“I’m some cunt,” I think, as I stare out over the Docklands skyline, past the house I grew up in and beyond to the grey continent of clouds eating the heads off the Wicklow Mountains. Up until, say, six months ago, any hotel bar was destined for an ad hominem slaughtering in review, dark adjectives and strained Tiger metaphors already checked out of the arsenal and loaded up. Something’s happened though. Some Brut-drinking, carpaccio-devouring, Irish-Times-Social-Diary-writing Hulk has ripped out of my Bruce Banner skin, oxford shirt buttons flying perforce, and I find myself now on top of a designer hotel surrounded by Chloé handbags and just-shucked oysters justifying the €13.50 cocktails that are disappearing as quickly as the sun.
The Marker roof’s outfittings are influenced by the Burren, a Burren where slate-grey Karst is replaced by pure-white geometric furniture, flora poking up from the crevices. It is a panopticon for all of the city, a voyeurism we’re allowed by blagging the last free table on the terrace on a Saturday afternoon. Its food menu has attained a degree of infamy for the inclusion of awkwardly-monikered on-trend pastry, the cronut. We avoid the dreaded fad food and stick to the far less poncey crab bruschetta(!). They’re as salty as the Ringsend breeze, thirsting us out for Black Orchids, Blood Orange Mojitos and French 75s. I try to switch to an overpriced Weihenstephaner to my liver’s disappointment: this is a place to drink prosecco ’til your piss turns fizzy.
And now the sky is pissing on us, the Olympians of the Wicklow Mountains spitting in mirth on our €85 bill hubris. We huddle under what little roof cover is going, thick yellow blankets wrapped around heads, sharing an emergency table with your wan from Total Xposure. One of our many genial waiters tells us they’re awaiting planning permission for total roof coverage, but for the meantime industrial-sized squeegees will have to do. Rosa feels a twang of guilt when the door-man goes to fetch a blanket she could have got herself. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I pacify her. “That’s what they’re paid for.”
Grand Canal Square
Docklands, Dublin 2
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