Hilary Fannin: I didn’t know whether to bring an umbrella or a swimsuit

It rained all night. The cat was discombobulated, looking out through the window pane wearing an expression of mournful confusion.

“Get a grip. It’s only rain,” I said in response to her plaintive miaows. “Pee in the eco cat lit that cost me an arm and a leg, why don’t you? The one made from sustainable unicorn shavings and awfully good intentions.”

She ignored me, crossed her back legs and looked out at the torrent, ears twitching to the music of the gale that was blowing a plastic bucket around the yard.

‘You’re from Donegal, not Doha,” I told her. “It’s November in Ireland. It’s supposed to be miserable.”

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The next morning it was 17 degrees in Dublin, the temperature matching Madrid. The cat, in full flamenco mode, basked on top of the boiler house and relieved herself with abandon underneath the slug-torn Easter lilies.

I’d arranged to meet an old friend for a walk on the beach. I didn’t know whether to bring an umbrella or a swimsuit. My friend arrived with his very, very big dog in tow. I’ve walked with them both before and know the routine, the random dog lovers approaching to ask about the hound’s antecedents, a question that requires a complicated answer involving Inuits and Canadians.

My friend and I spent more than a decade together when we were young, an intense and formative time. There is a sea of shared experience buried beneath the tide of the lives we live now, territory that’s taken a long time to begin to excavate

“And what’s his name?” they invariably continue.

“He doesn’t answer to any name,” my friend replies mysteriously, and the dog nods briefly in agreement. The passersby and their dancing Pekingeses, called Sasha or Samantha, move on, impressed by this rogue pale-eyed beast who won’t be tethered to convention. My friend and I walk the length of the beach talking about memory, about losing it and sharing it. We spent more than a decade together when we were young, an intense and formative time. There is a sea of shared experience buried beneath the tide of the lives we live now, territory that’s taken a long time to begin to excavate.

“You probably remember...” he’d begin, and I would, though our memories of events don’t always coalesce. Like his nameless dog on its fraying leash, ploughing ahead of us through the dry sand, our memories, too, baulk at being tethered.

[ Hilary Fannin: Would I like to whip out my card for €650 silk pyjamas? I lied with such ease it scared me ]

At the far end of the beach, the dog cooled off in the shallows. We turned back. Returning, we came across a beached cormorant, far from the ebbing tideline. It was entirely still, facing the low cliffside. An elderly couple joined us and they, too, studied the bird. The dog lay on the sand, nose on his big Inuit paws.

We’d failed to notice the injured bird on our outward perambulation, the silent, distressed creature unable to move forward or back. A collective decision having been reached, I photographed it and the surrounding landmarks, and then, as instructed, emailed the pictures to the nearest rescue centre, which, to my surprise, was located not in Dublin but in an adjacent county.

We left the cormorant, albeit with reluctance. The dog needed to be fed, I needed to get home; the day beckoned. We said goodbye on the harbour.

“The thing about memory,” I said, “is that no two people will remember a single event in the same way. That split is at the source of everything I try to write.”

I lit the stove, and, just as I was thinking about turning on the TV to watch a snake crawl into Matt Hancock’s underpants, my mobile rang. It was a volunteer with the rescue service

The rain came back that evening and the gale blew up again and the cat reconsidered her litter tray. I lit the stove, and, just as I was thinking about turning on the TV to watch a snake crawl into Matt Hancock’s underpants, my mobile rang. It was a volunteer with the rescue service, a woman who, along with her rescue partner, was scouring the beach in the dark for the cormorant. Given the conditions, it was difficult for those kind souls to recognise the landmarks I’d photographed. I tried to be specific about the bird’s location, though I didn’t absolutely trust my own memory.

“Can you remember anything else?” the woman asked.

Of course I could. I remembered many things from decades ago, the knotted joy and heartache and love and rage that he and I had finally unravelled, but no, sorry, I couldn’t quite recall the precise location of the forlorn seabird.

[ Hilary Fannin: She asked with startling clarity if we had once been great friends. Yes, I said, great, great friends ]

My phone rang again 20 minutes later.

“We’ve found the cormorant. He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“If you’d had gloves, maybe a towel or a box with a lid, you could’ve brought him home to your garden shed,” the woman from the rescue service gently suggested.

“Thank you, I’ll bear that in mind,” I replied.

I hung up, went off to watch jungle arachnids swarm over a puerile politician, thought about the cormorant’s slow inevitable demise.