Chapter Two
INT: UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN / INT: NORTHSIDE OFFICES
First things first: I did not fancy Art Sullivan back in the day.
I mean, I suppose I might have if he hadn’t been such a pain in the arse.
Technically, there was nothing wrong with him.
He looked fine. Dark hair. Kind-of-big nose.
Average height. Like, objectively I could see he was quite good-looking.
Lots of people in the class fancied him.
But as far as I was concerned, his incredibly obnoxious personality cancelled out any physical charm he might have possessed.
We met, if you could call it meeting when he barely acknowledged my existence for most of the year, when I was doing a film studies master’s in UCD.
I had come straight from studying communications at DCU; Art had studied English in Trinity where, if he were to be believed (and I had my doubts about that from the start), he had apparently run the college film society single-handed.
He’d already written and directed a short film that won a prize at the Galway Film Fleadh, and to say that this success had gone to his head was a dramatic understatement.
Art Sullivan thought he was brilliant. And, enragingly, so did everyone else.
He was the golden boy of the course. The lecturers loved him.
Most of our classmates were charmed by him.
He soon had a little coterie of admirers hanging on his every word.
He was going out with a very attractive actress, but that didn’t seem to stop him flirting with anyone who let him.
He dressed like an old-school American writer, like he should be behind a typewriter with a glass of whiskey and a cigarette, all button-down shirts with rolled-up sleeves, never T-shirts and hoodies like the other boys in the class.
It was all I could do to stop myself rolling my eyes and sighing whenever he opened his mouth in class to hold forth.
He was so … sure of himself. So irritatingly cocky and smug.
And the short film that won the Fleadh prize wasn’t even that good.
It wasn’t until the last term of the year that I finally cracked.
I was sitting next to him in a screenwriting class being taught by Fintan Donohue, an Irish writer who had written one film about fifteen years previously and had been teaching ever since.
Fintan had, he informed us, been watching television recently.
And to his amazement, it wasn’t all bad!
‘I’ve watched all of The West Wing,’ he said. ‘Absolutely fascinating stuff. And such powerful writing!’ Several of my classmates nodded. ‘Writers like Sorkin and David Chase have changed the medium. There was no point in even owning a television until around 1999.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t think that’s true.’
I didn’t speak up very often in class, which might be why Fintan Donohue turned and stared at me as if I’d grown an extra head. As did Art Sullivan.
‘There’s always been great writing on TV,’ I said.
‘You’re right, of course,’ said Fintan graciously. ‘Obviously if we look at the Play for Today work of Mike Leigh or—’
‘No, I don’t just mean stuff like that,’ I said. ‘Great as it is. No, I mean, there’s always been brilliant writing on mainstream programmes. Like sitcoms. And soap operas.’
Art laughed. He literally laughed in my face.
‘Come on, you can’t be serious,’ he said.
‘Of course I’m serious,’ I said. ‘The scene in Coronation Street where the Barlows go to an AA meeting? That was incredible writing!’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Art, sharing an amused glance with Fintan.
I wanted to slap both of them. I turned in my seat to face Art.
‘I presume you haven’t watched it, then?’ I said.
‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Art. ‘I’m not an actual idiot.’
‘Well, that’s your loss,’ I said.
‘Really?’ Art raised his eyebrows. He had very expressive eyebrows.
‘Really!’ I was aware my voice was getting louder but I didn’t care.
‘Soaps are part of a long cultural tradition. Blanche causing chaos at Peter Barlow’s AA meeting in Corrie?
That’s pure Dickens!’ More iconic soap moments filled my mind and I kept going, even though most of my classmates were staring at me blankly.
‘Zoe Slater screaming “You ain’t my mother” and Kat shouting “Yes I am!” in Eastenders?
That’s Greek tragedy! Ma Cusack outwitting the home invaders in Northside?
That’s … I don’t know … Chaucerian! This is art! ’
‘First of all, I don’t know who any of those people are, and second of all these shows are literally the opposite of art,’ said Art. ‘They’re anti-culture. They’re the circuses part of bread and circuses. They encourage the viewers to mindlessly accept a status quo.’
‘How would you know?’ I said. ‘You’ve never even watched any of them!’
‘I don’t need to.’ His voice was infuriatingly calm. ‘Seriously, do you think anyone goes into screenwriting wanting to write soap operas?’
