OUT

Chapter 4

Friday, September 5th 2014

'Two. Fuck you, Jack,' said Mark, raising a KitKat mug full of Vodka and clinking it off Jack's Heineken bottle. There were a dozen or so of them crammed into the tiny apartment playing Kings. A cheap speaker was playing an Avicii song somewhere in the background, although the chatter of the room drowned most of it out. They sat on a collection of mismatched sofas, rickety kitchen chairs, and old cushions on the floor, circling a small, and very stained, coffee table. 'Actually, cheers to Jacko on finally finding accommodation in Dublin! How many viewings did it take in the end?'

'Twelve.' Jack was sick to death of scrolling through Daft.ie and different Facebook groups for housing, only to arrive at absolute shitholes that he would be competing for with dozens of people. One of the houses he had viewed was with a group of Ag Science lads from UCD. The lads were sound enough, but the place was a kip. It was clinging together, baltic, and there was moss growing in the bathroom! That said, the line of eager applicants had wrapped the whole way around the street, 'Dublin is honestly a shit show.'

'Show them the picture of the place with f the bed in the sitting room.'

'Hardly?'

Jack's phone was passed around the room, and one by one, they all gasped in horror at the image he had taken at the viewing - no one would've believed him otherwise. There was a single bed in the corner of a sitting room, with a makeshift curtain covered in mould wrapped around it for 'privacy', although it didn't even reach the ceiling.

'Six hundred euro a month?' exclaimed one of Mark's girlfriend's friends, who's name Jack had forgotten, in utter disbelief, 'is that a joke?'

'And there were loads of people at the viewing that wanted it!' Jack explained.

'We got so lucky with this place in fairness,' said Laura, Mark's girlfriend. The apartment wasn't much, but the four of them had made the most of what they had. There were strings of fairy lights lining the perimeter of the ceiling and bordering the windows. There were photo frames dotted across the walls, as well as 'live, laugh, love'-esque signs you'd expect to see in your granny's house. There were also candles everywhere. Although the room was quite tight for space, it had a very homely feel to it. It was clearly a girl's house too; a group of lads would have the place in bits.

'Five. Guys!' called one of the lads as he pulled a 'five' from the circle of playing cards that surrounded a half-full pint of God knows what concoction on the table, and all the lads in the room took a swig from their own drinks.

Jack was sitting between Mark and a lad he hadn't met before. Apart from them and Jack, there were only two other lads present - the rest of the room was made up of women - Laura, her housemates, and her college group from medicine.

'So where are you in college?' asked one of the lad's whose name Jack had forgotten the minute he had said it; he was one of Mark's new friends from UL.

'UCD.'

'Aw class. I'd say the Dublin birds are something else man. The Limerick women are munters.'

'I'm not complaining,' he smirked, and the lad clinked his bottle into Jack's and gave him a wink.

'Seven, heaven!' called the next person in the circle, and everyone's hand shot up to the ceiling.

'Ciara!' called a few of them in unison, and the girl took a large swig from the bottle of white wine in her hand.

'Ugh, that is piss,' she said, wincing.

'Is that Centra wine?' asked Laura.

'Three Euro!' she confirmed, 'ya get what you pay for I suppose.'