28
Today is my fortieth birthday. I thought I was relaxed about the ageing process. It’s what happens when you don’t die, and I can say with a degree of confidence that I’m happy not to be dead. But now there’s a man on the scene, a man with whom I’d like to have sex, probably more than once, probably for an extended period of time. Although I haven’t figured out what, exactly, it is I feel for Jack, I reckon sleeping with him would provide greater clarity.
My point is, lately, I’ve become more aware of getting older. Cillian once said, ‘What you resist, persists’, instructing me to write down this thunderbolt of inspiration and pin it to the fridge. I appreciated the profundity of the advice, until I discovered it was Carl Jung who said it. No offence to Jung, but he’d clearly never met a woman on the cusp of middle age. Every time I look in the mirror these days, I resist. I see a lifetime of choices staring back at me, every fresh crease a reminder of an opportunity not taken, a full stop to the run-on sentence of life in your twenties.
At the paper, an older colleague confided in me that she’d had work done on her lunch break. (This was before having work done on your lunch break was as quotidian as choosing between a triple club or a goat’s cheese sourdough in O’Brien’s.) She said she wanted to look less tired/angry/invisible. Yiv says she hates that cosmetic work is being presented as a legitimate feminist choice, another way for women to achieve confidence and feel empowered, instead of what it is – an opportunity for the beauty industry to cash in. That while women have narrowed the pay gap, beauty standards have gone up. That our achievements are less without a full pout and a thigh gap. It’s easy for Yiv to say – she looks like a foetus. She says it’s because Asians don’t raisin. They have a thicker dermis than white skin, meaning more collagen, so they age less rapidly.
Ultimately, I’m too lazy to pursue the new beauty ideal, but I get it. The desire to resist. To smooth over life ’ s creases, feel like you ’ re hitting the reset button on all those bad decisions made and paths not taken. Pretend that the world is still full of infinite possibilities.
I’m forty. Christ.
I check my phone. There’s a message from Yiv, telling me she’s about to fire someone, but will call me later. Has my present arrived? She’ll go nuclear at An Post if not as that’ll be the third time in as many months they’ve lost a parcel on her. I also have two emails: a booking for next month (They found us via one of our online partners. Finally, the work I’ve been doing is paying off. Not that it matters. We won’t be around long enough to see this place grow) and a happy birthday from Milano with a voucher for a complimentary soft drink if I spend sixty euros on my next visit. I’m about to unsubscribe from their mailing list when my phone rings.
Dad.
I toss the phone on the bed at the shock of seeing his name flash across the screen. I haven’t seen my father in twelve years. He tried to get in touch after the funeral. I was too mad to talk. I knew he’d never acknowledge his part in what went down. The anger subsided eventually, but by then Dad had stopped trying to reach me and every day that passed didn’t feel like a deliberate choice not to have him in my life. It was just another day I didn’t talk to my dad.
I head downstairs. Ari and Myriam are in the kitchen, making banana crepes.
‘Happy birthday, Mummy!’ Ari charges towards me and throws his arms around my stomach.
‘How did you know it was my birthday?’ I say, picking him up for a hug.
‘Daddy told me. He says I have to do lots of special things for you today, so I made you this beautiful treasure chest.’
He hands me an empty chocolate box covered in heart stickers. Inside, there’s a twenty-cent coin, a sprig of lavender, two crocodile jellies and a Lego Spiderman.
‘Oh wow, is this all for me?’ I say.
‘Yes, except the crocodiles and the money.’
‘Well, lavender is one my favourite plants and I think Spiderman is the best of all the superheroes, so I’m thrilled. Thank you, baby.’
‘Actually, I’m going to keep these too,’ he says, snatching the remaining treasure out of my hand. ‘But you can have the box!’
Myriam laughs and hands me a plate of pancakes covered in maple syrup.
‘ Joyeux Anniversaire. I can pick Ari up from school today if you like? You should do something nice for your birthday. Lautrec’s annual garlic festival starts today.’
I hadn’t planned on doing anything. It’s been relentlessly hot all week. The only item on my agenda was straddling the fan in the living room and reading a Jilly Cooper I picked up in the phone-box library. Still, it’s kind of Myriam to offer and, come to think of it, I’ve hardly done any exploring since we arrived, the work on the guesthouse taking up all my free time. A garlic festival wasn’t top of the must-see list, but it’s a handy seasoning to have around the house. I thank Myriam and tell her I’m in.
