I met him on a wet Thursday evening outside Whelan’s, when the rain had turned Camden Street silver and everyone was pretending they didn’t mind being soaked. I was there for a friend’s gig, standing under the narrow shelter with a paper cup of coffee I’d bought more for warmth than taste. He asked if I knew whether the support act had started, and when I said I didn’t, he smiled like he’d already forgiven me for not knowing. His name was Conor. He had kind eyes, a careful voice, and the sort of calm that made me feel noisy in my own skin.
We spent that night talking more than listening to music. He told me he worked in design, lived near Portobello, and liked walking by the canal when he couldn’t sleep. I told him I taught primary school, lived with two housemates in Phibsborough, and was trying to become the kind of person who didn’t check her phone first thing in the morning. He laughed at that, softly, and said, “Let me know if you manage it.” By the time we stepped back out into the rain, I felt as if Dublin had shrunk down to the space between us.
For the first month, he was wonderful in a way that was difficult to question. We met for coffee near Dublin Castle, had pints in a small pub off Dame Street, and once spent an entire Sunday walking from St Stephen’s Green to the Grand Canal because neither of us wanted to say goodbye. He remembered small things. He knew I hated coriander. He sent me photos of strange dogs he saw on his lunch break. He kissed me outside my door like he had nowhere else to be.
But there were gaps in him. At first I thought they were shyness. Then I thought they were sadness. If I asked about his family, he gave me the outline but never the colour. If I mentioned the future, even lightly, he changed the subject with such skill that I sometimes didn’t notice until later. He could talk for hours about films, music, old buildings, bad coffee, and the oddness of strangers on buses, but when I said, “I really like you,” he went quiet, as if I’d placed something fragile and unwanted in his hands.
I should have listened to that quiet. Instead, I tried to fill it. I became cheerful enough for both of us. I made plans that sounded casual. I told myself he was afraid because he’d been hurt before, although he had never actually said that. I turned his distance into a mystery and then called it depth. Every delayed text became something I analysed with the seriousness of a Leaving Cert paper. Every warm evening made me forget the cold ones.
The worst part was that he wasn’t cruel. If he had been cruel, I think I would have left earlier. He was gentle. He was affectionate when we were together. He listened when I spoke. But affection is not the same as availability, and listening is not the same as letting someone in. I learned that slowly, then all at once.
It happened one Friday in November. We had arranged to meet in town after work and go for dinner. I’d been looking forward to it all week. I wore a green coat my mother said made me look “less tired,” and I arrived early, standing outside a restaurant near George’s Street while people hurried past with scarves pulled up around their faces. Ten minutes went by. Then twenty. I texted. No reply. After forty minutes, he wrote, “I’m sorry. I can’t tonight. Head is all over the place.”
I stared at the message until the words stopped making sense. I wasn’t angry at first. I was embarrassed. Embarrassed that I had been standing there smiling at my phone. Embarrassed that the waitress had looked out twice. Embarrassed that I had imagined this evening meaning something because I needed it to. I walked without thinking and ended up near the Ha’penny Bridge, watching the Liffey move darkly under the lights.
He called me later that night. I was home by then, sitting on my bed, still wearing the green coat. His voice was tired. He said he was sorry. He said he
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