Week 5 - description of the 'flu or similar - Laura

My mouth was dry like the Cork Gin, and my head hurt like I’d been drinking the stuff since going to bed the previous night.

My brain felt like a bruise that was being leaned on.

If my nose was the Port Tunnel, one of the bores was closed. As a result of that, coupled with decreased capacity lungs that cut short each inhalation, breathing was a test I was getting just a passing grade in.

Conversely, my muscles seemed to be breathing in pain all by themselves.

The crackling in my ears suggested a loose wire in my body’s speakers, or perhaps that I’d spent the night on a long haul flight.

I swallowed. The cold air was sharp, ripping the walls of my throat as it went down and reminding me of a mouthful of ice-cream swallowed too soon.

An involuntary cough woke the dragon that had until now been contained in my chest cavity, and its burning, fiery bark brought with it a different, but similarly arduous, pain on the way back up.

This ‘flu was on top of its game.

Week 4 - Family - Andy

I want to tell the story of my family. It's not a particularly long story.

A thin woman with dark hair, jeans and a jacket is walking along a city street. She has a handbag over one shoulder, and in a box, she has a birthday cake. This is for a colleague of hers. It’s a victoria sponge, with cream filling. There is clumsy icing on the top, and the woman has candles in her handbag.

The woman stops walking, and carefully places the cake on a windowsill. Then she falls over. People run to her, and they call an ambulance. It takes thirty five minutes to get there, even though you could walk to the hospital in fifteen. When the ambulance arrives, a man and two teenage girls have been taking care of the woman. They put a coat over her, to keep her warm, and the man has been holding her hand and telling her she’s going to be all right.

The woman blinks and smiles. Her face looks strange, uneven. She tries to say she’s ok, but it comes out slurred. She smiles at the girls, but it looks like a grimace. The woman arrives at the hospital fifty five minutes after she put the cake on the windowsill.

The hospital go through her bag, set aside the candles, and find her ID, and call her office. They tell give the nurse the details of her next of kin, her husband. All of this takes time.

She has a second stroke an hour and twenty minutes after she put the cake down, four minutes before I arrived at the hospital. I sat beside her bed for almost two days. Then the machines were switched off. and I held her hand until it was cold. I used to say she had cold hands when she got into bed. I had a very childish thought. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wasn’t ready.

Cait’s favourite song was ‘Calling Occupants of Extraordinary Craft’ by the Carpenters. That was my only contribution to her funeral. Her family organised everything. Her brother didn’t think she liked that song. I didn’t feel like telling him about the time we lay naked on a bed in a B&B in Donegal, with her playing it over and over again on her phone. Both of us singing the words, and humming along with the guitar bit.

I play over everything that happened that morning. I think about how I had an early meeting. I had to present a new finance process to the team, and I talked through it with myself in the shower. I got dressed in the dark. I used to hang my shirt on the wardrobe door, so I wouldn’t wake Cait.

I made a car cup of instant coffee, scalded my mouth, put on my shoes, and went into the bedroom to say goodbye.

“How are you feeling, love?” I said.

She twisted her head up to me.

“I’ve a mouldy headache, I’d a crap night’s sleep”

“I hope you feel better, we’ve pills in the kitchen”

“Sure I’ll be grand, how are you feeling?”

“Grand - I scalded myself on the coffee, listen, I’ve to run - I’m late”.

I kissed her, and she snuggled back into the pillow.

The last thing I said to Cait was that I scalded myself on some coffee. She had a headache that was a precursor to the massive brain bleed that would kill her four hours later, and I told her there was paracetamol in the kitchen.

I drove the same road I’ve always driven - ninety minutes door-to-door. I know I got petrol on the way, because I found a receipt, but I can’t remember getting it. It was a tuesday, so I probably did. I mostly got petrol on a Tuesday on the way in. I can’t remember it at all.

I can’t remember anything about the meeting, and I’ve never looked for the notes on it. Everything about that morning seems grotesque. She was alive, and we were apart. I try to picture it, and it’s all gothic skies and darkness, a manic cartoon of bad traffic and shouting radios.

The previous night, Cait had made the cake - her colleague didn’t have any family in Ireland, and Cait wanted to make sure she had something homemade on her birthday. I spent the evening staring at my laptop, and watching videos of people shoot things with paintballs in slow motion. We had a cup of tea, staring at the television - repeats of old episodes of Family Guy, that we’d seen at least twice before, and went to bed, promising to go to bed earlier the next night.

