Low Fidelity

Something resembling a love story in three and a half acts

ACT I — Forward

Barry’s forehead is pressed against the window of the taxi, half-asleep, half-drunk as I struggle not to kill the driver.

“I’m sure you’re okay love, (I clench my fist) but the problem with feminism is that it’s gone too far (I bite my lip). First it’s equal rights, then it’s abortion on demand (I thump Barry on the leg, he barely stirs) and, sure, before you know it you don’t need men at all.”

“It’s men like you we don’t need. Equal rights? Tell me how a country where a woman’s corpse can literally be used to harvest a child provides women equal rights…”

“Calm down love, I was ju..”

“Don’t tell me to calm down.”

“Ah I was only say…”

I cut him off again.

“That’s the problem with men like you, you’re always only saying. You’re always telling us how we think, how we should feel, what we should do with our own fucking wombs.”

He whistles a long, low whistle. The type your dad whistled when you asked him something uncomfortable as a kid. Right before telling you to go ask your mother.

He opens his mouth to continue the argument but checks himself.

“Ah we’ll just have to agree to disagree so, love,” he says turning up the radio.

I’m more than a little surprised to hear Future Kings of Spain, a band I haven’t thought about since 2007. It’s a song I normally wouldn’t mind singing along to, especially after a few drinks, but the taxi driver just had to pass comment my ‘Feminist Fight Club’ t-shirt.

I give Barry a harder dig. He dribbles as he stirs, wiping only half of it away with his sleeve before giving me a dopey smile.

“I’m not asleep, Nicole,” he says as he uses the window to prop himself up again.

“Would you wake up, we’re nearly home.”

“Can’t handle his beer, eh?”

I want to tell the taxi driver that Barry “can’t handle a lot of things” but I just shrug my shoulders and sit back in the seat.

The rest of the journey is sound-tracked by The Dudley Corporation’s ‘New Song For You’ before we eventually arrive in Rathmines.

After handing the driver a €20 note and making sure he gives me the exact change, I guide Barry up the steps of the house. I say house but what I really mean is a cramped, one-bed apartment. But it’s home for now.

As Barry makes himself comfortable on the couch I’ve an itch I need to scratch and root out my favourite Irish record.

“You got style, you’ve got grace… but the effort is written all over your face.”

As tempting as it is to skip all the way to the final, and titular, track ‘Forward’, it feels like a night for listening to Ollie Cole and Turn in all their glory.

“Oh man, Turn,” says Barry. “I loved those guys. What was that one with the drums off the first album?”

“Queen Of My Heart?”

“That’s it, and that’s you,” he says all too delighted with himself.

“Fuck off.” Faux anger.

“What?” Faux outrage.

“You heard me.”

“Well I meant it. Come over here,” he says patting the sofa beside him.

I’m pouring us both a glass of wine and by the time I get back ‘Dumb As It Is’ has started playing. It weirdly feels like a sign as Barry moves in for a kiss.

We kiss but we both know we’re too drunk for anything more to happen. Besides, Barry seems a little more distant than usual.

“Are you okay?” I ask, pulling away.

“Yeah, grand, just a little worse for wear.”

He stands up, a little unsteadily, and makes his way to my bookshelf. Thankfully, he starts with the good books I leave out exactly for moments such as this. The Dostoyevskys, the Kafkas, the Hemingways. Or at least the three books written by those authors I actually own.

He picks up Nick Hornby’s ‘Funny Girl’.

“Is this any good; I’m a big fan of High Fidelity,” he asks

“I liked it,” I say draining my glass. “But I couldn’t help feeling that he’d already got the screenplay and movie adaptation in mind.”

“Oh. Really?” Barry asks making his way back over to the couch with the book in hand.

“Yeah, I can’t pinpoint it really but, and this is going to make me sound like such a film school wanker, there were points where the words just seemed constrained by the fact they were in a novel, that they were just waiting to explode onto the silver screen.”

Barry looks at me for a moment before laughing.

“Jesus you talk some amount of shite when you’ve had a drink.”

He has me there to be fair but I don’t reply as Turn have made their way to my favourite track on the album.

“I know I ought to go somewhere, I’m not sure why, but I thought of Scotland.”

After pouring us both another glass, a completely unnecessary glass, Barry’s still in inquisitive mood.

“What are you reading at the moment?”

“Nothing, to be honest. You see, again, tell me to shut up please, but the story I want to read is the one I’m writing so I don’t want anything to dilute that right now.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask how it’s going? You haven’t mentioned it in a few weeks.”

“I have good days and I’ve bad days. I don’t get to write as often as I’d like with work but I’m doing okay. I don’t hate it yet which is something but a friend of a friend who works for a publisher has said she’d take a look at a chapter so I’m doing some serious editing on chapter one at the moment.”

