Chapter 10

A month later I woke up and realised that I’d spent the last few weeks of my life, since my break up with Alexandra, mopping around doing nothing with my life. At first I felt such relief that I’d ended it with her, but later on more and more I’d been unable to get her out of my mind. I think I was half hoping that she’d come running back to me with tears streaming down her face begging for forgiveness. Though I knew in reality that wasn’t going to happen.
I looked at myself in the mirror and said something along the lines of, “Fuck me if I’m going to spend the rest of my life waiting for that bitch to come running back to me.” I looked at the sunshine outside, “I’ve tried to make it work with her and she’s made it perfectly clear that she’s not interested in me.” I took a deep breath, “There are millions of girls in the world. Most of them more attractive than her.” Though looking back I think that last statement might have been a bit over optimistic.
Any way, I had a shower and got dressed, I even shaved, and over lunch decided to find someone else to share my life with. Or at the very least to console myself with. A nice sympathetic young woman, who’d feel soft and warm in my arms.
I went into town and wondered around the shops trying to find something I wanted to buy. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, it was just that I felt somewhat depressed and there’s nothing for lifting my spirits than spending a month’s disposable income in one afternoon. I start feeling near the edge of safety knowing I have no money left to spend. The trouble with credit cards is that it tends to be next month’s disposable income that I spend !
But that day I just wasn’t in the mood. Maybe I wasn’t depressed enough. Or maybe I was more depressed than I thought I was. Even the computer games in the Virgin Megastore couldn’t tempt me. And that’s normally a sure fire way of getting me to depart with my money.
I guess I was feeling on edge already. It must of been the full moon or something, because I just couldn’t get interested enough in anything to want to buy it. Nothing flared my interest. Or rather my mind was only on one thing, finding someone to take my mind off Alexandra.
I ended up in the Gallery of Photography. They were showing an exhibition by some guy called Tony Ryan, who I’d never heard of before. Apparently he’d spent six months living with some working class families in Dublin and had produced thirty, or so, 3 by 5 foot glossy colour prints documenting their lives.
One critic had described them as “overblown snapshots of uninteresting family life”. And had used the word “patronising” frequently in his review. I won’t say what I thought of them, as the artist might sue me for liable. But let’s just say that the critic wasn’t far wrong.
However I stopped and looked at each one, partly so I could make my own judgement of them, and partly as I’d discovered early on in my career that galleries are a very good place to meet interesting people (even better than supermarket and launderettes). And to maximize your chances of meeting someone you have to spent some time there, rather than just walking in, glancing at some of the exhibits and walking out again.
Half way along the wall there was a little table with a comments book on it. I very seldom write or read those comments, but as I walked in I noticed an exceeding attractive girl, with long blond hair tied back in a French plait writing in it. So as I passed I stopped to look. The last entry was “Jasmine Smith : Pathetic”.
The photographs didn’t hold my interest for very long either. But as I walked out I saw the same girl browsing in the little book shop they have just inside the entrance. So I decided to do some browsing of my own.
However I couldn’t keep my interest on the books either. I kept looking up to look at her, though she always had her nose in a book when I did so. I had started at the opposite end of a rack to her and we both slowly worked our way towards the centre. Getting closer and closer. Finally we where standing beside each other. I could feel her presence, though now that we where so close I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.
She put the book she’d been looking at back on the shelve and started to turn away.
“Excuse me,” I spoke before I knew what had happened. “But are you Jasmine Smith.”
“Yes,” she looked puzzled.
“It’s just that I was reading the comments book,” I quickly explained. “I saw you writing in it and I assumed that you’d be the last entry and I’d like to agree with you that the exhibition is pathetic.”
“Thanks,” she smiled. “What did you write in it.”
“Oh,” I shrugged. “Nothing. I never do.”
“You just read them,” she said. “And never bother to write anything.”
“Well,” I admitted. “I usually don’t read them either.”
“But you made an exception in my case,” she smiled.
“Well, yes,” I said, beginning to wonder if I’d done the right thing in talking to her.
“Then you can make an exception and write something as well,” she started to walk towards it. “Come on,” she didn’t look back to see if I was following.
But I was. I didn’t much choice but to follow her. She picked up the pen and, turning to me as I stopped beside her, handed it to me.
“Off you go,” she said.
“But why?” I asked.
