Ignoring them, I enter the corridor, the sound of the latest dance song pumping along the plasterboard walls. With each step I take, my heart sinks lower in my chest.
Going out alone has never been my thing. Going to nightclubs has never been my thing. Casual sex with strangers has never been my thing. Everything about what I’m doing feels wrong, but I don’t know how else to fill the void in my life. Even when I wasn’t seeing Anita, even if we hadn’t been intimate in a few months, she was always at the end of the phone, happy to watch the same movie as me while we both held our phones to our ears exchanging the odd comment or observation in a way that only people who are tremendously comfortable with each other can.
Now I come to think of it, which is a more sorry situation to be in, that one, or the current one I find myself in? The reality of it is, I’ve been lonely for a long time. I just didn’t realise it until now.
A woman in a silver sequinned minidress approaches flashing a practiced professional smile. I think it’s intended to make me feel special, but instead I feel cheap. Almost like I’m paying pretty women to spend time with me. She leads me to an empty table set behind a VIP section separated from the rest of the club by a single line of red rope and the odd free-standing gold post. Considering its A-list clientele, security doesn’t seem to be too high on the owner’s list of priorities. A flashback of the guys outside makes me wince. I’m not intimidated by them, but I could do without the hassle the negative press might bring.
A thumping bass reverberates around the enormous room, the vibrations of which I feel through the floor under my brown loafers. The navy Paul Smith suit I’m wearing might have looked dressy in the players’ lounge, but here, compared to other celebrities cocooned in their high-end designer tailoring, I’m decidedly underdressed.
A different waitress brings over a bottle of champagne and multiple glasses. I’m not sure who she thinks I’m expecting, but I don’t stop her from placing it on the table in front of me and opening it. Her glittering sequinned outfit is even tinier than the first woman’s, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. Instead of turning me on, it saddens me. Is this what my life has become? No meaningful connection beyond the physical and immediate.
Entertaining a string of different women is tiresome. There’s only so many times you can have the same empty conversation. And each time I sleep with a stranger I might be losing a bit more of my past, but I’m also giving a little piece of myself away, a piece I can never get back. And then what will be left?
Three girls that look to be in their twenties shuffle towards me, lingering three feet away in tiny dresses and too much make-up. This time last week, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Hell, this time yesterday even. Undoubtedly, they’re beautiful, if you’re into the Kardashian-inspired look. I’m not. In fact, I can’t bear it. From the coy looks the women shoot each other and the way the back two usher the tallest one forward, I gather they’re hoping to join me.
My stomach somersaults, but not with excitement. A sense of apprehension overwhelms me. At some point, one of my conquests will sell their story to the press. Or they’ll post a selfie taken with me in some compromising position. The thought of my mother examining my dick in the paper over her breakfast is not something I relish.
The truth is, I prefer women in their natural state, free from falsities on their skin, and on their tongues. And that’s probably the exact reason I gravitated to Amy Harrington tonight. Her make-up was minimal, her dress was sexy without showing off her arse, and instead of gushing over me like the groupies, she made me work for her conversation. There’s something really sexy about a woman who knows her worth.
And the boys would probably slaughter me for thinking this, but lately I can’t help thinking that sleeping with women who are not as famous, or not as privileged, is almost taking advantage, even if they are offering it on a plate. Something about if feels off, it’s like a business transaction without the money.
Foolishly, I confided a similar feeling to my brother Luke when we were kids. We grew up privileged, with a hotel for a house, a swimming pool and a restaurant at our disposal. While I preferred to run the fields and climb trees with the girl whose parents owned the neighbouring hotel, Luke preferred to flaunt what we had to the teenage girls who would come to stay with their parents on their summer holidays. He picked them like ripe fruit from a tree and discarded them as quickly. Just because wecouldpick up different women any night of the week, it doesn’t mean we should.
The last summer before he went to college, I found one girl crying by the dolphin-shaped water feature at the front entrance of the hotel. I had to pull him up on it. He was ruining these girls, promising the earth then barely biding goodbye before moving onto the next. We rowed about it. He relentlessly tormented me for our differences, calling me Honourable Ollie, as though it were an insult. It was a relief when he left for college in Dublin. Especially because by the time he graduated, I’d grown to twice the size of him and was being headhunted for Ireland under-21 team.
This situation, what I’ve been doing the last few weeks, reminds me a bit of that time in my life, reminds me of my brother. And I don’t want to be anything like him. I can’t keep on like this. I’m losing myself and everything I ever believed in. I’ve got a horrible inkling deep down that I might be a secret serial monogamist.
