Meabh closed the boot of her Golf Polo and shuffled, head down against the rain, to the driver’s side door. A Tesco bag on her head, to protect her perm. Someone had referred to it as a granny perm while she was in the salon, which meant she had come out feeling older rather than younger. She wasn’t sure why she even bothered going to the hairdressers when as soon as it rained it was ruined again. Still, it was something to do. And she liked Martina, the hairdresser. She was from Lithuania, or somewhere like that. Estonia maybe.

She got in and blared the heating full blast to try and warm herself. The windscreen began to demist slowly. Her trousers were all wet at the thighs and the cold, damp sensation was seeping through into her legs. Aldi was packed, at nine forty-two on a Thursday in Carlow town, God knows why.

She’d gotten to the front of the queue and the man had told her it was too early to buy alcohol. Not until half ten. Lord almighty. First the taxes on alcohol rose and rose again, then they introduced that little hidden cowboy saloon where you had to store the drink, some preemptive measure to save the children, God forbid a toddler spied a peek at some cans and became an instant wino. And now you can’t even buy the stuff when you are in your mid-fecking-forties with money in your pocket. It’s not like she’s an alcoholic, it’s a weekly shop. Christ.

She told him to leave the wine by the counter. She’d be back.

What are you gonna do, sit in your car and wait for forty minutes? He’d said. Yes, you gobshite. So here she sat, in the Aldi car park, waiting for it to be late enough in the day for her to buy her wine. A couple of Cab Savs, a Pinot. A Conde Noble, horrid as it was, you couldn’t argue with €3.99 a bottle. Although they say that was going to go up soon as well, some new law or tax coming through the Dáil. Bastards.

She pressed the CD button, stabbing it with a stinging pins and needles finger. Rory Gallagher came on, but the sound annoyed her, she’d heard the CD too many times before. She thought about turning on the radio, but she couldn’t stand the adverts, the over-zealous DJs. Spotify had spoiled her; without knowing what she wanted to listen to, on would come an album curated by some algorithm that knew her better than she knew herself. She’d had to cancel her subscription to that though. Netflix, Spotify, Disney, Amazon, Audible, DuoLingo, she was sick to death of them all, draining her money like a leech with blood.

Leaning over she popped the glove compartment, pushing aside the old A-Z she hadn’t used in years but refused to throw away, ignoring the little bits of Tayto ground into the edges of the felt, brushing aside the odd Worther’s Original. Worther’s Originals, God, she really was a granny. She had a quick scan of the CDs nestled at the back. Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, Christy Moore. She’d heard them all too many times. Rory would do, so.

She yawned. Inadvertently she glanced across the road at the vets. One of her dogs was sick. She’d been up half the night sitting with the poor thing in her lap, trying to calm it. He was old now, and half blind. There was something so heartbreaking about a dog crying.

He wasn’t any better in the morning. Hadn’t touched his breakfast. But fuck wasn’t the vet expensive. She’d bring the thing in, and it would be absolutely fine, and she’d be down €600. Still, it would do wonders for her peace of mind. And her sleep.

Aldi didn’t sell newspapers, apparently. She had nothing to do. She’d left her phone at home, as she thought she was only nipping out. Twenty seven minutes left. The rain thundered against the windscreen, a drum beat against the glass, a rhythm section for Rory.

She’d bought some biscuits, and now thought about getting them out of the boot. Was it worth pushing through the rain? She thought of the stinging fingers, the wet thighs, the smell of damp. Ginger Nuts, Dark Chocolate Digestives, maybe she could do without, but the Quadruple Chocolate All Butter Crunch?

She got out. Shuffled to the boot, rummaged around, shuffled back in behind the wheel. Whore of a day, as her father used to say. Heating back to full, stereo back on. Fuck these biscuits were good. She shouldn’t have another, thinking about the little rolls of stomach lumped together under her jumper. But then again, it was winter, it didn’t matter. No one would see, the bikini was off-duty until May at least. And even then, opportunity to use her bikini in county Carlow was not frequent. Plastic cracked as she pulled another biscuit from the packet. Rory strummed his guitar. Twenty four minutes to go.