SEVENTY-SIX MINUTES BEFORE AIR
Greenroom B had been designed by a person who believed comfort was a thing that could be ordered in beige.
There was a low sofa no adult could rise from with dignity, two armchairs angled as if waiting for a couples counsellor, a vase of white flowers pretending not to be from the network's emergency hospitality budget, and a table carrying the usual offerings: sliced fruit nobody touched, wrapped biscuits everyone wanted, still water, sparkling water, and a bowl of mints so aggressively available Jamie felt personally accused.
He stood in the middle of it with his phone in his hand and his sister's name glowing up at him.
LENA.
Four letters. One life sentence.
Mara had closed the door behind him after issuing three instructions: sit down, call her, do not lie. Then she had pointed at the sofa with the same expression she used for lawyers and untrained dogs. Jamie had not sat. Sitting made the room feel medical. Standing made him feel as if he might yet leave by accident, which was a comforting fiction.
The phone screen dimmed.
He woke it again.
Outside the door, the building continued its nervous labour. Feet moved past. Someone laughed too loudly, then lowered their voice. A printer whined. A runner asked whether anyone had seen the spare lapel mic. Dublin rain needled the window with such steady persistence it began to sound less like weather and more like an opinion.
Jamie pressed Lena's name.
The call rang once.
Twice.
On the third ring she answered without hello.
"Are you dead?"
His throat closed so fast he almost laughed from the cruelty of it.
"Not currently."
"Don't be funny."
"I'm not being funny. I'm being medically approximate."
"Jamie."
There it was. His name stripped of export value. No velvet from magazine profiles. No affectionate nickname from American hosts. Just his sister saying it the way she had said it when they were children and he had climbed too high on the rocks behind the house because he had wanted the sea to look impressed.
He sat down after all.
The sofa accepted him badly.
"I'm sorry," he said.
A silence opened on the line.
Not empty. Lena silences were furnished. This one contained anger, relief, exhaustion, the clatter of a kitchen in the background, and at least one child being told by someone else to leave Mam alone for two minutes.
"That's a broad category," she said.
"I know."
"Do you?"
He closed his eyes.
There it was again. The evening's chosen blade. Do you?
Nora had asked it. Lena asked it. The universe, apparently, had found a theme and lacked subtlety.
"I'm trying to," he said.
"Trying is what people say when they want applause for standing near the work."
A laugh moved through him, fragile and unwanted. "You've been talking to Nora."
"Don't put this on Nora Fallon. I had a personality before you ruined women for the nation."
"Fair."
"And stop saying fair in that tragic little voice. You sound like a priest caught smoking."
This time he did laugh. Properly, once. It hurt his head.
Lena went quiet.
"There you are," she said, softer.
He bent forward, elbow on knee, hand over his eyes.
"Len."
"No, don't. Don't do the voice. I have been watching strangers debate whether you're a monster, an addict, a victim, a narcissist, a genius, a national treasure, an embarrassment, a poor wee pet, and a disgrace to Irish men, which is frankly competitive fieldwork. I have had photographers outside my son's school. I had to tell Maisie not to read the comments because she asked what 'washed-up' means. Mam's old neighbour rang to say she was praying for us, which we both know means she wanted details. And you didn't answer the phone."
Each sentence landed with the clean accuracy of things he had made true by omission.
"I'm sorry," he said again, because the useless phrase was the only furniture he had.
"I know you're sorry. You're always sorry after. You have a world-class after. You could win awards for after. What I needed was before."
Jamie stared at the carpet. It had a dark stain near the table, scrubbed into a blur. Coffee, probably. Wine, possibly. Television was full of stains pretending to be shadows.
"I didn't know what to say."
"You say, 'Lena, the papers are about to be vile.' You say, 'Lena, don't send the kids to school by the front gate.' You say, 'Lena, I am not well.' You say anything before I have to identify the shape of my own brother from footage taken through a hotel lobby plant."
He swallowed. "You saw that?"
"Everyone saw that. That was rather the design flaw."
A child's voice rose in the background. Lena covered the phone and said, muffled, "No, you cannot have cereal for dinner just because Uncle Jamie is on the news. Nice try. Pasta is on."
Uncle Jamie.
The words put a hand somewhere tender and squeezed.
He had missed Maisie's birthday in September. Sent a bike, too expensive, wrong colour. Lena had sent a photograph of Maisie sitting on the box instead of the bike, arms folded, expression pure Vale judgement. He had meant to call. He had been in Budapest. Or Boston. Or one of those cities that had become mostly hotel ceilings and drivers knowing not to speak.
Lena came back on the line.
"Are you going?" she asked.
"To Galway? Yes. Tomorrow morning."
"Properly?"
"Yes."
"Not celebrity properly. Actual properly."
"Actual properly."
"No leaving after six days because the pillows are emotional?"