~
I’m about to jump in the shower after dropping Ari off to school when Cillian calls. I put him on speaker as I undress.
‘Happy Birthday, Fifi!’
‘Thanks. You’re up late. It must be after midnight over there?’
‘Is it? I didn’t notice. Nicole and I were out for dinner. We had the most amazing sashimi in Venice Beach. Any plans for today?’
‘Actually, I’m off to a garlic festival.’
‘Cool, cool. You know garlic increases sexual stamina in men? I’ve started taking two cloves a day. Nicole says she can really see the difference.’
‘Good to know. Nicole’s a lucky woman. Look, I need to shower before I leave, so I’d better head. Thanks for calling.’
‘Just a sec. I have some news and I wanted you to be the first to know.’
‘You’re taking on the Dalai Lama as a client?’
‘I wish. I feel like we could really vibe off each other, you know? Synergise our strengths. Maybe I should get my agent to reach out to him about a collab? Thanks, Fifi. What would I do without you?’
‘Cillian, your news?’ I say, pulling my top over my head. The zip catches in my hair.
‘Oh, yeah. Brace yourself – I’m getting married.’
I freeze, my top smothering my face.
‘Fifi? Are you still there?’
‘Sorry, yes. Wow. That’s news alright.’
‘I know, right? I can barely get my head around it myself. Maybe I got caught up in the moment, but I was sitting across from Nicole this evening and we were eating the freshest hamachi I’ve ever tasted – honestly, it would blow your mind. You have to try it sometime.’
‘I’ve had hamachi. You used to drag me to Musashi every Thursday.’
‘That wasn’t hamachi. Dublin doesn’t know the first thing about Japanese food. Honestly, you haven’t had sashimi until you’ve been to LA. Anyway, Nicole was talking about this massive drugs bust at work. She kicked down the door of this seedy meth house, like in the movies, and smacked some dealer across the jaw with her gun. Knocked out a couple of teeth. They seized something like three thousand pounds of the stuff. Anyway, she was fucking glowing, Fifi, talking about it. I don’t know how to describe it – it was like a light had been switched on inside her. And I’m thinking, I could do this forever.’
‘That was the moment you decided to ask her to marry you? When she told you about pistol whipping a drug dealer?’
‘It sounds mad, but it just feels right. We’re thinking September in Santa Barbara. Nothing fussy. An intimate ceremony of around 150 of our closest friends and family.’
I sit down on the bed, abandoning my efforts to liberate my hair from the zip.
‘September?’ I say, the comedown from the maple syrup-high kicking in.
‘Yeah, I know I was supposed to come out to France, but I think it’ll be more fun for you guys if you came here. We can take Ari to Disneyland and he can get to know Nicole. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s an expensive trip and I’ve got a business to run.’
‘Don’t worry about the money, I’ve got you covered. You’re happy for me, right, Fifi? You know how much you mean to me. I can’t be happy if you’re not. Please tell me you’re okay with this.’
‘I’m happy for you, Cillian.’
~
After showering, I moisturise with Sabrina’s cream, appreciating the fragrant smell and the hands caressing my skin, even if the hands belong to me. I throw on a red floral slip dress and make my way to the car. Jack is coming out of his room with an empty cafetière. I haven’t seen him since he got back. He waves, breaking into a wide smile, and my heart swells a little.
‘Hello,’ he says.
‘Hey there. How was your trip?’
‘Good, I think. Helped clear the head a bit.’
‘Did you get much writing done?’
‘Not a word. I can’t concentrate in this heat. Where are you off to?’
‘Lautrec. It’s the garlic festival this weekend.’
‘Sounds like fun.’ He looks at me with a rare expression of shyness.
‘Are you taking the piss?’ I say.
‘Not at all. Lautrec’s meant to be gorgeous and I happen to be a big fan of garlic. It has all kinds of health benefits.’
‘So I believe. I’m told it increases the male sex drive.’
‘For one thing. It also boosts oestrogen, so can help women get off too.’
He bites the inside of his cheek, locking eyes with me. Again, I can’t tell if he’s flirting. Extolling the libido-boosting merits of garlic would be a weird way to go about it.
‘You’re welcome to come with me if you like.
Please say no, please say no.
