No. No way. There was zero chance I’d risk that scenario. Which made me glad. It meant I’d changed, that I was no longer a desperate mess but a solid woman who knew her own worth.
‘Don’t go anywhere near that asshole.’ Helen was fierce. ‘Come home with me and have a three-way with Artie.’
‘Now there’s an offer!’ Mum said, warmly.
‘Or we could get pizzas and watch stuff?’ Helen said. ‘Whatever you want. Just don’t start driving around Dublin looking for Luke Costello.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Everything’s been all stirred up by going to that funeral, but it’ll settle down again soon.’
At home, Crunchie tried to jump out of her fur with delight when she saw me.
Out we went, for a quick turn in the woods near our house, and even though it was nearly seven, it wasn’t fully dark yet. The clocks would be going forward in two weeks’ time; spring was definitely on the way.
Back at the house, I got my iPad, flung myself on the couch and clicked straight onto Luxury Exchange to gaze at the pre-loved Chanel shoulder bag I was currently consumed by. My life had no room for something so ladylike – or so shockingly expensive – but I kept zooming in on the beautiful blue calfskin, so soft and squishy that I wanted to actually bite it.
From there I went to the RealReal and found two similar bags, then to Vestiaire, where there were dozens of little leather beauties, all of them way out of my price range. Clicking and scrolling, I was suspended in the happiest state of loved-up longing.
I was never not prone to obsessions but thanks to the discomfort churned up by Luke, I was extra keen for the dopamine hits generated by those beautiful bags.
At least I know what I’m doing, I told myself robustly. Then, All the same, I’d better stop. Before I actually buy one of them.
Because it wouldn’t make the longing go away. Paradoxically, it would make it worse.
I suffered from the Disease of More – if one of something was good, then ten was excellent. If a recipe said half a level teaspoon of cumin, I put in a heaped tablespoon; if I bought one unbearably wantable bag, I’d want twenty more immediately.
So I forced myself away from the calfskin and popped over to Vulture, looking for new Netflix recommendations, and from there to Mr Fothergill’s Flower Seeds, where I bought ten packets of hollyhocks when two would have done, then onto the Atlantic, mixing culture and commerce in a way that was profoundly enjoyable.
Yes, I knew I was actually enslaved to my device, yes, I had lost literal weeks of my life to it, when I could have learnt conversational Tagalog or trained as a humanist minister, but I always had such a lovely time that it was hard to mind.
Before bed, I lit a candle and set the timer on my phone – I was giving meditation yet another go. Surprisingly, considering all that was going on, my mind actually stilled. I was delighted. Then, ruining it, a memory popped up, vivid and complete, of a July afternoon, in Connemara, over a decade ago.
Ah, for God’s sake!
Not long after Brigit and Colm had moved into their spectacular glassy home, Luke and I had visited.
Back then, the astonishing house was still partially under construction. As Luke asked, the moment we arrived, ‘How was it possible to build anything here at all?’
Beyond the giant windows of Brigit’s kitchen, it looked as if a perfect landscape had been torn apart and reassembled in any old fashion. Nothing was level out there, nothing.
‘Oh my God, stop!’ Brigit said. ‘I cried every day for seven months. Every. Single. Day. Living with my in-laws, going round the bend. A miracle Colm and I survived.’
Five sheep, coolly chewing grass in a field that was almost vertical, watched us without curiosity. Small, gnarled trees, their ancient branches spotted with moss, sprouted from the land at head-meltingly unlikely angles.
‘Your bedroom is actually finished,’ Brigit said. ‘But, as you can see, the rest of the place …’ She gestured around at the raw concrete walls. ‘… which is where you come in.’ Solemnly, she gave me a paint roller.
‘Anything for me?’ Luke asked.
‘Oh yeah! How does laying floorboards sound? We’ve hired an electric saw.’
Luke’s eyes lit up. He loved electric tools.
It was a magical week, toiling alongside Brigit and Colm, their two little boys trying to get in on the act. The work was hard, but gloriously rewarding, every day punctuated by a ten-minute walk to the stony beach for a reviving dip in the Atlantic.
Evenings were passed hanging out in the ‘garden’， talking, laughing, watching swifts circle overhead, black against the otherworldly Connemara summer light, where it never got fully dark.