Beckoning the women over, I motion for them to sit on the plush velvet seats circling my table. They dart towards me like a moth to a floodlight. I pour them each a glass of champagne before standing to leave. Disappointment’s palpable in the air between us, but I don’t even bother to offer an explanation. The waitress raises one eyebrow in question. I throw her a hundred euro for the champagne and leave via the same corridor I entered.
I might need to make new memories, but tonight, I’ve finally realised it doesn’t have to be this way. I can’t have Amy Harrington, but maybe I could find someone like her, one day. Someone with depth and integrity. Someone who wants the same things I do out of life, and I’m not going to find a woman like that in a place like this.
ChapterFive
AMY
In my twenty-four years, no one has come close to evoking the kind of physical reaction in me that Ollie did, and he barely even touched me. Two weeks have passed and I still can’t get those damned twinkling eyes out of my head, imprinted into my memory forevermore.
It was almost worth the lecture Eddie delivered, to experience that kind of chemistry. It at least proved it’s possible in the real world. He made a point of telling me not to chase Ollie, as if I’d be stupid enough to. The only thing I’m chasing is my career. Though that doesn’t stop me fantasising about a certain skinhead every night.
On the Saturdays I’m not training or competing in a triathlon, I usually call to Geri’s house. BK – before kids, as we call it – whenever I was home from London we used to meet for brunch in an a trendy little cafe bar called Living on the Edge. Drinking two pornstar martinis at midday was about as close to living on the edge that I actually got. I’ve always been the sensible friend. Admittedly, I let loose a little in London, but my idea of letting loose is probably innocent compared to most. Kissing strangers in nightclubs and staying out until four a.m. was about the height of it. But still, it was lovely to be able to do so without someone asking me the inevitable question I pretty much always get in Dublin: ‘are you Eddie Harrington’s sister?’
This morning, I can barely contain my excitement. My news is bursting out of me, bubbling out of every pore, desperate to escape. Geri is the only person I can be certain will be as excited about this opportunity as I am. She’s four years older than me and grew up in the house six doors down from us, further reinforcing my theory that six truly is my lucky number, because I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her. We might be on different paths at the minute, but she’s always there for me, like another sister as much as a friend.
When she lets me into her house, it’s like a bomb has exploded. Toys litter the grey hall floor, discarded polka-dot socks strewn at the bottom of the stairs. Geri’s three-year-old son slides through a suspicious looking puddle – a toilet training accident created by his twin sister. He’s using the liquid to propel his bare feet across the tiled floor, his arms up in the air as though he’s a superhero. A wince creases on my face as Geri attempts to limit the damage with a mountain of kitchen roll.
‘Motherhood is the height of glamour, Amy, you have no idea what you’re missing. It’s all ahead of you.’
‘A long way ahead, if my eternally single situation is anything to go by. You know if I so much as look at a guy in this city my family will hire a private investigator to dig up some dirt on him.’ I crack a smile, as if I’m joking, but we both know it’s fairly close to the truth. Or on the off chance they do approve, I’d likely be ditched for a bromance with the legend himself.
On her hands and knees, Geri unravels another mound of roll and sprays some sort of disinfectant on the floor before addressing her children. ‘You two, play in your bedrooms for twenty minutes while I make your lunch. If you need to pee, do it on the potty, please!’
The twins head up the stairs and I follow Geri through to the equally untidy kitchen, rifling through my handbag to produce the paperwork detailing my official job offer. I wanted to have the contract in my hands before I announced it, frightened of jinxing it. ‘Look what arrived through the letterbox this morning.’
After my bold self-introduction, the suits interviewed me the following week. Seemingly the electricity charging round my system following my official introduction to Ollie wasn’t entirely wasted. The members of the board declared me enthusiastic and vibrant. The conversation went smoother than I could have hoped. Apparentlysomemen quite like the idea of having a woman around. The other two team physiotherapists are male, so I’ll be entirely surrounded by guys, but I don’t mind that, I’m such a tomboy anyway. The challenges of working in an all-male environment might be enough to take my mind from a certain skinhead, whose soul-searching emerald eyes hint at an X-rated type of pleasure that so far I can only imagine.
Geri wipes her hands on her sweat pants and squints down at the mass of paper before her. ‘What’s this now?’ Taking the contract she exhales a low whistling breath. ‘Holy shit, it’s the position you’ve been waiting for! Congratulations, I’m so fucking proud of you!’ She throws her arm around me, crumpling my contract in the process.
‘Yeah, I didn’t really expect to get it, but oh my god, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.’