‘Okay, sure. Let me change quickly. Be with you in a sec.’
Shit. I wasn’t prepared for this unexpected development. Bending down to scan my reflection in the wing mirror, I root through my tote for tissue paper and dab underneath my arms. Grabbing a paper bag, I hurriedly stuff it with detritus from the car – an empty juice carton, a mountain of receipts, a crayon-scribbled reminder to ‘buy apples and wash pants’. Jack reappears five minutes later, wearing an orange-brown shirt that makes the colour of his eyes even more intense.
It’s the first time I’ve been in the car with Jack since the day I picked him up from the airport. This time, he sits in the front seat and I’m acutely aware of his physicality, the space he takes up.
‘Don’t suppose you have a tissue on you?’ he says, wiping a trickle of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It’s clear it’s the heat, though I briefly indulge the fantasy that I’m the cause of the excess perspiration. ‘I left my handkerchief in my room.’
I smile.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Nothing. You just don’t see that many men using cloth hankies these days. It’s old-fashioned – in a nice way.’
‘My dad used to say a gentleman always has one in his pocket.’
‘Mine too.’
People said it was affectation. Dad was known for his ostentatious style. He’d swagger around Dublin like an extra from Peaky Blinders – three-piece suit, silk pocket square, flat cap. The linen hanky he’d offer to female guests shedding a tear at a wedding speech or use to dab the blood from my knee after a childhood fall – that was always there, an inheritance from his father.
It’s the second time I’ve thought about Dad today, an unwelcome intrusion on a birthday I didn’t want to acknowledge. Suddenly, it’s too much. Dad trying to get in touch after all this time, Cillian getting engaged, Jack tagging along on my solo day out. They’re taking up all the oxygen in the car. I roll down the window and tell Jack he’ll find a tissue in the glove compartment.
‘What do we have here?’ he says, pulling out a battered CD case. ‘Fiadh Murphy’s CD collection. You do know there’s a thing called streaming now?’
‘I bought this car before time began. Go ahead, take a look. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Not bad,’ he says, leafing through the CDs. A bit anti-establishment for my liking, but I take it back, you do have pretty decent tas— Hang on, what’s this?’
Oh God.
‘ Phat Beats. ’
‘Put it away! I made that a lifetime ago.’
‘Listen, you’ll get no judgement from me,’ he says. ‘I’m susceptible to a phat beat myself. Let’s see what we’ve got on here.’
‘Jack, don’t you dare!’
Before I can stop him, he’s hijacked my CD player and LFO’s ‘Summer Girls’ is playing at full blast.
‘Quite the pivot from “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, but what a tune,’ says Jack.
I glance across at him. He looks lighter than he did when we first met, less weighed down by life. Younger, I guess. Of course Jack Hamilton would have to age backwards as I inch closer to the crypt.
‘Oh shut up,’ I say, turning the volume down.
‘No, really,’ he insists. ‘It’s like a window into the lead singer’s soul. In three minutes, we know everything about this guy – his innermost desires, his bêtes noires . He likes preppy women and Kevin Bacon. Chinese food gives him indigestion.’
I suck my teeth and skip ahead to the next song.
‘B*Witched?’ Jack looks at me incredulously.
I’d forgotten that was on there.
‘Look, I was seventeen, and they were everywhere,’ I protest weakly.
‘But the double denim! The Irish dancing! I’d have thought you of all people would object to such a blatant display of paddywhackery. Seriously, Ireland should sue.’
He turns the volume back up and for the next forty minutes we drive to the soundtrack of my final year at school. Lyrics such as, Am I sexual? , Comin’ quicker than FedEx and You gotta rub me the right way lead Jack to conclude, as we reach the outskirts of Lautrec, that my teenage years were spent in a state of perpetual horniness.
We park in a field opened up to accommodate the surplus of visitors to the medieval village and stroll along the twisting, cobbled streets lined with half-timbered houses and stalls selling healing crystals and posters of belle époque painter and Lautrec’s most famous former resident, Toulouse Lautrec. In the market square, a jazz band plays in front of a long trestle table laid out with complimentary bowls of garlic soup. Jack grabs a couple and we find a spot in the shade to eat.
‘Good thing neither of us have plans tonight,’ Jack says, dipping a chunk of baguette into a polystyrene bowl.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s at least a whole bulb of garlic in this bowl alone. I couldn’t get a woman to kiss me if I tried.’
