20. How About Paris?

September 1996

Dublin was becoming all glamour as though it was on the cusp of something remarkable, it had hit its groove. Coffee places were becoming fashionable. It was a long way from the old Coffee Inn or the International Bar, where the coffee was percolated and stale. Suddenly you could get espressos and lattes, and internet cafés became cutting edge. We were swept along with the excitement of juice bars, and we began to view noodle bars, where you could get sushi and chicken ramen as the new norm.

Decent clothes shops opened and you didn’t mind carrying a paper bag with the Makullas logo on it down Grafton Street because it was understood that if you shopped there you were a certain type of person.

And the night scene that Dublin offered was something. We could go out clubbing and before we set off we could go to eateries on Dame Street where the food was affordable but good and where they served red wine in small glasses, and without asking, the waiters would bring a basket of bread and dipping sauces, olive oil and vinegar to the table, and jugs of water and it was the fact that you didn’t have to ask for any of it that made the gesture seem so cosmopolitan. Yes, Dublin was on the up and we were part of it.

Jenny secured a lease in a small artist studio on Strand Street, behind the Quays. She worked there when she didn’t have a shift at the coffee shop. Part of me was jealous of her, the fact that she had this space but I said nothing.

I badly wanted her to move in with me but I didn’t want to rush her. I’d fucked up badly with the night out, bumping into Jerome in the club and the slapping incident on the beach, and I really wanted to make it up to her. She told me that her father wasn’t pleased when she’d moved in with Jerome, that once she lived with the first guy she’d fall into a habit of casually living with all future boyfriends.

The slippery slope, I said, the slippery boyfriend slope.