In our fourth year as a couple, we packed a haversack and took a bus to Kerry. She had finished her Master's degree in February whereas I was still struggling through mine. We went to stay in a small cottage, near an unremarkable town, cheap, but within walking distance of the sea. It was Easter weekend, the sun was out, the sky was blue and the shops were shut. The first night we dined on Easter eggs and nothing else. She said there was a rat in the room with us; I believed her. Then we both saw a ghost in the hallway and ran outside. The fresh air revived us a little. She threw up over a small bed of flowers; I decided to do push ups. Then we lay looking up at the stars feeling weak and exhausted until it grew too cold to stay there and we scurried into bed. We lay there until three in the afternoon the next day. Hung over, without having drunk a thing, we clambered over the barbed wire fence that ran along the back of the house. There was a tilled patch: potatoes, a lettuce and two carrots. Whoever had rented the cottage last left behind mayonnaise. Together, they gave us enough sustenance to walk to the local pub. The next day we had proper hang overs but still no food. A bus was due at one. We rowed for two hours before that then decided to screw the holiday and go home.

A dark cloud hung over us as we swept back up from the southwest, express. In Dublin, we turned the key in the small rented basement flat; the bright hot sun had not burned away the smell of moss and dry rot in our absence. Everything was cold and grey in there; neither of us was happy. She didn't unpack. Three days later she moved out.