Are You Watching Me Read online

  Liz burned her tongue on her own drink and took a furtive look around the room while she waited for the stinging to die down. In fairness to Dean, he’d gone some way towards redeeming himself by steering her towards this alcove. Not only was there a huge potted plant between her and the TV screen, the banquette-style seat came with a high back, so she was protected on two sides. It was the perfect place to get her head together. And, good Christ, did she need that.

  Her friend placed his smartphone down on the table and grinned.

  ‘I don’t know why you looked so surprised. I mean, it was a telly interview. You did know you were going to be on telly, right? The big cameras must have given it away?’

  Liz rolled her eyes.

  ‘Yes, Dean, I was well aware of that, thanks. But I was in there at nine o’clock this morning, and the piece went out live. I’d no idea they’d show it again.’

  ‘It’s a twenty-four-hour station, you eejit.’ Dean smiled at her patronisingly. ‘There’s no such thing as a one-off programme anymore. Especially not with that crowd. Sure, it’ll go out four more times between now and the evening news. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re worried about; you looked fantastic. Totally hot, but, you know, serious at the same time? Trust me, you’ve nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Right.’

  Liz smoothed back her hair and then glanced down at her hands. They’d stopped shaking. At least that was a start. It had been pretty stupid of her, to think she could just sort of sneak on television and hope nobody would notice. But the whole situation was just so . . . bizarre. It wasn’t like she was one of those people who wanted to be famous. That had been the furthest thing from her mind.

  ‘You did well, anyway!’ Dean poked at his phone for a moment and then looked up at her triumphantly. ‘You’re trending on Twitter again!’

  ‘Don’t wanna know.’

  Liz took another sip of coffee and settled back into her chair.

  ‘You know I don’t do Twitter – can’t be arsed. Or Facebook, or any of that crap. I’ve enough ways to waste my time, thanks.’

  And there’s nobody out there I want to connect with, she thought to herself, but Dean didn’t need to know that level of detail.

  But her friend was still poking.

  ‘Well, your boss doesn’t agree with you. We’ve set up a Facebook page, actually, for the charity. Nothing too elaborate, just a few pictures of the place, a few details about what you do. We’ve given bank account details where people can send donations—’

  Liz shook her head. ‘I told you, I don’t want to know. You work away with Tom if you like – and since when did you two get so pally, anyway? But leave me out of it. I did you a favour, I did your bloody interviews, now—’

  But she had lost her audience. Dean pulled his phone closer to his face, and grimaced. ‘Sorry, hon. I just have to answer this, OK? Give me a minute.’

  And he was gone, thumb flying, muttering under his breath about feckin eejits as he emailed.

  ‘No problem.’

  Liz knew that, as a freelance journalist, Dean couldn’t afford to be out of contact at any time for longer than five minutes and the constant checking of his phone was sparked more by necessity than rudeness. She needed a moment to herself anyway. She liked Dean, enjoyed his quick wit and was even starting to admire the unashamed aura of ambition that hung around him like expensive aftershave, but hanging out with him was like being on one of those teacup rides at the fairground – great fun while you were on, but leaving you dizzy and a bit unsure when your feet touched solid ground again.

  The producer at the TV station that morning had asked her how they’d met. ‘In school’ had technically been the correct answer, but they hadn’t actually been friends back then. Dean had turned up in fifth year, trailing unconfirmed rumours about suspensions and expulsions, and hadn’t bothered to join any particular gang. In fact, her strongest memory of him from back then was of a restless, too-thin boy at the back of the classroom, always twitching, always on the move, darting between classes, rooting around in his bag for a pen that never seemed to be there and, towards the end, asking and answering far more questions than the rest of them put together.

  After the Leaving Cert, Dean hadn’t brought his fake I.D. to the local pub with the rest of the lads; he’d just kind of evaporated out the front door. A rumour went around that he’d been accepted to Trinity College on a scholarship and, given everything else that happened to her subsequently, Liz hadn’t thought about him again until they’d literally bumped into each other on the street outside her office, just a couple of months previously.