“I just think it’s unfair that people should read them without adding any of their own,” she said.
“O.K.” I shrugged and bent down to add a comment. I didn’t give it much thought then but I’ve just realised that ever since I always write comments in the comments books.
Nobody else had written anything in the book since Jasmine’s entry, so I wrote, “Kevin Stanley : I agree, Jasmine”.
She looked over my shoulder as I wrote. “Kevin,” she said. “That’s a nice name.”
“So’s Jasmine,” I replied and immediately thought, that’s a stupid thing to say.
We looked at each other for a moment. Then I looked away not able to think of anything to say.
“Do you fancy a drink?” she asked. “I know a very good wine bar just around the corner.”
I swallowed hard, and tried to keep my voice casual. “O.K.,” I replied, my knees starting to shake a little.
I can’t remember the name of the bar. I haven’t been in the Temple Bar area of Dublin for months, and I’m not about to interrupt my writing of this novel to go and find out what it’s called. However I do remember that it was beside a Barbers in which I once got a very bad haircut. I could have made up a name and avoided writing this paragraph. But I decided to include it to up the number of words in this novel, because I have been told that most international best-sellers have at least One Hundred Thousand words in them.
Anyway it was a small poky place with a couple of tables outside and about half a dozen tables and a narrow bar packed inside. Jasmine and I sat a small table at the back. It was dark, but there was enough light that we could still see each other clearly. Jasmine picked up the wine list and quickly scanned it.
“Do you know much about wine?” she looked up from it.
“I know that I like Muscatel and Cote de Rhone and a few other names,” I shrugged. I was going to add “And that Spanish wine tastes like piss”, but decided that she might like it, so I’d better not. “But I couldn’t name a single vineyard,” I added.
“Split a bottle of Cote de Rhone with you,” she offered.
“O.K.,” I smiled back.
The waitress came over and took our order.
There was a couple of moments of silence. Then I said, “So, do you come here often then.”
She laughed softly. “If you only knew the number of times that line has actually been tried on me by morons,” she shook her head, “you wouldn’t try to make a joke about it.”
“I have an off beat sense of humour,” I half explained, half apologized . “So if I insult you I’m probable trying to be funny.”
“Yeh, I remember,” she smiled.
“You remember?” I had a sudden sinking feeling, does she know me form somewhere?
“You really don’t remember, do you?” her smile broadened.
“Eh, probably,” I didn’t remember her at all. “I just need a bit of prompting.”
“We did a programming course together,” she said.
“Ah,” it began to come back to me now. “In Rathmines.”
“No, in liberty hall,” her smile faded.
“Shit !” suddenly I remembered her. “Jasmine Smith. You used to always hang around with Mary Brown and Emma Cocks.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “That’s right.”
“You used to have short hair,” I said.
“Yes,” she ran her hand across the top of her head. ” Really tight. It looked dreadful.”
“No it didn’t,” I replied. “But it made you look completely different.”
“Well I really wanted to look ‘Hard’ back then,” she smiled.
Then I began to laugh. It was a sudden release of nervous energy that I couldn’t control.
She looked at me. “What is it?” she half smiled.
I couldn’t answer her, I was laughing too much.
“What’s wrong?” she was unsure how to react to my sudden fit.
I took a deep breath. “It’s O.K.,” I held up my hand. “It’s just that …” And I started to laugh again. I had been physicking myself up to impress this beautiful stranger, to sweep her off her feet. And then to find that she already knew me, that all the adrenalin pumping through my veins wasn’t needed. Well I just couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
“What?” she lent forward smiling, even though she didn’t know why.
“It’s just that I didn’t remember you,” I started to explain. “That’s not the funny bit. That’s just me being a fool again.” I took a deep breath and stopped laughing. “But I thought that I was being some sort of macho stud by chatting up this beautiful woman. A complete stranger, like.” I laughed again, “And then to find that you knew me already.” She didn’t see the humour, I shrugged “Well it was just … so … typical.”
“I see,” she sat back and relaxed. “You were never much of a macho stud.”
“Thanks a lot !” I faked indignation.
“Oh. No,” she put her fingers to her lips. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She looked down, “I meant I liked you because you weren’t a macho …” she shrugged, “chauvinistic … pig.” The last word was barely whispered.
“Well, thank you,” I replied. “That’s one of the nicest things anybody has ever said to me.”
She looked up and we laughed.