Despite himself, he smiled. "I made one comment about one wellness retreat."
"You said the pillows had boundary issues."
"They did."
"Jamie."
The smile disappeared.
"I'm going," he said. "I signed the intake forms. Mara has my passport. My driver has instructions not to take me anywhere except home tonight and west tomorrow. There is no work for eight weeks minimum. No phone for the first fortnight. No visitors until they say."
"Good."
The word came out broken at the edge.
He gripped the phone harder.
"Lena."
"Don't be kind to me now. I'll combust."
"I'm sorry about the school."
"I know."
"About Maisie."
"I know."
"About Mam's neighbour."
"I hope she steps on a plug."
"That's very dark for you."
"I'm evolving."
He looked toward the door. Through the narrow strip of frosted glass, a shadow passed. The world waited outside with its powder, lights, timing sheets, and hunger.
"Nora's doing the interview," he said.
"I know."
Of course she knew. Ireland ran on rain, tea, and people knowing things before they were told.
"Are you angry?"
"With Nora? No. Nora didn't abandon me with your fan mail and your grief."
He closed his eyes again.
"Right."
"I always liked her," Lena said, and her voice did something careful around the sentence. "Mam did too."
"Mam liked anyone who took seconds."
"Nora took thirds. She had sense."
The memory came at him with unreasonable gentleness: Nora in his mother's kitchen, twenty-two and pretending not to be nervous, accepting stew because refusing food in that house was treated as both insult and medical emergency. His mother watching her with open approval when Nora asked if she could help with the dishes and then actually helped, sleeves rolled, elbow-deep in suds beside Jamie as Lena fired questions at her about Dublin, television, and whether actors kissed people for real.
Nora had said, "Only the insufferable ones."
His mother had laughed so hard she had to sit down.
He had loved Nora then in a way he had not yet known would become evidence.
"She looks well," Lena said.
"You saw her?"
"Trailer. They put it online. She looks like she could cut through glass with a follow-up question."
"She can."
"Good. Let her."
He looked down at his shoes. Polished. Borrowed from the version of himself everyone preferred.
"You don't think I should have done it?"
"I think you should have done many things differently over twenty years, but we all have hobbies."
"Len."
She sighed. The sound aged both of them.
"I think if you can tell the truth without making it another performance, do it. If you can't, say less. Silence would be a refreshing career pivot."
"Nora said something similar."
"Nora always was the clever one."
"I was in films."
"Yes, love. We clapped."
He smiled again, and this time it hurt in a cleaner way.
A knock tapped the door. Mara's shape appeared in the frosted glass. One finger raised: one minute.
Jamie nodded though she could not properly see him.
"I have to go," he said.
Lena did not answer immediately.
When she did, her voice was smaller.
"Are you frightened?"
He could have joked. He could have said of Cian, of Nora, of the lighting, of live television, of rehab breakfasts that would probably involve seeds. He could have given his sister one more little performance, tender enough to pass for intimacy.
Instead he looked at the beige wall and told the truth.
"Yes."
Lena breathed in.
"Good."
He laughed under his breath. "Everyone's very fond of that word tonight."
"Fear means some part of you wants to live differently. Listen to that part. It's been leaving voicemails for years."
His eyes burned. He pressed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.
"Will you watch?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me not to mention—"
"Don't protect us by lying. Don't expose us to save yourself. Find the road between. You're a dramatic eejit, but you do have balance when sober."
He nodded. "All right."
"And Jamie?"
"Yeah?"
The kitchen noise on her end seemed to fall away.
"Come back this time. Not famous. Not fixed. Just back."
For a moment, he could not speak.
"I'll try."
"There it is again. Standing near the work."
"I'll do it," he said.
"Better."
The door opened a crack and Mara looked in, her face already apologising for the clock.
Jamie stood.
"Tell Maisie I love her."
"Tell her yourself when you're allowed your phone. She charges interest."
"Tell Finn I'm sorry about the photographers."
"He told one of them you were joining a monastery, so he's grand."
Jamie laughed, breath unsteady.
"I'm proud of him."
"He's a Fallon-Vale adjacent child. Weaponised sarcasm is genetic."
Mara pointed at her watch.
"I have to go," Jamie said.
"I love you," Lena replied, fierce and immediate, as if the words had been standing ready with their coat on. "I'm furious with you and I love you. Both. Don't make me choose."
The tenderness of it nearly took his knees.
"I love you too."
He ended the call before either of them could collapse into more.
For several seconds, he remained standing with the dead phone in his hand.
Mara did not speak. That was one of her better qualities. For a woman paid to shape language, she understood the value of not polluting a room after something true had happened in it.
Then she handed him a tissue without looking directly at his face.
"Your eyes," she said. "Blot, don't wipe. We are not starting from scratch."
He took it.
