LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Six

      It’s like a mantra with me the whole of the next day: I have no choice, I have no choice. I. Have. No. Choice. And in fact, if I don’t get a move on, chances are I’ll come home to find all my stuff in cardboard boxes outside the security gates, the locks changed and new people already living there. All of which fits in beautifully with the recurring theme of my life right now; when you’ve got everything, you’ve got everything to lose.

      It’s late Saturday afternoon and I’m still in bed, paralysed. Praying that at this exact moment Sam is doing the same thing. That he’s dead on the inside too. Despondent. Missing me. Willing himself to swallow his pride, pick up the phone and beg me to get back with him.

      I’ve been practically a ‘Rules Girl’ since our last, harrowing conversation and by that I mean I’ve only texted him approximately a dozen times and left around eight voice messages on his mobile. Per day, that is.

      TV is my only friend, but as I’m avoiding the news for obvious reasons, I stick to the History Channel where there’s bound to be nothing on that’ll only upset me more. An ad comes on where they quote Buddha saying that all suffering stems from failed expectations. Yup, sounds about right to me. Next thing, out of nowhere, there’s a massive, urgent walloping on my hall door downstairs, which my first instinct is to ignore, but then it flashes through my mind, Suppose it’s Sam? Standing there with a huge bouquet of flowers and a speech all prepared about what a complete moron he’s been? I dive out of bed like I’ve just had an adrenaline shot to the heart and race downstairs, still in my pyjamas. Course, it’s not Sam at all though. It’s the estate agent, with a middle-aged-looking couple standing on either side of him like twin bodyguards, wanting to view the house. The estate agent is super-polite and says he’s mortified for disturbing me, but his implication is clear; just disappear for the afternoon and let people who can actually afford to live here get a once-over of the place in peace.

      Which is how, about an hour later, I end up back in our humble little corporation estate in Whitehall, on Dublin’s Northside. My first time back to the house since I was eighteen, all of eleven years ago. I’m absolutely dreading what lies ahead and at the same time, so punch drunk by all the body blows I’ve taken in the last week, that the part of me that’s numb just takes over everything; all bodily functions like walking down streets and holding conversations without crying. Anyway, like I said, where I come from is not posh. Nor, from what I can see so far, has much of it changed since I used to live here. It’s basically 1950s corpo-land that’s so close to the airport, you can actually see the wheels going up and down on the bellies of all overhead flights. It also gets so deafeningly noisy at times that you feel like you could be living on the near end of a runway. But it just so happens that deafening noise suits me right now. As does anything that drowns out the loop that’s on eternal long play inside my head: dumpedhomelessjob-lessdumpedhomelessjoblessdumpedhomelessjobless…etc., etc., etc., repeat ad nauseam.

      The house is right at the very end of a cul-de-sac, which means that when I get off the bus, I have to do the walk of shame down the whole length of the street, alone, unprotected and totally exposed. Which, I know, makes it sound like I come from Fallujah Square and it’s not that I’m worried about broken bottles or other random missiles being flung at me; no, it’s the kids on this street you’ve got to watch out for. They’re complete savages and their cruelty knows no bounds. Plus, as it’s a warm, balmy evening, they’re all out swarming round the place like midges. Sure enough, right across the street, there’s a gang of them led by a boy of about ten, a dead ringer for the kid in The Omen, all harassing someone I can only presume is a Jehovah’s Witness making door to door calls.

      ‘You says there’s no Our Lady, you says there’s no Our Lady!’ they’re chanting at the poor gobshite, hot on his heels. I pull the baseball cap I’m wearing down even lower over my forehead and pick up my pace a bit, head down at all times. But just then an elderly neighbour out doing her hedges spots me.