1

Even though I’ve pressed myself up against the window I can’t get more than one bar of signal. Two if I stick the phone outside, but that’s no good because then she can’t see me.

‘Ais, what am I looking at here? Are you wearing … a jersey? All I can see is fields. Hold still!’

The reception is shite. I could blame it on Sadhbh being in Tokyo but I know the problem is more than likely on my end. The Japanese are notoriously technological. Meanwhile, the 3G goes entirely if there’s so much as a stiff breeze in Ballygobbard. You can only get 4G in two spots in the village and one of them is in the local postman’s front garden. Pat Curran is forever running people who’ve hopped the wall to download a podcast. I must admit I did once tip over the wall myself. Colette Green, Ireland’s foremost fashion and beauty blogger, had just posted about her new line of fake tan on Instagram, and while I’ve never been a slave to the tan myself, I am a slave to Colette, particularly since she made the trek down to Ballygobbard during the summer and put my humble little café, BallyGoBrunch, on the map. Her Insta might be all hashtag vegan but she definitely horsed into at least three of our award-winning sausages. We had an influx of what Majella would call ‘Insta huns’ for weeks afterwards and, to be honest, the café has been buzzing ever since – I’m dead on my feet every evening. Running the place is harder than I ever imagined.

The broadband is so bad it’s reminiscent of the dial-up we got installed in 1999 after Daddy saw a programme about new technology making it possible to watch your cows calving online. Mammy still goes pale when she thinks about the waste of money and the fact that it took four days for a full picture to load and by that time the calf would nearly be talking to you. It did nothing for Ballygobbard’s local reputation as ‘BallyGoBackwards’ and is probably why we were always more keen on just calling it ‘BGB’.

‘Obviously I’m wearing my county jersey!’ I exclaim. ‘It’s homecoming day!’ I manoeuvre the phone down to my chest so Sadhbh can see my sporty attire; the jersey of my home county hurling team. One of my favourite things to tell non-Irish people is how a New Zealand paper covering one of our most beloved Gaelic sports once called hurling ‘hockey mixed with murder’.

I move my phone left to right so Sadhbh can see it properly. She squeals and hoots.

Honestly, for a girl whose wardrobe palette rarely hovers above pale grey and brown or what she calls ‘pebble’ and ‘ecru dune’ and who can’t bear to be in the same room as milk not squeezed from nuts, Sadhbh can be such a Majella sometimes.

‘Homecoming day, of course!’ I can just about make out enough of Sadhbh to see her slapping her forehead. ‘I’m all over the place. We just flew in this morning and I don’t know if I’m coming or going. The lads were fuming they couldn’t find a telly in Tokyo showing the match. Tell me all.’

Sadhbh’s Gaelic Games etiquette wouldn’t be up to much but I appreciate her enthusiasm.

‘So, there’s a big parade this evening and a street party –’

‘Okay, but let me just double check,’ Sadhbh interrupts, ‘the county didn’t win the All-Ireland final?’

‘No,’ I say happily. ‘They were absolutely slaughtered. But sure that hardly matters.’ I can’t help beaming proudly. ‘We had four BGB Rovers and two Knocknamanagh Rangers players represented on the pitch. We’ll hardly see the likes of it again. The All-Ireland final, like! The county team hasn’t been in an All-Ireland final since 1954!’ Knocknamanagh is a few miles from Ballygobbard and usually our biggest rival. But to have both towns represented on the same team in the final meant all grudges were temporarily on hold.

‘Was it brilliant?’

I pause for a second to think back over the previous day. Somehow, my little village café had ended up sponsoring the team jerseys. Mulcahy Feeds had been the sponsor for years but pulled out a few months back when Johnnie Mulcahy’s son didn’t get picked for the squad. John, my ex-boyfriend and newly appointed county-team selector, had pleaded for my help and I agreed to put a bit of money behind them in exchange for having the BallyGoBrunch name emblazoned across the jerseys for this year’s championship.

