My friends were all away, either elsewhere in Ireland or further afield like Anvi. We’d been friends in Dublin for a few years, but she was staying with family in Delhi until she could return. Perfectionism was the main trait that Eileen and I had in common, but she actively worked towards it, while I mainly avoided taking risks. I did a lot of pausing and replaying because I wanted my record to be flawless. I earned four euro an hour because they paid per minute of audio transcribed, not per minute actually spent on the task. “It’s not real, this sugar-free, whatever-free”, the man said. A man detailed his hatred of sugar-free ice-cream, and I pictured him as I took down his words. These were mostly US-based customer focus groups. I was still unemployed but I earned a bit by transcribing audio files online. The sky was white, my coat was grey, and my hands were in my pockets.Īlthough you had to offer Eileen money a million times before she’d take it, I gave her what I could towards bills. I mainly went outside for walks alone where no-one acknowledged me. Each morning, the light filtered blue through the curtains, and I wondered what would be gone that day when I rose. The old tenants must have gone somewhere: their relatives’ couches, too, perhaps. Two doors down, a former house of flats was now a co-living complex. This cruelty drew complaints, and the business responded by planting flowers around the area so they could say they had something to water. Right before I moved in, the metro supermarket down the road had installed sprinklers to deter homeless people from sleeping outside. I supposed she couldn’t be gloomy all the time. It was the first time my niece had let me in on a joke. “Is it the wooden spoon you’re after?” Eileen said.
“The glass heads on it.”ĭearbhla rolled her eyes at me. “I’ll miss that street lantern”, Eileen said. “It’s no place for a body, a couch”, Ma said. Our mother kept that Eileen in focus, and only saw the real one from the corner of her eye. But to Ma, there was another Eileen who’d stayed in school and who’d since become a million things. Not many Dubliners could rent alone aged 31, and she had a decent job and a child nearly raised. The guidance counsellor told her she was bound to succeed. (“That’s no way to be talking”, Ma said.) My own reports said either “shows potential”, ie brains but no effort, or “hard worker”, ie effort but no brains. I said the teachers fancied her, a claim I had parroted from one of our older cousins. Our mother had read out Eileen’s glowing school reports at the kitchen table while Eileen said, “Stop, Ma”. Until she got pregnant at fifteen, she’d been the one with tidy pink notebooks and her hair in a plait.
Our parents had divorced when I was a baby, and now lived in different counties in the west of Ireland.
I liked Dublin, however little it reciprocated. “Thanks, Ma.” But I knew I’d stay where I was.
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