Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
T he reality was, I was in deep shite. I had said yes when I meant to say no and I blamed the spell of Slievenamon, of bloody Fionn and his fair maidens, because they made me do it. They made me agree.
Jack had said he needed to get a few bits from town so I’d put him on the number 53 bus into Clonmel because it was the longer route and meant I’d have a few hours to work out what the hell I was going to do.
‘So?’ Una stood in front of me so that I couldn’t ignore her. But I kept my eyes on the till. I’d made a mistake with yesterday’s takings and needed to figure it out before Mrs O’Callaghan came back from the hospital.
‘So, what?’
‘So what happened? Did you sleep with him?’
‘No.’
‘Did you do anything?’
‘Just said The Lord’s Prayer, in my pants, apparently, although we might have done something else, I can’t actually remember.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Yep.’
‘Ah well, at least you don’t have to see him again, it doesn’t matter if he thinks you’re a nut job.’
‘I am going to see him again,’ I said.
‘Oh my God, when?’ Una piped up excitedly.
‘Tonight.’
‘Fuck, where?’
‘At mine.’
‘Pearl O’Reilly has a date!’
‘It’s not a date.’
‘A shag then.’
‘I’m not going to sleep with him.’
‘You could have a Kiwi fling.’
‘I don’t want a Kiwi fling.’
‘You’re telling me you’ve got a hot guy coming over for the night and you’re not going to sleep with him?’
‘It’s worse than that.’ I turned to my best friend.
‘What do you mean?’ She lowered her voice. We’d always had banter, it was what made our friendship, but Una had a soft side too. She could be deep when I needed her to be, and vice versa.
‘He’s staying for the weekend, until his car is fixed.’
‘You’re fucking joking?’
‘I wish I was.’
‘And you said yes to that?’
I nodded, because if I spoke I knew I would be sick.
Una thought it was a great idea, of course she bloody did. She didn’t see the harm in a couple of nights. She didn’t see the problems it would cause me, the stress. She couldn’t see that I would have to come downstairs even earlier to have my breakfast so that Jack didn’t see me doing any of the shite that I usually did, or that I’d have to be extra quiet at night when I checked everything a hundred times.
And what if he was a night owl? What if he stayed up until the early hours? There was no way I could have gone to sleep not knowing if the door was locked, if he’d left something on and fallen asleep. I didn’t even know if he smoked for Christ’s sake. What then? Would he leave his cigarette butts outside? What if one landed on a woodlouse and it curled up with the pain of the heat like Niall had said happened? Or caught the curtain on fire like in those TV adverts? How would I check it all with someone else in my house? How would I explain it if he walked in on me checking?
One of the reasons why I had stayed in the village was the familiarity of it. It felt safe. I knew everyone, I knew every part of the village, I knew the lanes, I knew the bus timetable (seven in the morning was always the empty bus) if I needed to go into town, I knew my life.
The last time I went abroad was with my parents and since then I hadn’t left the village to go further than Clonmel, the next town along. Life was just easier if I minimised everything. I had my parents, I had my house, I had my job, I had Una, and that was enough.
That was enough, until I met Jack.