"She's watching."
"Of course she is."
"She said not to protect them by lying."
Mara leaned against the doorframe. Some of the publicist left her. Not all. Enough.
"Good advice. Annoyingly unpaid."
"She also said not to expose them to save myself."
"Even better advice. I'll send her a fruit basket and my resignation."
He looked at her.
"What do I say if Nora asks about Dad?"
Mara's expression tightened.
There were rooms inside his life that Mara had entered only as needed, wearing professional gloves. His father's death. His mother's decline after. The year Jamie stopped coming home because grief was harder in houses where people remembered your original name. The old story of a man who had taught his son charm like a defence and silence like a trade. Mara knew enough. Not all. Nobody knew all except Jamie, and even he had misplaced parts in the fog.
"You say what is yours to say," Mara said. "You do not diagnose the dead on live television. You do not hand tabloids your mother's kitchen. You do not make Lena clean up after your courage."
"And if Nora knows?"
Mara paused.
"Does she?"
Jamie looked toward the window. Rain moved over the glass in thin, bright threads.
"She knew me before I knew how to edit myself."
"That isn't the same as knowing the facts."
"With Nora, it can be worse."
Mara considered him for a beat, then nodded as if accepting a production note from God.
"Then trust her ethics if you can't trust her mercy."
He stared at her.
"That's a hell of a line."
"I'm wasted in publicity."
"You terrify people for a living."
"And yet they continue behaving. Poorly, but with awareness. Come on."
They stepped back into the corridor.
The building had changed while he was on the call. The pressure had taken shape. Audience members were being guided through the front entrance now; their voices moved through the walls in murmuring waves. Coats shaken off. Programmes folded. Ordinary people carrying ordinary damp umbrellas into the room where his life would be arranged for them under lights. Jamie caught fragments as they passed a side opening near reception.
"...used to love him in The Last Harbour..."
"...my daughter says he's toxic, but sure aren't they all..."
"...Nora won't let him away with murder..."
"...he looks awful in the trailer..."
"...rehab, apparently..."
"...still gorgeous though, God forgive me..."
Mara quickened beside him.
"Don't listen."
"Bit late."
"Then listen selectively. Gorgeous is useful."
He gave her a look.
"What? I contain multitudes and several marketing instincts."
They turned toward Studio Three, but before they reached the set, a runner intercepted Mara with a tablet and a panicked whisper about seating overflow. Mara stopped. Jamie kept walking three steps before realising he was alone.
At the studio threshold, he saw Nora.
She sat in her chair with one ankle crossed over the other, reading a handwritten card. Around her, crew moved in widening circles, adjusting light, checking audio, negotiating cables. She remained still at the centre of it, not serene exactly. Serene was too soft a word for Nora. She looked chosen by pressure rather than troubled by it.
A man from sound leaned in to fix the wire running under her collar. Nora lifted her chin without looking at him. Efficient. Untouchable. Jamie remembered touching that throat once with his thumb, in a rehearsal room after everyone else had left, when she had been laughing at him and then had not been laughing at all.
He looked away so quickly he almost collided with a camera assistant.
"Sorry."
"No bother," the assistant said, then realised who he had bumped and went violently red. "I mean—sorry. Mr Vale."
"Jamie."
"Right. Jamie. Sorry. Huge fan. Well. Not huge. Normal. Respectful. My mam is huge. Fan, I mean. Not—Jesus."
Jamie, who had survived international press junkets, found this the most human interaction of his week.
"Tell your mam I have excellent taste in fans."
The young man looked relieved enough to require a chair. "I will. Thanks."
Nora's eyes lifted from across the set. She had heard. Of course she had. Her mouth did not move, but the old shared shape of amusement passed between them before either could prevent it.
For one second, the studio floor became a kitchen doorway. A bus shelter. A backstage corridor. Any place where they had once belonged to each other without paperwork.
Then Cian descended.
"Jamie. Excellent. We're adjusting the top. No montage. Very brave. Very pure. Slightly suicidal, but purity often is."
"That's encouraging."
"Good. Keep that dry tone. Viewers love remorse with wit. It reassures them nobody has to feel too much."
Nora spoke without looking up. "Cian, stop workshopping his nervous system."
"I am producing."
"Similar furniture, worse taste."
Jamie sat because if he remained standing he would either laugh or leave.
Cian crouched near him with the intimacy of a man who had never earned it. "We'll open clean. Nora asks why tonight. You can say, 'Because I owe people honesty.' Good. Simple. Then you acknowledge recent difficulties. Nothing specific until after the first break. Keep the heaviest material for segment three. Retention usually dips after—"
"Cian," Jamie said.
The producer stopped, surprised less by interruption than by the absence of charm around it.
"I'm not keeping my heaviest material for retention."
Nora's pen stilled.
