Chapter Twenty-One #3
‘We could,’ I say. ‘But … we’ll have to talk about the new top-secret scenes. Obviously.’
‘Well, yeah, talking would make the job a lot easier,’ says Art.
‘And there’ll definitely be people around the office this weekend,’ I continue. ‘What if they overhear us? I know the room is soundproof but what if—?’
‘Don’t say “what if they’ve bugged us”,’ says Art. ‘Even Bernard wouldn’t go that far. I think. But yeah, I don’t think we’d be particularly relaxed in there.’
‘I’m never relaxed anywhere,’ I say.
‘I’m starting to believe that,’ says Art.
‘Well, we could go to my place but it’s not ideal unless you fancy talking to my mother and her book club for an hour.
They’re meeting there right now and they do like to chat.
The bridge club was there for drinks last night.
’ He sighs. ‘I love my mum but living there can be … challenging.’
‘We can go to my house,’ I say. ‘Roo and her friends will be there but they won’t insist on chatting to us for hours.’
‘That,’ says Art, ‘sounds perfect.’
I can hear laughter coming from inside as we walk into the hall.
Somehow it’s only now it really hits me that Art and I will have to work in the small, confined space of my bedroom.
I try to remember if there’s anything embarrassing lying around.
Although why should I be embarrassed about anything in front of a man who flung my knickers across the sitting room last week?
‘Annie?’ says Roo from the kitchen.
‘I’ve brought Art back,’ I call.
‘Well, bring him in,’ says Roo. I look apologetically at Art but he seems completely unfazed as he follows me in to the kitchen, where Roo, Francesca and Nadia are sitting around the table.
I’ve only met Francesca and Nadia on nights out or, last week, when Francesca was on duty, and I’m relieved to see they’re less intimidatingly glossy in their Saturday-afternoon casual wear. But only slightly.
Roo makes introductions and asks Art if he’d like a coffee.
‘I’d love one, thanks,’ he says. He points at the embroidered panels lying on the table. ‘Hey, those are cool. Did you make them?’
As Roo puts the kettle on and I start spooning coffee into the cafetière, Francesca explains the concept of sashiko to Art, who sounds genuinely interested in Japanese embroidery.
He asks Francesca and Nadia how they know Roo and about their work in PR and they’re so obviously taken with him that Nadia, the coolest, most aloof girl I’ve ever met, literally giggles at one point.
Jesus, the Sullivan charm is ridiculously effective. Not that I’d ever tell him that, even under pain of death.
I almost feel like I’m interrupting their cosy little gathering when I hand Art his coffee. He smiles at me as he accepts it. ‘Thank you, McDermott. I suppose we’d better start working on that script.’
‘Sure you don’t want an embroidery lesson?’ Nadia looks up at him beneath her impossibly long eyelashes. God, is she flirting with him? She is, isn’t she?
‘Annie and I have lots of important work to do,’ says Art. ‘But I appreciate the offer!’ He raises a hand in farewell as we leave the room.
‘Everything all right?’ he says, following me down the hall towards my room.
‘Yeah, of course,’ I say. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You didn’t say much in there,’ he says, as I open the door.
I shrug. ‘Roo met Francesca and Nadia after I moved to London. I don’t know them that well.’
My room looks smaller than ever once Art is standing in it. The childhood photo of me and Laura is on the desk, next to a photo of me and Roo at seventeen, both of us looking stonily into the camera. My hair is dead straight and I’m wearing black muslin and a necklace in the shape of antlers.
Art picks up the photo and gives me a meaningful look.
‘Still not a goth.’ I snatch the photo out of his hands.
‘This photographic evidence suggests otherwise,’ says Art. ‘That’s a lot of eyeliner.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Now we’ve got the make-up critiques over with, let’s bring Ma Cusack back to Charlemont Street.’
Art and I may have found our collaborative rhythm over the last couple of days but it quickly becomes clear that this top-secret script is our biggest challenge yet.
‘So Ma Cusack left Dublin eight years ago because those gangsters were threatening her again, right?’ says Art. ‘Which is why she hasn’t been back since, even when all sorts of mad shit happened to her family?’
