Solar Blue — 11:11 Press

You meet on a damp spring afternoon, fat raindrops puckered on your windscreen like jelly or tiny crustaceans; water fleas, perhaps. You start to count the globules sat in your eyeline against the granite grey clouds interrupted by Rathfarnham’s leisurely townhouses. Your eyelids droop down.

It is your last site visit of the day, an elderly woman called Maureen, Mrs. Reilly, who sent an inquiry after her daughter passed on your details. Her email read: “Impressive to be all done in a day!” “Absolutely, Mrs. Reilly,” you replied. “The best thing about a solar panel installation is the simplicity and convenience.” From the address you can tell she’ll bite. Old money you decided after a conversation with the daughter about their family home in Kildare. You’ll send the proposal over and get the deal secured in a couple of days.

She’s only a few roads away from your own flat, but best to visit by car. Professionalism is not having damp hair as you clumsily dismantle your umbrella in a stranger’s hallway. You told your client you’d be driving by, commission has bought you an electric car and shoes by a Swedish brand that hasn’t even opened in Dublin yet. You could fall asleep deeper than ever before, but the sharp pain of the blister on your right heel keeps you alert.

The front door seems like it was once black but time has speckled it charcoal. No doorbell. The horseshoe knocker is bronze, heavier than you thought. You are greeted by a pair of quartz blue eyes gleaming from within a tiny woollen mass, breaking the darkness that mists behind. Maureen beckons you in, her miniature frame cloaked by a large navy shawl hanging purposefully like an additional skin.

She offers you tea and some soda bread baked by her live-in carer as she leads you down the ebony panelled corridor. The walls are blotted by paintings of rural farm scenes your grandmother would paste her own with. Round the first corner, bookshelves emerge. Postcards, material and newspaper scraps are attached by string to the shelves or protrude out between the books themselves. Feathers adorn a mirror positioned on the opposite wall, shooting off the jade encrusted frame.

“Well that looks magical,” you tell her.

“I was a textile designer in Argentina once upon a time, all my bits and bobs like,” Maureen says, as she shuffles into a low chair.

She pours the tea carefully with thin-skinned hands that have emerged from beneath two billowing sleeves. You notice a small felt rose clipped into her hair, silver strands folded delicately like a pagoda atop her head. She adds a sugar to her tea, letting you sort your own. She tells you which jug is cream and which is milk. You take the cream out of awe for the gold-rimmed lip.

“So,” she starts, “I’ve heard solar panels are the way forward from my daughter, who you’ve met of course.”

“It definitely makes more sense in the long run. Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Reilly.”

“Well, as I said on the phone, I’m not going to be about for much longer like, but I want to leave a house so whichever child ends up here is fully equipped for the future. You know, to make life easier, cheaper and the rest.”

“That’s so generous of you.”

“An English girl?” she gathers from your accent.

“Sharp as an eagle aren’t you Mrs. Reilly? Both my parents are Irish but they moved over to London before I was born.”

“Always the way. You returned though?” and her use of return shoots a nerve deep into your soul.

“My ex-boyfriend was from Dublin. I just stayed on, you know, I like it here.”

“Why not. There must be some familiarity to it all,” stirring her tea.

You run Maureen through a summary of solar energy in Ireland. The company you work for was one of around 70, three and a half years ago. Now, there are over 500, all geared toward the Irish market.

“We’ve been on the scene since the beginning, so we’ve built the trust with installers, financiers … we’ve got the best in the business,” you reassure her, fighting a yawn.

You tell her option b will be most suitable as her electricity usage is low, so she won’t need a battery.

“And how long will they last?”

“So as I said on the phone, each panel has a 30-year warranty.”

“No dear, I mean what happens to the panels once the 30 years is up like? What we do with them? Is there somewhere to recycle?”

You are caught off guard. You wonder why she asks.

“Absolutely. It’s possible to recycle them for parts in the future,” you respond.

“And I saw on your website what it means to have these solar panels. Like, it’s, how do I say, better for the environment at large.”

“Absolutely,” you interject, adding some more cream into your tea, your legs weighted with fatigue.

“How though, how will it help? Just the other day there was some enormous iceberg drifting toward the Falklands I saw?”

“Well as I said Mrs. Reilly, they tap into an energy source which causes absolutely no harm at all to the atmosphere. They’re purely silicon and glass absorbing the sun. It’s all controlled through an app too, which helps you see just how much you’re saving in terms of euros to kilowatts.”

“No, my dear. I mean can we see any change from this? Is it actually stopping anything that is already happening out there? You sound like my daughter; it’s all very brilliant isn’t it, but I wonder if we’re really changing or just mutating, you know, Aldous Huxley like.”

You capitulate … we can’t change what is happening right now, you say, but we can help safeguard our future. She mutters something you cannot hear, but you both agree eight panels will be sufficient after showing her the roof mock-up on your laptop. She calls you a “petal” and thanks you for fitting her in at such late notice. As she closes the door she tells you to get some sleep. You are suddenly embarrassed it was that noticeable.

“We’re no use to anyone without our sleep, are we dear?”

***

Your body collapses on the cheap sofa like a felled tree. You smell the sickly dry shampoo on your hair as it suffocates your face, skin numb to the rough corduroy of the cushion. Usually, you’d get your laptop out and send a proposal straight away. Maureen can have it tomorrow—she’s an easy win. You stare at your reflection in the blackness of the oven door across the room and think of the burnt crap inside you need to clean. You count the drilled pock marks on the dull cream walls from the framed posters your ex took when he left.

Mum keeps suggesting you move back home. She worries about you in Dublin on your own. It’s fine, you tell her. I’m making money in an industry that I couldn’t in the UK. They don’t have the 0% VAT like they do here, you always say.

