She knew she was lucky that Etcetera, the magazine Constance had founded and edited, was continuing to employ her, though the only reason she had a job was because Constance was her biggest supporter. She didn’t have many of those right now, and though Bob was deputy editor and a good friend she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d keep her job without Constance there to throw her weight around. Kitty dreaded the day that her mentor wouldn’t be in her life, never mind her professional life. Constance had been there for her since the beginning, had guided her, had advised her and had also given her the freedom to find her own voice and make her own decisions, which meant that Kitty owned her successes, but also meant her name was stamped all over every single one of her mistakes, a fact that was glaringly evident now.
Her phone vibrated again in her pocket and she ignored it as she had been doing all week. Journalists had been calling her since news of the case going to trial had broken, people she had considered friends were close to harassing her just to get a quote. They’d all chosen different tactics. Some came straight out with asking for a quote, others had gone for the sympathy vote: ‘You know how it is, Kitty, the stress we’re under here. The boss knows we’re friends, he expects me to have something.’ Others had randomly and spontaneously invited her out for dinner, for drinks, to their parents’ anniversary parties and their grandfathers’ eighty-fifth birthdays without mentioning the issue at all. She hadn’t met or spoken with any of them but she was learning a lot and slowly crossing them off her Christmas card list. There was only one person who hadn’t called her yet and that was her friend Steve. They had studied journalism together in college and had remained friends since then. His one desire had been to cover sport but the closest he’d got to that so far was covering footballers’ private lives in tabloid newspapers. It had been he who had suggested she go for the job at Etcetera. He’d picked up a copy of the magazine in a doctor’s waiting room while she’d gone for the morning-after pill after their one and only dalliance, which had resulted in the realisation they were destined only ever to be simply friends.
Thinking about Steve and her constantly ringing mobile gave her a sixth sense and she stopped cycling and reached for her phone. It was him. She actually debated not answering. She actually doubted him. The consequences of the Thirty Minutes story had played havoc with whom she could and could not trust. She answered the phone.
‘No comment,’ she snapped.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said, no comment. You can tell your boss that you haven’t spoken to me, that we fell out, in fact we may be about to because I can’t believe you have the nerve to call me up and abuse our friendship in this way.’
‘Are you smoking crack?’
‘What? No. Hold on, is this part of the story? Because if they’re now saying I’m a drug addict then they can—’
‘Kitty, shut up. I’ll tell my boss that you, Kitty Logan, who he’s never heard of anyway, has no comment to make on Victoria Beckham’s new line because that is about the only thing that I am allowed to talk about to anybody today. Not the impending match between Carlow and Monaghan, which is critical because Carlow hasn’t been in an All-Ireland final since 1936 and Monaghan hasn’t been in a final since 1930, but nobody cares about that. Not in my office. No. All we care about is whether V.B.’s new range is a hit or miss, or hot or not, or two other words that mean the opposite but which rhyme, something I’m currently supposed to be inventing but I can’t.’ He finished his rant and Kitty couldn’t help it, she started laughing, the first proper laugh she’d had all week.
‘Well, I’m glad one of us thinks it’s funny.’
‘I thought you were allowed to write football stories now.’
‘She’s married to David Beckham, so apparently that qualifies it as a football story. Apart from needing help with the ridiculous piece I have to write, I was calling to make sure you weren’t decaying inside your flat.’
‘Well, you were right. I was rotting away in the flat but I had to leave to visit Constance. I’m going back there now to continue where I left off.’
‘Good, I’ll see you soon. I’m outside your door. Oh, and, Kitty,’ his tone turned serious, ‘I suggest you bring some bleach and a good scrubbing brush.’
Kitty’s stomach churned.
‘Journo Scumbag Bitch’ was what Kitty found spray-painted across her door when she eventually made it to the top of the stairs with her bicycle in her arms. The studio flat was in Fairview, Dublin and the proximity to the city meant that she could cycle, sometimes walk, into the city. The fact that it was above a dry-cleaners made it affordable.
‘Maybe you should move,’ Steve said as they got down on their knees and started scrubbing the door.
‘No way. I can’t afford anywhere else. Unless you know of any available apartments above dry-cleaners.’
‘That’s a requirement for you?’
‘When I open any of my windows day or night, I am showered in dry-cleaning chemicals called tetrachloroethene, also known as tetrachloroethylene, perchloroethylene, PCE or, most commonly, PERC. Ever heard of it?’
Steve shook his head and sprayed more bleach on the door.
‘It’s used to dry-clean clothes as well as degrease metal parts. It’s considered a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Tests showed that short-term exposure of eight hours or less to seven hundred thousand micrograms per cubic metre of air causes central nervous system symptoms such as dizziness, sleepiness, headaches, lightheadedness and poor balance. The red is difficult to get off, isn’t it?’
‘You do the green, I’ll do the red.’
They switched places.
‘Exposure to three hundred and fifty thousand micrograms for four hours affects the nerves of the visual system.’ Kitty dipped her sponge into her bucket of water and continued scrubbing the door. ‘Long-term exposure on dry-cleaner workers indicates biochemical changes in blood and urine. PERC can travel through floor, ceiling and wall materials, and there was a study on fourteen healthy adults living in apartments near dry-cleaners that showed their behaviour tests were lower than the average score of unexposed people.’
‘So that’s what’s wrong with you. I take it from that verbal diarrhoea that you did a story about PERC.’
‘Not quite. I researched it, then I told the landlord downstairs that I was doing a story on it and that I’d circulate it to all the neighbours and I’d tell their staff about the effects of working with PERC, so he reduced the rent by one hundred euro.’
Steve looked at her, shocked. ‘They could just have got another tenant.’
‘I told them I’d tell the next tenant and every other tenant they found. They panicked.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re …’
‘Smart?’ she smiled.
‘A journo scumbag bitch,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should stop cleaning this now, they’re right.’ He continued looking at her as if he suddenly didn’t recognise her.
‘Hey! They’re the ones using PERC!’
‘Then move somewhere else.’
‘It would
