17
The day before he’s due to check out, Jack asks if he can extend his stay by a month.
‘But what about your documentary?’ I say, unscrewing the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling in Ari’s bedroom. ‘Don’t you have other places to visit?’
He puts a hand on the stepladder I’m standing on. I’m vexed by the gesture. The whole point of a stepladder is that it’s self-supporting.
‘Scheduling conflict,’ he says, lifting a framed photo of Ari and me on Ari’s nightstand and moving it close to his face for a better look. Cillian took it on a trip to Keary’s farm in Co. Wicklow a few months before we broke up. It was a fun day out. Cillian got to milk a cow and everything. He doesn’t like to talk about it since he and Nicole have given up dairy and they attended that animal rights rally in Santa Monica. There’s a picture of Cillian on the internet holding a placard that says, ‘You keep buyin’, they keep dyin’’ above an image of The Laughing Cow. Mum always said I wasn’t terribly photogenic. I hunched too much, hid behind my massive hair. But I like this photo. Sometimes, I wonder if I framed it because it reminds me of happier times or I wanted to spite my mother.
‘My editor wants the first thirty thousand words of the memoir by the end of August and filming for the show starts a few weeks after that,’ says Jack, returning the frame to the nightstand. ‘I won’t have time to hit my word count and recce the remaining properties, so the production company is sending out a team to come up with a final shortlist.’
‘So you won’t have a say in which guesthouses make the cut?’
‘I’ll still have the final word. They’ll show me footage of the properties and interviews with the owners. If somewhere really impresses me, I’ll make sure it’s included.’
We make brief eye contact – no more than a second or two, though it’s a sufficient amount of time to cause me to lose my balance. I grip the top of the ladder to steady myself, while Jack shoots his arm up reflexively, placing his hand on my waist.
‘I’m good, thanks,’ I say, reddening as I remove his hand. ‘Aren’t you keen to get back to Max?’
‘Helen wants to stay on in the States until Max goes back to school,’ he says, running a hand through his hair, a strangely mesmerising gesture. ‘Some friends of her brother’s have invited them to their summer house for a few weeks. I may as well stay on a bit longer. I’m getting more writing done here than I would in London.’
‘But what about your job? It’s been weeks since you’ve insulted anyone on live TV. I don’t know how you’re managing to keep it together.’
‘Are you wanting rid of me, Murphy?’ Jack says good-naturedly, placing the dead bulb on the coffee table and handing me its replacement.
‘I’m not due back at Sunrise until the end of August. That’s assuming I still have a job to go back to. My contract’s up for renewal.’
‘Is it likely they won’t renew it?’
‘Who knows?’ He leans a foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. ‘Harry’s meeting with the execs next week. He’s confident there’s nothing to worry about, but there’s been a targeted campaign to get me fired. One of my producers says she’s getting daily calls demanding my head on a spike Which, admittedly, isn’t anything new, though the threats of late are more, let’s say “descriptive” than usual.’
I quietly seethe at the mention of Jack’s agent, recalling the conversation I overheard by the hen house, how Jack insulted Ari.
‘Well, I’ll have to check our bookings system,’ I say with an air of efficiency, screwing the new bulb into place. ‘If I move some things around I should be able to arrange something.’
‘Thanks for accommodating me,’ he replies, extending a hand to assist me down two whole steps. I reject it. ‘I can see you’re clearly slammed.’
He walks off, amused.
~
The thing is, I am trying to get rid of Jack. The other night in the kitchen, the ease of it all, of being in Jack’s company – it unnerved me. I’ve felt off-kilter ever since, unable to find my equilibrium. For example, I notice things now. Pay attention to the details of Jack’s day – when he rises, what he eats. Jack Hamilton, I have observed, is a man of routine. He goes for a run first thing, has breakfast in the same spot at 8 a.m., returns to his room to write until midday, when he’ll amble into the village for lunch. He’s back at his desk in the afternoon and resurfaces around six to read in the garden. Lately, he’s been going out for dinner more. I’m not sure where. Cordes doesn’t have that many restaurants and he hasn’t rented a car. Which is also strange, given he’s meant to be exploring other B there are eight left in the box), and a framed photo of a little boy in his school uniform, standing outside a large, pillar box-red front door flanked by bay trees. The bathroom is equally spotless. No stains lurking beneath the toilet seat, no toothpaste gunk accumulating around the tap. My suspicions surrounding Jack’s oral hygiene were correct – there’s a brand new head on his electric toothbrush, which is sitting in a cup alongside some dental floss, mouthwash and one of those tartar-removal brushes. I spot an expensive-looking shampoo in the shower and unscrew the top. I’ve always been impressed by those who can identify the constituent parts of scents. My olfactory sensory neurons aren’t sufficiently developed to discern say, amber musk from cardamom. I don’t know what ingredients have gone into the making of Jack’s shampoo, but I do know it smells damn good. I’m getting weekend-away-in-a-luxury-cabin-in-the-woods vibes.