I wasn’t ready for her to be dead.

I stayed with my brother and his wife for a few days after the funeral. I didn’t go back to \work, and I spent the days in the gym. I ran on a treadmill until it hurt, and when it hurt, I sped up, until I thought couldn’t run anymore, and then I sat down on a bench, and started thinking about Cait, and thinking about the four minutes I was late.

I wanted to tell her I love her forever. I wanted to take back everytime I complained about  going to dinner parties with her. I wanted to feel her hand, warm in mine. One day, at two o’clock in the morning, I drove into town, to where she collapsed, panicked, in case the cake was still there.

Week 4 - "Family" - Laura

I've had hairy toes for long enough to know I might never be a mother. In fact the only reason I've just peed on a stick is to nip the hope Noreen gave me in work today when she insisted I was pregnant in the bud. Admittedly I had actually fallen asleep at my desk. And she doesn't even know I had cheese - which I don't even like - for lunch after passing a little shop close to the office with its smelly wares on display.

There's three minutes left until I confirm that Noreen's wrong. That there will be no little romper suits in our house in a year. No little person innocently reclaiming the word 'romp' from the front page headlines of the tabloids in those romper suits. None of the cute accoutrements that come with little people. No moses basket, no pram, no tiny little socks, no baby bath sitting in our regular-sized one, no crocheted baby blanket Nana would have begun within minutes of hearing there was another great-grandchild in the making.

Two minutes and 35 seconds. Really, I've no idea why I'm even doing this. In just over two minutes Clearblue is going to mock me, telling me I should have spent the money on a decent bottle of wine to go with the steaks Ross is making for dinner instead. It's not like I'm not aware of what's going on with my reproductive system. Or what's not going on with it rather. Having menstruated about five times in the last three years thanks to the sexily-named polycystic ovary syndrome is, I'm pretty sure, almost a fail-safe method of contraception.

Two minutes. Since when have minutes been so bloody long? I shouldn't have even entertained thoughts of moses baskets just now. I'm going to expect to see one upstairs later and feel a little crushed inside, missing something that never was in the first place.

Just over a minute and a half. Really not having a baby is a good thing. Honestly. I'm sure my friends and siblings are going to have some shortly, so I'll always have access to little people. God that sounds a bit creepy even though I don't mean it like that. But seriously, not having our own children is really a blessing. Who wants gross things like breast pads in their life? No me, no sir.

A minute and five seconds. I'm not that keen on CBeebies either now that I think about it, and God forbid that bloody dinosaur is still singing somewhere. No, best that I can keep my tv viewing to 'Location, Location, Location', 'Grand Designs' and their ilk.

Fifty seconds. Not having a kid is great for us in lots of other ways too. There's no way we'd be having steak on a Tuesday night if it wasn't just the two of us. And think of all the missed holidays! There's no way Japan would have happened if it wasn't just us, nor the long weekend in Venice we're planning next month. I know we're not minted, but it's cool having a bit of money to spend on good times like that, and having the prospect of way more holidays to come instead of paying for childcare and putting money in a college fund.

Thirty seconds. And the car. I really don't fancy trading in our Beemer for a Volvo or some other sensible thing. I don't want to swap eyebrow-raising envy from other drivers for eyeball-rolling pity. The shame! No thanks!

Twenty seconds. Our house is really only big enough for us now too. If there was anyone else there'd be nowhere for friends to stay when they came to visit. The spare room would have to be turned into the baby's room.

Ten seconds. It's cool that we're not actually tied down either. Sure, we're both in decent jobs, but if we decide to up sticks and move tomorrow we've only ourselves to take care of. Which is amazing. A baby would only drag us down, definitely.

DING.

Week 3 - Breakup letter - Laura

Dear Prince Charming,

Count this fairytale over; I’ve found out about your sordid little affair with Snow White.

Yours-in-rage,

Cinderella

ps. I want half the kingdom.

Week 3 - Breakup Letter - Andy

Jane,

It's with a great sadness that I write this letter. Our relationship, such as it is has come to a sad end.

I want to make sure that you get closure, so I'm happy to share with you the reasons I think we should bring our 'affair-de-coeur' to a close, and why I need to set you free so that you can fly.

