12
‘Can I bring my picture of Grandad to school?’
Ari is standing at the top of the stairs, holding Margaret in one hand and a photograph of Tom Hanks in the other.
‘Shoes on, mister,’ I say, slipping my feet into my sandals and sifting through my bag for the car keys. ‘And doudous only at school, remember? Leave Grandad in his frame beside your bed. You wouldn’t want to lose him, would you?’
‘But Mummy, Matthieu’s papi came to pick him up from school yesterday and I wanted him to see what my grandad looked like.’
‘You can show him another time, baby. We’ve got to get moving or I’ll get another bollicking from Mme Dupont.’
‘But …’
‘I said no, Ari.’
Ari sticks out his lower lip, his fists clenched in indignation. I can’t believe I’ve let things get this far. I’m going to have to tell him. I’d planned on sitting him down when we first got here, but it’s been non-stop these past few weeks. I’ll come clean. Soon. I give Ari the sternest face I can muster, though my insides are twisted with guilt.
‘Okay, Mummy,’ he says, deflated. ‘I’ll go get my shoes.’
~
After dropping Ari off to school, I pop into Utopie to buy a bag of financiers. Sabrina is telling the customer ahead of me about her evening with Jack. He was so charmant and beau , and mustn’t be fed terribly well where he’s staying, because he asked for two helpings of her cassoulet. She shoots me a disapproving glance. When I reach the counter, I admire the elegance of her drop earrings. Jack isn’t the only one who can lay on the charm. She thanks me in the same tone you might adopt if you were asked to donate an organ to a dull relative. You know it’s the right thing to do, but there are infinitely more interesting people you’d rather save.
I make my way back to the car and toss the paper bag in the front seat. Rummaging through my CD case for something appropriately angsty, I settle on Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other and blast ‘Break Stuff’ at full volume as I pull out of Cordes, drumming my fingers forcibly on the steering wheel. Sabrina’s gushing over Jack has got to me. The woman never gushes. Jack really knows how to play to an audience, doesn’t he? (Which, I suppose, is why he’s one of the highest-paid TV presenters in the UK.) Luckily, I have the measure of him.
I’m pulling into the car park at a garden centre a few kilometres out of town when I see it – a three-by-seven-metre billboard promoting Tom Hanks’ latest movie. The actor is wearing a Nazi uniform and staring into the middle distance with a very un-Tom Hanks-like air of malevolence.
Oh holy Jesus.
Reversing into the first available space, I narrowly avoid clipping the wing mirror of the car beside me. I tear open the bag of financiers and eat six in a row.
~
I can tell something’s wrong when I pick Ari up from school. He won’t share anything about his day, just stares out the car window despondently. When we get back to the guesthouse, I unstrap him from his seat and he jumps down, running on ahead of me into the house. Leonard is in the kitchen, leaning against the sink with a tool belt around his waist, telling Myriam about the time Neil Young bummed a joint off him.
‘Hey there, sport! How was school?’ he says. Leonard raises his hand for a high five, but Ari charges past him, bumping into Jack, who appears from behind the fridge door, holding a carton of orange juice. He’s wearing a pale blue shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, the top three buttons undone. I feel a wave of irritation at these strangers in my kitchen, about to have front-row seats to an epic parental failure. And what’s Jack doing rummaging through my fridge, his chest all exposed like that?
‘Woah, everything alright there, Ari?’ Jack ruffles my son’s hair and I’m taken aback by the intimacy of the gesture.
I open the zip on Ari’s bag and peer inside. My suspicions are confirmed. The photograph is there.
‘You’re a bad mummy!’ Ari shouts as he bounds up the stairs. ‘You’re getting no news and no wine!’
I throw my hands in the air, laughing nervously.
‘Well, that’s me grounded,’ I say, attempting to make light of the situation.
‘What was that about?’ asks Leonard.
‘I can’t be certain, but I think he may have found out that Tom Hanks isn’t his grandfather,’ I say.