I do some light dusting, leave clean towels on the bed and have another sniff of the shampoo bottle. I’m about to leave when I see the corner of a photograph poking out from under a notebook on the shelf above the bed. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I lift the book for a better look. It’s an image of a much younger Jack – he must be about ten; I’ve no doubt it’s him, the colour of the eyes are too unusual for it to be anyone else – and an older man. The man is perched on a fold-up chair in front of a tent shaded by a cypress tree, Jack sitting on the ground by his feet. He’s leaning forward, one arm wrapped affectionately around Jack’s neck, the other ruffling his hair in a mock-wrestling hold. Both are sporting grins the size of watermelon quarters. I trace their faces with my finger, allow myself, just for a moment, to absorb the palpable sense of love leaping off the high-gloss print, and put the photo back where I found it.
After a light lunch of salad and tomatoes – both from the garden, thanks to Leonard’s handiness with a hoe – some olives and crusty bread, I walk to the village for ingredients for dinner. It’s a beautiful day. I’m feeling great, uncharacteristically sanguine and at peace with the world. In the épicerie , I buy courgettes, cheese, fresh pasta and a small tub of raspberry ice cream, and strike up a conversation with the owner, who tells me he visited Ireland once. It was a very beautiful country, but he saw a man urinate into his pint glass in a Dublin pub at three in the afternoon. He looks at me with a grave expression, clearly expecting some kind of commentary on the obscenity. I apologise and assure him that while daytime drinking is common practice in my homeland, public urination is generally frowned upon – unless it’s the Saturday before Christmas. He seems satisfied with this response and hands me a complimentary chocolate truffle.
Back home, grocery shopping was either a dreaded weekly affair, trundling down the aisles on a Saturday morning with a truculent preschooler; or an after-work raid of the frozen food section, searching for oven chips and the will to live. It was a chore, a necessity. Lately, how do I explain it? Being here, having the luxury of time to consider what to purchase and eat, exchanging bon mots with the person serving you – it’s like buying a courgette isn’t just buying a courgette. It’s not a means to an end. It has value in itself. Simple, everyday tasks, they have weight somehow. Maybe they’re as important as all the other stuff that makes up a life.
I pay the shopkeeper and find a shady spot to enjoy my ice cream. Standing beneath the awning outside the tabac , I dip my wooden spoon into the tub and watch a woman taking a photograph of her daughter on the carousel. An old man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth reading the newspaper outside Chez Colette. Jack Hamilton heading towards Sabrina Rousseau’s house with a bag of florentines and a bunch of wildflowers that look suspiciously like the ones growing outside my kitchen.
I pull my sunglasses down over the bridge of my nose for a better look. He’s standing outside her front door now. A woman I don’t recognise answers. If you typed ‘French girl’ into a search engine, this woman would come up. Artfully déshabillé hair, arse-hugging Levi 501s, sexy oversized shirt. She greets Jack with la bise , the Gallic kiss on each cheek, and touches his arm when he offers her the florentines and flowers. My flowers. She’s laughing, throwing her head back, a head supported by an elegant neck. She must know it’s an impressive neck, because she keeps stroking it. She’s neck flirting . Now she’s pointing towards the tabac. I turn abruptly to face a rack of postcards and souvenirs and lift the first thing I see – a pocket-sized book called The Cats of Cordes . I peruse it with what I hope appears to be deep interest, shooting furtive glances over my shoulder to check if they’re still looking. They’ve gone inside. I return the book to the rack and place my hand on my chest to steady my heartbeat. I look around, searching for my ice cream. The old man sitting outside the bistro points at my feet. The tub has upended on my sandals, a thick blob of pinky-red gelato smothering my toes. I didn’t notice the cold.