Barry nods. “I’d love to have a read sometime?”

“You’ll have to buy it like everyone else mister!”

He laughs. Then kisses me again.

This time he’s the one to pull back, looking sheepish.

“You know this wedding. Ciara’s or whatever her name is. Look, would it be okay if I didn’t go with you?”

“Ah Barry, for heaven’s sake. We had this conversation before I had to RSVP. I told you that you didn’t have to come but that I’d really appreciate it if you did. We’ve been dating for nearly nine months now, eventually you’re going to have to take a decision as to whether we’re actually a couple or not.”

“There’s no need to over-react like tha…”

“Over-react? Jesus fucking Christ, Barry, I’m asking you to make your mind up about whether we’re in a relationship or not. I’m not asking you to move in with me and impregnate me and marry me and write my fucking obituary when I die of old age. Get a grip.”

He doesn’t know where to look but settles for a spot on the carpet where a well-scrubbed red wine stain serves as a constant reminder I’m probably not getting my deposit back.

“Well?” I ask.

“I like you, you know I like you and I like spending time with you but I just hate the words boyfriend and girlfriend. We’re both in our mid-thirties, it just sounds ridiculous.”

I throw my eyes to the ceiling.

“They’re only words Barry. Do you want to see other people, that’s all I want to know?”

“No,” he says after hesitating a split second longer than I’d have liked.

“Well then, why don’t you want to come Ciara’s wedding?”

“It’s just work, it’s so busy and I do want to come because I told you I would but I don’t want to be taking time off when the team’s under pressure.”

“But I asked you if you were too busy to come, I gave you that out a few weeks ago, before I committed to us both going. I’ll look like such a loser now if you don’t turn up.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I will go, I’ll sort it with work, I don’t want you looking bad.”

He puts his hand on mine.

“Look, do you mind if I go on in and go asleep, maybe I’m just wrecked and I’m not thinking clearly.”

“Yeah, fine, suit yourself,” I say pouring the last of the wine into my glass. “I’m just going to sit here a bit.”

“Night, so.”

“Night.”

I fall asleep on the couch as ‘Forward’ comes to a close.

“Believe in yourself, stop trying to be everyone else that you think will impress, talking to fools who you know will caress, the parts of you that you invent.”

I wake early and can hear Barry’s snoring from the room.

Coffee, croissant, another coffee. The breakfast of queens.

Barry eventually stirs looking a little sheepish.

“Morning?”

“All right?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah. Look, about last night. Sorry again. I think I just made a mess of what I was trying to say.”

“It wasn’t a great look for you, no, but we can move on from it as long as it’s not something that’s going to be a regular occurrence. You’re either in this or you’re not.”

“It am. I really am, I don’t know what came over me.”

“Coffee?”

“Yeah, great.”

Breakfast is not as uncomfortable as it could have been and we plan a day of museums and the cinema. 12 hours later and we’re back in the apartment making love to Alphastates’ ‘Made From Sand’.

The next morning is spent in much the same way before he heads off for a rugby match I have minus interest in, choosing instead to meet some friends in Havana for coffee.

It’s the usual mix of office politics, Ciara’s wedding and why Niamh isn’t talking to Fiona, which also explains why she’s not here. All fine Sunday morning conversation until the subject of Barry comes up. Ciara is acting strangely.

“Is. Well. Is everything okay between you and Barry?”

Ciara can fuck off. Smug married and she hasn’t even walked down the aisle yet.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he seemed a bit off on Friday night and I was just wondering…”

“Well, he was surrounded by a group of women he doesn’t really know. I suppose that’s kind of intimidating, no?”

I’m not really sure why I’m defending him, he was acting like an arse even before we got back to the house.

“Oh, well, I’m sure. But. Look. I don’t know what your relationship status really is right now. And it’s just…”

“Jesus, spit it out Ciara, you don’t have to like him, it’s okay to say it.”

Niamh jumps in as Ciara looks to her for help. Any help.

“Nicole, Barry’s back on Tinder.”

If you were to take a picture of me at this exact moment, you’d see a 35-year-old woman replicating Ralph Wiggum when he gets his heart broken by Lisa on The Simpsons:

I wasn’t sure how I felt about Barry. Yet. But I’d found myself falling in love with him. This had to be some mistake. I mean, maybe they’d just come across an old profile of him.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know Nicole but he’s on there look, here’s a screengrab I took”

Sure enough, it is him. And not only has he reactivated his account but his profile picture is one I took. I don’t really know what to say. I’m angry, I feel stupid for trusting him. I should have known something was not right.

