Erin
‘I thought of you,’ Miss Donovan said, ‘and your virology.’
She said it the same way she might have said clown school.
Do all these things and be with Jason.
She wanted to live multiple lives.
On the last afternoon, the attendees were herded into a deserted cafeteria to meet one-on-one with a graduate student who’d been pre-assigned to them based on their application and interests.
Erin’s was the only man.
‘Sorry,’ he said, dropping heavily into the chair opposite and dumping a spill of books and papers on to the table.
‘You were supposed to meet Claire, but she has the flu, so they asked me to fill in.’ He patted his pockets for something he didn’t find.
‘I’m all over the fucking place today. My girlfriend broke up with me last night.
’ Erin didn’t know what he expected her to do with this information, but she was loath to react to it in any way. ‘So – what’s it you want to do again?’
Feeling reluctant to reveal the true scope of her ambition to him, she said she wanted a career in biomedical sciences.
‘Yeah, look …’ He rubbed his eyes, making them look even more bloodshot than they already were.
‘My girl— My ex is in biomedical sciences. Was hoping to go into research, do something cool. But at some point, she had to face reality. Which is that she’s going to be looking at cervical smears all day, every day, for the rest of her life. ’
Later, when the adults around Erin would blame Jason for knocking her off course, she’d say silently, You’ve got the wrong man.
As life marched steadily towards the exams in June, an event that loomed so large it was difficult to imagine what life might feel like afterwards, Erin graduated from social smoker to purchaser of a couple of packs a week.
She and half the class – and was it any wonder?
An entire industry of stress had risen up around them.
Parents, relatives and teachers were all pushing the idea that two weeks in June would matter no less than determining the course of their entire adult lives, and since they themselves hadn’t seen the other side yet, they weren’t in a position to argue.
Not a single day went by without a teacher talking about managing exam stress, which only ever seemed to involve two extremes: pausing your revision to go outside for a short walk, or ringing a helpline run by a mental-health charity.
A popular series of revision guides was called NO STRESS!
JUST SUCCESS! because apparently nothing said calm confidence like all caps and superfluous exclamation marks.
On the first morning of the mocks – the dry run meant to simulate the experience of sitting the actual exams – two girls fainted and one threw up on her desk.
Jason hated the smoking. He’d been apologetic about it at first but, over time, he grew more assertive.
He told her that he hated the smell. And the taste.
And there was just something about seeing a girl smoking …
Whenever they spent a night together, he’d make a show of sniffing her clothes from the night before and scrunching up his face in disgust, knowing that she had to put the same ones back on.
Then he started refusing to kiss her, even though she’d smoked minutes before they had their first kiss.
(Both of them.)
‘I know,’ he said when she pointed this out. ‘I remember. I tasted it.’
He also said things like, ‘I’m so sorry that I love you so much I don’t want you to kill yourself.’ The first time he’d said that was also the first time he’d said he loved her. That’s how she found that out.
And then, finally, snapping in the midst of a long argument, he’d said, ‘Don’t you think I deserve someone who doesn’t smoke?’
It wasn’t worth it.
The next day Erin stopped, cold turkey.
Her parents were so pleased. His parents were so pleased, and proud of their son for being such a positive influence. But when Erin told Sharon, who’d never smoked, thought it was a filthy habit and was hoping to do Dentistry, she didn’t get the reaction she’d been expecting.
Sharon had frowned and said, ‘But what if it wasn’t smoking that he’d forced you to give up?’
The exams went well, save for a few tricky questions and Erin running out of time on the English essay.
They had a wild night out to celebrate it all being over, but their hangovers were laced with a reluctance to accept that as fact.
Could that really have been it? The event their entire education had been building towards?
What were they supposed to point their lives at now?
It was the end of June; the results wouldn’t be known until mid-August. College offers would arrive a few days after that, firing the starting pistol on the Supermarket Sweep-style dash to secure student accommodation, followed by the slim window in which you had to pack up and move into it.
Until then, there was little to do but wait.
Unless you were Lisa, who was going to Paris.
When Erin first heard about it, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. The shock was visual – a white flash and then a freeze-frame as everything else came screeching to a halt.
Paris? What does she even mean? Lisa is shit at French!
But a friend of her uncle had an Irish bar, she explained, and had offered her a job for July and August. Nothing fancy, just a bit of waitressing.
But it came with a room-share in an apartment in Marais and, look, it would beat hanging around Cork, treading water and being bored, while they waited for their results.
The Marais! The! THE! Erin screamed – but silently, in her head.
‘And,’ Lisa said, ‘I think you should come with me.’
Erin’s shock flipped to confusion. ‘What? But how could I possibly—?’
‘Easily. It’s just eight weeks. My uncle said he doesn’t mind if we share the room and, no guarantees, but he thinks he’ll be able to give you a few hours too.
But we could find you something else and, anyway, we don’t have to pay rent and he won’t let us starve, so we’re really only talking about wine money.
And all we need now is the cost of our flights.
’ Lisa grinned. ‘Imagine it, though. You, me and Par-ee. Living the dream. And you translating for me, obviously, because you know how shit I am at—’
‘Yes.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ Lisa made a face.
‘No, I meant yes to this.’
‘What? Really?’
‘Really.’ Erin felt dizzy and excited and in sudden, ferocious motion, as if someone had pushed her out of a plane.
Lisa’s eyes narrowed. ‘Seriously, though?’
‘Seriously. I’m in.’
‘I had, like, ten other arguments.’
Erin waved a hand. ‘Don’t need them. Let’s do it. Let’s go.’
On the way home, she mentally packed her bags.