‘Yes!’ I said.
Art looked at me pityingly. ‘True screenwriters want to write films. Or maybe a prestige TV drama. Not soap operas. Soaps are where people go when they’ve failed to make proper art.’
‘Alright, alright,’ said Fintan, perhaps remembering that he himself hadn’t made any art for quite some time. ‘Let’s move on.’
We did. Art sat there looking smug as usual and I sat next to him, fizzing with rage.
He didn’t say a word to me when the seminar ended, and we barely spoke for the rest of the term, apart from the odd in-class argument.
Along with the entire class, I was invited to the massive party he threw at the end of the year in his parents’ gaff (it turned out he was from Drumcondra like me, but while I grew up in a three-bedroom 1970s semi, his family home was a huge Victorian red-brick next to the Bishop’s Palace).
I think the only time I spoke to him was towards the end of the night.
I was on my way back from the loo when I passed him in the hall, one arm around his gorgeous girlfriend. He was quite drunk.
‘She’ll know,’ he said to his girlfriend. He turned to me. ‘Settle an argument. Why are soap operas called soap operas?’
‘Because the first ones were sponsored by soap companies,’ I said.
‘I was right.’ Art smirked at his girlfriend.
She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m getting a drink.’ She walked into the kitchen, leaving me alone with Art. I was about to go back to my friends when he turned back to me.
‘So, McDermott,’ he said, as if we were mates, ‘what are you doing now we’ve finished with academia?’
‘I’m doing a work placement in London.’ I was about to tell him the name of the show I would be working on but I knew he’d never have heard of it. ‘On a soap.’
‘Well,’ said Art, ‘I suppose that’s your sort of thing.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve got an internship at a big production company in LA.’
God, he was insufferable.
‘Art!’ called his girlfriend. ‘Where’s the corkscrew?’
‘See you.’ He winked at me, annoyingly, and sauntered into the kitchen.
But we didn’t see each other after that.
He didn’t even turn up for our graduation ceremony because he was already in LA and, well, the rest is history.
After his internship he won a big prize for unproduced scripts called the Promises Award, and then that script got made into a film and he won the best original screenplay prize at a prestigious film festival.
Then he got a writers’ room job on a hugely acclaimed American TV show, and that’s when I stopped checking up on Art Sullivan’s career.
Because why would I care what that patronising snob was up to?
As I look at him now, I think I see a flicker of recognition on Art’s face. For a moment neither of us says anything, and I almost tell Susan we were in college together. But when Art extends his hand towards me he just smiles and says, ‘Art Sullivan. Great to meet you.’
I automatically take his hand and am faintly surprised to find that he has a nice handshake.
If I’d thought about it – which obviously I never did – I’d have assumed he’d be an obnoxious hand-crusher.
You know, showing how forceful and powerful he was by smashing your hand in his mitts.
But it’s a perfect handshake, firm but not too intense, and actually he has rather nice hands, strong and sensitive-looking and slightly tanned from what I presume is the LA sun and—
What the hell am I thinking?
I pull myself together. The last time we were anywhere near each other, this man either ignored me or insulted me. And now he’s pretending he’s never met me! Or he’s genuinely forgotten me. The former’s worse, obviously, but the latter isn’t great either.
‘Annie McDermott,’ I say, because if he’s going to act like we’ve never met, then so will I.
‘I’ve taken this desk. I presume you’re okay with that one.’ Art points towards the one that faces the wall, not the window. Of course he’s bagged the desk with the view. But I’m not going to demean myself by arguing with him about it.
‘Of course!’ I say breezily.
‘So!’ says Susan. ‘You’re our two brand-new hires. The other staff writers were all chosen from our pool of regular freelancers.’
‘Oh right.’ I feel a twinge of discomfort. Stupidly, and rather shamefully, it hadn’t really struck me until now that maybe an outsider like me getting one of these staff jobs meant that an experienced regular Northside writer had not.
‘We’re going to have the staff meeting in a few minutes,’ Susan continues. ‘So why don’t we grab some coffee in the kitchen and I’ll take you to the meeting room?’
‘Perfect,’ says Art.
Am I imagining it or are some of the production staff looking at us resentfully as we pass through the open-plan office? Are they thinking of their scriptwriter friends who should have got our jobs?