Ciara and Niamh do their best to tell me what a bastard he is but it’s not what I want to hear right now. What I want to hear is that this is some elaborate joke with a devastating punchline. None comes.

“Look, I’m going to have to ring him and find out what’s going on. I’ll.. I’ll see you both later.”

I try ringing Barry as soon as I’m out the door but I just get his stupid voicemail, the one where he pretends to answer but is not actually there. There’s no point in leaving a message as he doesn’t listen to them anyway which is something he was never able to justify considering the effort he went to make the voicemail recording in the first place.

“It’s just funny, you know?” he’d say with a stupid grin on his face.

“But how is it funny if you don’t actually listen to the people thinking you’ve answered the phone?”

“It just is.”

I put my headphones in and turn on My Bloody Valentine higher than the recommended listening level. That’s me. Always living life on the edge.

I send Barry as Whatsapp message.

“So I hear you’re back on Tinder…”

I’m tempted to add the speak no evil monkey emoji but it seems a bit trivial.

I watch it get one grey tick, then two. It does not turn blue.

“Sleep like a pillow, no one there, where she won’t care anywhere.”

“She does care though, that’s the problem,” I think to myself as I set off home.

By the time I arrive back at the apartment the ticks are still grey and I’m wondering if I needed to be more subtle, give him more rope to hang himself.

I quickly google “can you delete a Whatsapp message with two grey ticks” and the only solution seems to be entering the witness protection programme. That seems a little excessive.

Instead I read for the first time in weeks, trying to wrap my head around ‘The Penguin Novels’ by Andrey Kurkov again but, while I’m reading the words, none of them are going in. It doesn’t help that I’m checking my stupid phone every 10 minutes.

The last time I look at it, it’s four minutes to midnight and both ticks are still grey. I’m hoping he’s dead. I’m not really, but it’s better than the thought of the conversation we might have to have while I’m in work tomorrow.

I sleep, but it’s one of those dreamless, non-satisfying ones like going under an anaesthetic. I can’t help but check my phone as soon as I wake up as it’s the only clock in the house.

Two blue ticks. ‘Last seen today at 1.54 AM’

Surprisingly enough, my first thought is ‘he’s going to be in bits in work’ when really it should be ‘why didn’t he message me back?’

I’ve never been a stalker and Barry did all the chasing from the first time we both swiped right so I’m not starting now. I go about my business Monday and Tuesday, thinking about him occasionally but just getting on with my days.

However, by Wednesday, he still hasn’t got back to me.

I decide to ring him again.

Act II — Song for Someone

I can feel my phone ringing in my pocket but I’m far to deep in this argument to break the flow. Plus, I don’t want to think who it might be.

“You do know that Rob is not someone to aspire to, Barry?”

She’s right of course, but I want the argument. She’s enjoying it too, otherwise she wouldn’t have brought started on this again.

“He’s not the only person to ever make top-five lists,” I say. “Anyway, mine was a top-seven, it’s completely different.”

She laughs and lets out a long, exaggerated sigh.

“It’s not different and you know it. You think he’s someone to look up to. You think that, just because he gets the girl in the end, it doesn’t matter about all the shit Laura has to put up with.”

“But he sees the error of his ways,” I interrupt. “What does it matter how they get there if they get there?”

“Oh my GOD. Men,” she fumes but she’s smiling with it. “Here’s a guy who openly admits he’s an arsehole, I think he even uses that word, and who spends most of the book complaining that women won’t have sex with him when, really, all he has to do is refer back to his first point.”

She rolls her eyes and takes a drink before continuing.

“I mean, the whole premise of the book is that this guy thinks that he has some sort of divine right to have sex with any woman who walks within 20 feet of him. Jesus, he’s 35 and his number one break-up is a girl from school.

“That’s not the sort of privileged man-child you should be looking up,” she finishes, shaking her head.

“Okay, I’m not saying he’s perfect,” I say as she rolls hers eyes so far back into her head she can probably see the moment she agreed to meet me for a drink and wishes she could change her mind.

“No. Listen.”

“You better not be about to attempt some sort of mansplaining of ‘High Fidelity’ with me, you know better, Barry.”

“Ah here, I’m not. All I’m saying is that in his own fucked up way, he thinks he’s being romantic. He’s making mix-tapes for grown women for crying out loud. The last time I made a CD for anyone I was 17 and that’s not today nor yesterday.

“But when I was that age, I would have thought that was romantic too. I know loads of guys who still do. And, yeah, I make stupid lists — in part because of ‘High Fidelity’ — but that’s only because of my paralysing lack of social skills and it’s an easy ice-breaker,” I say shrugging my shoulders in defeat.

She laughs.

“But..”

“But what?” she sighs, putting her head in her hands.

