The sound of crickets

The apartment I lived in above my dad’s garage was 520 square feet. Newly returned from Ireland after eight weeks of shooting my first movie, Circle of Friends, I sat on the small sofa and stared at my huge suitcases. There were so many of them. What had I packed for – a roaring social life after filming for 12 hours a day in a small village in southeastern Ireland? The village did have a diverse ratio of post-work activities, with nine pubs, two churches, and a grocery store (that was also the post office), but that shop closed at 4.00pm.

I had purchased quite a lot of sweaters. Everybody’s auntie or granny or hard-up friend (“Sure he left her with the four children after robbing all their piggy banks and moving in with some floozy, bogtrotter from Clonown”) knitted sweaters for cash. They saw me coming: chapped lips, chilly, purple knuckles, and a sizeable bosom that they might have seen as their spiritual duty to help conceal. Their sweaters kept me nice for God.

I’m not sure what I had expected upon my return. Phones ringing off the hook, I suppose, thick ivory cards on top of my non-existent fireplace inviting me to parties in Cannes. Barely having time to unpack all my Aran sweaters before heading off to do another movie with a handsome, floppy-haired actor like Hugh Grant, if not the actual Hugh Grant.