‘How do you know I’m not seeing anyone?’ I say.
‘Are you?’ he says, casually mopping up the remnants of his soup with the bread, though his tone implies a greater interest in my response.
I don’t answer. I’m not sure if I’m reluctant to share because I’m embarrassed about my non-existent love life or if I want to seem mysterious and alluring to Jack.
~
After eating, we explore the Roman amphitheatre and browse the market. I buy some garlic, raspberries and green beans, and a small wooden train for Ari. Jack nips into the épicerie while I check out a stall featuring the winning entries of the 2021 Lautrec Rose Garlic Sculpting competition. It’s an impressive, albeit bizarre line-up. There’s a windmill, a duck and the winning entry – an uncanny likeness of Emmanuel Macron, all made out of nothing but twine and garlic. I do a double take as I pass the photograph of the artist responsible for the third-prize entry, a life-sized allium bicycle.
‘Isn’t that …?’ Jack is standing behind me, holding a paper bag. I can smell his shampoo and it’s all I can do not to turn round and bury my face in his hair.
‘Yep,’ I reply. ‘Leonard. I’d recognise that trilby anywhere.’
‘Wow,’ says Jack. ‘So he’s a master garlic sculptor. That’s one story we haven’t heard.
Hey, do you fancy walking up to the old windmill? The view from the top is meant to be amazing.’
We make our way to the edge of the village, climbing a gentle hill that leads to the seventeenth-century windmill. Bypassing the line of tourists snaking around it, we find a quiet spot overlooking the Agout valley. Jack pulls two beers and a bottle opener out of his bag.
‘Aha. So that’s what you were up to,’ I say.
He opens a bottle and hands it to me. I hold it to my head and sigh in pleasure.
‘Excellent work. This is exactly what I needed.’
He raises his bottle. ‘To Leonard, a man of many talents.’
‘To Leonard,’ I say, clinking Jack’s bottle.
We sit in companionable silence for a few moments.
‘Happy birthday, by the way,’ Jack says, without taking his eyes off the view.
I turn to him, mouth open.
‘How did you …?’
‘Heard you talking to the Galway Guru earlier.’
‘Cillian’s from Wexford,’ I say.
‘Whatever. I wasn’t eavesdropping. I couldn’t get my shower to work again and you said last time it was okay to use the one beside your room.’
‘Not a problem. I’ll have a look at it when we get back. Were you there for the bit where Cillian told me he was engaged?’
Jack inhales through his teeth. ‘Shit. Sorry. That’s gotta sting.’
‘Not really,’ I say, taking a sip of beer. ‘Maybe a bit. I’m not in love with him anymore if that’s what you mean.’
‘Can I be frank?’ Jack turns to me.
I nod.
‘Your ex seems like a narcissist.’
‘Who isn’t these days?’ I say.
‘Yeah, but come on, he announced his engagement on your birthday. Who does that?’
‘Oh, that’s nothing. Cillian has form. In the build-up to the abortion referendum, my friend Yiv helped organise this big rally outside Dublin Castle. She was making a speech and everything. For the occasion, Cillian got a t-shirt made that said, “In Awe of Mná” – that’s Irish for “women”.’
‘I know what mná means. I did a couple of hours of Irish on Duolingo.’
‘Why did you learn Irish?’
‘Sadbh, the producer on Sunrise Britain? I dated her a few times.’
‘Of course you did. Anyway, when they saw the t-shirt, a camera crew from RTé News asked if they could interview Cillian. He started crying halfway through, talking about how amazing women were and how he felt our pain, not in a literal sense because he didn’t share our lived experience of being female, but on a metaphorical level. ‘Abortion Guy’ became a meme on Twitter and everyone was talking about what a great lad Cillian was. It did the cause no harm. If anything, his performance seemed to bring older voters round. Irish mammies love a sensitive man. He means well, Cillian. He just doesn’t know how not to make everything about him.’
‘So what did you see in him? He doesn’t seem like the right guy for you.’
I turn to Jack. ‘Oh, so tell me – who is the right guy for me?’ I say playfully.
Jack flushes, almost imperceptibly – you don’t spend a decade on national TV without becoming adept at hiding your emotions – but it’s unmistakable. He’s uncomfortable. Is he nervous around me? Is it possible I have the same destabilising effect on him as he has on me? I feel a thrill of pleasure at the thought.