“There’s a double negative coming up here but I wouldn’t say he doesn’t grow up by the end.

“And, yeah, even though making Laura a CD is So. Incredibly. Immature. It does show that he’s at least learning there is a right way to treat women and we both know plenty of lads who could use a reminder.”

I realise the irony of this statement as my pocket vibrates again but I just hope I manage to keep my cringe internal.

If Claire notices, she doesn’t betray it.

“We work with a lot of men like that I suppose.” Or maybe she does realise.

“But I still think you’re giving him far too much credit and, speaking of the right way to treat women, I think you’ll find it’s your round.”

As I’m standing at the bar I steal a glance back at Claire. She’s on her phone and whatever she’s looking at causes her to shake her head, more in annoyance than disgust.

She pushes a loose strand of hair behind her left ear, puts the phone down and catches my eye.

I raise my eyebrows in the universally acknowledged sign of “I’m really insecure, please tell me what you were looking at. I hope it wasn’t something about me.”

She shakes her head before nodding in the direction of the bar to let me know our drinks are ready. I turn and the barman looks at me as if I’ve left him waiting years rather than seconds.

“Everything alright?” I ask as I put our drinks down and take my seat.

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” I reply even though it’s eating away at me.

“You’re so nosy,” she laughs. “If you must know, look.”

She shows me a picture of a child, maybe three or four, her face covered in pasta sauce.

“Is that Edith? I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of her before?”

“Yeah, she’s with her dad tonight. Though she’ll be back before eight in the morning because he can’t drop her to creche so I won’t be having many more of these,” she says putting her gin and tonic to her lips.

“She’s really cute. She looks like you I think.” I don’t actually know if she does, but that seems like the right thing to say.

“Really? Everyone thinks she looks like Shane’s family. At least she didn’t get my red hair I suppose.”

“You never really talk about her in work. To be honest, I’ve heard some of the girls, sorry, women in there ask you about her but I wasn’t actually sure if she was your daughter or niece or something.”

“Ha. Well, I could talk about her all night but is that what you really want? Anyway. What were we actually talking about?”

I take this is a hint.

“You were telling me I was wrong. As usual,” I say as I feign insult.

She smiles. “You think you’d be used to it at this stage.”

And there it is. That feeling in my stomach again. The reason I haven’t bothered to reply to Nicole. The reason I’ve manged to find an excuse to sit in on meetings I normally made up excuses to avoid. The reason I suggested — half-jokingly, half-seriously — that a drink after work would be the perfect opportunity to blow off some steam after a particularly stressful week.

To be honest, I was a bit stunned she had agreed to it but she said yes. And here we are.

“I’ve a question,” she says.

“Go on.”

“Well, you suggested we come out of a drink to bitch about Andy and blow off steam but so far we’ve discussed your theory that Rocky IV ended the Cold War, why me not liking hot drinks makes me some class of weirdo and then your stupid top-seven list of James Bonds which, by the way, you’ve got totally wrong because nobody except you likes Timothy Dalton.”

“It’s more the Living Daylights theme…”

“Well, ignoring you obviously being wrong, I was just wondering how come you hadn’t managed to bitch about Andy yet?”

“Well I actually don’t mind him. He’s always grand with me.”

Her face drops.

“Ah, you just looked like you were having a shit day. Andy had no right to talk to you like that and I was at a loose end this evening with training being cancelled so I thought, why not have a pint?”

“So you’re only here because rugby was cancelled?” she says with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s not what I said at all.”

This is not going to plan though, if I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure what the plan was. I decide a strategically planned visit to the toilet might be needed.

When I make my way back to the table Claire’s on the phone. It must be impossible to hear what the other person is saying to her but she doesn’t seem to care.

“Look, I don’t want to hear it. You’re her father, deal with it.”

She hangs up and slams her phone down on the table.

“Everything alright?”

“Great, thanks.”

I leave it, it was a stupid question.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just Shane. He wanted to drop Edith back over this evening because one of his friends has decided he was bored and wanted company in the pub. He does a good job of pretending to be this brilliant father in Facebook posts and makes a grand show on birthdays and stuff but, when he’s actually needed, he’s usually busy. Anyway, look, you don’t need to be listening to me going on.”

“It’s fine, look, do you want one more drink? You look like you need it to be honest.”

“You know what,” she finishes the drink in front of her, “yeah, I will but it’s my round.”

The pub’s a little emptier now as she makes her way towards the bar and, for the first time since we walked in, I can actually hear the music. It must be some kind of Irish indie megamix because Damien Rice’s ‘Cannonball’ has just finished and I can hear the opening strains of a song I haven’t heard in an age.

I can’t help but sing.

“You left it, I sent it, I want it back.”

