I left my Saturday-morning bed to take an early train to Belfast recently. Moseying around Connolly Station at 7am, wrapped up in my parka, waiting to board the train, I noticed that there was a piano on the concourse. My breath frosting the air, I watched a young man sit down to play.
Placing his rucksack next to the pedals, he took off his gloves, put them in his pockets and, despite the glowering winter morning and knuckle-grazing cold, wove through his gentle repertoire. What a soothing way to start the day, I thought, handing my ticket to the collector.
Three women boarded the train alongside me that morning, each corralling a glossy wheelie-bag and coaxing it on to the overhead rack before taking their seats at a table just ahead of my own.
I looked with admiration at their painted faces, their deftly blocked-in eyebrows, their bronzed cheekbones, their precision lips. I wondered (realising that I’d forgotten my hairbrush) what time they’d had to exit their scratchers to achieve the look.
They might, I thought, be sisters. Like three versions of the one self, the women were all pretty, blonde, groomed and, at a guess, in their mid- to late 40s.
The leader of the pack, younger maybe by a year or two, wore a powder-pink coat. Jewellery crowded her wrists and fingers; her highlights glinted. She was the most impatient of the three, the busiest, tapping her phone to life, messaging, then scrawling through vacation websites and suggesting holiday rentals in Florida to her travelling companions.
Friendship roles
The women’s roles in the friendship cabal seemed securely rooted. There was the leader of the pack and, next to her, a subordinate, anxious woman tightly zipped into a shiny jacket that came replete with belts and buttons. Across the tabletop, battling her way out of her outerwear and asking about the trolley service was the comedienne of the group.
“It’s too early for a vodka and tonic, Viv.”
“Girls, it is never too early for a vodka and tonic,” replied Viv, moving her coat on to the empty seat next to her and wriggling down into her clingy polo-neck.
They were lively conversationalists considering that it was barely dawn. By the time the sun rose over Portrane in wild streaks of yellow and pink and electric orange, they had already discussed, at length, the sartorial opportunities afforded by religious occasions, what to wear at a niece’s upcoming first communion, and the ill-advised second marriage of the absent Denise.
“Denise!” they tutted. “In the name of god, what does she see in him?”
And then it was back to planning for their trip to Florida. The anxious woman, who had finally found her way out of her complicated jacket, was worrying about the distance to the restaurants and the beach from the condominium they’d settled on.
“Oh, for god’s sake!” the leader snapped. “Aren’t there taxis? And pools?”
As the anxious woman fretted on about Floridian transport options, jolly Viv said that a couple of vodka martinis by the poolside would suit her just fine and, anyway, sea water turned her highlights green.
Global annihilation
I bought myself a cup of tea and sat in my lonely seat watching the sunrise and worrying about the doomsday clock and how humanity was now, according to that particular timepiece, just 100 seconds away from climate and nuclear disaster.
I wondered if I could change seat, if I could join the fragrant women at the next table (maybe I could take the place of the absent Denise?). Looking at their glittering fingernails, listening to their talk, I envied them their insouciance, their blow-dries, their self-assurance. It certainly didn’t seem like a couple of minutes from global annihilation at their table.
At Lanyon Place, I watched them fleece the cash machine and disappear towards the taxi rank.
On Sunday evening I boarded the train home to Dublin and was surprised and pleased to see my companions from the outward journey (just visible under armfuls of shopping) make their way, a little gingerly, towards their seats, and once again occupy the table next to mine.
They were quieter than they’d been the day before, their blow-dries a little limp.
Presently, Viv unearthed a bottle of Chardonnay and three plastic glasses from one of the carrier bags.
“Cheers, girls!”
“Cheers, Viv!”
“That was some laugh last night,” Viv said, turning to look out of the train window. “I mean, how was I supposed to know it was a service lift?”
Listening to the sound of the women’s laughter, I followed Viv’s gaze out of the window. The sunset, streaked with fire and blood, was sinking into the black earth.