I meet Graham and Denise from the office at Heuston station. Denise is quite pretty but sometimes I feel that I can put far too much emphasis on the word quite. She’s a bit of a talker and I’m not a great one for it early on in the day, particularly when I’m travelling. It can be such a waste of effort especially with people of whom you know as much about as you ever really want to know. On the journey Denise insists on telling me how she is certain that we are going to have such craic in Cork. I tell her that it’s going to rain for the entire trip. We eat sandwiches that taste of nothing from the trolley that comes around after an hour. I say that I feel like I’m on an airplane with nothing left to break the journey now that I have eaten. Graham feels the same, he assures me. Denise smiles at me and says that it’s been a while since she has had a break and that she’s happy to be going anywhere. I’ve heard something being bantered around the office that she’s had some recent health issues. She looks fine to me.

When we arrive into Cork city it’s pelting down just like I expected and with it is a wind that feels like it’s going to slice through my body. I put on my new wax jacket and Denise looks at it with what I assume is weatherproof envy. I think about offering it to her but I feel that she might be too embarrassed to accept it so I say nothing. It’s not my fault that she didn’t think ahead. Cork is all bustle and I get an immediate buzz from the accents I can hear on the streets. We walk to the hotel down by the water because our legs are feeling cramped from the journey and when we pass Dunnes Stores I feel relaxed and at home. Cork is different to Dublin in so many ways and yet it feels the same. Dirty, yet forgiving. I feel a slight thrill that this might be an exciting trip and yet at the same time I am apprehensive.

I know it’s never a good idea to drink with the work crowd but it’s the first night and I am free from all domestic responsibilities and there’s something about that feeling that’s difficult to overestimate. I think about Jenny and about the drawing I have damaged. If anything I have done her a favour, I reassure myself, her second attempt at capturing a true sense of the Brother praying in the solace of the beach is in my estimation much better than the original. She has as much as admitted it to me herself and that’s not an easy thing to do for an artist.