‘Face him,’ Nola kept urging. ‘Go on, he sounds like a dote. Anyway, you’ll feel so much better.’

‘Can’t,’ I mumbled.

‘So what’s wrong with these boys who keep asking you out?’ Nola questioned me, when I’d spent a full hour whingeing to her.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I shrugged irritably. ‘They’re either boring or a bit thick or they’ve got some other girly hanging around, gazing at them with cow eyes, or they think they’re God’s gift or…

‘Even though some of them are good-looking,’ I acknowledged. ‘That Conlith is very good-looking, but all the same…’ I trailed off miserably.

‘They’re not good enough, is that what you’re trying to tell me?’ Nola demanded, as if I’d just invented a cure for AIDS.

‘Exactly!’ I exclaimed. ‘And I couldn’t be arsed wasting my time, I’ve better things to do.’

‘Janey macaroni, but you’ve changed,’ Nola said.

‘Have I?’

‘Sure, think of what you were like a year ago,’ she sang. ‘You’d have slept with the tinker’s dog, to avoid being by yourself.’

I thought about it. And with a shock I saw that, of course, she was right. Had that really been me? That desperate creature? Dying for a boyfriend?

How things had changed.

‘Didn’t I tell you you’d get better?’ Nola demanded.

‘Stop being so smug,’ I chastised. ‘It’s unbecoming.’ But I smiled as I said it.

‘Do you know what you have?’ she asked. ‘What’s that it’s called again… Oh yes – self-respect!’

72

With shaking hands I opened the letter. It was addressed to me, c/o Annandale’s Hostel for Women, West 15th St, New York.

It was from Luke.

I hadn’t intended to go back to New York. Ever.

But when I came to my fifteenth month of being drug-free, Nola suddenly suggested that I should go.

‘Ah, go on,’ she said, as if it was no bother to me. ‘Sure, why not?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Do,’ she eagerly urged. Then she turned as nasty as she could. Which wasn’t very.

‘If you don’t go,’ she pointed out, ‘you’ll always feel desperate whenever you think of it. Ah, go on! Go back to the places you used to go to, make it up to the people you upset.’ Nola always said nice things like ‘People you upset,’ when she should have been saying, ‘People whose lives you almost destroyed.’

‘Like Luke,’ I said, shocked by how excited I’d become at the thought of seeing him.

‘Especially Luke.’ Nola smiled.

‘The dote,’ she added.

I couldn’t stop thinking about New York. I was obsessed with the place, and it seemed I’d no choice but to go.

And, once I saw that going could be a reality, the Luke-floodgates opened. To my horror, I realized what I’d suspected for some time. That I was still mad about him. But I was terrified that he might hate me, or have forgotten me or be married to someone else.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Nola urged. ‘Either way it’ll be healing for you to contact him.’

‘The pet,’ she added, with a fond smile.

My parents were appalled.

‘It’s not for ever,’ I explained. ‘I’ve got to be back in October to start college.’

(The people who make such decisions had decided to let me have a stab at studying psychology. I’d danced many a happy jig the day I got notification of that news.)

‘Will you stay with Brigit?’ Mum asked anxiously.

‘No,’ I said.

‘But you’ve made it up with her,’ she insisted.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But it wouldn’t be appropriate.’

I was pretty sure that Brigit would’ve let me sleep on her couch, but I’d have found it hard to be in that apartment as a short-term guest. Besides, even though I now had very warm feelings for her, I thought it was somehow healthier for me to be independent of her when I returned to New York.

‘But you’ll contact her while you’re there?’ Mum still sounded worried.

‘Of course I will,’ I said reassuringly. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing her.’

And then everything happened very quickly. I borrowed a pile of money, changed most of it into dollars, booked my flight, got a room in a women’s hostel, because I couldn’t afford an apartment, and packed my bags.

At the airport, Nola handed me a piece of paper with an address on it.

‘She’s a friend of mine in New York, give her a ring and she’ll mind you.’

‘She’s not a drug addict, is she?’ I demanded, rolling my eyes exaggeratedly. ‘You only ever introduce me to addicts. Haven’t you any nice friends?’

‘Give Luke a big kiss from me,’ she said. ‘And see you in October.’

New York in July, like being smothered with a wet, warm blanket.

It was too much. The smells, the sounds, the buzz from the streets, the multitudes of people, the upbeat brashness of everyone, the huge buildings towering over Fifth Avenue, trapping the humid July heat, the yellow cabs bumper to bumper in the gridlocked traffic, the dieselly air hopping with carhorns and inventive expletives.

I couldn’t handle the sheer energy of the place. Or the number of loopers, who sat beside me on the subway, or accosted me on the street.

It was all too in-your-face. I spent the first three days hiding in my room at the hostel, sleeping and reading magazines, the blinds drawn.

I shouldn’t have come, I thought miserably. All it had done was open up old wounds. I missed Nola and the others, I missed my family.

Jeanie rang from Dublin, and I was thrilled, until she gave out shite to me.

‘Have you been to any meetings?’

‘Er, no.’

‘Have you rung Nola’s friend?’

‘No.’

‘Have you looked for a job?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Well, bloody well do. Do it now.’

So I forced myself to leave the safety of my bedroom, and set off walking aimlessly through the hazy heat.

Except it wasn’t that aimless. In fact it wasn’t aimless at all.

It was more what you might call a retrospective of my life in New York. A homage.