‘Why would he think Tom Hanks is his grandfather?’ says Jack, opening a cupboard and reaching for a glass. The presumptuousness of the gesture, his familiarity with the space, irks me further.
‘Because I told him he was, okay?’ I pull a chair out and flop into it, dropping my head on the table and banging it a few times. When I look up, Leonard, Myriam and Jack are staring down at me with a collective tilt of the head.
‘Look, I didn’t mean to,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t like I planned on lying to him. It was about a year after Cillian left. Ari kept asking me about his dad and then he’d ask me about his grandparents. And I was so tired, you know? From looking after Ari on my own, from constantly disappointing him when I told him Daddy wasn’t coming back. He came downstairs after I’d put him to bed one night and I was watching Cast Away and crying, and he asked me why I was sad, and I just blurted it out. I told him that the man on the beach was his grandad.’
I can hear a car revving in the distance. A cricket chirping. Leonard scratching behind his ear. Myriam shrugs and returns to loading the dishwasher.
‘You told him Tom Hanks was his grandfather after watching Cast Away ?’ says Jack incredulously. ‘That was his worst film. It’s nothing but a feature-length ad for FedEx.’
‘That’s what I’ve always said, my man,’ Leonard chips in. ‘It could have been so much more – a damning indictment of capitalism, but nope, it’s all those FedEx packages that keep Hanks alive. It was sad about his little basketball, though. What was its name?’
‘Wilson,’ I say. ‘It was a volleyball.’
‘Ha! Wilson sporting goods? Further product placement!’ scoffs Leonard. ‘Still, when Wilson drifts out to sea – you’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by that. One man and his ball, and all that. Hanks had better chemistry with Hooch, though.’
‘Hooch?’ says Jack.
‘ Turner and Hooch . Hanks plays a cop. I can’t remember who plays Hooch. I think it was several dogs. They’re pretty strict in Hollywood when it comes to animal actor labour laws. Anyway, they made a great team. We’d a dog like Hooch when I was growing up. Had to get him put down after he took a chunk out of Mr Lebowitz’s ass. Poor guy had to get an implant on his left butt cheek.’
Jack stares at Leonard for several seconds, then turns his attention back to me.
‘It’s not exactly a grandfatherly role he’s playing, is it? Didn’t Hanks lose half his body weight for that film? And he spends most of the time running around in a loincloth.’
‘Tom Hanks is seriously resourceful in that movie. Who wouldn’t want a grandfather who can catch a fish with his bare hands? Could you survive on a desert island for four years? No assistants, no agent catering to your every whim?’
‘Actually, I was in the Scouts. Got the Survival Skills Activity Badge,’ says Jack, all delighted with himself.
‘Look, I’d had a tough day and it just slipped out.’ I snap. ‘I’m not proud of myself, okay?’
‘I did wonder why there was a framed photo of Tom Hanks beside Ari’s bed,’ says Myriam, putting a crystal glass in the dishwasher.
‘Myriam, crystal needs to be hand-washed,’ I say. ‘Ari insisted on a photo.’
‘Where did you get it from?’ asks Jack.
‘It was a promo poster for The Terminal . I tore it out of Marie Claire .’
‘You have appalling taste in Tom Hanks movies, kid,’ says Leonard, shaking his head.
~
I knock on Ari’s door. Huffily, he asks me to give him some privacy. I take a modicum of comfort in the knowledge that the chat we had on personal boundaries is beginning to sink in. Myriam offers to put him to bed and I seize the opportunity to go for a walk and clear my head. How could I have messed up like this? I haven’t got many things right in my life, but with Ari, our relationship, I’ve always taken pride in that. In the fact that he knows he can ask me anything and I’ll be real with him.
See, other parents, they tell their kids that the world is all unicorns and rainbows, that they can do anything they put their mind to. I’ve explained to Ari that dreams have limitations. Like, if you don’t have an aptitude for science, you’re unlikely to cut it as an astrophysicist. And sure half of all jobs will be replaced by AI by 2030 anyway, so really, it’s just erroneous to tell children that the world is theirs for the taking.
