One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

working in TV?’
    ‘I …’ she hesitated, feeling that at any moment she could explode about all that she felt for the show and its process, but she was guarded. She hadn’t spoken to anybody about it, but Richie genuinely didn’t seem to know. His eyes were soft and welcoming, non-judgemental, and a little bloodshot, and she felt like she was twenty again, back in the college bar, missing lectures at a time when nothing, at least to her now, felt serious. She trusted him. ‘I don’t work for
Thirty Minutes
any more,’ she finally admitted.
    ‘No?’ He drained his glass. ‘What happened?’
    ‘You really don’t know or are you just trying to be nice?’
    ‘How would I know? Is it something I should know? Kitty, I’m sorry, I’ve had my head in my book for the past few months. I’ve no idea what’s going on. Somebody just told me today that those Chilean miners were all rescued.’
    Kitty laughed. ‘That was two years ago.’
    ‘Well, there you go,’ he smiled. ‘I’m a slow writer. Seriously, you don’t have to tell if you don’t want to. We’re just here for a nice time.’ He smiled supportively.
    ‘I fucked up a story. I fucked up a story really badly and it ended up going to court, the network lost a load of money, and they suspended me, which is code for
never hiring me ever again
. Now the magazine that I work for are thinking of doing the same thing because they’re under pressure from advertisers who feel they have a responsibility even though it’s been rumoured they’ve been using child labourers on boats to make their crap products, but in the meantime I’m still working on a story for them even though they can’t publish it and it’s the only thing I truly care about now, but I have a week to my deadline and I still don’t know what the story is and while I’m trying to do that I return to my apartment every evening to find dog shit, paint, toilet roll and whatever vile thing Colin Maguire’s four hundred and fifty thousand euro and his little posse can throw at me.’
    When she finished, Richie was looking at her open-mouthed. Kitty did the only thing she could think of to do, the thing she’d needed to do since this all began: she threw her head back and laughed. Hysterically.
    When the bar lights were turned on full and last orders were long finished, and a loud man wearing black began to patrol the bar shouting for them to leave, Richie’s hand moved to the small of Kitty’s back, one finger circling above the waist of her trousers, another creeping downward.
    ‘Let’s go back to your place,’ he said quietly.
    ‘No. We can’t, it’s booby-trapped,’ she giggled.
    ‘I like the sound of that …’ He groped her and they laughed.
    ‘Let’s go back to yours,’ she said, moving in to kiss him.
    He was a long way away in Stoneybatter, and as the lights blurred past and she had to lower the window for some air, she did recall wondering why on earth he had been doing his dry-cleaning on the other side of the city.
    If she’d had her notebook with her she would have made a note to ask him. Later, she wished she had.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    ‘Shit, I’m late.’
    ‘Late for what?’
    ‘Birdie.’
    ‘You’re still pissed.’
    They both laughed and Kitty got a whiff of his morning breath and rolled away from him.
    ‘It’s a story I’m working on.’
    ‘I thought you weren’t working.’
    ‘I am, I just don’t know what the story is.’
    She sat up and her head pounded so she lay back down again.
    ‘Are you feeling better today?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You were crying about a stolen bike.’
    Kitty groaned, then she threw the covers off and wandered around his bedroom looking for her underwear. ‘Where the hell are my knickers?’
    He pinched his eyes closed, then opened them again suddenly. ‘The kitchen.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Shit, my head hurts.’
    Kitty found her underwear and the rest of her clothes scattered around his tiny kitchen. She looked out the window. ‘Where are we again?’
    ‘Stoneybatter,’ he called groggily from the bedroom.
    ‘You know a guy named Dudley Foster?’
    ‘No, why?’
    ‘He’s on my list.’ She pulled her jeans on.
    ‘What list?’
    ‘My story.’
    He appeared at the door in his underwear, and her vision of him now and the memory of how he looked last night were not one and the same. She felt slightly repulsed. She wondered if she should use his shower but then she was worried he’d want to join