You want to prove the irrational to yourself, that you can make it in the place both your parents left. A place they both said there was nothing to be had. Other than visiting family a couple of times a year, they avoid Ireland like an abandoned building site. You are drifting in and out, peripatetically Irish.

You have broken sleep the whole evening, body feeling like it’s been ejected from a rocket onto cement. You want to sleep but your breath is shallow. There is a slot machine with your commission glowing alien green in your head. You think about what you would lose from taking two days off. Two days off to sleep. It would mean cancelling four site visits, but you can ask if your colleague Max can do them. You send him a text, saying you have a low-level infection, and if he can do a site visit for so and so, that would be grand if okay. You just need a long kip. Your saliva rests in the corner of your mouth and trickles out like a leak. You beg the night for sleep but all you can do is wait for it, locked in your own chronic purgatory. Two days.

The sound of a clotted pipe wakes you at 5 a.m. It is burping trapped air down the outside wall as the birds start. You email your boss, Sian: “It’s an infection, need two days.”

The shower is hot. You stand, then you sit. You stand again, lifting your head to the waterfall like a getaway advert. You don’t have the energy to wash your hair. You burrow back into your bed. The whole of your body is damp, wrapped in your navy blue flannel dressing gown, wet hair moulding to the pillow. Sleep please, now. You’ve had the top sales for almost a year. You have crested the leader board like a bird of prey, flapping your wings towards the sun, like they use to flap in the water at your swimming competitions every weekend at Gurnell Leisure Centre. You spent a childhood in water at that dilapidated place on the cusp of London. It’s closed, but mum said it’s being renovated now.

Please, you tell yourself. Sleep. The commission glows. You feel the blood pump at the back of your knees. Your thighs ache incessantly. You are scared. You’ve had dreams recently where you can’t stretch your legs out—they’re stuck, coiled. You can barely walk and your vision blurs. You're always aware of the eyes of others in your dreams, you do not want them to see a lack of control, but then you’re crawling on the floor and can barely breathe.

Sian calls at 2 p.m. You almost don’t pick up but tell her it’s just a chest infection and you will be fine in a couple of days. You don’t know how to say you are so tired you feel sick; it doesn’t sound eligible enough for more leave. She asks about Maureen and if you managed to close. Not yet, you’ll get it done today. Make sure you do, we need the collateral going into spring. She’s a done deal, you say, hanging up the phone. Sales is giving the heartless heart, Sian always says—in our case, guilt management, remember that.

You make some toast, leaning against the kitchen counter with the dressing gown loosely tied with one warm, deflated tit hanging out. There is no butter, so you eat it immediately, burning your mouth with each bite. It is hard to swallow, your neck sore and tender to touch. Glands are freshly grown into equal mounds on either side, sandwiching your throat. You spit the toast out into the sink, pure gunk coming out.

Mum calls. Don’t worry, you say, I think it’s just a bug, but I’m so tired I feel like everything is shutting down. You’ve been tired for a while darling, Mum says. Why don’t you book a flight home? Take the week off? Let me think about it, you tell her, before rolling over onto the wet pillow and sinking further under the duvet.

You remember how she joined you under the covers when she got home late from work. Her nails painted a perfect tomato red, almond shaped. She’d stroke your hair and tell you stories of a little girl who lived in the sea, collecting amber jewels for her castle in the abyssal zone. Your pride burst when she picked you up from school every Friday, getting off work early. You did not know what a lawyer was, but you knew it made your Mum stand out, her blonde hair blow dried into a halo around her face, her heels staccato on the playground. You were going to be as elegant as her one day. If you could look like that, she would be proud. I only ever want you to be happy, she always says. The paradox is that your happiness will always be what she was, the vision you want to become.

By evening you’ve managed to get your laptop awake. You get a proposal ready for Maureen and send it over—lovely to meet you yesterday. You see Max has texted back saying he managed the two today but he can only fit in one of your site visits tomorrow. You’ve made enough money for the month, but still you panic. You start to cry that you may need more than two days. A week maybe? Fuck. You read a text from your mum suggesting you go for a swim, see if that helps. But don’t push it, a text sent two minutes later adds, I think you're burnt out.

***

You drive down to Seapoint at dawn. You screamed as you pulled the wetsuit on, using what was left of your strength. You woke to a reply from Maureen. She’s had a change of heart and thinks she’ll leave it for now, but it was nice to meet such a lovely young girl. You cried immediately, tears of exhaustion and self-pity, but once you started to breathe again you smiled, remembering what she said, the mutating Aldous Huxley bit. She feels no guilt. This earth is not hers, it never was.

Barely managing a slow walk to meet the water, you descend each concrete step, wary of your ailing body on the water’s slippery mucus. Your toes freeze. The sun has not had a chance to warm the sea. Your mouth, it widens but does not let out a screech. Strands of dark hair blow across your face and scratch your eyes, scrunching them into two weather beaten slits. The cold burns with every inch you take further into the wash, staring at the pure blue of the sky ahead and then the gleaming turquoise below. You’re now running on adrenaline. You hear yourself breathe, low and deep. You feel knackered but a little less shit.

Then you’re under, fully. You take yourself into a place of silence and ice. As you come up you feel the sun on your head and the water compressing against your torso and limbs. It is how you imagine a horse feels when their rider is firm yet soft with the pressure of their legs either side. You remember learning about photosynthesis at school, how you need to feed the roots as well as have exposure from the sun for a plant to live. You gasp the sea’s air in whole with drops of salt water on your tongue.

You swim. Your grandfather taught you through the currents of rivers. Never look behind your shoulders. Don’t swim against, swim through. It will kill you if you don’t.

You plunge your body and open your eyes when under. It is a ghost blue, blurred. You are the water too, a sack of flesh tightened by seams only you know how to unpick.