The Rose Garden Read Free Page A

car. Heading back up to the fourth floor for the last time, Kim stood for a few minutes, overwhelmed, taking in the ceiling-to-ground glass windows of the living room which overlooked Dublin’s former docklands. With the cream leather couches and expensive circular dining table and coordinating display unit, it was all so perfect. The kitchen, the massive bedroom, even the silver-and-grey bathroom – too perfect … She didn’t fit into it, this place, this life with Gareth Allen. She wasn’t perfect enough.
    Taking her keys from the ring, she put them on the table and, closing the door, began to walk as fast as she could, wanting to getthe hell out of there before she broke down again. Moving out was the end – the end to her life with Gareth.
    Driving out of the city towards Stepaside, Kim tried to stay calm and focus on her driving – the last thing she needed was to be in a car accident. Her sister Liz had insisted that she come and stay with her and Joe until she got back on her feet.
    Okay, her friends Alex and Evie had also offered to put her up for a few days, but sleeping on a couch or a futon in their already cramped apartments for the foreseeable future didn’t seem a good idea. Besides, Alex’s girlfriend Vicky hated her and Evie’s tiny flat at the top of a Georgian building was so cluttered with Evie’s art paraphernalia that she doubted she would fit!
    Kim braced herself for that barrage of questions she would face once her sister got her hands on her. Liz had offered to help her pack up and move, but she had just wanted to do it on her own. But at least going to stay at Liz’s she didn’t have to pretend or put on a brave face. Liz knew exactly how utterly shit her life was at this present moment.
    Finding herself unemployed, homeless and single at almost twenty-nine was a nightmare. Eight months ago she’d lost her job in the Irish Bank Group. Kim had been one of over two hundred staff members called up to the big HR department in the sky to be given a spiel about the company’s need to cut costs in the current economic climate and rationalize by closing departments and branches. She’d worked there since college and had never particularly liked her job, but had enjoyed the salary and benefits that came with working in a busy banking team. Confident of her ability to find a new job, she had signed up immediately with about twelve recruitment firms, but months later still found herself unemployed and considered almost unemployable.
    ‘The world is full of bankers,’ one of the recruiters had told her, suggesting she return to college or retrain for some other type of career, or emigrate.
    Gareth had been really supportive at first: encouraging whenshe went for interviews, helping her to re-draft her CV over and over again, but as time went on and no job offers came, his attitude to her began to alter. Her finances were tight and she struggled to pay her share of the rent and expenses, and as her savings dwindled and her cash dried up things had somehow changed. Maybe Gareth had lost respect for her, found her less interesting, less attractive. She had no idea.
    It was disheartening sending out CV after CV and getting so little response, but she tried to stay positive, keep in touch with people, tried to make contacts and chase up jobs. Gareth worked long, crazy hours. His job in aircraft-leasing was stressful enough, but her seeming lack of career focus irritated him.
    She signed up for a diploma in website design, a course her friend Evie had told her about. It was tough and very technical, but she was really enjoying it. Then one night a week she was doing a digital photography class – something she really liked; and she had taken up running, as it was much cheaper than being a member of a gym. At home she made great efforts to keep the apartment looking well and to cook healthy organic meals, but Gareth barely noticed what she put in front of him, protesting he was on a high-protein diet