Mark had been seeing Grainne for two months before he spent the night at her flat.

He woke to find her dressed smartly and working at her laptop.

Looking at the alarm clock, he saw that it was 7am.

‘You’re up early,’ he mumbled.

‘I’ve got a client meeting I needed to do some more research for,’ Grainne said, then smiled. ‘We don’t all have the luxury of summer holidays, Mark.’

She was teasing him, he knew that, but at 27, Grainne was six years his junior and already a Project Manager for a global energy company. There were times that her success made him feel inferior and throwaway remarks like this felt subliminally cruel.

Grainne shut down her laptop, picked up her keys from the bedside table and kissed him on the forehead.

‘Let’s have dinner tonight,’ she said. ‘Don’t stay in bed all day.’
 

After Grainne left, Mark made a cup of tea which he brought back to the bedroom and sipped while looking at her bookshelf.

The books were mainly business titles like The Power of Habit and It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be. The few fiction novels were classics, some of which he’d read last term with his Year 12 English Literature class.  

At the top of the bookshelf were five photo albums and he took one down, opening the first page to find six postcards, each with scenes of Dublin. He slipped one out and read the scratchy writing on the reverse: ‘Dear Ennis, All well here with family. You needn’t worry. I look forward to seeing you in a couple of days. All my love, Mary.’

He flicked through the rest of the album, then the other four. The postcards were of different places within Ireland and the UK, dated from the 1930s until as late as the 1990s. The recipient was never the same.
He couldn’t imagine someone as practical as Grainne collating such an arbitrary collection and made a mental note to ask her about them that evening.
 
When they met for dinner, Grainne was still excited about the morning’s meeting. The client had been complimentary, she said, and she’d had fantastic feedback from her line manager. She was animated and tactile and surprised Mark by ordering a second large glass of wine.

She raised a toast. ‘To successful meetings.’

‘To successful meetings,’ he echoed. Then, to change the subject, ‘You know, I never had you down as a postcard collector.’

She recoiled. ‘Have you been going through my things?’

Mark felt his heart begin to race; heard blood thump in his ears.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘They were on the book shelf. I just-,’

Grainne took a deep breath and looked at her hands on the table.

‘I can’t talk about this here. Can we go somewhere else?’

‘Of course.’

Mark paid the bill and they left the restaurant. It was 9.30pm and still light, the early evening city air hot and heavy, a storm on the horizon.

They walked the residential streets for ten minutes in silence until Grainne said:

‘When I was 12, my mum left my dad for a man she met at work.

It was just me and my dad then and, years later, after I started university, I only went back to Ireland at Christmas, so I wasn’t seeing him much and I didn’t know how strange his behaviour was until I went back in my third year. He’d sold all the furniture in the house.

When I asked what was going on, he said he just wanted to start afresh. But I knew something wasn’t right. His voice was quiet, conspiratorial. I went next door to speak to the neighbours. They said they rarely saw him, but that they’d seen a removals van come round at the end of the summer. So he’d been living with no furniture since then.

I thought he’d had a nervous breakdown, so suggested he go to the doctor. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour and he died three months later.

When I went back to Ireland for the funeral, I went through the house. Everything was gone. Everything apart from the postcards in a shoebox under the bed. I don’t know whose collection they were, but they were my mum’s or my dad’s. And they’re all I have left of them.’

She stopped walking and looked at Mark.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘That must have been a horrible thing to go through.’

‘Maybe I should have told you sooner.’

‘You’re telling me now,’ Mark said.

He took her in his arms and felt closer than he’d ever felt to anyone. It was as if he was meeting her for the first time.