“God, I remember kissing Kevin Byrne the whole way through this song at one of their gigs in Vicar Street back in the day,” Claire says almost into the ether as she puts a pint of Smithwicks down in front of me .

“At the time I thought it was really romantic but now I’m just cringing at the the thought of it all. We must have just annoyed the people sitting around us.”

“I could never figure it out as a song,” I say taking a sip.

“I mean, at the start, it does feel like it’s about unrequited love with the whole ‘clip your wings’ stuff but then I wonder is it, weirdly, about loving someone who is not your partner but being more in love with the idea of ‘the affair’ than actually committing to it.”

“You’ve really thought about this haven’t you?”

“Well, no. I mean, back in the day when I thought I might want to be a music journalist and not an accountant, then yeah, I did think about it but listen to this bit coming up…”

“You left, I died,
I went and you cried
You came, I think
But I never really know
I’ve served my time
I’ve watched you climb
The wrong incline
But what do I know”

“I mean, none of that makes any sense to either theory and yet it makes perfect sense to both which is why I can never decide if the lads were complete chancers as songwriters or geniuses.”

“It’s perfectly possible for them to be both no? Sometimes a song doesn’t have to make complete sense in terms of lyrics to still get the actual message across plus they’ve that Cornetto song too, so, you know,” she says raising an eyebrow.

I do my best not to spit my drink everywhere. I want to tell her she’s the funniest person I’ve ever met. I want to tell her she’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. Neither is true of course, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s what she wants to hear.

I don’t get a chance to say anything.

“Did the music journalism thing just not work out or what?” Claire asks.

“It was more blogging than anything,” I say with an exaggerated wave of my hand “it was just no pay, long hours and eventually everything starts to sound the same and there really are only so many ways you can describe what it feels like to see the same gig six nights a week.”

“So not at all like Almost Famous then?”

“No, not quite like that but it had it’s moments.”

“Go on.”

“I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you!”

“Ah go on. I bet you that Glen Hansard fella is actually a right prick?”

“Okay, okay. Here’s a fun fact. He told me he only broke up with your one after ‘Falling Slowly’ won the Oscar because he knew it would help sell tickets for the play.”

“No way!”

I shake my head.

“You fucker, I believed you and all.”

“Seriously though, I did interview him once and he was lovely. Most of the people I ever talked to were great. Some of them can be quite wary about talking to journalists because they’re worried we’re just frustrated musicians but I was lucky because I’ve never so much as held a tambourine in my life.”

This wasn’t true of course, I was a frustrated musician but, like the bands, I didn’t want Claire to know.

“Oh, wait, listen. This bit coming up next… this is the bit that makes me wonder about the idea of wanting an affair without actually having one…”

“In the garden, snake was a charmin’ and Eve said let’s give it a try.”

“I really don’t understand how you can read that into it at all,” Claire says.

“Unless you really do love Rob Gordon and you’re trying to use a Bell X1 song to tell me something instead of just coming out straight with it?”

I’m not really sure what to say. This seems like an open goal. I try to play it cool.

“What if I was?”

“Well there are easier ways. I mean, do you like me Barry?”

She takes a slow drink from her glass without breaking eye contact.

“I would have thought that was obvious by now. I mean what are we doing here if I didn’t?”

“Well men and women can be friends.”

“They can, of course they can, but they don’t have to be?”

“Is that a question?”

“Is it?”

“Are you just going to answer all my questions with questions? Okay, well let me put it this way Barry. There was something I read a few years ago that said men consistently overestimated the level of attraction felt towards them by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends.”

“S0 you’re saying that you don’t find me attractive?”

“I’m not saying that at all. I do find you attractive. I’m just having doubts about the kind of man who can’t come out and say it but who instead uses a song like some idiot in a book he seriously overrates.”

“Okay, that was stupid. I do find you attractive, in fact I’d put you in my top-five list of women I’ve ever found attractive.”

“Barry!” she says shaking her head.

“Sorry, but I really would love to do this again sometime?”

“That’s better. But no more talk about this tonight. Let’s finish these and go home. Separate homes before you get any ideas. tomorrow’s far too important for either of us to be hungover.”

As I get into my taxi, my phone buzzes again. Not Nicole this time but it reminds me. I need to make a call. I dial her number.

“Nicole. Hi, it’s Barry. Look, we need to chat. When are you free for a coffee?”

ACT III — Venetian Blinds

I’ve just about managed to get Edith asleep for the fourth time when I hear the key coming in the door. First she was looking for more milk which was quickly followed by an extra bedtime story. Shortly after checking behind the curtain for a monster, the real reason for her lack of sleep revealed itself. She missed her mom. Truth be told, so did I.

