I met Clara on a wet Tuesday in Dublin, which is to say I met her in weather that made everyone look like they had survived something. We were both sheltering under the same narrow awning on South William Street, outside a shop that sold things neither of us could afford. She had a broken umbrella in one hand and a paper bag of books tucked under her coat like a baby. I offered her half of my umbrella, though it was barely managing me, and she laughed before saying, “That’s not an umbrella, that’s a rumour.”
That was how it began. Not with music or fireworks, but with rain dripping down my neck and a woman making fun of my umbrella. We walked as far as Grafton Street together, then into Bewley’s because the rain had turned serious. We ordered two coffees and sat upstairs by the window, watching the city shine below us. She was studying nursing at the time and I was working in a phone shop, pretending I had a plan. She told me she liked people who didn’t pretend to be grand. I told her I liked people who carried novels in storms. By the time her coffee went cold, I had already started imagining where I might fit in her life.
For two years, I did fit. We lived separately but moved through the city like it belonged to us. Friday pints near Camden Street, cheap cinema tickets in the rain, Sunday walks around St Stephen’s Green when neither of us had money for anything else. Clara could make a full day out of a bench, a packet of crisps, and a story about someone she had met on the bus. She noticed people. That was her gift. She could tell if a cashier was having a bad day, if an old man wanted a chat, if I was pretending not to worry about rent.
The trouble was, I noticed less and less. I was embarrassed by how stuck I felt. Clara was moving forward, getting placements, speaking about hospitals and night shifts and maybe someday working abroad. I was still in the phone shop, still saying I was “figuring things out.” When she got offered a nursing position in London, she told me over coffee near Grand Canal Dock. I remember the little white cup between us, the steam rising like it was trying to leave before either of us did.
“Come with me,” she said.
I laughed because I thought she was being romantic, or dramatic, or both. Then I saw her face. She meant it.
I said all the wrong things. I said London was too big. I said I couldn’t just abandon my life here. I said she was asking too much, though really she was offering me a door. She listened quietly, her hands around the cup, and I could see something closing in her. Not anger exactly. More like tiredness. The kind that comes when you’ve been hoping someone would surprise you and they don’t.
Her phone rang before either of us could finish. It was the hospital, asking her to come in for an extra shift. She stood up, put on her coat, and said, “We’ll talk later.” Her coffee was still half full. Mine was untouched. She kissed my cheek, not my mouth, and left.
We never did talk later. Not properly. There were messages, then fewer messages, then the awful politeness of two people trying to prove they were mature while breaking each other’s hearts. She moved to London in September. I helped carry one suitcase to the Aircoach stop, and we hugged like cousins. I went home to my flat in Smithfield and found one of her hair clips on the windowsill. That was the thing that finished me, not the goodbye. A small brown clip, useless without her.
For years
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