‘It was brilliant,’ I tell Sadhbh, nearly setting myself off again. Myself and Majella had nearly had to be hospitalised for dehydration in the swish corporate box specially reserved for sponsors in Croke Park the previous day. Our emotions got the better of us several times between the BallyGoBrunch jerseys being beamed into every telly in Ireland and the fancy prawn sandwiches and seemingly never-ending glasses of Prosecco. I’m nearly sure I saw Chris de Burgh! I don’t know what state we’d be in if the county had actually won. Of course, I had half of Ballygobbard onto me looking for a dig out with a ticket. Mad Tom Doyle offered to do a bit of landscaping around the café in exchange for one but he was brandishing a strimmer at me at the time which had Eamon Filan’s name spray-painted on the side of it so he’d clearly stolen it. He got a ticket somehow anyway because he was on the big screen in Croke Park multiple times before throw-in, helicoptering his top over his head. Loves an auld day out, so he does.

Seeing John down on the pitch with the team was strange. I wanted to text him from the box, but it might have been a bit much. We’re officially ‘friends’ since we broke up earlier in the year, but every time I see him I feel as awkward as ever. Majella says it’s nearly impossible to be friends with your ex, but with me living in BGB and John back home from Dublin every weekend and with about forty-seven mutual friends, we just have to suck it up. Give it a year and we’ll be flying, I’ve no doubt. I caught sight of Megan, the girlfriend, in the stands behind him yesterday. I mean, no human alive is that particular shade of biscuit-fragranced orange, even with all the holidays primary teachers get, but she is very pretty and John seems very happy with her. I’m happy for them.

‘The whole team is having lunch up in Dublin at Croke Park and then stopping off at two hospitals on the way home,’ I explain to Sadhbh, dragging the brush through my hair. ‘There are rumours that Dessie Connolly from Knocknamanagh has the healing touch after he saved that final goal.’ It was a pity he hadn’t saved the four goals he let in before that one, but sure, look, isn’t it the taking part that counts?

‘Okay, and is the whole team coming to BGB then?’

I’ve the phone held straight in the air in the eleven o’clock position and finally I can see Sadhbh more clearly on the screen. She’s leaning back in a huge chair with a cocktail in her hand and I’m fairly sure there’s an indoor waterfall behind her. This is her life now, since The Peigs started their stadium tour around Asia. She’s moved – ‘pivoted’ was the word she used, I think – from HR to handling all the social media for the band, but it’s all done from her phone so she spends a good portion of her time hanging around five-star hotels listening to audiobooks while Don Shields, her boyfriend and the band’s ridey frontman, does interviews and gets ready for the night’s concert. Well for some! She loves all the travel but her artsy Instagram tends to baffle me with its photos of a bit of a building or a blurry tree or an old man she doesn’t even know with no caption. Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned ‘hot dogs or legs’ or ‘today’s office’ update? Classics.

‘The six Ballygobbard and Knock lads are having their own smaller homecoming on BGB Main Street,’ I explain as I dig around in my jewellery box for something a bit dressy. ‘Open-top lorry, speeches, the whole shebang.’

‘But just to reiterate,’ she’s laughing now, ‘they didn’t actually win?’

‘No. Annihilated, so they were. A shocking defeat. A complete –’

‘Okay, okay. I get it.’ She nearly spills the cocktail, laughing. ‘It’s a big deal.’

‘How are you getting on anyway?’ I ask her, untangling two necklaces. I can’t believe I know someone who’s jetting around the world with a famous band. Up until recently the only fame I’d known was BGB’s own Leslie Cahill falling off his chair on Winning Streak.

‘I’m great. It’s so nice to be able to travel with Don and we all have such a laugh together. The record company really looks after us, which makes everything chill. It’s so funny the people who are crawling out of the woodwork, though. People I haven’t seen in years are suddenly sending me Facebook messages in case I can get them tickets for something. One girl I barely knew in school asked if The Peigs could play at her sister’s fortieth. The neck of her!’

The idea of The Peigs squashed into the corner of a function room while drunk aunties slosh their Bulmers on them is too much to bear. They’ve been on the Late Late twice!

I hold up a pair of earrings beside my face and point my phone at them. ‘Are they too much?’

‘Hmmm.’ Sadhbh takes her time analysing the earrings as best she can, biting her lower lip. She takes fashion very seriously, even if it’s only accessories. Me and Sadhbh are like chalk and cheese, and I will never expect her to be at one with the GAA culture that flows through the veins of every BGB-ite, but ever since we became roommates in a swanky Dublin apartment last year we’ve been the best of friends, no matter how many times she’s tried to get me to buy a ‘neutral poncho’.

‘They’re very … dangly,’ she decides eventually. ‘Have you got something smaller? Maybe a delicate hoop?’

