Chapter Twenty #2
My heart sinks even further.
‘Of course,’ says Art respectfully.
‘This anniversary night is the biggest Northside event of the year,’ says Triona. ‘If these episodes can’t hit our viewer targets, we’ll have to seriously consider whether the show has a future after this season.’
We knew Northside was under pressure. But hearing Triona herself confirm that its future could be hanging on these episodes? Our episodes?
‘We’ll do our best,’ says Art.
‘Well!’ Triona’s smile is a little fixed. ‘I look forward to seeing what you’ve come up with.’
‘We’ll have the scripts to Susan by Monday morning,’ I say, but Triona has already walked away.
My appetite pretty much vanishes after this, but we grab some lunch and head back to the office.
‘Don’t worry too much,’ says Art. ‘We’ve got two full days until the deadline. We’ll get this done. You’re okay with working together over the weekend, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ I say. ‘And we’ve got our lunch with Honoria tomorrow.’ My mood lifts just a little. ‘You never know, she might give us a few ideas.’
We do our best for the next few hours, but by seven we’re clearly both drained of all energy and inspiration. We call it a day. At least I’ll just about have time to go home and change before meeting Sinéad in town later.
‘Do you want a lift to Honoria’s house?’ says Art, as we walk out of the television building. ‘It’s a bit of a trek by bus and I’ve got my mum’s car. I could pick you up around half twelve.’
‘That’d be great, thanks.’ We’ve reached the turn-off for the bike sheds. ‘Do you remember where my house is?’
‘Oh, McDermott,’ says Art, strolling off towards his bike. ‘Of course I remember.’
‘There you are!’
Sinéad is already in the restaurant when I arrive, and as soon as I walk up to the table she stands up and folds me into a big hug. I hug her back. Despite my exhaustion, I’m suddenly very glad we’re meeting up tonight.
‘Oh my God, it’s so good to see you,’ she says.
‘I haven’t been able to leave the house much for the past few weeks.
We’re at the height of toilet training so Harry and I basically follow Sophie around the house waiting for her to make her “doing a poo” face and then pick her up and run to the loo at top speed.
Neither of us has had a night out in ages. ’
‘I’ll try not to make my own “doing a poo” face.’ As soon as the words are out of my mouth I worry that was a bit much. I haven’t seen Sinéad in months. Do I really want to restart our friendship with jokes about doing a poo? Is that too weird?
But Sinéad just laughs and says, ‘If you do, I’ll pick you up and whisk you off to the bathroom. I could do it too, my arms are pure muscle these days from carting Soph about the place. Come on, let’s get you a drink.’
Half an hour after my arrival, we’re eating delicious pasta and drinking the nicest wine I’ve had since I came home. Sinéad’s been telling me about her horrendous in-laws.
‘I was talking about how nice Sophie’s childminder is,’ she says. ‘And Harry’s mum said, “I don’t know why you paid so much for IVF if you’re not even going to look after her yourself.”’
I almost choke on my wine. ‘Jesus!’ I wish Roo did go in for curses. ‘I hope Harry said something to her.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, he tore strips off her,’ says Sinéad.
‘He does his best. It’s not his fault his mother is a demon.
It’s a miracle he turned out so lovely. Anyway!
Tell me more about your insane new job.’ She takes a sip of wine.
‘I can’t believe you’re sharing a tiny office with Art Sullivan.
I fancied him so much when I was sixteen. ’
‘Wow, so you did,’ I say. ‘I’d forgotten that.’
‘When I knew he was calling over to see Mike, I used to fling myself down the stairs when the doorbell rang so I could let him in,’ says Sinéad. ‘I haven’t seen him in years.’ She grins at me. ‘Is he still hot?’
‘Um, I suppose he’s about as hot as he ever was,’ I say. ‘Whatever that means.’
Sinéad laughs. ‘I forgot how much you hated him.’
‘I don’t hate him now!’ Which is definitely true.
But I don’t really know how I feel about him these days.
Which is one reason why I haven’t told Sinéad about the Art situation.
I don’t think the fact that I’ve shagged her teenage crush who happens to be her brother’s best friend is the best way to ease back into our friendship.
I’m about to change the subject when Sinéad says, ‘God, what happened to him in LA was so unfair. How’s he doing now? ’
‘He’s fine, I think,’ I say. ‘As much as anyone can be working at Northside this month. What do you mean about LA?’
‘You know, the whole thing with his job,’ says Sinéad. ‘I can’t believe he was treated like that just because he tried to do the right thing.’
I’m totally lost now. ‘I’m sorry, what right thing?’
‘With Scott Stagg,’ says Sinéad.
I stare at her blankly.
‘Come on, Annie,’ says Sinéad. ‘You know who Scott Stagg is!’
Of course I do. The noughties action star who’s successfully pivoted into everything from family movies to massive romcoms. But …
‘What’s he got to do with Art?’