When she got there, she convinced her dad to use his air miles on her flights as their presumptive congrats-on-doing-well-in-your-exams gift.
By the time she saw Jason that evening, she’d already spent several hours with a new Erin – the next Erin, the one who’d spent a formative summer in Paris, flaneuring around the city, sipping café crème at streetside tables and watching as the whole world opened up in front of her, for her.
But then she made a mistake. Instead of telling him she was going, she asked him what he’d think if she decided to go.
‘I wouldn’t like it,’ he said.
He sounded confused and uncertain, as if suspecting a trick.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you wouldn’t be here. I’d miss you. And I hate France.’
A spectacular statement to make after one week camping with your parents in Biarritz when you were eleven, but OK.
‘I’d miss you too,’ she said truthfully. ‘But it’s just eight weeks.’
‘What do you mean, “it’s just”?’ He sat up a little. ‘Are you saying this is actually happening?’
‘Lisa can get me a job and a place to stay.’
A snort. ‘Of course Lisa’s involved.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘And that’s the whole summer,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘If this is really something you want to do, why do it now, when you can only go for eight weeks?’
She couldn’t follow his logic. Was it the whole summer or only eight weeks?
‘And thanks for asking me,’ he muttered.
‘I don’t need your permission.’
‘I meant to go with you.’
‘But you just said—’
‘I thought we’d made plans.’
Now he was sounding hurt. Wounded. Sad.
And they had made plans. Sort of. They’d talked about road trips and camping under the stars and her basically moving in with him when his parents went to Portugal for a fortnight in August. Maybe that was the next Erin – exploring, relaxing, being in love.
The girl flaneuring around Paris turned and started walking away, and Erin quickly lost sight of her in the crowd.
‘What about after college?’ she asked. ‘Would you live abroad then?’
A smirk. ‘Going somewhere for a few weeks isn’t living abroad, Erin.’
‘I didn’t say it—’
‘I don’t know. I doubt it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because this is my home. This is where I want to be.’
‘I want to work in the States,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s, like, the main thing I want to do. That I’ve always wanted to do.’
Jason sighed deeply. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I know.’
When she told Lisa the news, she didn’t seem surprised, which stung. She did say, ‘You’ll have to visit,’ even though they both knew that wouldn’t happen, and it didn’t.
Erin told her parents that Lisa had got it wrong, that she wasn’t allowed to bring a friend after all.
She didn’t have to fake her disappointment.
She got her top choice, Biological and Chemical Sciences at UCC, with points to spare.
Lisa got Arts in Maynooth, which was better than she’d been expecting.
Jason missed Medicine for the second year in a row, but by thirty points this time.
He didn’t want to talk about it. When Erin tried, he told her she was just making everything so much worse and that he didn’t understand why she wanted to hurt him.
He’d put some random choices on his CAO form, including History and Politics in Limerick, which he was offered in the second round.
He decided to do it, citing his love of The West Wing.
When Erin gently questioned whether that was enough to sustain interest in a four-year degree and a decades-long career, Jason pointed out that she was ‘doing viruses’ because of ‘some shitty movie’.
The first couple of weeks of term passed without incident. Erin was enjoying herself. She was making new friends, having new experiences and had even managed to get a new job – two shifts a week in The Body Shop on Patrick Street.
She assumed Jason was enjoying college life too, even though he never said much in the way of specifics. Until one night in late November when, over the phone, he said offhandedly, ‘This would be so much easier if you were here.’ They’d seen each other every weekend so far.
A few days later: ‘I don’t know if I can do this distance thing for four years.’ Their respective campuses were ninety minutes’ drive apart.
A few days after that: ‘Bit of a weird one: I was asked out today. Like, on a date. This girl in my class, Jennifer.’ He paused, waiting for her to react, but she knew exactly what he wanted to hear now – jealousy, anger, hurt – and she refused to give it to him.
So he pushed harder. ‘She was absolutely mortified when I told her I had a girlfriend. She had no clue. No clue at all.’
Erin absorbed the force of all these shots and more without even flinching. But each of them left a piece of shrapnel embedded in her flesh, tearing at vital things, doing damage that wouldn’t come to light for years yet.
At Christmas, Jason told her that he wouldn’t be going back to Limerick in the New Year. He was dropping out.
When she told her parents, their mouths clamped into straight, disapproving lines and stayed that way even when she assured them that she wouldn’t follow.
When they asked why, she repeated a version of what he’d told her.
You can’t know what you want to be when you’re nineteen.
What he will be probably doesn’t even exist yet.
So rather than waste time and money studying something he has no interest in, he’s going to take some time to just, you know, step back and look around.
Later, her father found her alone in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘Is it love, then?’ he asked. ‘You and Jason?’
‘Dad, stop.’
She laughed nervously and blushed, embarrassed, both at being asked and at her not really knowing the answer.
She would’ve said yes, and she told Jason she loved him all the time.
People said, When you know, you know, but if that were true, how did people end up getting married more than once?
They hadn’t known, actually, had they? They only thought they had.
Or the knowing had eroded. It feels like home, according to a song she’d heard on TV played over scenes from an angsty American teen drama, but she didn’t know what that meant in practice, and anyway, all the songs and movies and books weren’t about real life.
Her assistant manager at work had got engaged last month, and when one of the other girls had asked her when she knew he was the One, she’d said she still didn’t, but was, like, ninety per cent sure, and that was enough.
To Erin, though, that didn’t sound like knowing anything at all.
‘You’re only nineteen,’ her father said.
The kettle clicked, having boiled, and she turned around to it. She was expecting more but her father only stood silently behind her for a moment before leaving the kitchen, taking whatever else he might have been going to say with him.