A Conversation With Himself...

Is it that one' enquires Himself, while he stands in the back doorway holding up a packet from the freezer...what does it say I ask him...Chicken Korma...then that's a chicken curry I tell him.

Put your glasses on...put the light on in the kitchen and read the cooking instructions.

It has to be micro-waved, he says...

I don't answer.

'What are you going to have'?

I heave a huge sigh and delete the entire article I've just written out of pure feckin' frustration...lost the thread of it completely.

Cornflakes and strawberries, I tell him...

Then he goes back onto his laptop and tells me Brian is coming home for Christmas...'that's nice' I reply.

While thinking, who the hell is Brian...

Then he tells me Paddy and Honoria went to the Fleadh in Sligo...and I tell him Laurie was the organiser and he says 'who is Laurie?' and I've written Albanian pimps down twice...so I delete it and begin again.

And he says he wouldn't be going while the old man is still alive and I tell him he hasn't been invited, so it's a moot point. Then he laughs at something on FaceAche and when he's stopped he says 'when are they going to Sweden?' and I say I haven't the faintest idea...'I'd not go while that old man is still around'...you'd said that already, I answer.

'How do you know Laurie organised the Fleadh'...'cos she told me, I said. She said it was pandemonium...'who said that?' Laurie did...'Oh...'

I ask if he's thought about when he wants to eat...no answer. Turn round to see he's wearing ear-phones and can't hear me.

And I'm supposed to be not only writing a book, but contacting publishers and getting an agent and thinking of a 'working title'...