BRYAN
‘Come on, come on, come on!’ Bryan Kinsella sat behind the steering wheel of his Audi soft-top as the traffic inched along the Strand Road. He should have taken his chances and gone through the village and turned right for the East Link. He could see across to the Sean Moore road in the distance, and the traffic snaked along, bumper to bumper, hardly moving. Some mornings, if he went to work very early, he could get to the IFSC in less than ten minutes. It was easily going to take the guts of an hour today.
Was this what his life was going to be like, apart from his few precious weeks’ holidays? He groaned as the lights went red again. It was incredible to think that the wedding was over. The reception, which he’d looked forward to more than the ceremony, was a blur, and the honeymoon, which had been the trip of a lifetime, when he’d got to see as many of the cultural sights and scenes of New York as he possibly could, was now just a lovely dream. How he’d enjoyed strolling through myriad art galleries and studios, sipping lattes on sidewalk cafés, taking in shows, browsing in Borders and buying treasured books with not a care in the world.
Now he was back to real life, with all its worries and pressures. He couldn’t even think about the amount of debt they were in after the honeymoon. Both their credit cards were up to their limits, as was the one he had himself on the sly, which Debbie knew nothing about. He had a credit union loan that she knew nothing about either, he thought guiltily, and he was barely managing to pay the interest on that. It looked as though their hefty mortgage was going to increase by another half a per cent, and he hadn’t paid the last telephone bill, even though he’d told Debbie he had.
This was what being married did to a fella, he thought gloomily as he stared unseeingly out the car window. Why were women so anxious to get married? He didn’t understand it at all. He’d have been quite happy to mosey along in a smart, rented apartment in a good area, with no mortgage, for another few years, but Debbie had insisted they buy a house, saying that rent was money down the drain. He shouldn’t have bloody well listened to her. They’d bought their townhouse in Sandymount at the height of the property boom, when prices had rocketed, and paid mad money for it. Sandymount was an undeniably chic address, and he liked living there. He liked the village ambience, the upmarket delis, bistros and restaurants, the quirky shops. It was enjoyable to stroll along the seafront on Sunday, buy the papers and have lattes and eggs Florentine in Itsa4 for brunch. Or to go to Brownes on a Saturday night and indulge in their famous fresh salmon rillettes wrapped in smoked salmon or their to-die-for flaked crab. His mouth watered as he thought of his favourite dishes. He hadn’t eaten breakfast, and he was hungry.
Now, a slump had hit, and there was no way they’d ever get the price they bought their house for if they went to sell it, so they were in negative equity on that front. If Debbie hadn’t been so impatient, they could have bided their time, rented and bought when prices dropped and it was a buyers’ market. He’d make sure to say that to Debbie’s mother, Connie, he thought grimly. She’d been pushing for them to get a house. She should have minded her own bloody business. He scowled, looking for someone to blame for his woes and thinking that Connie, his pushy mother-in-law, would fit the bill perfectly.
Connie wasn’t his favourite person in the world. He always felt that she was judging him and finding him lacking – just because he didn’t spend every precious weekend stripping wallpaper or doing DIY. She’d obviously hoped for better for her only daughter. She hadn’t been able to keep a husband, so she needn’t bother looking down her nose at him, he decided, conveniently forgetting the very generous cheque she’d given to himself and Debbie, money she had worked hard to earn.
The lights turned green, and the traffic moved a couple of yards before stopping again. He glanced in the mirror, approving of the way his tan made his eyes look a deeper shade of brown. He was a good-looking guy, he had to admit, and he turned this way and that, noting with dismay that he was beginning to get lines at the corners of his eyes. Hell, before he knew it he’d be thirty and Debbie would want children, and his life would be well and truly over. It was a daunting thought. Did other new husbands think like he did, or was it just him? He’d never been one for taking on responsibilities; it made him feel smothered. He would have quite happily lived with Debbie for the rest of his life with no marriage and no kids. Just the two of them, enjoying their freedom and having fun.
Debbie would be well into the city on the Dart by now, even though he’d left much earlier than she had. Bryan wondered how she would react if he told her he’d like to quit his job and open up an art gallery. Not too well, he figured as he surfed the radio channels, coming to Lyric FM. The strains of ‘Lara’s Theme’ from Doctor Zhivago floated across the airwaves, and he sat imagining how his art gallery would look until an impatient beep from the car behind brought him back to reality and he inched another few yards towards work.