Windy Arbour

I step off at d'Olier Street even though I want the bus to take me further. Every pause in me doesn't want this morning, doesn't wish to keep this date. I disembark to the dark rushing public and the playing discman noise.

7.36am. One hour and a half.

I make for Bewleys ("you'll be grand, it's just talking...") and absently go to pay the nice lady serving the coffee and smiling despite the dark and stupid early hour.

"Just over there, love, at the till."

"Oh right, sorry. Thanks."

I pay. I leave a tip of twenty cent change. I sit down and I'm happy because in one hour it won't have happened yet. It won't have happened ("you're ok to be nervous but it's just talking...") so that's all grand and I drink my coffee and I watch the January faces that come to Bewleys at this the dark and stupid early hour.

No couples. No old women. Three students. Together. A man in a scarf who could be me. A girl too young to wear her suit. A woman smoking and a man watching her, pretending to read his paper.

I sip, gulp, swallow, sit, shake, stir, fidget. I don't pretend to read. I just sit there, caffeine and sweat.

8.10am.

I remember the dry run, the plotting of the time on Friday past. Bus stop at 8.20am and I'll just be on time. Maybe a little under. Rehearsal. Take the 48A from Townsend Street because the terminus is always reliable and ("she's done this a thousand times before. Someone new a thousand times before, remember that...") very few people think to get on there. Rehearsal.

8.14am.

The bus pulls up but doesn't open. The driver scans The Sun for nudes and Britney, sips his own coffee and smokes a cigarette and we might not be there yet for all he cares. Fleeting paying monkeys in five minutes but not now. He flicks, flicks, smokes and leafs.

8.20am.

I sit upstairs, on the left, on my own, go into my bag, pick a CD for all its use. Just a way to block out the throng, the mess of suits ("you won't feel the hour go. You might even enjoy it...") and their shiny Christmas watches. Cuff links and new shirt splendour.

The shuffle song is 'Scars' and I laugh a little irony. Then it occurs to me that there is irony in everything when there's 35 minutes to go to just talking, just talking like a thousand times before. Everything has its subtle little twist, its own twist as the clock ticks over.

Down Townsend Street. Up Lombard Street. Stop on Westland Row ("don't cover up your scaaars..."). On to Merrion Square and away towards Ranelagh.

I take out the directions. I did this on Friday. I take out the directions and make sure the drawing hasn't changed before I ding the bell.

You'll go over the bridge and see the shops on your left. Just past those shops is a stop. Once the bus has gone past that stop, stand up and ring the bell. You're getting off just after the Industrial Estate on your left.

Ding.

8.55am.

I pause to stay on, that dance again, I get off the bus and I just stand for one moment hoping for burst pipes in a snowstorm. Some sudden ("don't think about it before you go in, put it out of your head until the last moment...") deluge as with sixth year and the homework left at home.

A storm that doesn't come, the music's off. Feet are walking, some queer momentum, and three minutes early I ring the doorbell.