He clears his throat. ‘What I mean is, you’re too straight up for all that bullshit.’ He picks at the label on his bottle, avoiding eye contact.
I reflect for a second. ‘Enthusiasm – that’s what I saw in Cillian. Even if the thing he’s enthused about is himself, it’s nice to be around, you know? Cillian doesn’t get beaten down by life. He doesn’t look at the world and see a shit show. He sees potential. And I think that’s what bothered me when he told me he’d proposed to Nicole. Because while I was still the woman in his life, being Ari’s mum and all, I felt like I still had potential. That maybe I had more to offer.’
‘You don’t feel that way now?’
‘I’m a forty-year-old single mum, who’s spent most of her life savings on somebody else’s failing business. I don’t speak to either of my parents and I’ve been too chicken shit to go after the life I wanted. I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a high achiever, would you?’
I laugh, but it doesn’t feel funny.
‘What about Ari?’ says Jack. ‘You’ve done a great job with him. I can’t imagine it’s been easy for either of you with his dad halfway across the world and having to start over and learn a new language. But he’s thriving. You should be proud of how you’re raising him. He ’ s a fantastic kid.’
‘For the boy in The Shining ?’
Jack’s face drops. ‘You heard that?’
‘I did.’
‘Look, I didn’t mean it. I know I was a dick when I first arrived. I was stressed out about my own stuff, but that’s no excuse.’
‘Oh relax. I’m messing with you. I’m hardly the child whisperer myself. And Ari can be a strange kid sometimes. But he’s my strange kid.’
‘Children are weird, aren’t they? Max had a phobia about toilets when he was younger. He took shits in the garden until he was six.’
‘You know Ari’s teacher was worried about him not getting death? I think he gets it a little too much now. His classmate told him a story about a robot that killed Jesus in a murderous rampage, but Ari knew it wasn’t true, because “Everyone knows that the Jews killed Jesus”.’
‘Max said his penis is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.’
‘Ari has a used band-aid collection.’
We look at each other and start laughing. It feels good, sitting here with Jack, drinking cold beer in the warm sun. I never dared contemplate what my dream birthday might look like, though I imagine it wouldn’t be too far off this moment.
‘Can I ask you something?’ says Jack, tentatively. ‘Your dad. Why did you cut him off? I’ve read all the articles. He doesn’t come across as the most sympathetic of figures. I suppose – well, he wasn’t alone in creating the mess, was he? There were a lot of people responsible for the Irish bust.’
I take a deep breath and keep my eyes fixed on the horizon.
‘When my mum left, the woman who’d been cleaning for us, Joan, she more or less raised me. Dad was never around, so Joan and her husband Tommy were like family. Dad convinced Tommy to invest his life savings in one of his off-plan developments. Tommy wanted to buy a small place by the sea. The plan was for him and Joan to move there when he retired, but Dad was persuasive. After the crash, they lost everything. They had to remortgage their house. Tommy tried looking for work, but kept getting told he was too old.
‘One day, Joan comes back from bridge club. She hears a noise coming from the garage, the sound of a running car, so she goes to check it out. She finds a sports sock stuffed in the exhaust pipe of their Toyota, and Tommy unconscious in the driver’s seat.’
‘Jesus,’ says Jack, turning to face me. ‘That’s awful. I’m so sorry.’
‘I felt so guilty, you know? Like my family was responsible. If Mum hadn’t walked out, Joan would have retired years ago. If Dad hadn’t pushed Tommy into giving him his money, he’d still be alive. Afterwards, I tried to talk to Dad about it. I asked him if he felt in any way culpable. I wasn’t trying to blame him. I just thought he might have a normal human reaction to what had happened. It hadn’t even occurred to him to feel bad. “Did I stick that sock into his exhaust pipe?” That’s what he said to me. Then he turns up at the funeral with his trophy wife, acting like the big man, oblivious to the pain his being there was causing. I couldn’t look at him. That was the day I decided I wouldn’t take a penny from him again. I wanted nothing to do with the mess he’d created.’
‘I get that,’ says Jack quietly.
