forced a smile. ‘You two go on in. I’m just waiting for Liam.’
Once she was alone again, the loss felt like vertigo. She’d been so tightly wound, so ready, that she couldn’t cope. She’d wanted eye-contact with him, a chance to piece together what exactly had taken place that night in the Button Factory.
Yeah, well, she knew now what had happened – absolutely nothing. He wasn’t here. In fact, he was out with his girlfriend. What else did she need to know?
‘Nell, you should go in.’
‘What?’ Still stunned, she turned.
An usher was by her side. ‘Need to go in now, honey. They’ll be starting.’
‘Oh. But I’m waiting …’ Then she made her decision: feck Liam. It was gone half past seven. He was legit late. Why wait any longer?
The lights dimmed, the screen rose, the play began. Nell had a lot of arm-squeezing and people leaning forward in their seats so that they could smile encouragingly at her. Making a concerted effort, she tried to concentrate on what was happening on stage. She’d already sat through this six times, but you never really knew if everything worked until it had a paying audience.
It was Not Bad. Maybe even Quite Good. But she was sad about the props they hadn’t been able to afford, the little tweaks here and there that could have improved everything.
Her self-berating concentration was broken as people near the aisle stood up. Liam had arrived.
‘Sorry,’ she heard him whisper, as he pushed past them. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’
It was seven fifty-six, almost half an hour late.
He finally reached the empty seat beside her. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Chelsea being a bitch again.’
She acknowledged his arrival with a small chin incline. Her eyes didn’t move from the stage.
At the interval, they piled into the bar.
‘Congratulations,’ Triona said.
‘Yeah, totally,’ Wanda echoed. ‘It’s really good. Your work, I mean. Innovative.’
‘Not a baldy what’s going on,’ her dad said. ‘But it’s a solid-looking construction. Couldn’t fault that. I’ll get the drinks in.’
‘I don’t know the right words,’ Angie said. ‘But you’re so clever. You have such imagination.’
‘A genius is what she is,’ Jessie declared.
‘She is.’ Saoirse hugged her.
‘So, you’re not going to believe it,’ Liam announced. ‘Chelsea, right? Told her I needed to leave early. Told her why. So I’m there, in the shop, it’s ten past seven, no sign of her. So I text, I need to leave. Tell her, you need to be here, to do the till and lock up. And she texts back, says she knows nothing about it.’
‘She’d forgotten?’ Angie sounded scandalized.
‘My arse she had. She’s just a bitch.’
‘Oh, Liam, you really need to get out of that place. The sooner you qualify as a massage person, the better.’
Nell felt as detached as if she were watching a movie.
Liam turned and placed his hands on her upper arms. ‘I’m so sorry, baby.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Really?’ He seemed uncertain.
‘Fine.’
At 6.35 a.m., Nell woke again. Once more she reached for her iPad. Since 3 a.m., she’d been dozing on and off, refreshing the media sites, desperate to know what kind of reviews Human Salt would get.
Finally, Wednesday’s newspapers were live.
Her stomach fluttering with fear and excitement, she clicked on the Independent’s review of the theatre festival.
Nothing.
She scanned it more slowly, just to be certain her anxiety wasn’t making her miss something.
Still nothing.
The disappointment was brutal.
She moved on to the Irish Times.
‘Anything?’ Liam had woken up.
‘Not in the Indo. Or, by the looks of things, the Irish Times.’
Now he was clicking and studying his screen. ‘Small mention here in the Mail.’
‘Show me.’ She lunged at him.
‘Sorry, baby. Nothing about you.’
She insisted on reading it. ‘An adequate production,’ was the conclusion but there was no mention of her or her set.
Because she’d got such good reviews for Timer, she’d been desperate for further recognition of her work. She couldn’t help it.
‘Another mention, tiny, on RTÉ.ie,’ he said. ‘Nothing about you again.’
She had to read that one, too, before she believed him.
It was mad to get hung up on reviews. A bad one could destroy your confidence, just as a good one could have you mistakenly thinking you were the Second Coming.
Her own opinion of her work should be the only one that mattered. But she kept googling and clicking, a few wisps of hope hanging on. Eventually she sighed and gave up.
‘Nothing else?’ Liam asked.
She shook her head, too disappointed to speak.
‘It’s the festival.’ He sounded sympathetic. ‘So many shows on. They probably don’t have the reviewers to get around to everything.’