18
I WAS FULLY PREPARED for Carey’s second exodus to be the worst thing that would happen to me that summer. I was ready to simmer in it, to make a feast of my devastation. James mourned Dr. Byrne at the start of the summer; now I would grieve Carey again at the close of it.
And then Ben fired me.
“It’s not that you’re a bad worker,” he said sadly, although I was. “I hate to do this. It’s just, I have to think of everyone here.”
“Are you firing James?”
“No.”
“What?” I screeched, all loyalty temporarily thrown out the window. “He’s worse than me.”
“I know. But, you know, you’ve got a degree, Rachel. You can get office work.”
I couldn’t believe it. Since when did Ben care about us, or anything other than the phantom “industry” he liked thinking he was a part of?
“I don’t know if I can, Ben,” I said. I sat, dejected, in his office chair, taking in every cracked ceiling tile. I had been working at the bookshop for three and a half years. Was this really the last time I’d see inside the back office, where I had bitterly counted out the morning float so many times before?
I couldn’t look at him. He felt too sorry for me. I just looked past him, at the printer with the sign above it that said, WORK USE ONLY, JAMES.
“What’s my redundancy pay?” I finally asked.
“Well, you’ve got ten days’ holiday you haven’t taken.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Fucking hell, Ben. Is that even legal?”
He blinked. “I’m afraid so,” he said again.
I glared at him. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t own the shop, after all. But the owner lived in Tipperary and we never saw him, so he might as well have.
“I think you’re full of shit,” I said.
“You can work out the rest of the day. Say goodbye to everyone, and all that.”
“Am I getting paid anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then I think I’ll fuck off. I think that will be best for everyone, won’t it?”
I left quickly, my shoulder bag slapping furiously off my bare thigh, rage coming off me in a deep sweat. I regret it now. In the years since there have been many studies done on the nomadic work life of millennials, and sometimes I feel like my adulthood has just been a case study for a Guardian Weekend article. I have never been employed at a website, a magazine or a newspaper for longer than two years. After that I am usually made redundant, or the website goes bust. Now, on the cusp of maternity leave and still undecided about whether I’ll return to the office full time, I’m starting to wonder whether I’ll ever be a true member of anyone’s staff ever again.
What if I had known, then, that O’Connor Books would be the longest I would ever work somewhere?
I called Carey as I walked down the street, his voice already more Northern, the good salt water of home buffeting away at him.
“Aye, Jesus, Rache, that’s awful. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to see you,” I said, feeling the tears rising in me. “Can I come see you?”
“With what money?” he said. “It’d cost you a bomb to get up here. And do you really want to spend the week with my eighty-year-old dad?”
It struck me as perverse that anyone I was sleeping with could have a dad that old. But his dad had started late, and Carey was the baby. We chatted for a while. His mum still needed more tests. She was being kept in another week. My phone beeped, thirsty for more credit.
“Just don’t vanish again,” I said, and I was unable to keep the hard-bitten plea out of my voice. “Keep your phone charged, okay? I love you.”
And it cut out before he could say it back.
* * *
I walked all the way to the Harrington-Byrnes’。 It was a Saturday, and they were both home. It never occurred to me what they might do when they were both at home together, but here was the answer: lunch.
Deenie answered the door. She was wearing a silky teal dress. She had the kind of white, pearlescent skin that worked beautifully with the colour palette of the early 2010s: emerald, raspberry, teal, sapphire. Colours that made her look like a little jewel and made me, with my dark blonde hair and invisibly fair eyebrows, look like mother of the bride.
“Rachel! What are you doing here? Oh, God, is something wrong?”
Deenie’s cat, whose name I’ve just remembered—Jupiter!—came out to the doorstep and curled himself around my legs, bumping his head off my calves.
“I’ve been fired,” I erupted.
“From the bookshop?”
I nodded, and Jupiter started batting at a loose string dangling off the hem of my skirt.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Come in, come in, come in.”
In my head, I had come to the Harrington-Byrnes’ to demand a raise from Deenie. In my heart, I went because I felt they were the only people I could fall on. Carey was away; James still had a job, and would feel guilty; my parents would worry and suggest I moved home.
And besides, I wasn’t really close with my parents, at that time. Deenie and Dr. Byrne had replaced them, as the influential adults in my life. The parallels weren’t perfect, but they were close. Deenie and my mother were delicate and loving, and diminutive enough in character that they allowed me to be self-obsessed. Like my father, Dr. Byrne was often remote, but would occasionally talk straight to me and reveal the truth of the brutal world. Plus, they were both doctors, but not the kind of doctor you want in an emergency.
The kitchen was warm from the reflecting sunlight, and there was a kind of high tea on the table. A little quiche the size of a fist. A plate of flaky custard tarts. Two sandwiches, one prosciutto and brie, one red pepper and goat cheese, each cut to be finger-sized. They had obviously been to the English Market that morning. Everything had a rough dusting of yellow semolina flour, and was slightly battered from brown bags.
“Sit down, Rachel, sit down. Have a glass of wine.”
Dr. Byrne poured me a cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc that I recognised from his spring visits to Shandon Street. I gulped it down deeply, like a marathon runner reaching for water.
“I’ve been fired,” I repeated, in case Dr. Byrne hadn’t heard me screeching in the doorway. “I don’t have a job.”
The sentence hung there, a ball waiting to be caught. I wanted Deenie to tell me that I did have a job, I was her assistant, and she was going to start paying me three hundred a week tout suite. Or, she was going to introduce me to everyone at her publishing house, and get me an interview for a salaried job. She would repeat to her colleagues what she had often said to me: that I was indispensable, that I was a lifesaver, that she wouldn’t be doing the poetry anthology for her father’s estate if I wasn’t helping her.
The ball dropped. No one suggested anything.
“You poor thing,” Deenie said soothingly, instead. She smoothed her hand over my back. “God, it’s so hard, isn’t it?”
“Dreadful stuff,” said Dr. Byrne, shaking his head. “And not a great sign for books.”