Catherine Drea: Facing the day

I’m on the train to Dublin sitting opposite two beautiful young women. As usual everyone is preoccupied with laptops and phone calls. There is a distinct air of the workplace in the B Carriage today.

The two young women are going to Carlow it turns out. (Well I’m at their table so although they are ignoring me, I can’t help but hear the whole story!) You see the boss has asked them to come in on their day off as a load of football supporters are staying over for a few days. They work as receptionists in a hotel there. 

For this granny there is still a certain excitement in catching the early morning train to Dublin that I suppose has been there for me since childhood. 

My favourite part of this journey, oddly, is coming back into Plunkett Station Waterford at the end of the day. I usually stand with my face pressed against the glass of the exit door and peer into the river. 

Is there a train anywhere that goes so close to the edge! 

The power and width of the river, older than any of us, and the beautiful view of the city and the twinkling lights of evening never fail to move me.

I still use the train a few times a month. I leave home at about 7 and after a wing and a prayer that I will find parking there, usually catch the 7.50 to Dublin. My day is full and while I would often like to stay on later than the last train, it’s essential to drop everything and make sure you get back there for 6.30. 

There in Heuston Station, commuters line up ready to run all the way down to Platform 7. When it is eventually announced, there is a stampede.

Back on the early train the two young women, with the perfect skin and the immaculate hair, take out enormous make-up bags and begin to line up the contents on the table in front of us. I want to kick yer man beside me under the table, so astonished am I by the weight and heft of the bags and the chemist shop of cosmetics held inside.

Mirrors, and the added complication of one boyfriend on the iPad having a long chat, are set out and then the process begins. 

The first layer is applied with a thick brush. I am startled by the thickness and the rough brushing onto their perfect little faces. They chat away and the boyfriend joins in.

There are other layers and highlights, which have to be added to the face and neck, an assortment of colours and jars and then we move onto the eyes. Now the eyes are a challenge as the train is wobbling and the false eyelashes are tricky to apply. These are adjusted over a period of about 20 minutes and when we stop in Kilkenny they are finally readjusted and we are all greatly relieved that no one suffered an injury from a poke in the eye!

Onwards to Carlow, face and eyes completed, now for the lips and, most surprisingly of all, stick on studs. They come on a plastic sheet and one is stuck to the outer eyebrow, while the other is for the side of the nose.

When we finally approach Carlow, the bits and bobs are piled back into the giant make-up bags and they get ready to leave us. One of them accidentally drops a lacy item onto the table as she throws her rucksack over her shoulder. It almost hits the man beside me in the face. As I try to figure out what to do next he picks it up and says, "you dropped this".

The blonde woman, now standing up to leave, leans over, grabs the lacy item and stuffs it in the bag. Not a word is said. Just a kind of dirty look and a continuation of the chat between them as if the poor man didn’t exist, never mind myself, now mortified for him and eager to help out if needed.

Not a bit of it. He goes straight back to his laptop and the two hotel receptionists chat casually while they walk to the door in their very high heels with their faces perfected in every way. Faces that took slightly over an hour to complete before they could face the rest of the day. None of my business I decide and put my head down.

I go on listening to the audio of an epic book called Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Everything is going to pot in the story and no-one has time for make-up. 

Grannies have no time for make-up either. Just a slap of sunscreen, some Vaseline for the drying lips and we are ready for the day!