1) You don't respect my career choices. How many mornings did you call me from your humdrum office to ask me what I was planning on doing today? When I am clearly observing life, so that I can reflect it as a comedian. Every time I say this, you claim - rather blithely - that I should maybe write some jokes. But that's not what a comedian does! A comedian searches to preach truth, and to observe humanity in its purest form. I was under the impression that you rather enjoyed your role in our relationship as 'patron of the arts'. The sad occasion upon which I brought this up is the subject of point number two.

2) You are verbally abusive - I'm not sure if you have the self awareness to understand how much you undermine me, or how much my self confidence has suffered during my relationship with you. Every whispered 'for F--'s sake', and 'ah here' was another cut at my psyche. Every time I fell afoul of one of your 'rules' (and you do like to play little tin god!) I found myself in the way of one of your legendary tongue lashings! When you came back from pushing paper to find me, deep in the creative process - Creating! Dreaming! - You cut me down with your talk of 'Breakfast dishes' and 'at least put the milk in the fridge!'. I am not your domestic!

3) You don't validate me - As a creative, comedic person, I'm not too big to admit that I have certain 'insecurities'. Yes, I worry if the path I have chosen is the right one, If Stand-up Comedy is genuinely the form that I shall be remembered for. You, however, capitalize on that! Every time I mention my art, you ask me about 'gigs', or 'material'. When I performed my monologue for you - a masterpiece of pithy observation, mind! You only saw the basest, crassest form of the medium - you could not hear the truth, unless it came balanced with a 'punchline'. Yes, the material dealt with our relationship - but that is the truth of our lives! Surely you can see that my impression of your mother exploring her sexuality was not personal, rather just me holding up a mirror to the small-town, small-minded values she has passed on to you. Which brings me to...

4) Sexually, I intimidate you. Don't get me wrong. our lovemaking had the potential to be glorious. But I knew we were not compatible. Take that Tuesday you claimed you had to work late. I prepared a sumptuous erotic banquet of flesh for you - a shockingly decadent mixture of pleasure and pain. I had planned on hours of athletic, dangerous - and yes, sometimes demeaning exploration of each others bodies. I had purchased a variety of premium lubricants. But you - coldly - rejected the prospect of this journey into deepest sensation. You came into the apartment, took one look at the swing i had mounted and sat on the sofa in your winter coat, asking me to rub your feet, sobbing and self-absorbedly mumbling something about your performance review and redundancies. I despair for your future lovers.

5) I worry that I'll break you emotionally. Believe it or not, I care deeply for you. My biggest concern in ending our relationship is for your feelings. I want you to grow as a person, and I recognise that I am holding you back. In another sense, you are holding me back - we hold each other back. Let’s blossom together, apart.

I would ask that you not share this letter with anyone else, even though it is quite well written, and has a number of very apt and wry observations (I may use some of these in my standup comedy). The confidentiality is more for your sake than mine. I want to make sure that we remain respectful during this painful and sad process.

With love and tears,

Dennis

Week 2 - Andy - A fictional scene set around a cup of coffee.

We meet in what was meant to be the lobby of the Tallaght Mandarin Oriental hotel. The hotel was built, mostly fitted out and furnished, and then three weeks before it was due to open, the money ran out. Just as quickly, the owners locked the door and walked away. Six months later, the hotel was re-opened by the current owners - the Irish government.

Thirty five of its one hundred and fifty rooms are now home to families that have been temporarily rehoused.

I’m here to meet Sean and Vivian. It’s not the first time I’ve spoken to them, but it will be the last. She is a tiny blonde woman with a baby-vomit stain on her fleece that she hasn’t noticed yet, and he is an angry man in a Manchester United Jersey and jeans.

We shake hands in the lobby, and we walk through the dusty reception area - Sean points to the bank of lifts ‘Of course, they stopped working as soon as we got here’, he says. Vivian apologizes that we have to take the stairs. She says we’re going to go to the cafe-bar.

The cafe is on the second floor. It’s a long room, the length of the building. One whole wall is made of glass, and there’s a floor to ceiling view of a motorway and a supermarket car park. On the other side, there is a bar, and there’s still plastic covering on about half of the chairs and tables. Most of the electrical fittings are missing, there are just holes in the plaster, with thick gray cable covered in insulation tape poking through. The only light comes from the huge window. The whole room looks overcast.

