Away Day

WE DRIFTED then, you and me. Moving apart all the time. Like kids on an airbed, floating, eyes closed, to discover too late we’d drifted too far. The sun was sinking, the water grey, the certainty of solid ground out of reach. We'd set off together for faraway horizons in that summer of optimism. 

We held hands and stayed close for a time, and if asked when that changed I couldn’t have said. Hands empty and cold, I turned my head and barely made out a shape on the water that could have been you – or somebody else. Maybe that was you on the shore, a matchstick moving away, back up the beach, headed for shelter? 

Bray seafront (Image may be subject to copyright)

But we were not children and never had days of careless, thoughtless floating – on water or anywhere else – except, maybe, that day when it rained so hard on the roof we could not hear the pennies drop 

in the metal trays of the 

one-armed bandits. We’d taken the Dart out to Bray, telling ourselves once we got there we’d do the coast walk to Greystones. 

But we never made it off the promenade, trawling instead between the amusement arcade and the chipper. 

There a squared-off man with heavy hands silently counted the coins we spilled on the counter in exchange for fresh cod that was frozen and chips. Hunched on cold boulders, we wiped vinegar and grease from our chins with our hands, and silently looked out to Howth and the next bank of clouds rolling in. 

Image may be subject to copyright

Then you found a €20 note in your pocket and we went to the pub. Sat by a fire that wasn’t remotely incongruous in July and drank big pints of stout till the money was spent. And two bags of crisps with the last round.

We stole a ride home on the train, getting off twice when ticket inspectors got on. At Tara Street, as expected, the turnstiles were unguarded and open, so it all ended there, and we parted.