The way she spoke to me on the phone this evening was new, but it was in line with how Claire had been acting lately. I called it a quiet storm but even that didn’t seem to do her mood swings justice.

Unlike the other nights of working late, she hadn’t even bothered to hide the fact she was in the pub, not the office, this evening and now that she was back she wasn’t even trying to be quiet.

Even with the TV on, I can hear her shoes being flung indiscriminately in the hall before her keys are dropped into the drawer in the hall table. I know already she’ll swear in the morning she left them on the hook.

I’d assumed she might pop her head into the sitting room — not to apologise, Claire didn’t really do apologies —but to at least acknowledge my existence. However, she’s already heading straight up the stairs.

I can hear from the creaky floorboard on the landing that she’s at least stuck her head into Edith’s room and, thankfully, it sounds as if she hasn’t woken her.

I sit for ten minutes staring at a baseball game but if Alex Rodriguez himself was to walk out of the television and ask me the score, I couldn’t tell him. It’s partly because I’m still wired from the ill-advised double espresso the little Cuban cafe around the corner but mostly because I’m thinking about the conversation we’re going to have when I get off the couch, the discussion no couple ever wants to have.

The ‘are we okay?’ chat.

I’m pretty sure we‘re not. For twenty minutes after she hung up the phone I was still livid with how she spoke to me. I only rang because I knew Edith was upset that she wasn’t home again, plus I was just getting a bit worried that she hadn’t replied to any of my texts.

I couldn’t help but wonder if it was me? Was it something I’d done recently but, other than being a little stressed with trying to get some demos worked out, I couldn’t think of anything that could have set this off. It had to be her or is that just something everyone tells themselves when their relationship is struggling?

I made my way up the stairs, half-hoping she’d already be asleep.

She was giggling at something on her phone.

“Claire, can we have a chat please?”

“Can we not do this, Shane? I’m tired and I just want to go to asleep. You know I’ve a big day in work tomorrow.”

“Well you could have been home hours ago, whose fault is that?”

“Ah Shane, would you stop it. It was just a few drinks with some people after work. And do you not think we’re beyond ‘having a chat’ at this stage?”

Just like the phone call earlier, it’s the tone of her voice, not the words she’s actually saying, that knocks the air out of my chest. This is a woman I’ve spent eight years of my life with, who I’ve travelled the world with, bought a house with and had a daughter with but who I’m not sure I even recognise any more.

After Edith was born, Claire tried to go back to her old job but the commute didn’t suit so she tried to fly solo and launch her own PR firm.

I’d supported her when that failed and I’d supported her when she went back to work in the marketing department of a big accountancy firm in town. Her earning actual money again having spent 18 months chasing invoices should have, you’d think, helped to reduce the stress.

But after three or four weeks there her mood changed, she was distant, she snapped at Edith for no reason and was constantly pulling 12 and 14 hour days leaving me to play mum and dad.

It was fine, of course, Edith was great and the fact I got to work from home three days a week at least meant that, as soon as I was finished up, I could give her my undivided attention.

Like any couple things had been strained in our relationship before and, in eight years, we’d had as many ups and downs as the stock exchange, but this felt different. It felt like Claire didn’t even want to try anymore.

“Please Claire, just 10 minutes, I want to make sure you’re okay?”

She closed her eyes and let out an long, exaggerated sigh before putting her phone on her locker and turning to face me.

“Well?” she said as I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Well, we need to talk.”

“Is that not what this is, am I imagining you talking?”

At this precise moment, it’s crazy to think that her sarcasm used to be one of the traits I found most appealing about Claire. Now it just stung.

“Christ Claire, can you tone down the sarcasm just for once. You know what we need to talk about. We need to talk about you. We need to talk about us.”

I leave the last word hanging there, two letters thrown out in the hope of somehow tempering all the other words that may be about to come.

“That’s not really what we’re talking about though is it Shane. You say us, but what you actually mean is you and your fragile little ego. We’re perfecto, A-1, not a bother. Did you not see us playing happy families when your parents were here at the weekend?” She almost hisses the word us, such is her emphasis on it.

“Playing? I thought we were happy? Or at least I told myself we were…” I say, my sentence trailing off at the realisation that playing actually was a more apt description than any I could have given.

“So why do we need to talk, we were both happy pretending everything was fine. Why not just leave it at that?”

“I’m no expert Claire, but I’m not sure that’s how relationships work.”

“Well it’s worked for us until now, hasn’t it?”

“That’s incredibly unfair,” I say a little too loudly before remembering Edith and catching myself.

“We didn’t always have to pretend. I didn’t think we ever had to pretend until right now.”

She stares at me for a moment and I have to scratch around deep in my mind to remember the last time someone looked at me like that. It was sixth class. Mr. Harrison, the principal, came into the room and, after he whispered something to Ms. Dunne, his eyes found mine.