Sean goes behind the bar and offers me tea or coffee. There are Guinness and Carlsberg taps that aren’t connected, and dark bar fridges, taped closed. One of the fridges is switched on - the only source of electric light in the room, and inside, I can see a two litre bottle of milk, three cans of seven up and some bananas. On the bar, there’s a paint flecked kettle, and a tub of Maxwell house. I say yes to the coffee, and Sean spoons out instant coffee into three dusty Mandarin Oriental mugs.

Vivian starts to talk. I know the story from the newspapers, but she needs to tell it again. When she speaks, these are words she’s said before; to reporters, at rallies and protests, and to politicians.

‘They came in a week before christmas - I remember, because we were putting up the tree when they knocked. They had the guards with them. It was O’Reilly - he’s the one you still see on the news - he was the one doing the talking. All the stuff you already know - the apartments aren’t safe, they’ll go up like a match.

We didn’t think he was serious, then he said that we had 48 hours to evacuate. That was the word he used, ‘evacuate’, like it was a flood or something. He said that we had temporary accomodation waiting for us, and that he apologised that this was just before Christmas, but that there’s nothing he can do.

I threw some stuff together, tried to get everything I could for the kids - we didn’t even have suitcases. At the time, I was driving the Yaris, so I had to get Janine - she’s my sister - to look after the kids, while I was driving back and forth. I had to do about five trips that day, filled up the car with everything i could. Sure, we didn’t know when we’d be back in.’

Sean cuts in - ‘That was two years ago, now. The first few months, they kept saying that they’d sort us out, that we’d be back in the houses in no time. Now we’re all stuck here.’

I nod, and take a sip of the coffee.

Vivian tells me about the court cases, and about the inspections.

‘They were thrown up, these buildings - they didn’t care, and it’s all bogged down in this regulation. The council are terrified that if they give us anything, they’ll find out that half the city are in the same hole.  The banks are still chasing us for the mortgages. It’s all fine for them to make bad choices, but when we’re ripped off, they’re happy for us to sing for it. I don’t know what we’re going to do’

She finishes, ending on the soundbite that I’ve heard before. Sean nods, and we sit there in the gloom of the hotel. Sean stands up, goes behind the bar and comes back with a saucer of three chocolate digestives. He has a fourth one in his hand, and he’s taken a bite out of it.

The part they haven’t mentioned yet surprises me. These apartments were built by Derek McShannon. McShannon wasn’t the biggest builder during the Celtic Tiger, but his name is on a few medium sized developments around the city. He’s often talked about as an example of how criminal reform works. During the 80s, he served time in Mountjoy, for armed robbery.

He always made vague claims that the robberies were  politically motivated, but Sinn Fein have never acknowledged him in the press. He opened a small building firm once he came out of jail, and between Dublin and Liverpool, he took on a few development projects. By 2007, when Vivian & Sean’s apartments were built, he was named in sunday supplements about ‘Celtic Tiger Builders’.

I know they’re going to get around to talking about him. Once you get to the point where I’m involved, and you’re going to ask me to step in, you’ve been through every option. Everyone I deal with at this level though - the first-timers, wants to go through this process. They start off explaining the situation, then they go through the different options they tried, and finally, get to the point where there’s only one possibility left.

I sip the coffee, and Vivian & Sean talk through the appeals, and how bankruptcy law works against them, and how they have tried different appeals.

Most people in my business avoid these conversations. They take the approach that they just want a name and a sum of money, as little as possible to connect them to anyone involved. I’ve tried that a few times, and it still frightens me that I did. The client needs to feel that they are part of the event. I don’t want any last-minute fits of remorse, between the contract and the hit. There can’t be any frantic calls to the gardai, or worse - the target.  I want Vivian and Sean to be comfortable, resolved.

When Derek McShannon’s body is pulled out of a car crash in three or four days time (depending on local garda activity on the stretch of road I’ve already picked out near his house), I want them to feel that this was the only option.

They need to sleep at night, even if it isn’t in their own house.

They need to drink better coffee.

Week 2 - a single fictional scene set around a cup of coffee

“They treat us like fucking mushrooms,” Ed, the senior reporter, spat, as we waited for the kettle to boil. “Keeping us in the dark about everything and feeding us shite.”

We were confident today’s meeting wasn’t going to include news of bonuses being reinstated. We were also confident our lack of confidence about whether or not we’d even have jobs this time next week was well-placed. Really all that was left was to find out what, specifically, the bad news was. That was what this 10.30am meeting was about, and we were down to about five minutes before we expected Arnold, the MD, to arrive and reveal all.

