Ciara O’Connor had finally worked up the courage to go to Pete’s tattoo parlour. She was terrified, and didn’t want to tell Jay in case at the last minute she backed out and didn’t go through with it. Dead nervous going on her own, she asked Dara Brennan, her best friend, to come along for moral support. They’d grown up a few doors away from each other, and with his mum, Fran, and her mum being best friends they were constantly thrown together as kids. Dara was studying computer science at UCD and was one mega computer-geek. Some people thought that he was weird, but to Ciara he was the funniest, craziest guy she knew. He still texted and Facebooked her every night before she went to sleep.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Dara asked, concerned.
‘Yes, a hundred per cent, but I just don’t want to go in there on my own, in case I faint or something.’
They had arranged to meet in The Gutter Bookshop on Cow’s Lane – Dara was engrossed in some computer expert’s new book on chaos and global warming.
She wore her worst baggy jeans and a dark T-shirt, and six-foot Dara, with his kind face, held her hand. She closed her eyes as Pete set to work, tattooing a small blue-green dragonfly with pink tinged wings on her hip. It was like being at the dentist, and she was terrified and couldn’t wait for it to be over. Pete, when he finished, proudly showed her the tattoo in a mirror. It did look kind of cool, and Ciara was glad that she had had it done. Dara bought her a reviving pizza and beer in The Bad Ass Café as a reward for being so brave.
Jay kissed and stroked the dragonfly, watching the undulation of her skin as she moved and the tattoo seemed to come to life.
‘It’s perfect,’ he said. Ciara knew that the dragonfly was a sign of just how much he meant to her.
She had worked her ass off all over Christmas and New Year in Danger Dan’s, because she was saving to go to Thailand in the summer and also to buy Amy and Dan a wedding present. Henry had let two of the temporary staff go, and it was hectic dealing with customers and making constant trips up and down to their tiny stockroom for boxes of comics. A new X-Men movie had opened, and everyone wanted to get superhero comics; the stuff was literally flying out the door. In January Henry had ordered more stock from the US, and was constantly phoning to see when it would arrive. Writing comic books was definitely the way to go, and Ciara planned to start one of her own. She told Jay, expecting him to be excited and encouraging, as he was such a great writer himself. She was gutted by his response, which was crushing.
‘Ciara, don’t tell me you think you are going to be the new Stan Lee!’
‘I’m just going to have a try.’ She laughed. ‘For fun!’
She told him about going to Thailand, too, imagining the two of them travelling in Asia together.
‘You go with your college friends; it’s what girls your age do!’
She hated it when Jay treated her like a kid and acted so superior.
At night they went out less and less, watching DVD after DVD. Jay told her that his hours in the call centre had been reduced and there was talk of redundancies.
‘What will you do?’ she asked.
‘I’ll get by.’ He shushed her, saying things would work out as he was involved in some new experimental drama project with Feargal. ‘We’re rehearsing and going to put it on in the theatre in Tallaght, and then we are hoping to take it to the Edinburgh Festival.’
One afternoon, when a lecture had been cancelled, Ciara decided to surprise him, getting the bus to Rathmines in the afternoon and racing up the stairs of the tall red-bricked house to his second-floor apartment. Jay was strangely reluctant to let her in, telling her that he was busy and that he’d phone her later. Why she did it she didn’t know, but she sat on the stairs of the first-floor landing, waiting. Waiting for him, perhaps, but instead seeing the petite girl with long dark hair and ribbed purple leggings who emerged from his room hours later. She heard them kiss and say goodbye, and sat rigid like a statue on the stair as the girl passed her by.
She wanted to go and knock at his door and shout at him, scream at him. Call him names and curse him. But instead she stayed silent, looking out of the tall window on the landing until darkness fell.
At home she stayed in bed for nearly five days, telling her mum and dad that she was sick. Helen had fussed and worried about her having the flu. She plied Ciara with hot lemon drinks and tea and toast and tissues, asking her constantly if she was feeling OK, when she clearly wasn’t. Ciara felt wretched and weak and sick to her soul, angry with herself for being so stupid. She felt like she had been under a spell, and suddenly it had been broken. Dara told her on Facebook that she was going to be OK, and called Jay every bad name he could think of.
Jay phoned her twice but she lied that she was too busy with college work to see him.
She saw him in the street a few times later. Once, he was with Fergal, and a couple of times with the girl. The girl with the purple leggings was holding his hand, entranced the way Ciara had been, and Ciara wondered if she had got a tattoo, too.