“Your client should come up with the truth and get in early, as they say. The bus will be leaving on time.”
“I can tell you don’t have evidence. Not even testimony, the way you’re pumping it.”
Minogue flicked the cigarette against the wall just to see the sparks.
Chapter 27
Brid put on her trackpants after Aisling finally knocked off.
“I have to,” she murmured. “It’s nearly a week.”
He watched her take out her earrings.
“Good going,” he said.
She pulled off her sweater. He counted two, then three rolls under her brassiere when she bent down to tie her runners. He returned to the dishes, and splayed his fingers over the plates that lay just below the surface of the luke-warm water.
There was no way you could just stage dog fights for a film.
Brid stood then.
“How are you feeling now?”
“I’m grand.”
“Must have been one of those bugs. That twenty-four-hour bug going around.”
He came up with a smile.
“You looked pretty wiped, I have to say,” she said.
He concentrated on scraping off some of the dried sauce. Brid didn’t move off yet. He looked back at her. She was smiling at him, tenderly.
“You’re very good,” she said. “I sometimes forget to tell you.”
He knew that she meant it. He tried to show he appreciated it.
“You’re on a roll I think,” she said. “You’ve got that look about you, that faraway look. A portrait of the artist.”
“Are you coming on to me?”
“What if I am? Remember the Bois?”
He feigned shock.
“If your students could hear you.”
“Actually,” she whispered, “thinking about that makes it even better. But you know that. Come on. You always go for the edge, the danger. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, well,” he said.
She watched him wash Aisling’s plate. He wondered if his irritation showed now.
“‘What do women want?’” he said.
When she said nothing, he stopped.
“No one believes Freud anymore,” he tried. “A joke?”
She reached up suddenly and drew back a strand of hair from his forehead.
“It won’t always be this way, Dermot.”
“I know.”
“You’ll get the recognition you deserve. Really. The work you need.”
Again he tried to smile.
“I always believed in you,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“You’re a good father.”
It was almost as much as he could manage. He looked down at the water.
“So tell me,” she said, her voice gone soft again. “Is this new one the one?”
For the moment he didn’t understand.
“Underworld, etc.?”
“I think so,” he said. “Yes.”
“Just don’t be getting a crush on one of their molls now.”
“As if.”
She pulled on her Belfast Marathon T-shirt, and zipped up the windbreaker.
“Where did I put the Yellow Peril, Der?”
“It’s on the back of the door in the toilet.”
She came back wearing the reflective vest. She closed the door softly behind her.
He had some forks left at the bottom of the sink and that would be that. He wiped the counter. Moving the germs around, really. He reached down into the lukewarm water and pulled the stopper. He’d seen people washing utensils with sand, on the BBC documentary about the… Touareg — that was the name of Tony’s car, a Touareg. Those three women on the bus could hardly be Touaregs. No way.
The phone rang softly. He remembered Brid setting it that way so Aisling wouldn’t be woken up. His fingers were slippery on the plastic.
“So how’s the script then?”
“Who is this?”
“How soon you forget. The script, are you going to use the bit with those two at the pub earlier?”
“You’re…?”
“Come on. Has it been that long?”
Fanning clutched the phone harder.
“That’s over. I told you. That’s too far for me.”
“Really? Could have been worse I say.”
“Look, come on. I’m not involved in this. This kind of thing I mean. I told you, it’s not for me.”
“We didn’t do it for you, did we. Let’s do more of that research tonight. It won’t take long. Small matter, but you’d be glad you came.”
Fanning looked around the kitchen.
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“You can’t? No obligation now. Nobody’s saying you’re ‘involved’ kind of involved you know?”
It was that accent again, with the unexpected sidesteps from Dublin to London.
“No charge.”
“I’m sorry but look, it’s over. It’s not what I want. It’s just, well I’m not going to do the thing. I’m going to move on to another project.”
“Another project? That mind of yours is just going, going, going. I wish I was like that. You know, able to make things up, just like that.”
Fanning’s grip on the phone tightened. He held his breath before speaking.
“For every project that gets done, there’s ten others you throw out.”
“What waste. Tell you what — one last go, one last, what do you call it — audition.”
“Let me think about it.”
“I can wait. Just you and me. No funny stuff.”
“No West Ham.”
“Naw. He was just over for a holiday, you know. Temple Bar. Rah, rah, rah.”
“No crime. No people getting-”
“Of course not.”
“Okay. I’ll get in touch then, if I want to go ahead.”
“Really? How will you do that?”
Fanning realized with a shock that Cully had been ready for this.
“Murph,” he said quickly. “I’ll get in touch through Murph. Only so’s I can get in touch with you.”
“Okay. Like I said, I can wait.”