“Happy birthday to me,” I added, glumly. “It’s bad enough having to spend my birthday in this crappy newsroom, but having this meeting with Arnie really takes the biscuit.”

“Speaking of,” Ruby, the sports reporter, piped up, “do we have any biscuits, given the crap day that’s in it?”

“Nope,” Ed replied. “Mushrooms don’t eat biscuits.”

“Calm down,” I said, spooning coffee from the industrial-sized tin of Maxwell House, which we all hated but drank about a gallon of each day in work regardless, into three chipped white mugs with Knockrinny Chronicle printed on the side - a throwback from the good days when we were awash with corporate branding. “Maybe it’s not as bad as we think.”

“Make sure you hold on tight to that mug,” Ruby quipped. “If your grip on it is anything like your grip on reality right now I’ve a feeling you’ve coffee-soaked clothes and a broken mug in your near future.”

Disappointing coffee made, we all trooped back to our desks and awaited our fate.

“He’s here!,” Ruby, who sat closer to the stairs and in addition had a keen sense of hearing, squeaked.

As Arnold climbed the stairs a sense of doom settled on us. This was it.

“Hi folks,” a chipper Arnold began as his head popped into view, followed by his fancy suit, coffee and shoes. Almost as if we’d practised we chorused “hi” back in a wary monotone, focusing on our suddenly attention-worthy coffees.

“Guys, I know you’re all uncertain about what’s going on, so I’m going to press straight on,” Arnold began, in that faux-concerned tone we’d come to recognise.

“As you know, right now is a very difficult time for Murtagh Media,” he continued, pulling up a chair in a manner that suggested we were about to start a friendly book club meeting instead of find out what was to happen to our fledgling careers.

“We all know that the bottom fell right out of the economy last year, and while the group is still afloat, changes are necessary to ensure that remains the case into the future,” he continued.

“Certainly,” he admitted, “I have to deliver some bad news today. But let me tell you it’s not as bad as it could have been. Not by half.”

“Focus, Lucy,” I silently coached myself, swallowing the lump that had formed in my throat.

“Fabian Murtagh asked me to close the Knockrinny Chronicle,” Arnold said baldly, before taking a deep swig of his takeaway coffee.

“Don’t think about it,” I told myself, trying to ignore the tears I could feel behind my eyes. “Think happy thoughts. You can cry all you want later, but don’t let him see you breaking down now.” I couldn’t look around to see how Ed and Ruby were dealing with the chat, but judging by the atmosphere in the room I was pretty sure they were doing much the same as me.

“However I implored him not to go down that road,” Arnold continued, unaware or perhaps uncomfortable with the emotion that had entered the room, “and the good news is that I have six months to prove to him that closing is not the way forward. However, saving this newspaper means having to take some actions that are, shall we say, unpalatable.”

Eyes still averted, I concentrated on getting my mug to my mouth and back to the table again without being scuppered by shaking hands that even Hyacinth Bucket’s neighbour Elizabeth would pity.

“I’m not going to drag this out,” Arnold said. “Let me spell out in clear terms where we go from here. The Knockrinny Chronicle is at present a paid-for weekly title. Going forward it will make the transition to becoming a free title. As a result advertising revenues should increase, lighting the way to a much stronger future for the title.

“However, the bad news - and I must underline how difficult it is for me to say this - the bad news is that in order to do all we can to ensure the survival of the Knockrinny Chronicle, cost savings must be made. To that end, it’s been decided to cut reporter numbers from three to just one, who will relocate to work from the main Inch Echo office.

“I know this is hard, and it means two of you losing jobs in an uncertain market. I want you to know that I rate every one of you as journalists, and so rather than choose who should stay I’m going to leave to let you discuss this between yourselves and with your friends and families. I will accept applications for the one remaining Knockrinny Chronicle post up until Monday week, and the new conditions will be put in place one month from now.”

Binning the remainder of his coffee, which would no doubt be put down as an expense anyway, Arnold trotted down the stairs, leaving us drowning in a morose silence.

“Oh fuck,” Ruby whispered.

I began to laugh in spite of, or probably because of, the curveball we’d just been thrown.

“Come on,” Ed said, adding the only sensible thing I’d heard all morning. “We’re going for a proper drink.”