Already I was willing to make a fuss to get a seat and now I was finding fault with the kind of mindless chatter I used to find enchanting. God, I was becoming boring! But right then my only alternative to the super-pub was my empty apartment. At least here it looked as if I was having a super time.
Some time later that night, after I had slipped out for a sneaky cigarette, I was joined by Keith. I remember groaning, feeling sure I was in for a tedious rehash of the horrors-of-smoking routine but he said nothing. He leaned in and touched his lips against mine. He kissed my smoky mouth and he left.
I was surprised. I was even impressed. As a move, as a way to make an exit, to leave an impression, it was fabulous.
Suddenly I was interested.
Ages passed before I left the doorway of O’Flaherty’s pub. I was, as they say, transfixed. Some light rain was falling, one of those late-evening autumn mists that remind you winter is coming and it might not be so bad. I had my bag with me and there was nobody left inside I wanted to say goodbye to, so I stubbed out my cigarette, which had burned away to nothing in my hand, and began to walk.
It had been a long time since I replayed an incident like that over and over in my head. I think it was the innocence of it that was so seductive. Nobody had paid that kind of attention to my lips, and only my lips, since adolescence, or childhood. I felt like I was in my own movie and I was the heroine. I walked around for ages, not ready yet to go home. I think I was afraid the feeling would disappear if I returned to the scene of my former life, my life before the kiss. The darkness and the mist were the perfect backdrop to my little fantasy.
For, of course, I knew it was a fantasy. Real people didn’t behave like that and my experience of grand gestures has always been that they come at a price. But where’s the harm in allowing it to run for a while? If you have a cold you take Lemsip, if you have a broken heart why not a daydream? I could wear it like a bandage until the wound went away. That was all I wanted. Where was the harm?
Yet, the following day I was surprised again. I was sitting at my desk plodding through a dossier, actually smiling to myself as I thought of Keith’s notion that I was Ally McBeal or something, when I got a call. From Keith.
‘Hi, Annabelle?’
‘Ahm… aah…’ For a moment my brain wouldn’t work.
‘Or is it Kate?’
‘Ahm… yeah, this is Kate…’
‘Are you busy?’
‘Not really.’ (I should have been.)
‘Are you free for lunch?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Would you like to go to the Furze Bush?’
‘Maybe.’ Then, ‘Wait a minute. Aren’t you out in Shannon?’
‘Nope!’ I definitely heard an exclamation mark. ‘I have the day off!’
‘I didn’t think chemical-engineer type people could do that.’
‘It’s rare, but it can happen.’
‘Well, in that case I suppose I’ll just have to meet you for lunch. I love the Furze Bush.’
‘Will I meet you there at one?’
‘OK.’
‘OK, then.’
‘Oh… and, ah… sorry about the Annabelle thing. How did you find out my real name?’
‘The barman told me.’
‘The barman?’
‘No, actually, it was one of your friends.’
I felt quite foolish, but not foolish enough to run away. ‘Anyway, sorry.’
‘That’s OK. I could have been anybody. See you at one, then.’
‘See you.’
So I met him for lunch in the Furze Bush and then a drink in Mooney’s. A few days later we had dinner at the Wild Tiger and then we were seeing each other all the time. We were going out. My Lemsip habit had become addictive. Nothing had changed. I still knew he was wildly not my type. I still found half of what he said profoundly boring and the other half delightfully ridiculous. But he did have a couple of things going for him. Mainly that he thought I was amazing. You have to like that in a guy. He said all sorts of daft things just when you weren’t expecting them. He might be in the middle of explaining the minutiae of some documentary he’d seen on the Discovery Channel and then he’d say something like: ‘You know, your eyes really do sparkle.’