At night things move on as they always do, an extension of another day. Homework is not looked at on Sunday, but newspapers are read. Happy families. A vegetable soup is made, ready on the stove, and a selection of vegetables, peppers and carrots bide their time until they can be added to the roast once it has been given a blast at a high temperature. We talk about wintertime at dinner. I delight in the cold, just not when I’m out with the lads and the wind is fervent.

3. Jenny

March 1995

It was 1995, when I fell fast for Jenny. I first noticed her at the gallery on Lennox Street. My friend Austin had invited me; he had a couple of pieces in a group show. The room was full of the eagerness of young artists and their awkward confidence. The ceiling was high, but conversations made the room seem compressed, too many people trying to be the big shot. I was no different. I was trying to get noticed myself.

I wasn’t an artist. I’d tried to be for a while, but I recognized early on that I simply didn’t have enough natural talent, no matter how hard I worked. If I couldn’t be a real artist, I figured that I could set my sights on something in the cultural domain. I had a few ideas but the problem was, I didn’t know if any of them were feasible, and if I was to do anything I needed to make the appropriate connections. I couldn’t work out how to crack into this world. Everyone else seemed to have a plan, or the semblance of a plan. I had nothing, only my wits.

She stood alone. She had a way of holding herself and you couldn’t tell if she was nervous or not. Her hands clasped a tulip-shaped glass of red wine. I noticed her fingers. There was a certain grace in them. She wore a dress of crushed velvet. It was tight and I could see her thin frame through it. It delighted me. But I was frozen. Austin caught me staring at her.

She’s pretty fine, he said.

Yeah, I said.

I remember how I tried to keep my voice level. I hoped that Austin knew this woman so he could introduce me, but at the same time I hoped he didn’t know her. I wanted this discovery to be mine alone.

That’s Jenny Mitchell; she’s one of the artists. That’s her work over there, Austin said.

He pointed to some canvases on the wall. Etchings and charcoal rubbings of what looked like the sea. Vibrant – I was drawn to them because that’s what the sea always did to me.

Jenny Mitchell. Jesus, she’s good.

Come on, he said.

And that’s how I met her.