Cian's smile returned slowly. "I understand the instinct, but live television requires shape."
"So does a coffin. It doesn't mean I want to climb in because the measurements are neat."
The studio quieted by one degree.
Mara, arriving behind Cian, closed her eyes as if asking some private saint for legal cover.
Cian stood. "This is precisely why we rehearse."
"No," Jamie said. "This is why you rehearse. So nothing alive escapes."
It was too sharp. He knew it. Fatigue had stripped the varnish. The old Jamie would have wrapped the blade in velvet. Tonight he had only the blade.
Cian's expression chilled. "Careful."
Nora looked at Jamie then, not approving, not scolding. Measuring.
Mara stepped smoothly into the space. "Jamie will answer Nora's questions within the agreed legal framework. He won't be delivering teaser lines like a contestant before a dance-off. Everyone breathe. Ideally through the nose."
Cian glanced toward the control room, where silhouettes had gathered behind the glass. The board, perhaps. Legal. People who had never met a human moment they did not wish to monetise or avoid.
"Fine," he said. "But we cut if there is liability."
"You cut if there is immediate legal necessity," Nora said. "Not if you become uncomfortable."
"And who decides the difference?"
"Apparently civilisation hangs by a thread called my judgement."
Cian muttered something that sounded like a prayer filed as a complaint and walked away.
Mara leaned close to Jamie. "Do not make me admire you and sedate you in the same hour."
"I'm not trying to be difficult."
"That's what worries me."
She moved off to intercept legal before legal could acquire momentum.
Jamie sat in the chair opposite Nora again. The table between them held two glasses of water, a stack of cards, and twenty years arranged in negative space.
Nora turned one card over.
"Lena?" she asked quietly.
The question was small enough that no one beyond the table seemed to catch it.
"I called."
"Good."
The word again. Different now. Less verdict, more landing.
"She told me not to protect them by lying."
Nora's face changed almost imperceptibly. "Sensible woman."
"She always was. You corrupted her early."
"I taught her to interrogate narrative. She used it mostly to challenge bedtime."
"She still does that. With everyone."
For a second, something warm moved through the silence. Not forgiveness. Not reunion. Something more dangerous because it made no promises.
Shared memory.
Nora looked down first.
"You understand I may ask about family."
"Yes."
"And you understand I may not ask it the way you want."
"You never did."
Her eyes lifted.
He regretted the tenderness in his voice too late.
"I won't use your sister," she said. "Or your mother. If they come into it, it will be because you bring them there."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me for baseline ethics. It lowers the bar for men."
"God forbid."
There. Again. Almost a smile.
The floor manager's voice cut across the set.
"Audience seated in ten. Full sound check in five. Talent hold positions, please."
Talent. Jamie had always hated that word. It sounded like something you could separate from the person and keep earning from after the body failed.
Nora adjusted her earpiece. "Are you going to be sick?"
"No."
"Faint?"
"No."
"Cry before we start and ruin makeup?"
"That one feels like entrapment."
"It's television. Everything is entrapment with lighting."
He looked at her, and for one impossible second the fear loosened.
"I missed this," he said.
The words left him quietly. Not planned. Not wise.
Nora went still.
Around them, the studio carried on because studios had no mercy: cables coiled, lights adjusted, headsets crackled, audience murmurs swelling beyond the wall like weather coming inland.
Jamie wished he could take it back. Not because it was false. Because truth, offered at the wrong time, could become another kind of theft.
Nora's face closed with professional care.
"Don't," she said.
He nodded once.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologise either. It makes me responsible for where to put it."
That was so entirely Nora that pain and fondness struck at once.
He looked down at the water glass. His reflection bent there, smaller and less famous.
"All right."
The audience applause rehearsal began outside the set wall. A warm-up comedian, poor doomed soul, was teaching strangers how to sound spontaneous. The first clap came ragged, then fuller, then organised into something bright and false.
Jamie flinched.
Nora noticed.
"It's only clapping," she said.
"That's what makes it confusing."
She did not answer, but the silence was not unkind.
On the monitor near Camera One, the network promo loop changed. Jamie saw himself from ten years earlier: laughing on a red carpet, hair longer, face fuller, a woman in a silver dress holding his arm while flashbulbs burst. Then Nora appeared in a different clip, standing outside the High Court in rain, asking a minister whether resignation felt different when it was no longer optional.
Past Jamie. Present Nora. Edited together by accident or malice.
He looked away.
"Seventy minutes," called the floor manager.
Seventy minutes before air.
Seventy minutes before the country watched Nora Fallon ask him why tonight and waited to see whether Jamie Vale still knew how to answer without disappearing.
He folded his hands together to stop them shaking.
Across from him, Nora crossed out something on her card and rewrote it again.
Neither of them spoke.
Above them, the lights burned hotter.
Outside, the rain kept faith with the glass.