  Her first instinct had been to ignore him, or pretend she couldn’t remember his name – her default reaction when confronted with anyone from her teenage years. But he’d spotted her and marched straight up, arms outstretched as if they’d been best buds back in the day.

  ‘How’ve you been? You’re looking great. What’ve you been up to?’

  Liz had felt the usual stomach clench at the question. But at least now, for the first time in ages, she had a proper answer to give him. Quickly, she’d filled him in on her new job, the grandly titled ‘Communications Executive’ at the building they were standing outside.

  ‘It’s called Tír na nÓg,’ she’d told him, unconsciously rolling into the bland summary she trotted out ten times a day on the phone when looking for grants or trying to get help for the clients. ‘We provide assistance and basically a place to go for men who are on their own. Some of them are homeless; we can’t put them up or anything but we help them find temporary accommodation if we can. And some of them are just lonely and they can hang around our place, read the paper, have a chat, whatever. A bloke called Tom Carthy founded it – he’s the boss. It was a one-man show, really, but he took me on a couple of years ago to help out.’

  And don’t, for the love of God, ask me where I was before that, she prayed silently.

  But Dean seemed far more interested in what she was doing right now.

  ‘Tír na nÓg – yeah, I think I’ve heard of it. That Greg fella – the guy who went missing in Dun Laoghaire a couple of months ago – he was one of your clients, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Liz had nodded, tried to mimic Dean’s flippant tone, but even though months had passed, her breath still caught in her throat at the thought of Greg Butler. He had been her favourite client. Tom’s, too, although Liz knew he’d never admit to having such a thing. But they had all loved him, the tall, sandy-haired man who had been at the heart of their little community. At fifty-four, Greg had been far younger than Tír na nÓg’s other clients, and that wasn’t the only way in which he was different. Greg hadn’t needed any of the practical help the centre provided – the hot dinners, the warm place to sit, the help with form-filling and other aspects of officialdom that Liz provided on a daily basis. In fact, on paper, Greg hadn’t needed any help at all. He lived with his elderly mother in a large, comfortable house on the south side of the city. He’d a large family, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, and pulled out photos of them often, chatting about them to such a degree that, when Liz had seen them at the funeral, she had known all of their names. But, despite his seemingly comfortable life, there had been something a little off about Greg Butler, a little strange. He had never lived away from home, he told Liz, had never stuck at a job longer than a couple of months. An oddball is what Liz’s father would have called him, without meaning to be unkind – a man who was just that little bit out of step with the rest of the world.

  Greg had turned up in Tír na nÓg one Sunday afternoon, saying his mother had heard a mention of the centre at Mass and wanted to make a donation. He accepted, after some persuasion, a cup of tea and stayed for an hour. Two hours, the following week. Soon after that, he began to visit every Sunday from two in the afternoon until the centre shut, shortly before seven. Sunday was family day at his house, he’d told Liz; his brothers and sisters would call to see his mother and bring their kids with them, letting them cli
mb on the furniture and mess with the TV. He loved the children, but found the noise difficult to bear after a while, so he’d head off on his own – to the pictures, or into town – wander around a bookshop, or take a train to Howth and go for a walk on a fine day. But he was happier now he’d discovered Tír na nÓg.

  That was until the day Tom admitted he’d have to close the centre at the weekends. It had been a tough decision and Liz had seen him agonise over it. But funds were tight, the heating bill high during a particularly gloomy spring. The clients understood, or so they told him. But Liz had seen the disappointment in Greg’s face when he’d heard the news, and something else. Fear, maybe? That first Sunday, Liz persuaded Tom to turn off his phone, head to the cinema, take the break he rarely afforded himself. When he turned it back on that evening, there were several missed calls from Greg, but no messages. The guards called round to the centre the following Tuesday. Greg’s family had reported him missing, they said, and couldn’t think of anywhere else he might have gone. They were a large family, the Butlers, well connected. Nieces and nephews circulated Greg’s photograph on social media while his eldest brother persuaded a journalist friend to run a short article on an inside page of the Daily Tribune. His sister and her tall, handsome, glossy-haired sons even called around to Tír na nÓg to see if they could help solve the mystery of Greg’s disappearance. Liz made them tea while they made polite conversation and waited for news. But Greg didn’t come back. The note, when it was finally found, asked that no one be blamed. Loneliness, Greg had written, is a mongrel that bites you just when you think you have it tamed. The water off Dun Laoghaire pier would have been freezing, the guards told Tom afterwards. He wouldn’t have lasted long.

