With the Film Festival starting the next day, Alice was working at full throttle and probably getting by on four hours’ sleep, but her usual cappuccino would win me a five-minute window. I checked the local news online. For once, Cork had had a reprieve. The centre of the storm had bypassed the city, and the rain hadn’t been as bad as expected. But the air was laden with moisture still, and bloated grey clouds crouched barely clear of the rooftops. Though water wasn’t spilling from the sky at that exact moment, it would, and soon.

I pulled on my candy-pink wool coat, then took it off again. I should never have bought it: most of my clothes are in dark colours, and anything bright feels scratchy and wrong. I still have the coat, though. Can’t bring myself to throw it out, or take it to a charity shop, and not just because I bought it in Brown Thomas and because it cost the best part of my Visa limit for the month.

I felt last night’s raincoat. More me. Charcoal grey. And dry. Nearly. I wound a long grey and black striped wool scarf around my neck and reached for my bag and phone just as it pinged.

‘Where have you been lately?’

‘Oh God,’ I said.

It was a message from my good friend and sometime personal trainer Davy Keenan. And I knew why he was calling.

‘Busy, sorry, talk soon :-),’ I replied, hoping it would be enough to hold him off.

It wasn’t. I was walking out the gate when the phone rang.

‘Don’t you know it’s Saturday?’ I said.

‘Hello, stranger,’ Davy said. ‘You’re up early. How’s your fitness plan going?’

‘It’s not, Davy, okay, it’s just not. This is harassment,’ I said. ‘Have you nothing better to be doing?’

Davy laughed.

‘I’m concerned for you, Finn, that’s all it is.’

‘Yeah, right. Or has one of your yummy mummies cancelled on you?’

‘Naw,’ Davy said. ‘Client due in at nine, very un-yummy daddy, in fact. Just thought I’d check in on you. When you coming to see me?’

‘Soon, Davy,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you this week, make an appointment, promise, okay?’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

I could hear a note of smugness in his voice that I decided to ignore.

‘Bye,’ I said and rang off before he had a chance to say anything else.