It’s about managing expectations. One person can’t change the world for the better. Christ, eight billion of us can’t seem to figure it out. I don’t want to tell Ari that everything will be okay and the people you love will always be there, because I’m not sure it will and I’m damn sure they won’t.
Then Ari came downstairs that night in his dinosaur pyjamas, upset after a bad dream and missing his dad, and I wanted him to have what other kids have – the illusion of security. I wanted him to have the lie. And so I told him that his grandad survived four years on a desert island and was an international ping pong player who ran the length of America and navigated his crew back from a failed lunar mission and became big for a while. And he cuddled into me and fell asleep with a huge smile on his face.
~
I make my way along the path leading to the village, turning right at Utopie and walking halfway up the hill until I reach the Jardin des Paradis, beneath the ramparts of the old town. It’s busier than I thought it would be, couples and groups of friends watching the sun set amid the cacti and bougainvillea. Cicadas and world music playing on a tinny speaker compete to be heard. I order a beer at the kiosk from a woman with a nose ring, and scan for somewhere to sit. Jack is at a table in the corner, typing intently on his laptop. I contemplate making a run for it when he looks up, catching my eye.
Great.
He gestures at the empty chair beside him. I clench my jaw and approach the table.
‘Are you sure?’ I say. ‘I don’t want to interrupt your writing.’
‘I could do with the distraction,’ he replies with a yawn, raising his arms in the air and interlocking his fingers.
‘Working on the memoir? I ask, reluctantly taking a seat.
‘Why are you saying it like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Emphasising the vowel sounds in “memoir”.’
‘I was being John Malkovich,’ I say.
He waits for me to elaborate.
‘In Burn After Reading ? He’s writing his memoooooir.’
Jack gives me a blank look.
‘It’s funny is all. The way he says it. I don’t know, he has a distinctive voice. There’s something comforting about it.’
‘You have a thing for Hollywood actors of a certain vintage, don’t you?’ says Jack.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Tom Hanks? Who tells their kid their grandfather is a film star?’
‘Look, in terms of family, all Ari has is me. His relationship with his dad is a weekly Zoom call and my parents aren’t exactly worth knowing.’
‘That seems a bit harsh.’
‘Oh really? Did your dad bring economic ruin to an entire country? Did he screw people out of their jobs and life savings, then continue to swan around the place by private helicopter like nothing happened?’
‘Hang on a sec. Your surname’s Murphy, right? Is your father Desi Murphy? The property developer? The richest man in Ireland?’
He sits up in his chair, interested in the conversation now.
‘Formerly one of the richest. Yep. The same Desi Murphy who built an apartment complex without bothering to make sure it met basic fire safety standards. Now the residents have to find a way to foot the multimillion-euro bill for the work themselves or they’ll be booted out on the streets. That’s my dad. Cheers!’
I raise my beer at Jack and take a long sip.
‘Like I said,’ I continue, ‘he’s not the kind of role model you want for your son.’
‘I get that,’ says Jack sombrely. ‘But what’s with the Tom Hanks thing?’
I let out a long sigh.
‘I don’t know … Ari kept asking about his grandad, and how do you explain someone like my father to a five-year-old? Anyway, his nursery was having some kind of bring-your-grandparent-to-creche day and he’d been badgering me all week about his grandad and why he’d never met him, and Tom Hanks was just … there. And he seems like a decent guy, right? Like, if you were going to have anyone as your grandfather you’d want it to be him. No one has a bad word to say against him. Graham Norton tried when Hanks was on his show. Said his producers dug deep to find dirt, but came up short. Did you know he ’ s never played a villain until now? I don ’ t know why, at this stage in his career, he has to go and play fucking Hitler.’
Jack strokes his chin, studying me like a Victorian explorer who’s stumbled upon a rare oddity. I’m aware I sound unhinged, but I can’t stop talking.
‘I see,’ Jack says, taking a thoughtful swig of his beer.