  So, yeah, Liz had told Dean, her eyes half closed. ‘Yeah. I knew Greg Butler.’

  Her old school friend nodded.

  ‘I remember reading the story now. Very sad. So, is money an issue? Do you need more money to keep the centre open at the weekends, is that it?’

  She’d shrugged, unsure of why he was interested. Money, sure. But money wasn’t everything, as the cliché went. Greg’s family had had plenty of it, but it hadn’t been enough in the end.

  ‘But you’re stuck for funds?’ Dean had asked her again, an eagerness in his voice she couldn’t understand. Then he’d explained what was on his mind. He was working, he said, as a freelance journalist, had just landed a couple of shifts at the news channel, Ireland 24, and was filming a series on what charities and other similar organisations wanted from the upcoming budget.

  ‘I’ve a few interviews lined up already,’ he’d told her. ‘But I need, like, an expert. Someone who really knows what they are talking about. Would you do it?’

  Liz had almost laughed in his face. Her – Liz Cafferky – on TV? But Dean, it seemed, was deadly serious.

  ‘You’d be perfect! We’re mad to get, like, new faces on screen, not just the same heads we’re all sick of looking at. So – will you do it? Would you do a short interview with me?’

  Liz had said no, no and no again, had told her boss about it and expected him to back her up, but Tom had muttered something about it ‘doing her good’ and refused to dismiss it out of hand. And Dean – the all new, all persuasive Dean – had eventually worn her down.

  A couple of days later, she’d found herself staring at a huge television camera wielded by a gruff, middle-aged man in a navy fleece jacket, who insisted on her being filmed in her ridiculously untidy office because, he said, it would look right in the frame. Dean’s questions came too quickly for her and she’d sensed his disappointment as she stumbled over her answers, saying, ‘Yeah,’ and, ‘No,’ to most, and even, ‘I’m not really sure,’ when he’d asked her a direct and overly complicated question about government policy and funds.

  Then he’d looked at her and his voice had dropped and he’d asked her, quietly, as if there was no one else in the room, ‘What about Greg? What sort of man was he? He had plenty of money, a roof over his head, a loving family. Why did he need to come here?’

  Liz had taken a deep breath and told him everything she could remember – about Greg and his kindness; the way he used to let the older men win at Scrabble; how he never turned up at the centre without a cake or a box of chocolates, but wouldn’t eat any himself, claiming he didn’t have a sweet tooth. About how he told her once how peaceful it was to be in a place where no one made any demands of you.

  ‘It’s not all about money,’ she’d told Dean then, her hands cutting through the air. ‘Sometimes it’s just about having someone to talk to, and I don’t necessarily mean big long counselling sessions either, although we can help people access them, if that’s what they need. But sometimes it’s just about people having the time to sit and listen to your stories, or joke with you or just bloody sit in the same room as you while you both watch the same rubbish show on TV. Simple human interaction, where you can just be yourself and people accept you for it. This place is a refuge, in the true sense of the word. A safe place to be.’

  When she finally ran out of words, Dean winked at her and said, ‘See? Told you you’d be fantastic!’ Liz had forgotten the camera was even there.

  She’d been mortified then, and flustered. Her hands shook so much that she nearly broke the tiny microphone as she removed it from her collar, and she found herself sounding almost petulant as she insisted to Dean and the cameraman and anyone else who would listen that she’d been useless and how they’d hardly use that on the evening news.

