‘Still not a goth.’ I snatch the photo out of his hands.
‘This photographic evidence suggests otherwise,’ says Art. ‘That’s alotof 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 herpals 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 stopthinking. 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 youreallywant 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. ‘Iplannedto 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 aboutthat. 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,reallywant 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.’