It was a cold night in November. The Christmas ads had already started on the radio and the lights were up on the streets in Dublin city. That meant they’d soon be up in Wexford town too.
I’d just turned 19 and had started work in the old Penney’s store in Wexford, straight after my Leaving Cert. It was my first real job and I loved it. The store was bright and cheerful and there was an enjoyable atmosphere among the staff.
I was greeted cordially by the greater percentage of the staff except four or five of the girls who suggested that I was only hired because I had long blonde hair. That may have been the case, but I was determined to make my mark.
My boyfriend of the time, Patrick Kelly, worked in the butchery department in Quinnsworth, a big supermarket chain, at their store in Waterford so I only got to see him on Saturday nights when he came home for the weekend. I looked forward to Christmas when he would be off for a full week to make up for working late hours in the pre-Christmas rush, when he wouldn’t be home at all.
His last night home would be the following Saturday and we were going to an engagement party for his sister at her house in Kilmacanogue, a holiday town in Wicklow about an hour away from where we lived.
Wednesday mornings weren’t very busy in comparison to weekends, so I was a little surprised to see some activity outside the shop when I arrived at 8:25. There were several vans parked against the shop front with a gang of workers milling about as they delivered supplies, tools and other required supplies for a day of work.
“What’s going on?” I asked of a young lad with long dark hair and a black bomber jacket.
“A bit of a re-fit,” he said as he hefted a roll of white wire out of the van he was standing behind.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“As far as I know, we’re putting a few new lights in and moving the payment counters over to the other side of the shop,” he explained.
“Are you down from Dublin?” I asked.
“No, I’m Colin,” he said, “Dan is over there.”
“No,” I said, “down, not Dan. Have you come down from Dublin?”
He smiled at me, stifling a laugh.
“Sorry,” he said, “I was just messing with you. Yes, we’re all down from Dublin. We go all over the country.”
“Really? Where were you yesterday?”
“A policeman wouldn’t ask me that,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “you must think I’m very nosey.”
“No, I’m messing again, sorry. We were in Galway yesterday.”
“Galway? Do you ever get home?”
“Yeah, I do sometimes,” he said. “You get used to being away.”
“Well I’d better get inside and clock in,” I said, “it was nice talking to you, I’m Maria.”
“Nice to meet you, Maria,” he said with a smile and held out his hand for me to shake.
“I’ll see you through the day, no doubt.”
“Not if I see you first,” he said and smiled.
I assumed he was joking again. I looked back at him through the glass doors as he was called away by a man wearing grey overalls and carrying some rolled up sheets of paper. I moved behind a window display and saw how they rolled out the papers and discussed something that was printed on them.
Colin had his hands in his pockets and had his head bent over as they talked. He took the papers and rolled them up, picked up a tool bag and came into the shop as I began to walk further into the store.
“Maria,” he said, and I turned towards him. “Is there somewhere a fella can get a cup of tea around here?”
“You can use the canteen, but you need to have your own cup,” I said.
“I have it here in my bag,” he said, patting the bag as it hung from his shoulder.
“Let me clock in and I’ll show you the way,” I said, and we walked to the rear of the shop out into the loading bay where I clocked in and brought him upstairs to the canteen.
We made tea and sat facing each other at one of the oblong dining tables.
“Can I smoke in here?” he asked.
“No.”
“It’s a very intolerant society that we live in, Maria.”
“You should give them up,” I said.
“But I only just started three years ago,” he said with a laugh.
It was funny, so I laughed too.
“How old are you, Colin?”
“I’m eighteen, how old are you?”
“Nineteen. What do you work at?”
“Electrician.”
“Nice, are you qualified yet?”
“No, I’m a third-year apprentice, only eighteen months to go,” he said. “You?”
“I work in here,” I said, confused.
“In the canteen?” he said, perplexed.
“No,” I said, “and why do you say it like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, his face reddening. “You’re too pretty to be making tea all day.”
“Why thank you,” I said. “I work in the lingerie department.”
“Wow. That’s different.”
“Why? It’s a good job,” I said.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t, Maria,” he said. “I never met anyone who did that.”
“You can say the word you know,” I said, “it’s not a swear word.”
“What isn’t?”
“Lingerie.”
“Oh, yes I realise that.”
“So say it,” I said.
“Lingerie, happy?”
“What are those rolls of paper beside you?” I asked.
“They’re the drawings for the job. The plans,” he said.
“Why do you have them?”
“Because it’s my job,” he said with a questioning look.
“No, I don’t mean that, Colin,” I said. “Does the foreman not usually have them?”
“Maybe in Russia, Maria, not here.”
“Who’s the foreman?” I asked, even more confused.
“There’s no foreman as such, Maria,” he said, “we’re a conglomeration of subbies and I’m with the electrical contractor.”
“Right, I understand that, but who is your supervisor?” I asked.
“I suppose I am,” he said confidently.
“Are you down here on your own?” I asked.
“Yes, this isn’t exactly a big job,” he said. “The shopfitters reckon it’ll take about four days and I just have to stay ahead of them.”
“So you’ll have to work late I suppose,” I said.
“Yes, there has to be an afterhours component involved, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense, financially,” he said.
“Will they expect some of our staff to work late too?”
“I don’t know, Maria,” he said. “I doubt there’d be anything to keep me here tonight or tomorrow night, for example, but I’ll make up some extension leads or something just to get my hours up,” he said, “I’ll have a few pints then and try to sleep in another strange bed, which is a bit of a pain, to be honest.”
“You drink?”
“What?”
“You drink in pubs?”
“It’s better than drinking out of a trough at the side of the road.”
“And they serve you?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“You’re too young,” I said, shocked.
“Ah, you must be a good Catholic girl, Maria, are you?”
“Well, I’m not overly religious but rules are rules.”
“So you are,” he said.
“You’re so cheeky, Colin, what’s your surname?”
“Kinsella.”
“Colin Kinsella,” I said, trying it on for size.
“Don’t wear it out. You sound like my mother,” he said with a grin.
My supervisor stuck her head in the door and called me.
“I’d better go, Colin,” I said, “it was nice to meet you.”
“All the best, Maria, you too.”
I washed my cup and left the room. Patricia, my supervisor was waiting outside for me.
“Who’s the cute little dish?” she asked with a smile.
“He’s one of the workers, I was just showing him where the canteen was.”
“Were you showing him how to drink his tea too?”
“What?”
“You like him, Maria,” she said. “It’s allowed.”
“He’s funny,” I said, “but I have a boyfriend.”
“Is he down from Dublin?”
I resisted the urge to use Colin’s line.
“Yes, for three or four days he says.”
“Well don’t get too close to him. These lads from Dublin have wives and girlfriends at home and they try to fuck anything that moves when they work down the country, so be warned.” she said, as my face registered a shock I didn’t think was possible.
TBC
