good, these days. He qualified as a massage person, he left the bike shop and he probably has a new girlfriend because he’s Liam.
Your work is good too, Nell. You’ve been working steadily since this letter and you’ve just done a commission for Ship of Fools in the theatre festival.
Feck it, why not shoot for the stars?!
Nobody was badly freaked out when you left Liam. It was news for, like, five minutes, then everyone moved on. After a while even the Caseys didn’t care. They stayed friends with you. Jessie said that once a Casey, always a Casey, so you still get invited to things and you’re still best buds with Dilly, TJ and Bridey. Also Jessie and Cara.
Also, Ferdia.
Your lunacy passed. You were insane for a while, just because of the whole Liam thing. It seemed easier to think you didn’t love Liam any more because you’d fallen for someone else. Instead of facing the fact that you’d got married too fast. To the wrong person.
Soon as you left Liam, the feelings for Ferdia just disappeared.
This made Nell feel suddenly very sad.
Well, not exactly disappeared. They changed. You found you wanted to be good friends with him. Because you have a lot of common interests, like.
He finished his degree and you didn’t ruin his life.
Nell found she was writing faster and faster.
Now he has a job doing good work for a woke cause and he’s happy. Your age difference seems less and less, the more time passes.
You are still very, very good friends. Very close.
She was scribbling at speed now.
You see him a lot and none of the Caseys mind, not even Liam, and none of your friends think it’s weird and they all like him too and think he’s cool. And if he has a girlfriend you don’t mind, you think she’s class.
Suddenly aware of how self-obsessed she was being, she wrote,
Garr is getting great work and everyone knows what a genius he is. Wanda, Triona, all of my mates, they’re living their best lives. Perla’s case was heard. She and Kassandra got refugee status. Perla is a GP now and it’s all good.
Who else was there? Jessie. But Jessie had no problems. Cara, though.
Cara’s eating disorder is cured and she’s happy. Mum and Dad are grand and so is Brendan, even though his values are a bit fucked and all he wants is to be minted. Everything is good and fine, and life is going well for everyone I know, and I’m not obsessed with Ferdia any longer and that is good and everything is good.
Maybe she should stop now. She’d established that, in the end, everything would be okay.
Good luck, Nell!
From me to me
‘I’m done,’ Nell said. ‘Quick, an envelope, before I lose my nerve.’
‘Write your address and I’ll do the stamp.’
But who knew where she’d be living next year? Next week?
She wrote her parents’ address, then surrendered the envelope.
‘Cara!’ Delma exclaimed. ‘Hi!’
She led Cara into an alcove off the main restaurant. ‘We’re hidden in here. I guess they didn’t want twenty drunk women upsetting the date-night crowd.’
‘Are we the first?’ She barely knew Delma and had always found her a little too much.
‘Yep. So!’ Unashamedly Delma checked her out. She scanned every inch of Cara, from her face to her ankles, looking for … what exactly? ‘You don’t look too bad at all!’
Cara felt the blood drain from her face.
‘Yeah, heard about your little adventure. Look, Cara, could happen to any of us. Ah, here’s Gwennie.’
‘Cara!’ Gwennie exclaimed, wafting booze into her face. ‘Wasn’t sure you’d show up tonight.’ Then, a reassuring shoulder squeeze. ‘You’re doing great.’
‘Cara!’
‘Oh, hi, Quincy.’
Quincy gathered her in a clumsy hug. ‘Fair play to you.’
It was a long time since she’d seen this group, probably not since Gabby’s birthday last year. If every single one of them was going to make a big thing of her ‘eating disorder’, she didn’t think she’d last the night.
‘Cara, how are you?’
‘Heather, hi. All good. You?’
‘Please tell me the name of the tablets.’
‘What tablets?’
‘They must have given you something to stop the overeating? I need them too. Swear to God, if there’s crisps in the house, I literally cannot stop eating them. Am I right?’
A woman called Ita, whom Cara barely knew, steered her into a corner. ‘They’re idiots. Insensitive bitches, they understand nothing. You need to take care of yourself here. You’ve a killer disease. Fuck them. Do you hear me? Fuck them. You have an illness that can kill you, so if you