Chapter 4

Half an hour later she met Shane in the pub. He was a normal, nice-looking man. She was surprised by how good it was to see him. She was glad she’d made the effort to come out. She tried to remember why they’d broken up, and couldn’t.

Sinead had a small stable of ex-boyfriends. For some strange reason she was still on speaking terms with them all. She didn’t know how she’d managed that. Everyone else she knew spat when they mentioned an ex.

Maybe because none of her boyfriends had mattered that much to her. Oh, she’d liked them and all that. But not one of them had been The One.

Of course, she’d thought some of them were. When she’d first been going out with them. But it had always turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.

To be honest, Sinead wasn’t even sure if she could be bothered hoping to meet The One any more. She was weary from the whole business. And look at the misery it brought to poor Lizzie, hanging around with that Neil. He was a decent enough man, she wasn’t saying otherwise. But he was also thirty-three going on sixteen and very slow to make a commitment. She couldn’t be doing with that.

Sinead was a romantic. But not really in the hearts and flowers way. More in the broader sense of the word. She dreamt about travel and adventure. Of freedom and excitement.

And she had no doubt in her mind that it would happen for her. At some stage. But at the moment her life was more about doing the immediate things. Buying her dad’s birthday present. Washing her clothes. Hiding the grey that had the cheek to start appearing in her hair. These things had to be done. And when she was on top of everything, then she could start making her plans.

Of course, she didn’t go round thinking this. Not out loud, anyway. But humming away at the back of her mind were thoughts of another life.

Once, a couple of years back, Sinead and Lizzie had gone to get their fortunes told. And the tarot reader had told Sinead that she’d find true love and happiness in a foreign country. Lizzie had got all excited about it. She urged Sinead to jack the job in and go off on an adventure. But Sinead clung to her demanding job and her awful flat with the noisy head-the-ball living upstairs. "You can’t move countries just because some old biddy with a deck of cards says you should," she insisted.

"I know, but you want to go," Lizzie pleaded. "Why don’t you go to have a look? Even if you decide you hate it, at least you’ll have found out."

"It’s low self-esteem," Sinead had laughed. "Because I’m not worth it!"