“Shane, can you come with me to my office for a minute?” That was a bad start, everyone was Mr. Surname in the CBS.

He sat me in the fancy leather chair facing his and he told me there’d been an accident and that my older brother Adrian had been hurt. His mouth said he was sure everything was going to be okay but his eyes betrayed him. Nothing would ever be the same again.

That’s how Claire looked at me now as she searched for the right words to put me out of my misery.

“Look, Shane. Things are just different now. I think… I think maybe we should maybe spend a little time apart, it might do us both good?”

She framed it as a question, but she meant it as a statement.

Slightly shook, I stood and wandered to the door.

“I’m just going to check on Edith.”

I looked into Edith’s room, her toys bathed in the low glow of the bathroom light we always had to leave on so Puddles, her favourite bear, could find her if she was needed at night.

She lay on her back, gently snoring, blissfully unaware of the tears streaming down my face.

I wasn’t sure how long I was standing there when I felt Claire’s hand on my shoulder. There was something tender about her touch but nothing romantic, the way you might sympathise with a friend for the loss of a parent you’ve never met.

“We can just tell her I have to go away for work for a week or two. And I can call her every day if you want.”

“Why are you doing this Claire?” I whisper. “That child right there is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, to us, and you’re taking that away from us. Fuck, you’re taking us away from her.”

“I’m not suggesting taking her away from anyone but don’t you see that this is the problem? There is no us as in you and I, there’s only us as in the three of us. You don’t look at me like you used to, you look at me like Edith’s mum. Have you any idea how that makes me feel?”

I go to answer but she shakes her head.

“You’ve no idea. You can’t. If you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, Shane.”

Edith stirs slightly. I take it as a cue to go back to our room but even thinking the word ‘our’ seems inappropriate right now.

“I think you’re being really unfair. I don’t think you can tell me how I feel about you Claire, I still love you.”

“You’re not listening to me, Shane, it’s not about how you think you feel about me, it’s how you look at me. You’ve the world’s worst poker face, your eyes betray you. You just don’t look at me the way Bar… the way you used to.”

She’s hoping I didn’t notice but I did.

“The way who looks at you Claire? You were going to say someone’s name there.”

“This isn’t about anyone else, this is about you and I and us growing apart.”

“Bollox. It is about someone else if you were going to say their name in our bedroom when trying to finish our relationship Claire? I mean… Jesus.”

“I’m not trying to finish anything, I just suggested we take a little time off, see how we feel after it. It doesn’t have to be. But you’re right, I suppose. It might be the end,” she says sheepishly.

“Please Claire, who is he?”

“There’s nobody else. I promise you,” she says as she finally starts showing this might be hurting her as much as it’s killing me.

I automatically want to comfort her but I stop myself. I’m stay standing by the wardrobe, hands in my pockets feeling as helpless as I was in Mr. Harrison’s class decades earlier.

“But there could be someone else if I wanted there to be. And I’m starting to think I want there to be. That’s why I think we need to take a break and maybe, after that, to accept this isn’t working. It’s you. It’s me. But it’s mostly us. At the risk of repeating myself, I just don’t think there’s an us anymore. At least not one that’s worth fighting for.”

“But Edith?”

“You see, that’s exactly what I mean. I’m talking about us as a couple, you’re thinking about us as parents. That’s why we’re not working.”

There’s so much more I want to say but I already know none of it will matter. I’ve known Claire long enough to realise that, once her mind is made up, I may as well be trying to negotiate with the bed she’s sitting on.

“I suppose you want me to sleep on the couch?”

“No, what if Edith wakes and comes into the bed and you’re not here? Stay tonight, we can have a chat with her tomorrow and tell her I’m going away for a couple of weeks. We can see where things stand after that and, like I said, I can call or Skype her every day.”

I get ready for bed in silence, still thinking this is all some sort of terrible dream I’ll wake up from shortly but resisting the urge to pinch myself. After 10 minutes of silence lying as far from Claire as possible, I ask her one last question.

“When did you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“Stop loving me.”

“I didn’t Shane,” she says turning to face me tough I don’t meet her eye. “I’m not sure I will. But I realised a few months ago I don’t particularly like you any more.”

“I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean,” I say, genuinely confused.

“Well, I liked the person you were when we met, but when was the last time you played something for me and told me I’d inspired it? Or let me pick a gig or a play to go to? I remember once asking you at dinner why you were biting your lip and you actually said that you’d ‘stopped breathing because you were concentrating so much on what I was saying.’

“You just don’t look at me that way anymore and you certainly don’t talk to me that way. I suppose we’ve just grown apart. It’s not one particular thing. It’s everything. Does that make sense?”

