Naoise Dolan

Julian said the recycling bins were just for show and it would all go to landfill, where it would probably do more damage than if we’d left it on the sand

‘I’m worried about him,’ I said. ‘We drink wine and he tells me things. I don’t think he has anyone else to talk to.’

‘What sort of things does he tell you?’

‘He believes in God.’

Edith hadn’t opened my Instagram stories since our break-up a month ago. I knew that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t thinking about me, because I wasn’t watching hers and I thought about her constantly, but she was busy and well liked and I wasn’t.

I gaily informed them, no logic to it whatsoever. They nodded. They didn’t expect any. This was, after all, English.

‘So throwing other people’s wine is a sensible response to heartbreak.’

‘Yes.’

‘How attached are you to the Merlot?’

‘More attached than I am to you.’

‘Mam,’ I said, ‘have you ever been afraid to say sorry?’

She said yes. If you weren’t afraid then you probably weren’t sorry.

‘Then how do you say it?’ I said.

Mam said: ‘You don’t have to say everything. Just say as much as you’re sure of.’

I didn’t ask what to say if you weren’t sure of anything.

She said she did pros–cons lists. ‘Usually weighted ones,’ she’d said, ‘because some pros will be more pro than other pros and some cons will be more con. And you need a column for implications.’

‘Implications?’

‘Potentially important knock-on effects. Not a proper pro or con because you don’t know for sure that it will happen – but likely enough to be worth considering. I favour the PMI table.’

‘What?’

‘Pluses, minuses, implications.’

‘Bring’ was for things that were going from ‘there’ to ‘here’, e.g. ‘I’ll bring you some biscuits from the other room.’ ‘Take’, however, was for things you were moving from ‘here’ to ‘there’, e.g. ‘Could you take the biscuits back to the other room?’ The textbook said a speaker’s ability to observe this distinction was a sure way to tell if they were native or non.

They weren’t that bad. I just never knew what to say to them.

He seemed to think only a man could initiate a conversation. Worse still, it meant I couldn’t send him one first. It would look like I’d despaired of his getting in contact and was only doing it myself as a last resort.