‘Correct,’ I say. ‘But her son Paddy being at death’s door would be enough to make her risk it all to see him. So we can say she’s, like, sneaked back into the country to be by his bedside.’
‘And then she can sneak off again by the end of the episode without anyone seeing her,’ says Art. ‘So it won’t disrupt the pick-ups for the next week.’
I take a deep breath and say, ‘Okay. Let’s write it.’
That, unsurprisingly, is easier said than done.
As Roo and her pals laugh and chat over their embroidery on the other side of my flimsy bedroom wall – they’ve opened a bottle of wine now, which can’t be helping their stitching – Art and I start planning our Ma Cusack scenes.
I’m sitting at the edge of the bed, the laptop on my knees, and Art sits on the rickety little desk chair.
We throw out idea after idea, but the pressure of writing for Honoria is increasingly overwhelming and after ninety minutes my head feels like it’s full of hot wool.
‘I read about Rosie’s kidney transplant on Wikipedia.’ Art paces back and forth at the end of my bed. ‘Would that have been the last time Ma Cusack was in this hospital? She could mention that.’
‘No, she was in Lanzarote by then. Or was she? God, I can’t remember.’ I groan and slap my hand against my forehead. ‘Fuck, I wish I could switch my brain off and stop thinking. Just an empty head for a few minutes. Is that really too much to ask?’ I flop backwards onto the bed and close my eyes.
There’s a moment of silence and then Art says, ‘Well, if you really want to stop thinking …’
I prop myself up on my elbows and see him standing over me, sleeves rolled up, hands in his pockets.
‘I do,’ I say.
I feel the energy between us shift.
‘We can do something about that, you know,’ says Art.
We’re both speaking quietly now. In the kitchen they’ll just hear a low murmur. They won’t know what we’re talking about.
‘Can we?’ I look up at him.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘We can. There’s something I’ve wanted to do since we were rudely interrupted by Bernard in that stationery room.’
I meet his gaze. ‘And what’s that?’
‘Make you come again,’ says Art.
I can’t look away from him. The air is suddenly thick with tension. ‘How did you plan to do that?’
‘Well,’ says Art, and my breath catches at the expression on his face. ‘I planned to go down on you because, and I’m not bragging here, I’m really fucking good at it.’
Oh my God, of course he’s even cocky about that. And yet something about the way he says it makes me know he’s telling the truth, makes me know he’s good at it, more than good at it, makes me really, really want to say yes.
But these walls are like cardboard. I can hear Roo and her friends in the kitchen, having wholesome craft chat just a few feet away.
I try to laugh. ‘What, right now?’
‘Right now,’ he says, and it’s like something melts in my core. ‘Right here.’
‘But the others might hear us.’
‘Not,’ says Art, ‘if you can keep very, very quiet the whole time.’ He looks at me in a way I’ve never been looked at before. ‘Think you can do that, McDermott?’
I swallow and say, ‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ says Art.
And he kneels.
I can hear Nadia laughing in the next room.
As Art pushes up my dress a part of me can’t believe he’s doing this, as he pulls off my underwear a part of me can’t believe I’m letting him do it, and then his tongue flickers against me and I can’t believe someone I used to hate can make me feel this good.
And when he pauses for a second I find myself desperate for him to keep going, which he does until I forget where I am and maybe even who I am, because no one, absolutely no one, has ever made me feel like this before.
He was right. He is really fucking good at this.
And after I come – because of course I come, wave upon wave upon wave, with one fist clutching Art’s dark hair and the other pressed against my mouth so I don’t cry out – Art stands up, pulls me up so I’m sitting on the edge of the bed and kisses me, all salt and sex.
He says, ‘You taste incredible, by the way. I thought you might.’
I can’t say anything. I feel utterly untangled.
‘Did that clear your head?’
I still can’t say anything. I just nod.
‘Excellent,’ says Art. ‘I’m going to the bathroom. And then we can do some more work on that script.’
A few weeks ago I was rolling my eyes at the sight of him and now he knows what I taste like. How the hell have things between me and Art turned out like this? As the door closes behind him I fall back onto the bed and let out a sigh.
Except, to my own surprise, the sigh sounds so happy it’s almost a laugh.