FLASH FICTION:Pretty faces don't get called jaded, but hers had a quality that made you think she had seen most things, weighed them up and found them wanting. Her eyes were bright with a mischievous indifference

Murray stood waiting. The drizzle was so light you had to look up at the street lamps to see if it was still raining.

“Not at all,” he said when she arrived. “I felt like I could be in New York, or a New Yorker enjoying Dublin. A girl dropped her shoe . . .”

“She dropped her shoe?”

“Fell out of her bag. She didn’t notice. She was wearing earphones, so she didn’t hear this American calling her: ‘Lady. Lady!’ Big American voice. Retired. Here on holidays with his wife. Couldn’t run after her.”

“So you stepped in.”

“I stepped in. She was fast. She’d already turned the corner there. But I’m fast too.”

“You are alright.”

“Tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Hey lady.’ That’s what I wanted to say. But we don’t call you ladies over here.”

As they pushed their way into the pub, men looked at Catherine. Pretty faces don’t get called jaded, but hers had a quality that made you think she had seen most things, weighed them up and found them wanting.

Her eyes were bright with a mischievous indifference, an indifference that was benevolent but expected nothing from you.

It gave her whole expression an elusive quality that for some reason had made many men think they were fairytale princes who would succeed where all others had failed.

“It’s a nice jacket,” Murray said as they made their way to the upstairs. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing special and you got it on sale.”

“I got it in Copenhagen,” Catherine said. Upstairs looked like standing-room only.

“They’ve taken out a couple of tables and chairs here.”

“The recession,” she said.

“Suppose. We can’t afford to get too comfortable.”

There were two stools by the piano and by a stroke of luck no one seemed to have noticed them. “Why don’t you sit down there, I’ll take care of the first round,” he said.

Catherine’s face was blue-lit by her phone as Murray made his way back with the drinks.

“You arrived just at the right time,” Murray said.

“Well I . . . ”

“No it was perfect. I ran into Kavanagh. He was passing and I said, ‘Here we go.’ I was sure you’d arrive just then and he’d . . .”

“Oh God.”

“Yeah. The mouth on him. I would have put money on you arriving then.”

“Did he ask who you were meeting?”

“Oh, I told him straight out.”

“You didn’t.”

“Come on, it’s hard not to boast, you know that. I’m only human.”

He let her curse at him for a moment, enjoying it, and then he said: “Relax will you, of course I didn’t tell him.”

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