We lie in silence for 20 minutes and she’s asleep before I whisper my answer.

“Yeah, I suppose it does.”

A brief Act IV — South

“How did the meeting go?”

I don’t know why I’m asking, I couldn’t give a shite really but I know Barry’s being preparing for it for weeks.

“Yeah grand, thanks.”

I shrug before chuckling to myself when I realise that Barry’s actually sitting in the same place as Niamh was last Sunday when it all came out.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

“Nothing. Look, how does this work? If Hollywood has thought me anything, you’re about to explain that you had some sort of medical emergency that left you in a coma until Wednesday when you rang far too late.”

“I’m sorry Nicole, it’s just been a busy and stressful week.”

“That’s it? That’s the best you can come up with after not even having the decency to let me know you were alive? Fuck off.”

It’s only after I’ve said it that I realise I was probably a little too loud as the people on the next table in the cafe have completely abandoned their own conversation to listen in to ours.

“For a start, I know you’re back on Tinder, so don’t deny it. And using pictures that I took of you on your profile. Jesus, Barry, do you want to pull the knife out of my back or will I? If you wanted to see other people, that would have been grand but you’re the one who suggested we both delete the app.

“I know, I should have said something. It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid, you were and, if you hadn’t got caught, would you have bothered your arse telling me?”

“I’d have told you Nicole, I’ve been meaning to for a while.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing and though I do my best to stay calm, I can’t help but call him on his bullshit.

“Barry would you stop. A few weeks ago you were talking about us becoming ‘partners’ because of your weird obsession with not using the words boyfriend or girlfriend. Then you agreed to come to Ciara’s wedding and now this makes me look like the world’s saddest, loneliest dope. I mean, seriously what were you thinking?”

“You’re a Nicky Hornby fan, right, so you know ‘High Fidelity?’

I throw my head back and can’t help but laugh, where could he possibly be going with this, but I indulge him. Fuck it, it’s probably the last time I’m going to be seeing him anyway.

“Yes, you mentioned you were a big fan the other night.”

“Well there’s this scene in the movie where John Cusack character talks about women’s underwear.”

“Jesus Barry,” I get up to leave.

“No, listen, he talks about how in his fantasy that all women have really good underwear but that, when you’re in a relationship with these women you find out they only wear that stuff on the nights they think they might have sex.”

“Okay.” I say, without a clue as to where this might be going.

“Well he’s wrong. There are women who wear that type of underwear all the time so why am I limiting myself to someone who’s probably wearing granny knickers from Pennys right now?”

He’s not wrong, but I’m still annoyed with him for discussing this in a cafe full of people. I lower my voice.

“Those women don’t really exist, Barry.”

“They do, I’ve met them before and I’ll meet them again. Why should I limit myself? Call it low fidelity dating.”

“Well you’ve certainly got a way of making a woman feel good about herself, Barry, do you really think that’ll make you happy though, jumping from lingerie selection to lingerie selection?”

“I dunno. Maybe chancing my arm is easier than risking breaking my heart but there’s only one way to find out.”

“What does that even mean?” I ask, vaguely sure it’s a song lyric from something I can’t quite remember. “And where was this person hiding when you were talking about us becoming a ‘proper couple’ just a few weeks back?”

“I don’t know, maybe I was lying to myself as much as I was lying to you. I mean, we can still see each other if you like, but I’ll be seeing other people.”

“Barry, I’d like to say it was lovely knowing you but, really, I can see now you were nothing more than a gobshite,” I say standing up to leave.

“I hope you enjoy all those Victoria’s Secret models you end up dating. I’m sure they’ll make you very happy.”

As I walk towards the door I’m so busy putting in my headphones I don’t even notice the guy walking towards me with a takeaway coffee in hand and, by the time I do, half his double espresso is over his jacket.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I say frantically searching in my bag for tissues, anything that might clean him up before he ends up walking around smelling like a Starbucks.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it, I wasn’t really minding where I was going. The jacket needed a clean anyway.”

“No, honestly, I’m mortified. I should have been looking where I was going.”

“Seriously, it’s okay, don’t be worrying about it. It’s grand.”

“I do worry about it though, I’ve wrecked your jacket and I’ve spilled half your coffee, please, at least let me grab you another one. Look, there’s no queue, it’ll only take a second. Honestly.

“Okay, well I’m not going to refuse a free coffee but only if you’re sure, because you really don’t have to.”

“I am sure. My name’s Nicole by the way or ‘the girl who wasn’t minding where she was going’ if you like.”

“Well Nicole’s a bit easier to remember. I’m Shane, nice to meet you even if a lot of caffeine was harmed in the making of said meeting.”

FIN