Page 24 of Beautiful Losers

I feel the heat rising in my cheeks, a full-body urge to put Jack back in his box.

‘God you’re so smug, acting like you’ve never made a bad judgement call in your life. What about your creepy friend, huh?’

‘I’m sorry?’ he says, looking confused.

‘Your pervy mate. The one who’s been abusing all those women. Still standing by him?’

He furrows his brow and sets his beer on the table.

‘First, I don’t see what my friend has to do with your situation, but fine, some people need to make it about others to feel better about themselves. I didn’t have you pegged as one of those people, though I’ve been known to be wrong once or twice. Second, my friend hasn’t been charged with anything. I’ll reserve judgement until there’s something to judge. I’m not about to abandon a twenty-year friendship because some zealots on Twitter don’t believe in due process.’

‘You know you haven’t actually been cancelled?’ I sneer. ‘You’re being paid a fortune to write your memoir andare about to cash in on a documentary series. You’re literally whatever the opposite of cancelled is.’

‘Approved,’ he says priggishly. ‘Sanctioned. Ratified.’

I glower at him.

‘Furthermore, cancel culture doesn’t exist. People didn’t start getting offended the minute the smartphone was invented.’

Did I just say ‘furthermore’?

‘Yes, I know all the arguments,’ Jack says, sounding bored. ‘Historically marginalised groups are gaining more power and calling out the status quo – rightfully, I might add. It’s the sanctimonious online minority that’s using these groups to shut down healthy debate I have a problem with. They say it’s about accountability, but it’s not. It’s about punishment.’

‘So what about the photo?’ I say. ‘The one of you at uni wearing the Native American headdress. Why haven’t you apologised for that?’

He throws his hands in the air in exasperation.

‘Why would I apologise for something everyone was doing twenty years ago? When I was a stupid kid? Would I do it now? No. I just don’t see what good me issuing amea culpawould do other than satisfying the blood lust of those who’ve already decided I’m The Worst Person In The World. You’d think a better use of their time would be to focus on dismantling the systems that give rise to controversial viewpoints in the first place. But that’s not the goal here. It’s about gleefully taking down anyone who has an opposing viewpoint.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ I say, my voice straining. ‘You say apologising wouldn’t do any good, that it wouldn’thave impact. But it would. What you say matters. Your actions matter. Everything has impact. People can get hurt.’

‘I’m not sure this is about me anymore,’ says Jack.

‘You know what I think? I think you don’t regret a thing in your life. I bet everything has been easy for you and you’ve never let a single person down, right?’

‘You know nothing about me,’ he says frostily.

‘I know you’re not much more than a shock jock with zero principles, and the only reason you’re here is to lick your wounds after messing everything up back home.’

For a fraction of a second, I register something like pain on Jack’s face. You know that stunned look people get in films when they’ve been shot? I’ve never understood that. The gun has literally been pointed at them the entire time, they know the end is coming. Still, it hurts like hell when the trigger is pulled. Then almost as quickly, the hurt is gone. Jack’s features rearrange themselves into the familiar expression of contempt I’ve seen countless times in his TV interviews. Obviously, I hallucinated the pain. There’s nothing I could say or do that could wound a man like Jack Hamilton.

‘Got it,’ he says, pushing his chair back and standing up. He takes a ten-euro note out of his wallet and tosses it on the table. ‘Beers are on me. Have a good evening.’

I laugh bitterly as he walks away, every organ in my body on fire. With rage? Embarrassment? Shame? I can’t figure it out. I have no time for Jack, but I can’t believe I insulted a guest, our only source of income at the moment, the one person with the power to make or break our life in France. I haven’t lost my cool like that in a long time. Well, not since the egg-throwing incident. There’s something about Jack, aboutbeing out here. I can feel myself unspooling. I finish my beer and watch the sun disappear behind the hills.

Great work, Fiadh. You always find a way to make ’em leave.

13

A few days before my twelfth birthday, my mother announced she was leaving.

‘I’m not cut out for all this,’ she said, as I climbed into the passenger seat of her Mercedes. It was an unremarkable Wednesday in November. I’d had crisp sandwiches and mini Jaffa cakes for lunch, and engaged in my usual face-off with Mr Brides, my biology teacher, for refusing to dissect a frog. It’s dead already, he sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes wearily. And my choosing not to dissect it will send a market signal to the biological supply companies profiteering from animal cruelty, I retorted. Besides, you do know that most medical studies don’t benefit from cutting up animals? He gave me an ‘F’ for the project and the insolence, and sent me to Sister Una’s office, where I was becoming as regular a fixture as the crucifix above her desk.

As Mum didn’t specify what ‘all this’ was, Iassumed she was talking about the charity tombola she’d signed up for to help the school raise money for cystic fibrosis research. Aideen Magee’s mum, the queen bee of parents at St Mary’s, was in charge of the event. She had told my mother that she was fed up of Concern hijacking donations and public sympathy with its North Korea campaign. Famine is what you get when you elect a dictator. And sure, doesn’t Ireland have one of the highest rates of cystic fibrosis in the world? No doubt this was down to the Travellers, she insisted. “The number of genetic defects in that community is something shocking.”

Mum stared out the windscreen, absentmindedly playing with the monstrous sapphire and diamond rock on her ring finger. It was a thirtieth birthday present from Dad, delivered to Mum by courier as he was travelling for work. On the radio, Annie Lennox was singing ‘No More “I Love You’s”’.

‘I’m not a good mother, I know that,’ she said, without looking at me. ‘I’ve a fierce temper and no patience. And frankly, I’m not about to sit around waiting for the day you tell me I’m the reason you’re not a functioning adult.’

---