Pulling the duvet up over her face and ears, Anna Ryan tried to keep herself warm and block out the nasty world that was waiting for her to emerge from her cocoon of sleep, drink and daydreaming. Her mouth, tongue and throat felt as if they were growing some kind of obscure turgid bacteria; how she wished she had had the foresight to bring a glass of water to bed with her last night. She contemplated the clock and the skinny strip of daylight that teased through her heavy chocolate-brown curtains. It was midday already.
Why did she do it? Waste her time going to one of those awful student-type parties in an overcrowded apartment in Temple Bar where you had to shout over the Killers to be heard and where everyone was dressed in black and drinking cheap red wine, talking about scripts and trying to be sophisticated? Why did her drama students always have to be so predictable! She should have had more sense and left early like she had planned – made a polite appearance and then got a taxi home instead of staying there till four a.m. arguing about the state of the Abbey Theatre and whether plays should aim for Broadway or broke. She must be mad talking to a load of twenty-year-olds about the complicated influences on the structure of Irish drama on a Saturday night. She was pathetic. She had hoped Philip would turn up, only discovering at midnight when she texted him that he had gone to Kilkenny to run a workshop with a theatre group over the weekend, a fact that he had forgotten to mention to her. Philip Flynn worked with her in the college’s English department and as neither of them was involved with anyone, a somewhat unusual relationship had developed between them. With a mutual passion for theatre and literature, they often attended events together, sharing a bottle of wine or supper afterwards. There had been one or two late-night boozy romantic skirmishes between them but somehow good sense had prevailed and they had managed to avoid spoiling it. He was an interesting man and although others considered him self-centred – self-absorbed – and somewhat aloof, she understood the passion for drama and poetry that drove his personality. Still, a phone call from him would have been nice and saved her making an absolute eejit of herself!
She groaned, staring at the wall, wishing the day was over before it had even begun. She would have dearly loved to give in to her hangover and loll in bed for the rest of the day but she remembered that she had promised to go for Sunday lunch at her mother’s. If she didn’t show up Maggie Ryan would have a search party out hunting for her, which meant that one of her sisters would turn up, give her a lecture and see the calamitous mess and state of her house – a fate she intended to avoid at all costs.
Stretching gradually, she braved getting out of bed. She looked and felt absolutely mind-blowingly awful. Clutching at walls like an invalid, she gingerly made it to the bathroom. Her brown wavy hair was in a frizz that even the bravest hairdresser wouldn’t touch and her freckles stood out like paint spatters on her pale face; her eyes were smudged and smeared with that stupid natural plant dye mascara that she had been trying out. Throwing cold water on her face and neck to revive herself she realized carbs and coffee were urgently needed and, wrapping herself in the duvet, struggled to the kitchen for a mug of coffee and a slice of toasted brown bread. She had only instant and a half a carton of milk, but the brown bread she found was in no fit state to be handled, let alone toasted. Desperate, she searched her kitchen presses and the fridge for something to eat, torn between a half-packet of water crackers and a pecan-nut cluster bar. She opted for the water crackers, which she smeared with butter and a slice of Edam cheese topped with a smidgen of peanut butter that was rather ancient-looking but still in date.
A good hot shower and she might even begin to feel human in about an hour, she thought. Scrambling among the clutter of newspapers and books strewn on the kitchen table she searched for the copy of the new volume of poems by an incredible woman Russian poet who had moved to Ireland. It was here somewhere . . . Ah! Finding it, she gave a sigh of contentment as the caffeine began to work its magic. Curling up in the chair, she began to read.