5 p.m. in Dublin
5 p.m. in Dublin is scratchy vinyl, a Guinness buzz, and deep blue light.
I sit in the middle of the bed like it’s a throne, surrounded by pillows that let me sink into them. Hair wet and brushed straight, white robe cinched at the waist. One wall of this hotel room is all squares of precisely distressed mirror tiled together, reflecting back a clean, sepia version of myself.
Through the windows, I can see the tops of the trees in St. Stephen’s Green, watch them turn from green to black.
I’m here very briefly, little more than a day and a night, on my way to a wedding. I landed this morning, the last of September. The leather jacket I brought is just warm enough.
For some reason, I’ve been upgraded to this room on the top floor, with its panoramic views and rainfall shower. The space and the luxury make the fact that I’m alone a bit laughable, a bit sad.
Traveling on my own has been one of the joys of my life, so much so that I wrote a book about it, the clarity and unexpected pleasures it can give. But my relationship to being alone is shifting. I’m starting to see its limitations more acutely, feel the urge to fill its silences.
There are earplugs on the bedside table to muffle the sounds of the clubs that line Harcourt Street. A folded postcard on the bed reads: “It’s fierce warm in here.” I move it over to the windowsill, so the words, their specific Irish phrasing, stay facing me. And they’re true, not just about the bed, but also the hours I’ve spent in Dublin, the warmth I’ve felt so far, the quiet ferocity of it.
There’s a turntable on top of the minibar, records stacked beside it: Amy Winehouse and the Smiths and Hozier. It’s been a while since I played anything on vinyl. I place the needle down wrong and hear a verse near the end of one of my favorite songs.
Sweet and right and merciful
I'm all but washed
In the tide of her breathing
My head is still light from the pub where I spent much of the afternoon, from the two drinks that went straight to my jet-lagged head. I’d wandered into Kehoes just before a downpour and ordered my first ever Guinness, not just in Ireland but anywhere.
Richie, the barman, told me I’d chosen wisely. He was warm, open. After I told him I was a writer, our conversation turned, as it can in a Dublin pub, to that year’s longlist for the Booker Prize. Richie had read all the nominated books, didn’t judge me for having read none of them, and said I should start with Claire Keegan. (He was right about that.) On his break, he snuck out and bought a copy of my novel from the Dubray around the corner. I signed his book with a reference to the Guinness and our conversation, thanking him for both.
As the ink dried, I thought of another note I’d written months earlier, in another copy, to another Irishman. I compared our chance encounter to the one in my novel, and said I was grateful for it, for him.
We’d planned to reunite when I passed through Dublin. I’d envisioned a walk along the river, laughs in a pub, a chance to pick up where we’d left off. But time and distance did what they so often do. He was out in this city somewhere, living his life, not wanting to see me.
That seems to matter less now. Maybe it took a quiet pub on a rainy afternoon to remind me what being alone could be, what I loved about it.
Nestled in a curl of the hotel duvet, my phone vibrates. I let myself lie back as the record scratches to an end, close my eyes, summon some energy. Enough to get dressed, dry my hair. Walk back out into the cool night and whatever possibility it holds.
About the Author
Francesca Giacco is the author of the novel Six Days in Rome. She lives in New York.
Illustration by Jane Demarest.
Edited by Aube Rey Lescure.
Author photo by Kylie Coutts.