Sinéad looks troubled. ‘Has he really not mentioned this to you? Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Mike shouldn’t have told me if it’s not common knowledge …’
‘Sinéad, you can’t hold out on me now!’ I say. ‘What happened with Art and Scott Stagg?’
She sighs. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you. But don’t tell him you know.’
‘I won’t,’ I say.
‘So you know he was working on LA Medic, right?’
I nod. Of course I do. The cheesy but wildly popular medical drama.
‘Well, a year or so ago Scott Stagg appeared on the show as a special guest star,’ says Sinéad.
‘He was doing, like, a multi-episode arc and Art had written one of the episodes. The whole thing was a big deal. He played Doctor Harris’s long-lost brother who was dying of some rare blood disease.
I actually watched it when it aired,’ she adds sheepishly.
‘So what happened with Art?’ I say.
‘Well, I’m just repeating what Mike told me,’ says Sinéad, ‘but apparently Scott Stagg was a total nightmare. Like, he turned up hours late and kept the entire cast and crew waiting. And when he eventually appeared he was a total diva, throwing tantrums and complaining about everything and making the writers rewrite his lines because he thought his character – who was dying, by the way – was “emasculated”.’
‘Lovely,’ I say.
‘Then one day he started yelling at some unfortunate intern and she started to cry and Art had enough. He marched up to Stagg and told him he’d been treating everyone like shit all week and it had to stop.’
‘Really?’ I’m impressed. ‘What did Stagg do?’
‘Mike said he got aggressive and started doing the whole “who do you think you are?” rant but Art wouldn’t back down, and I don’t know exactly how it escalated but I do know Scott Stagg punched Art in the face.
I think he broke his nose. And apparently Art hit him back but he didn’t do much damage. ’
‘Oh my God!’ Scott Stagg is like ten feet tall and three feet wide.
Art is about six foot and I suppose he must be pretty fit but he’s not exactly burly and I certainly can’t imagine him in a fight.
He wouldn’t have stood a chance against Stagg, and he must have known it.
But he stood up to him anyway. I remember him asking me if I had an angry boyfriend because he didn’t feel like having his nose broken again.
‘What happened then? Did Art press charges?’ As soon as the words are out of my mouth I know what the answer will be.
Scott Stagg is so powerful he could easily get away with assaulting a random Irish writer who he could claim had provoked an altercation.
There’d be no point in Art going up against him.
‘No, he was told not to bother,’ says Sinéad.
‘But he got fired from LA Medic anyway. And that wasn’t all.
Stagg’s people made Art’s agent dump him as a client.
Then they made it clear around town that if you wanted to work with Scott Stagg or anyone else on his agent’s roster, you should never hire Art Sullivan again. He was basically blacklisted.’
‘Jesus!’ No wonder Art wasn’t shocked by Bernard when we started at Northside. He really had dealt with petty monsters before.
‘So, yeah, it basically destroyed his Hollywood career,’ says Sinéad.
‘And of course it’s hard to prove you’ve been blacklisted – I mean, he officially got fired from LA Medic because he’d yelled at an actor and then got in a physical fight with him, which was true and doesn’t look good.
Eventually some Irish friend of his told someone at Northside that Art might be available for work and they got in touch with him.
Which is how you ended up as officemates. ’
I’m feeling a little dazed. ‘I had no idea. About any of this.’
Sinéad bites her lip. ‘Shit, I shouldn’t have told you. Please don’t tell Art you know. Or if it comes up, don’t say you heard it from me.’
‘Of course I won’t,’ I say.
But in the taxi home I keep thinking about how Art’s American career ended.
I keep thinking of the reason why he’s slumming it back in Dublin, writing for a show he always despised.
He lost his glossy Hollywood life for standing up to a bully.
For sticking up for someone. He lost his career because he did something good.
Roo’s still out on her date when I get home; she’s texted me to say she and Daragh have gone for a post-film drink and not to wait up, which I hope means she hasn’t discovered anything terrible about him.
It’s not too late and when I get into bed I turn on my laptop and check if Grand Music is streaming anywhere.
It turns out to be available to rent, and while a part of me balks at the idea of paying money to look at something written by Art Sullivan, eventually curiosity and the fact that it’s only ninety minutes long wins me over.
And … Grand Music is not bad.
It’s the opposite of bad.
It’s pretty great.
I mean, it’s not perfect or anything. But it’s not what I expected a film written by twenty-three-year-old Art to be.
It’s a coming-of-age story about a young Irish man working in California for a college summer, who meets an American girl and realises he’s going to have to leave her in September.
It’s quite serious – there’s not much of the sense of humour I’ve seen him display in person over the last few weeks.
But it’s tender and full of warmth and vulnerability. I even cry at the end.
And it makes me think that maybe, even back then, there was more to that cocky, annoying young man in my film class than I realised.