‘You think I’m a mentalist or a bad mother or whatever, but see, I don’t care what you think.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ he says, unruffled.
I feel the heat rising in my cheeks, a full-body urge to put Jack back in his box.
‘God you’re so smug, acting like you’ve never made a bad judgement call in your life. What about your creepy friend, huh?’
‘I’m sorry?’ he says, looking confused.
‘Your pervy mate. The one who’s been abusing all those women. Still standing by him?’
He furrows his brow and sets his beer on the table.
‘First, I don’t see what my friend has to do with your situation, but fine, some people need to make it about others to feel better about themselves. I didn’t have you pegged as one of those people, though I’ve been known to be wrong once or twice. Second, my friend hasn’t been charged with anything. I’ll reserve judgement until there’s something to judge. I’m not about to abandon a twenty-year friendship because some zealots on Twitter don’t believe in due process.’
‘You know you haven’t actually been cancelled?’ I sneer. ‘You’re being paid a fortune to write your memoir and are about to cash in on a documentary series. You’re literally whatever the opposite of cancelled is.’
‘Approved,’ he says priggishly. ‘Sanctioned. Ratified.’
I glower at him.
‘Furthermore, cancel culture doesn’t exist. People didn’t start getting offended the minute the smartphone was invented.’
Did I just say ‘furthermore’?
‘Yes, I know all the arguments,’ Jack says, sounding bored. ‘Historically marginalised groups are gaining more power and calling out the status quo – rightfully, I might add. It’s the sanctimonious online minority that’s using these groups to shut down healthy debate I have a problem with. They say it’s about accountability, but it’s not. It’s about punishment.’
‘So what about the photo?’ I say. ‘The one of you at uni wearing the Native American headdress. Why haven’t you apologised for that?’
He throws his hands in the air in exasperation.
‘Why would I apologise for something everyone was doing twenty years ago? When I was a stupid kid? Would I do it now? No. I just don’t see what good me issuing a mea culpa would do other than satisfying the blood lust of those who’ve already decided I’m The Worst Person In The World. You’d think a better use of their time would be to focus on dismantling the systems that give rise to controversial viewpoints in the first place. But that’s not the goal here. It’s about gleefully taking down anyone who has an opposing viewpoint.’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ I say, my voice straining. ‘You say apologising wouldn’t do any good, that it wouldn’t have impact. But it would. What you say matters. Your actions matter. Everything has impact. People can get hurt.’
‘I’m not sure this is about me anymore,’ says Jack.
‘You know what I think? I think you don’t regret a thing in your life. I bet everything has been easy for you and you’ve never let a single person down, right?’
‘You know nothing about me,’ he says frostily.
‘I know you’re not much more than a shock jock with zero principles, and the only reason you’re here is to lick your wounds after messing everything up back home.’
For a fraction of a second, I register something like pain on Jack’s face. You know that stunned look people get in films when they’ve been shot? I’ve never understood that. The gun has literally been pointed at them the entire time, they know the end is coming. Still, it hurts like hell when the trigger is pulled. Then almost as quickly, the hurt is gone. Jack’s features rearrange themselves into the familiar expression of contempt I’ve seen countless times in his TV interviews. Obviously, I hallucinated the pain. There’s nothing I could say or do that could wound a man like Jack Hamilton.
‘Got it,’ he says, pushing his chair back and standing up. He takes a ten-euro note out of his wallet and tosses it on the table. ‘Beers are on me. Have a good evening.’
I laugh bitterly as he walks away, every organ in my body on fire. With rage? Embarrassment? Shame? I can’t figure it out. I have no time for Jack, but I can’t believe I insulted a guest, our only source of income at the moment, the one person with the power to make or break our life in France. I haven’t lost my cool like that in a long time. Well, not since the egg-throwing incident. There’s something about Jack, about being out here. I can feel myself unspooling. I finish my beer and watch the sun disappear behind the hills.
Great work, Fiadh. You always find a way to make ’em leave.