Page 14 of Beautiful Losers

‘A while,’ I reply. It’s best to keep things vague. I don’t want Jack googling me and discovering this is very much my first rodeo.

‘What about you? Have you done many travel documentaries?’ I ask, feigning ignorance.

‘A couple. I did a thing on Ireland a few years ago, but I suspect you already knew that.’

I can’t tell if he’s looking straight at me – the lenses on his glasses are too dark – though I feel exposed. I’ve known the man all of five days and already he has an unnerving habit of appearing to read my thoughts, like he can see through me.

‘Come to think of it, my friend Yiv may have mentioned something. So, what are your plans for this series?’

The man behind the counter hands me the ravioli, which Jack takes off him while I search through my bag for my purse.

‘Plans?’ he says.

‘I mean, what’s the tone of the show? And how do you go about choosing which properties to feature?’

It’s a warning shot. I’m letting Jack know that I have the upper hand here. If it’s Fawlty Towers and a hapless manager he’s after, he’ll have to find them elsewhere.

‘Both are up for negotiation. I don’t have a set agenda. I like to be surprised.’

I’d say this guy came out of the birth canal with an agenda, but I bite my tongue. We move on to the fish stall,Jack lingering beside me like the smell of rotting mackerel.Why is he still here?

‘Madame,’ says a man in a white apron.‘Dites-moi.’

‘What’s that one?’ I ask, pointing to a piece of white fish.

‘Colin.’

I scrunch my nose, not quite getting him.

‘No, I mean it’sname. What type of fish is it?Qu’est-ce que c’est le nom de la poisson?’

The man stares at me blankly.

‘Colin,’ he repeats.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say, more to myself than to Jack. ‘Why would he name the fish? Was it a pet?’

‘Colin is French for “hake”,’ says Jack, amused.

‘Ah right, of course. I’d forgotten that,’ I say, my cheeks starting to burn.

Great. The man who doesn’t speak French is giving me a vocabulary lesson. First the watermelon, and now this. I’m not doing a good job of convincing Jack of my competence, but right now I don’t feel much like convincing him of anything.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I say, turning to him.

‘Sure.’

‘If you’re a journalist, why don’t you ever dig beneath the surface? What’s with all the lazy stereotyping? It’s like you go in with your mind made up, the story already written.’

‘So you have seen my work.’

He says ‘work’ with a certain weightiness, likehe’s Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein, capable of toppling governments with his investigative reporting.

‘All of Ireland saw it. And honestly? If we could zap it from our collective memory, we would.’

Jack takes a last bite of his apple and tosses the core in the bin beside us.

‘I’m in breakfast TV,’ he says neutrally. ‘I’m not an historian.’

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