‘That’s not the worst of it,’ I continue. ‘When I left the church after seeing Dad, I didn’t go back in. I didn’t go to the cemetery or to Joan’s house afterwards. I didn’t see her at all, didn’t tell her how sorry I was. I wasn’t sure how she’d react, whether or not she’d want to see me. I kept telling myself I’d go and visit her when everything had died down, give her a bit of space. But the days kept passing, and then too many days had passed and I knew I’d missed my chance to put things right.
‘I blame my dad for what happened with Tommy and Joan, and my failed career. I blame my mother and Cillian for leaving. But the truth is, I’m the one I’m angry at. For doing nothing. For allowing other people to dictate the course of my life. It’s harder to acknowledge that though, isn’t it? That you had agency all along. You were just too afraid to use it.’
I puff out my cheeks. I haven’t said that out loud before. Even to Yiv. Jack rests his hand on the grass beside me, his fingers inches from mine.
‘You know this isn’t the first time I’ve been to the area?’ he says. ‘I came to the Tarn with my parents when I was twelve. It was my first trip abroad. We stayed in Cordes for a while then spent a few days in Saint-Antonin, camping by the river. My dad taught me how to fish, we went kayaking. It was the happiest time of my life.’
I remember the photograph I found in Jack’s room. Jack and his dad in front of a tent, a picture of domestic bliss.
‘That’s where I went the other day. To the spot where we camped. To be honest, that’s why I’m here, full stop. When I was approached about doing this travel series, I told the producers I wanted to feature this neck of the woods, because it was relatively unknown in the UK, would give viewers some thing they hadn’t seen before. Truth is, I just wanted to feel close to my old man.’
Jack picks up a twig from the ground and skims it over the earth.
‘My dad, he worked in manufacturing. Spent half his life commuting to and from an industrial estate. Nature was important to him. He used to say everything worth knowing about life can be learnt by observing the natural world.’
He pushes the twig into the soil.
‘I was home from uni one weekend when Dad dropped his mug of tea. Mum joked he was getting clumsy in midlife as she cleared up the shards of ceramic. She said it was the second time that month. When he started struggling climbing the stairs, she made him go to the doctor. He said she was worrying over nothing. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease two months later.
‘It was a shock, how quickly he deteriorated. Dad was never much of a talker. But he had this calm, reassuring presence. You’d notice when he wasn’t in the room. Mum had to take on extra shifts at the nursing home to make up for the loss of income. I tried to come back as often as I could to help her and my sister. Dad didn’t want me there. He was old-fashioned like that. Was too proud for his son to take him to the loo. It was just me and him in the house one day when he soiled himself. He didn’t say anything and I was too embarrassed to broach the subject, so we just sat there, watching Crystal Palace play Man City on the TV, both pretending we couldn’t smell the stench.
‘I let him push me away for the eighteen months he had left because it was easier. I didn’t want to see my dad like that. This great man in my life reduced to drinking through a straw and having people talk at him like he was a child.
‘When he died, I’d just lost my column at The Record . My editor told me I was “too pragmatic”. They wanted a polemicist, someone the public would either love, or love to hate. That’s when I started the podcast. The idea was to have robust yet respectful conversations with guests from across the political spectrum. But no one is interested in respectful conversations anymore and I found the ratings soared every time there was friction. The more I shouted down guests, being the one to point the finger, the less time I had to sit with myself, reflect on my own shortcomings. I suppose what I’m saying is, I know a thing or two about guilt.’
He pushes the twig so hard, it snaps in two.
‘Are you going to get back together with your wife?’ The words come tumbling out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Jack looks taken aback.
‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,’ I say. ‘I have a habit of coming out with non sequiturs at inappropriate moments. Once, right after sex with Cillian, I asked him if he’d heard President Xi’s latest speech threatening military action if the West tried to stick its oar in over Taiwan. My brain tends to leap from one thing to another. It’s not like it was a reflection of the ride or anything. Though it has been said that women have better sex under socialism.’
Thankfully, I have some filter left. I don’t tell Jack, for example, that I’ve been wanting to ask him if he had plans to patch things up with Helen from the moment he got into the car this morning. Maybe longer. That unlike Cillian’s views on the greater China policy, Jack’s opinion on the future of his marriage matters. It matters a lot. It matters more than it should. And that scares me.
He surveys me for a moment.
‘You’re wrong, you know,’ he says. ‘About not having more to offer. I think you have a lot of potential.’