I do another quick search through my jewellery box: I’ve a few nice Newbridge Silverware pieces, a gold cross on a chain I got for my Confirmation and some bits from Penneys, as well as the two identical Pandora bracelets I’ve stashed in a little velvet pouch. No hoops though.

‘I don’t,’ I admit. ‘Should I just take them out altogether? Now I’m worried I look underdressed.’

‘You’re very het up about the earrings,’ Sadhbh says coyly. ‘Is there any other reason you want to look particularly nice? A … James Matthews reason?’

I instantly blush and of course the picture goes the clearest it’s been for our entire call.

‘Aha, there it is,’ she squeals. ‘How is the handsome devil? Still erecting things all over BGB?’

James Matthews is the developer who bought and renovated the abandoned building just outside BGB village that houses BallyGoBrunch and the three apartments above it. We’ve been ‘doing a line’ – as my mother mortifyingly called it on the phone to Auntie Sheila recently – since the night I reopened the café after an awful break-in and James literally charmed the knickers off me with his lovely smile, impeccable manners and multi-pocketed work trousers. I blush just thinking about it.

‘Ah, look at you. So cute!’ Sadhbh squeals and I nearly pull a muscle in my knees with the cringing. ‘So, what’s the story with you two? He’s sooo nice,’ she continues, pulling a fresh drink in front of her and muttering what I assume is ‘thanks a million’ in Japanese. I advised her to fire up the Duolingo before going and I’m delighted to see she took my advice. Nothing says ‘chic global traveller’ more than being able to order your cervezas in the local tongue. I should know, I’ve been to Spain twice.

I take a deep breath before answering her. I don’t want to be getting her hopes up. She’s a fierce romantic at heart and I’ve managed to avoid too much chat with her about James so far. ‘There’s no story, really.’

‘Ah, go on, there’s always a story. Isn’t he such a ride?’

He is a ride. She’s right. I still can’t quite believe he fancies me.

‘Yes, but there’s really no story. Sure, he’s leaving in a few weeks.’

‘Oh nooo, is that still happening?’ Sadhbh looks as dismayed as she sounds.

‘Yeah, he’s signed up to that job back in England as soon as the build at Woodlawn Park is finished, and he’s hardly going to stay in BGB for me.’ James has been overseeing the Woodlawn Park housing development in Rathborris for the past six weeks but it’s onto the final phase.

‘Stranger things have happened.’

‘No, no, no. It’s just a bit of a …’ I have to pause to make myself choke out Majella’s word for it. ‘… a fling.’

Sadhbh nearly comes off the chair as the word ‘fling’ leaves my mouth. I don’t really blame her. I’m not exactly the ‘fling’ type. I can definitely count on one hand the number of lads who’ve seen me in the nip. She fumbles with her phone and it’s a moment before her long, elegant neck ricochets back into focus. She’s one of the few Irish women I know who could actually get a tan, but she’s so hell-bent on avoiding wrinkles that she rarely exposes herself to the sun. Such a waste.

‘A fling. In Ballygobbard. I’ve heard it all now,’ she says, composing herself. ‘Would you not try make it work long distance or something, though – no? He was so mad about you that night you got together. It seems like such a shame.’

I feel like if James was into trying long distance, he would have said something already, and it’s not like I can ask him to stay. I don’t know if I can even imagine him staying at this stage anyway. I’ve known about his work commitments from the get-go. He told me the morning after we first got together that he had work lined up back at home. He said he’d love to keep seeing me even though it might not be a good idea since he wasn’t going to be there that much longer. He was so noble saying it that I felt like I was in one of Majella’s bodice-ripping novels. I was weak for him. But he’s leaving and I can’t be a goose about it. And I’m certainly not moving to England, although I do enjoy the challenge of a currency exchange. BallyGoBrunch is taking off so well and is so hectic and I barely have time to fit James in as it is. Sadhbh is right about him seeming mad about me though. We went to the new cinema in Knocknamanagh the other night and we were like teenagers – not that I’d ever done anything of the sort as a teenager, seeing as there was no cinema within a twenty-mile radius. The new Knock cinema has only one screen and seventeen seats and has been showing the same film since it opened three weeks ago, but it’s quiet and dark so we could shift in the back row with no eyes on us. Mammy asked me what the film was about the next day and I had to make up something ludicrous about Tom Cruise punching a shark. Mammy has only been to the cinema three times since the nineties and two of those were Mamma Mia films so it’s easy enough to cod her. Meanwhile, I’ve stayed in James’s place for the past –

