I look around for Finn and Sid, determined to do one thing right tonight but Finn isSid-less.
‘Where’s Sid?’ I ask.
‘She gave me a lovely present and then disappeared into the kitchen,’ he says, running his long fingers through his hair distractedly.
‘There! She’s feeding the masses with Rachel.’
I call Sid over and she gives both of us a forced smile.
Finn’s body language is so obvious, I don’t know how she can’t see it or feel it. But she puts down her plate of mince pies, pats him on the sweatered arm, hugs me quickly and says: ‘Sorry, have to head off now. Have a lovely Christmas.’
And like a little runner, she turns and dashes through the party and is gone.
Finn’s face is stunned. ‘I wanted to say thank you...’ he begins.
I look at him sadly. Earlier, I might have said something wise to him but now ... I have nothing wise left to say. Nothing.
27
Sid
I continue to stare at Finn’s WhatsApp as if it’s an unexploded bomb.
My cinema mates are all busy, but there is an old showing of Casablanca on in the Stella next week, do you fancy it? Totallynon-date, fellow hiker. Say no if you don’t want to, but there’s something relaxing about old movies. Finn.
I have never been to the Stella in Rathmines, an old cinema that, legend had it, had been a bit of a flea pit in its time. In recent years, however, it’s been updated into a 1920s centre of glamour, where the modern world stops at the door outside. Apparently, cinemagoers sit in beautiful and glorious comfy seats in a perfectly recreated twenties setting and have drinks and nibbles brought to them. There were possibly even girls going around in mad little 1920s outfits selling cigarettes like in the old movies.
But it was very datey, wasn’t it?
Vilma has been asking about Finn since our shopping trip when I bought his Christmas present but I’ve been deliberately vague. I don’t want her thinking I’ve had my heart broken. Because it’s not. No. Course not.
Vilma wants me to fall in love again – she still believes in the fairy tale and that, after Marc, I will find another prince and can be a princess again. I didn’t want to go into that.
I can’t ruin fairy tales for her. Maybe she’ll have one, after all. One sister learning that life is more Grimm’s fairy tale than Disney is enough for any family.
Adrienne, who runs Nurture and is not much older than me, is mygo-to person for lots of things. We can talk but we don’t have girlie drinks or dinners. We work together, we share problems occasionally: end of. It works for both of us. As I’ve said before, I do not have a vast circle of friends, but if I’d met Adrienne outside of Nurture she might have become one of them.
First up, Adrienne is not a girlie woman. She owns no lipstick and her haircut is also done in the same tiny local salon as mine, where shampoos and sets make up 90 per cent of the business. A shade under forty, she runs an average of sixty kilometres a week and unless she has an actual meeting in government buildings, lives in jeans. Even on thosegovernment-buildings days, she often wears her newest jeans with a smart jacket.
‘I do the work, I don’t model,’ she told one reporter dumb enough to ask her about her ‘casual style’. ‘Would you ask a man about his choice of clothing?’
Said reporter disappeared, tail between legs, but there followed a raft of predictable articles on ‘why women were judged on what they wore rather than on what they achieved’.
Adrienne had refused to comment. We had a book on it in the office.Long-time Nurture workers, like myself, put our money on her not commenting. Newbies were sure Adrienne would make a stand. They didn’t get that by saying nothing, the stand was made. ‘I don’t comment on my clothes.’ QED.
Today, I run the boss to ground in her office where she’s staring out of the window and drumming short fingernails upon a window ledge which has already been drummed to bits, if the peeling paint is anything to go by. The Nurture offices are not establishments of glamour like the Stella Cinema.
Yeah, subconscious, I hear you. Now shut up.
‘Oh, sorry, you’re on the phone,’ I say, as she turns and I see she’s got the phone clamped to one ear.
‘No, on hold,’ she mutters, eyeballs rolling. ‘What is it?’
‘Nah, this isn’t the time.’
‘Please. Come in and sit down. I’ve been on hold for twenty minutes. I’m giving them five more minutes before I’m going to send them a strongly worded email with the words “off” and “fuck” in it.’
I grin. When Adrienne says stuff like that, you know she means it.
