself mad. She reckons life with kids is just one phase after another.’
When she wasn’t playing happy families, however, Brianna still occasionally liked to live vicariously through her single friends, but truth be told, it was she, the old married woman of the trio, who got the most action on a regular basis, meaning Jess and Nora lived vicariously through Brianna’s sex life. She was also a fiend for committees and belonged to everything from the PTA at Harry’s school to Save the Manatee, the latter being a mermaid-like sea creature she encountered and went on to bond with on her Florida honeymoon.
Jess had never figured out exactly where she fitted into their friendship equation, not just because she was the polar opposite of Nora and Brianna in her taste for all things vintage. Her idea of a great day’s shopping wasn’t trawling the High Street for the latest fashions with them but rather rummaging through an Oxfam store or hitting a car boot sale. She definitely had her own sense of style, too, with her love of vintage designer clothes, and had gone through many phases in the fashion stakes. At uni, she’d fallen in love with the 1950s floral frock, eventually moving on to the boho look of the early 1970s. She was currently enthralled by all things eighties, although she drew the line at horrendously oversized shoulder pads. Looks wise, she was out on a limb, too, with her green eyes and unruly crop of auburn curls that simply refused to do what they were told, no matter how many times she singed them with hair straighteners.
She was neither quiet nor what you’d call outspoken, and the three girls often had a laugh that they were like Bananarama, the female trio from the eighties, before launching into an off-key version of ‘Venus’. Jess, however, was the only one who actually looked the part, with the side bow in her hair and her pinafore smock dress. What she did know, though, was that leaving London for Dublin back in 2001 was the best choice she’d ever made. The Celtic Tiger had been roaring and Dublin had been rocking when she’d met the girls, and the three of them had just clicked – a bit surprising given their inauspicious start.
Jess had booked in for a haircut with Miss Brianna – as the salon’s receptionist had referred to her – the morning of her job interview at the Marriott, an established Dublin guesthouse near St Stephen’s Green where she’d wound up working for slave wages during her first year in Dublin while she tried to establish a name for herself as a freelance journalist.
Brianna, who never was a very good hairdresser (half of Dublin’s female population breathed a sigh of relief when they heard she’d hung up her scissors in favour of being a stay-at-home mammy) had managed to brutalise her fringe – and that’s when Nora had walked into the salon for a lunchtime shampoo and blow-wave.
Flopping down in the seat next to Jess’s, Nora had called out a hello to Brianna, who was hopping nervously from foot to foot. She was gripping a mirror, waiting to show her already unhappy client the concave she’d attempted and which she’d since decided wasn’t such a good idea on hair as thick and curly as hers.
Nora had taken in Brianna’s latest victim’s mortified expression as she frantically tried to stretch her shorn bangs down over her eyebrows and shook her head in commiseration. ‘My God, she’s done a job on you. You’re not going to be able to do much with that, now, are you?’
Distracted, Jess had turned her attention to the blonde seated next to her, surprised that one so petite and dainty had such a big gob and feeling a stab of envy – a proper fringe! ‘Fringe envy’ – now that was a new one, she’d thought. Still, the woman had only stated the obvious, and so she’d blinked back the tears that were threatening and confided, ‘I know. I look terrible, and I have a job interview this afternoon.’
‘I’m really sorry but you did say you wanted quite a bit taken off, and, well, your hair is curly, and it all just bounced up a lot higher than I’d expected,’ Brianna had interjected, her bottom lip wobbling ominously.
Jess had almost felt sorry for the pretty stylist with the big doe-like eyes.
‘Too late for that, Brianna. They’ll think your woman here’s escaped from the funny farm looking like that, and where on earth did you buy that dress? My gran had one just like it,’ the blonde had butted in again.
Jess had ignored the comment about her dress as she’d studied her fringe in the mirror. Blondie was right, she’d concluded – it did give her face a rather simplistic quality. She couldn’t help but emit a little laugh at how ludicrous she looked and then that little laugh had turned into a rip-roaring snort, which proved to be contagious, and soon all three women had been falling about laughing.
Thus, a decade later, the Celtic Tiger may have rolled over and died a long and painful death, but the three women still just clicked, and Jess had long since grown her fringe out.
Despite her butchered locks, though, she’d gone on to get the job at the Marriott, and her big break had come the day she’d organised a conference room for Nigel, the head reporter from the Dublin Express .
Nigel was going to be interviewing Shane Moriarty from the latest boy band to dance their way onto the Irish charts, and Shane – who was milking his new-found fame and fortune – had demanded all sorts of both legal and illegal treats be placed in the room if the reporter wanted him to dish the dirt. Jess, along with her contact (a fat man with a crew cut and gold chains around his non-existent neck who loitered outside the Mary Street McDonald’s behind the Jervis Centre), had managed to acquiesce to his every demand, much to Nigel’s surprise and relief. It meant he got a coup in his candid interview with the pop star, who was extremely relaxed by the time he arrived and revealed that, yes, he did have an illegitimate love child being raised in the wilds of Connemara.
To show his appreciation, Nigel had agreed to return the favour by sliding the sample piece Jess had written – her take on life in Dublin – under his editor’s nose. Considering how the Irish had for years been heading for pastures greener, Niall Fitzpatrick had been tickled by the idea of the tables turning and condensing an Antipodean’s impressions of boom-time Ireland into a weekly column. This was ideal because she was still free to write the novel she planned to get around to writing one day, but now she had her bread-and-butter job.
‘My column is called “Jessica Baré does Dublin”, Mum,’ she’d breathed excitedly down the transatlantic connection the day Niall had sent through her contract.
‘It sounds like those old porno movies – you remember? Debbie Does Dallas. But well done, dear, and be sure they accent the “E”,’ her mother had congratulated her down the phone.
Jess had decided not to ask how she happened to know the title of old pornos and why on earth she would think her daughter would be familiar with them.
It had started out as very much a Carrie Bradshaw/ Sex and the City -style column and had evolved from there. Just like her fictitious New York counterpart, her column had been a hit, too, but even more surprisingly, despite the boom times being a distant memory, it was still a hit. She could only assume that her loyal following of downtrodden Dubliners liked to read about the happenings in her hapless life as surely it could only serve to make them feel better about their own!
Thinking about her hapless life brought her back to the here and now as the train continued to judder along. Maybe she would tag along with Nora next time she suggested hitting the hotspots of Dublin. Mind you, the last time she’d shaken her groove thing until the wee hours, it had taken her days to recover. So much for being twenty-four, she thought with a rueful sigh.