‘Five nights in a row Majella says you stayed with him this week. You’re mad about him too,’ Sadhbh teases. Bloody Majella and her big mouth. James lives in one of the apartments above BallyGoBrunch and on the floor above him is the entire Moran clan, plus Pablo and Willy, their Jack Russell. They’re squashed into the two-bed apartment while they’re waiting for their family home to be habitable again after the fire. The things I’ve heard through the ceiling. My BallyGoBrunch business partner Carol Boland’s place is across the hall from James. It’s all very, very cosy. A bit too cosy. But it’s just hard to resist James when I go up to his apartment to say hello after closing the café and he has the two glasses out for the wine. It’s a bit exciting, this fling business. And it’s nice to have someone to cuddle up beside. It was one of the main things I missed about John – falling asleep with my head on his chest watching The Office. No better feeling.

‘I’ll say no more about it now.’ Sadhbh finally cops via my silence that I’m not giving her anything more on the James topic. ‘But you’re seeing him every night of the week and I think you’re really going to miss him and you’ll regret letting him go when he leaves. That’s all.’ She waves her hand across her face in an ‘I’m done’ motion and I breathe a sigh of relief and hope that she’s wrong. ‘God, there’s nothing like a good fling, though, is there?’ she adds. ‘So wrapped up in each other, counting each other’s freckles.’

My freckles are a great source of torment to me. How could she? ‘What’s going on with the house,’ I say, determined to change the subject,

‘The builder is in now. Hallelujah!’ She whoops and raises her drink in the air, and I can just imagine the Japanese taking pictures of this mad Irishwoman to send to their friends and aunties. Sadhbh and Don had been in a bidding war on an old fixer-upper in Dublin for when he eventually gets off tour. Last I heard she’d been on the phone to the estate agent for three hours going up in €50 increments. Her strategy to annoy the other bidders into submission must have worked.

‘Ah, Sadhbhy, I’m delighted for you! When will you be moving in?’

‘The renovation should be all done and dusted by Christmas.’

‘Ah, what a present! I can’t wait to see it!’

‘Speaking of presents,’ she’s adopted a coy tone again, ‘what do you want for your thirtieth?’

‘Ah, nothing, nothing. I want no fuss,’ I say, shaking my head vigorously and meaning it.

‘It’s your thirtieth! Of course I’m getting you something.’ Sadhbh smiles. ‘Do you know who buys great presents, I bet? James Matthews.’

My eyes fall on the two Pandora bracelets in the jewellery box. Both identical and both from John, two Christmases apart. Not his finest moment, gift-wise. I choose to ignore Sadhbh’s hint about James and she mercifully carries on.

‘And Majella says you’re not having a party? Not even a night out?’

‘No, I’m grand. No fuss. I’ve enough to be doing.’

My birthday. My thirtieth birthday. It’s next month and I have no interest in it. It’s such a grown-up number and half the time I still feel like I’m a teenager asking Daddy for lifts and lusting over Shayne Ward with Majella. She wrote Shayne so many letters she got a solicitor’s one back. She framed it. And now Maj is engaged and Sadhbh and Don have their house and I’m back living at home with my mother, involved with a too-good-to-be-true man who’s about to leave. I suppose I’m just not where I thought I’d be and I’d rather not draw attention to it. Plus, life has been hectic these past few years and I definitely thought Daddy would be at my thirtieth making sure nobody gave me the bumps. It’s a good job, really, that I’m single and nowhere near getting married. The thought of walking up the aisle without him … No, I’m going to keep the head down and maybe buy an eye cream.

‘Are you sure, Aisling?’ Sadhbh cajoles. ‘You should mark it. Thirty is a milestone. You had Pablo jump out of a cake for Majella’s.’

I thought he’d be wearing more clothes to be quite honest.

‘I’m sure. I don’t think I’m quite ready to accept being thirty, Sadhbhy.’

Sadhbh brings the phone up close to her face. ‘You’re a successful businesswoman, you’ve looked after your mum, you’ve great friends and you’ve scored the most eligible bachelor in town. I’d say that’s pretty good going heading into a new decade.’

I blush again and begin my ‘stop that now’s and my ‘bye, bye, bye-bye, bye’s but as I look around my childhood bedroom, I can’t help feel like turning thirty single and in a single bed just isn’t worth celebrating.