Diving for Pearls by Jamie O'Connell

Author:Jamie O'Connell [O’Connell, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473586864
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2021-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

Joan

The electronic doors of Cork train station open and close; orange screens glow with the times of the arriving trains; Joan glances around, looking at the compact AMT café, beside a newsagent bursting with newspapers and magazines. There’s a delicious smell of coffee. People moving quickly across the highly polished floor.

No text from Stevo. He better be out of bed. A devil for keeping time, even before the drink.

‘Now, you’re definitely staying in tonight?’ she asked the previous evening. ‘I can’t be dealing with you hungover.’

‘What do you take me for?’ he said. There was that slight slur to his words, now permanent, like he’d drunk too much alcohol over the last three decades and now he could never quite sober up.

‘I’m trusting you now. You have clothes detergent in the cupboard? I’ve most of the rest packed.’

‘Ah.’

‘I’ll bring some.’

‘You know I’m in a new place now, Jo,’ he said. ‘I’m on that hill to St Luke’s.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. I was there last time.’

‘You were?’

‘I was. Remember. When you had your appointment in the Victoria.’

The station doors close; the sun comes out as Joan walks towards the city centre, her small case behind her. The traffic speeds by, hatchbacks and silver saloons slipping past St Patrick’s church. A purple-grey wall rises, half covered with emerald creepers and large billboards – a red-and-white Vodafone advertisement, the gold tones of a film poster, and a monochrome Guinness announcement (the lower half torn, curving like a wave). Behind, old houses retreat up the hillside, warm creams, yellows and soft pinks.

Cork is a special place. She does miss its cosiness, the way she was always near anyone if they were somewhere in the city. She stops at the top of MacCurtain Street, the facades of the buildings stitched together, various heights and colours – bright pinks, baby blues, off-whites and canary yellows. Swinging signs hang one floor up – ‘Shandon Taxi Cabs’, ‘The Berries’ and ‘Coca-Cola’ – while the neon lights of the Adult Store flicker on and off. She enjoys the patchwork, the noise of the beeping cars, the shopfronts; a bit rough around the edges, yes, but her native land.

She looks over at the Metropole hotel, with the yellow turret on one of its corners. Three decades earlier she stood on this very spot. In her head, the past seems sepia-coloured, but maybe her memory has been affected by photographs.

‘Wouldn’t you love to live in that little tower?’ she’d said to Jack. They were heading towards the city centre for the St Patrick’s Day Parade.

‘You’d throw down your hair to me?’ he’d replied.

‘Not a hope.’ She had tried not to smile. ‘I’d take my chances with the witch.’ His hand touched her backside. ‘Stop that. You’re desperate.’ She laughed.

She didn’t realize then that Jack was the sort of man who was never going to grow up: putting his finger into her nostril while she watched TV, grabbing her backside when she walked up stairs, and driving through puddles so they’d spray everywhere. ‘You’ll be the death of me,’ she often said.

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