  But she couldn’t have been more wrong. That evening, she sat with Tom and a few of the lads in the Tír na nÓg sitting room and watched the interview on Ireland 24. Liz had hated how she’d looked on screen. There had been something almost aggressive about her, her long black hair flopping into her eyes, her skinny wrists sticking out of the baggy wholemeal jumper, which was the only clean item of clothing she’d been able to find that morning. She couldn’t imagine anyone taking her seriously. She was embarrassed by herself, by the way her hands jabbed the air when she got excited, her tongue grew thick as she fumbled for the right words to convey the loneliness and the isolation she encountered every day.

  But, to her surprise, as soon as the news was over, the men gave her a round of applause. Hours later, the news clip had gone viral, being shared, Dean told her, across Facebook and Twitter by people claiming she was a ‘fresh voice’ with something ‘truly interesting to say’. Liz had just nodded, accepting what Dean was telling her with a kind of wonder. Unless she needed to do so for work, she never went online. The lads she met at the centre weren’t the type to use electronic communication. And there was no one from her old life who she wanted to get in touch with or, more to point, who she wanted to be able to get in touch with her.

  Then everything went even crazier. In the past three months, she had been interviewed four times – once more on television, twice on radio and once in a newspaper, as part of a feature called ‘Young Women to Watch’. She’d particularly hated that piece, as they’d run a massive photograph of her looking cross-eyed and frustrated and had run one of those awful ‘what’s your favourite food and earliest memory?’ questionnaires alongside the main piece. But Dean encouraged her to do everything she was offered and, to her amazement, her boss, Tom, did as well. Donations to the centre had been pouring in since she’d first appeared on TV, he’d told her. Men were calling round who’d never heard of the service before. They might even be able to open on weekends again.

  Dean put down his phone and grinned at her.

  ‘Well, just remember, when you’re famous, that it was all down to me!’

  ‘I have no intention of being famous, thank you.’

  Liz’s sigh came out heavier than she’d intended.

  ‘But there is someone watching me, anyway.’

  Dean, picking up on her glum tone, leaned forward. ‘What do you mean?’

  She reached into her pocket and took out the envelope, grubby now from repeated opening and resealing.


  ‘This came to the office yesterday.’

  Dean opened it and pulled out a newspaper cutting. It was a copy of the ‘Women to Watch’ interview. There was a printed note clipped to it. He read the words out loud, but he didn’t have to. Liz had memorised them already.

  ‘Dear Elizabeth. I’ve been watching you too and I hope to see you soon. Stephen.’

  Her friend threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘Ha! Lizzie has a fan! God – maybe we do need to get you an agent!’

  ‘Shut up, will you?’

  Dean’s notorious cackle had made a few heads in the café turn around and the last thing Liz wanted at that moment was more attention. Finally, Dean picked up on her mood.

  ‘I’m sorry hon, this has freaked you out, hasn’t it?’

  ‘I dunno. A bit, I suppose.’

  ‘Ah, here, don’t let it bother you.’ He bundled the sheets of paper up and stuffed them back in the envelope. ‘This shit happens all the time, honestly. Two minutes on TV and people think they’re your best mate. Seriously, it’s no big deal.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Liz sipped at her cooling coffee. Tom had said the same thing when she’d shown the letter around the centre the previous day and some of the lads had taken the piss out of her, telling her she was a star now and wouldn’t want to know them. But at three o’clock that morning, as she lay awake in her apartment, it hadn’t seemed so funny. There had been something – she didn’t want to use the word sinister, didn’t want to go there – but there had been something a little unsettling about the letter. Something weird. And she didn’t have room in her life for weird anymore. In a sudden, decisive motion, she reached out, grabbed the envelope, crumpled it in her fist, threw it on top of their now-empty tray and deposited the lot on to the metal trolley on the other side of the aisle.

  When she took her seat again, Dean looked at her, head to one side. ‘That was signed, wasn’t it? Maybe you should hold on to it . . .’

  But the look on Liz’s face made him, finally, realise she didn’t want to joke around and he shrugged.