Evenings and Weekends

by Oisín McKenna

There are men with ties loosened, tongues loosened, men loose and loosening.

‘I’m suggesting,’ said Frank, ‘that desire is about lack. You’re not in love with Keith: you’re in love with the distance between what you want and what you can have.

He wants the thrill of those first months together, those big words balanced precariously on teeth, never sure if they’ll tumble into the world or back beneath your tongue.

She turns the receipt over. It’s for a dressing gown she bought in Marks & Spencer. More money than she’d spent on herself in a decade. When she bought it, she imagined the ways her life would change. She imagined being leisurely, easy, content by herself. A hefty ask from a flimsy bit of fabric. She’d been the same way with London, and Pauline before that: always seeking to be transformed by things that were indifferent to her.