He checked the windows around the house again. Then he set the alarm, pulled the door behind him, and he locked it. It was only a quarter to ten, so he had plenty of time yet to get into town, and up to that restaurant in Smithfield. Even if he were a few minutes late, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to keep Breen, Colm Breen, Irish film’s mover and shaker, waiting for once. And whether Breen liked to be reminded or not, he and Dermot Fanning went back a long, long way. Breen had been the gawky newcomer in the Film Society then, and Fanning the third-year student running the meetings.
Breen had become master of the schmooze, his country accent massaged to mid-Atlantic over the intervening years. To be fair, he had always made time for Fanning, and as much as it had angered Fanning over the years, Breen’s praise had also buoyed him.
But it was no time to think of the past now. This was business, networking, something he had neglected for far too long, and realized its costs only lately.
Some things were working his way, Fanning saw then, as the 62 bus appeared at the bend. He stayed downstairs after he got on, at the back of the bus, and took out his notebook. He thought about the points he wanted to leave Breen with, the three key things he’d remember. It took only a few moments of this for Fanning’s mind to turn to what was coming up later after the schmooze with Breen, however. The field trip — he had described it to Brid. He had fudged it for her benefit though. A dog fight would horrify her, freak her out completely. Her husband attending one would be even worse.
As the bus carved its way through the lighter post-rush-hour traffic, Fanning’s spirits lifted. He was raring to go on this script, and he was so close now. Nobody had yet treated Dublin crime the way it should be treated, as social commentary, as critique — as family drama. Breen would get it, probably. But if he didn’t, well there were others outside of Ireland. The Sopranos would look like summer school compared to what he would be coming up with. He’d have a draft by the summer for sure. Then it’d be summer holidays for Brid, and they’d have the summer of their lives, the three of them.
The bus shuddered to a sudden halt by a zebra crossing. A black woman waited uncertainly by the curb, her hands on a buggy laden with at least two children that Fanning could see. A car horn sounded somewhere, then another. People were so impatient, Fanning reflected. He heard the driver say something that had an exasperated tone to it. Then he too hit the horn. With a stricken smile, the woman pulled the buggy back, and shook her head.
Fanning’s thoughts went to Aisling. After dinner he’d bring her out in the buggy. Brid could decompress, have her bath, a cup of tea on her own. Actually, he might even take Aisling over to Brid’s Ma and Da in the car. Ah, no. What was he thinking? It was not casual anymore. Danny, the Da, was okay, but the Ma was a different kettle of fish. Maybe it was just her age, but she was definitely going over to the dark side this last while.
Time was she was almost fawning over him. He’d heard she talked about him as her son-in-law, very well respected as a writer, you know. Fanning could see her trying not to be annoyed at him this past while, however. It was the little things gave her away. A look, a pause, the way she spoke slowly; the subjects she avoided, and the ones she went to too often. Her favourite in that area was loaded, of course: “God the changes we’ve seen in our own lifetime! My oh my, all the jobs and the opportunities out there nowadays.”
Fanning was first off the bus. He legged it up the quays smartly, not at all displeased with the dank, colder air coming at him over the parapet of the River Liffey. His Dublin had always been shabby and smelly, and real. That Dublin was still there if you knew where to look. Fanning had never had time for any nostalgia about Good Old Dublin. The new restaurants and apartments being steadily inserted into parts of the city centre areas that had been no-go areas were welcome. Sometimes, though, their sudden arrivals gave Fanning a feeling of bafflement, and even dismay. Still, he was careful not to fall in range of the running joke in Dublin for at least a decade now: “When did that place go up?”
Fanning was entering Smithfield sooner than he had expected, and within minutes of leaving the quays he was turning the corner in sight of the restaurant. There was Breen in the window, and as per caricature, he was on his mobile. Fanning stepped back, and he took up a spot next to a delivery van. No way would he be caught sitting meekly and waiting for Breen’s phone conversation to end. He’d watch the performance instead.
He could have predicted Breen’s smiles and shrugs, and the fake, rolling laugh that he retailed. Scene Two would roll out just as predictably. That was when Breen would wear that that put-upon look, the smile of regret that he excelled in. It would be followed up with an apology for being “so busy.”
The hardest bit to take would be Breen’s attempt to be the common man, a hapless beleaguered gobshite, sighing that he was “running around like a fart in a bottle,” or he “didn’t know whether he was coming or going.” Then, Breen’s twinkling eyes would almost disappear when he put out his fake smile. Fanning wondered if anyone had ever told Breen how fat he was getting these past few years, how… fulsome was the word, Fanning thought then, the exact word. He was pleased the word came to him so easily.
Fanning didn’t mind Breen’s act itself as a piece, say, of theatre. After all, Breen the impressario was a character study in his own right. He would find his way into a Dermot Fanning script soon enough. But the sting in it all was that Breen assumed that Dermot Fanning was stupid enough to be taken in by it all.
Fanning felt the injustice glow stronger in his chest, and so he distracted himself by beginning a careful, neutral study of the buildings around him. More than their lines or even shapes, he observed their textures and shadows and tones, all the things that escaped day-to-day notice. Behind the crane swivelling slowly overhead somewhere near Capel Street were light-grey clouds, like a cannonade from some long-ago naval battle. The sky to the south was parchment — no: pearl.
The cobblestone lane was new. The old one had been torn up last year and had been meticulously replaced. Brickwork had been repointed, pipes proudly exposed. Copies of recently discovered daguerrotypes of Dublin from the 1840s and 1850s had been placed in salient windows of the restaurant.
Sa Bhaile — My Place. Staff would speak Gaelic if requested, was the boast, or the “brand,” but diners could expect a savvy, cool dining experience in what had been a livery, a storehouse, a bicycle factory, and then lain abandoned for decades, and was now a backdrop for celebrity snapshots. The lettering on the restaurant sign was harsh modern, doubtless intended as a statement to that effect.
But he really should be thinking about his pitch, the three points, and no more. Three was a natural number for people to remember, a trinity, just like the old Irish proverbs. Breen sure as hell wasn’t one to take notes. He didn’t have to. The higher up in the firmament you were, the more causal things seemed to be. A whim, a mood, a coincidence, pure luck: they were the reigning deities in the world of film. The true talent had never been the actual writing.
Fanning had been to book launches here. No-one he had met those times seemed to be interested in the fact that ten years ago this area was where you’d come to fence stuff, to rent a gun, to buy heroin.
Oh oh: Breen had spotted him. He held up his hand, his fingers spread, and then detached the mobile slightly from his ear. He issued the smile and the eye-roll that Fanning had predicted, and went back to his call. Fanning had mustered a smile, and he slowly nodded his understanding.
His chest felt overfilled. He took a few steps toward the door of the restaurant, and made a last effort to get his thoughts in order. With Breen you basically had one minute, and it had to be clear and simple, the less said the better. Breen wouldn’t admit to calling it a pitch, of course. It was always “a chat,” or a “bring me up to date.” He wanted to just gossip, or tell a joke, or drop names and tell anecdotes.