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Hennessy points a gun at Garret's forehead and the poor dude's face turns white. To be honest, all of our faces do?
"Oh my God!" Sorcha goes. "Oh! My! Literally? God!"
He pulls the trigger and out pops a flame, which he uses to light the end of the foot-long Montecristo that’s clamped between his teeth.
“So what have we got?” he goes, putting the gun back in his top drawer.
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"What we've got," Garret goes, recovering his – I think it's a word – composure, "is that your client's daughter burned our holiday home to the ground".
Sorcha’s like, “And we are so, so sorry about that – aren’t we, Ross?”
I say nothing. Hennessy warned us in advance not to make any admission of liability. The dude holds up his hand to silence her while keeping his eyes fixed on Garret.
“And you want compensation,” he goes. “Is that right?”
Claire from Bray of all places is straight in there then.
She’s like, “Well, yes – but we’d also like an apology from Honor and also one from Ross.”
I'm there, "You're not getting a focking apology. My daughter burned your caravan for a very good reason. She couldn't bear to spend a single night staycationing with you two saps – listening to him singing his stupid Crowded House songs."
Claire's like, "He doesn't just sing Crowded House songs?" defending her husband's honour. "He does Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band, Matchbox Twenty. We don't have to sit here and listen to this."
"Don't lose it – it's what he wants," Garret goes, putting his hand on top of hers. I notice that he has a dreamcatcher tattoo on the back of his wrist. It's like he does these things deliberately to make me hate him. "Claire is right. We came here today because we were told that you wanted to put things right. We'd like an apology from Honor and one from him."
'I said… no… admission… of liability!' Hennessy growls, banging the table with his fist. 'Let's just agree a price and get out of here'
"What are you, six years old?" Hennessy goes. "That ain't on the table. My clients are offering to help you with the cost of replacing your caravan and that offer is being made without prejudice."
Sorcha can’t help herself of course. She’s there, “Having said all of that, we have let Honor know that we’re very disappointed with her behaviour.”
“I’m not,” I go. “I told her fair focks and I’m standing by that analysis.”
“I want you to know that we didn’t raise our daughter to be an orsonist,” Sorcha goes, “and I hope you’ll accept that her actions in this case don’t represent who she truly is.”
“I said… no… admission… of liability!” Hennessy growls, banging the table with his fist. “Let’s just agree a price and get out of here.”
But Garret is still struggling with the injustice of it – the idea that someone can do something like this and then just pay some money to walk away from it. What country did he grow up in?
He goes, “It’s not a question of money. There should be some kind of consequences for what happened.”
Hennessy smiles.
He’s there, “I get you. You want to feel like the good guys won and the bad guys lost?”
Garret’s like, “Exactly.”
"Then move to focking Sweden, " Hennessy goes. "Jesus, what country did you grow up in?"
I'm there, "That's exactly what I was thinking – word for word."
“Can I just make the point,” Garret goes, “that Ross has been hostile towards me from the very first moment I met him?”
"Hey, this isn't Versailles in 1919," Hennessy goes. "No one here gives a shit about your hurt feelings. We're here to determine how much it will cost to replace your caravan. What if I said a figure and that figure was five hundred big ones?"
“Five hundred euros?” Claire goes. “That wouldn’t even pay for the clothes I lost in the fire.”
I’m like, “That’s horseshit. You never wear anything good.”
Then Garret goes, “I also had a lot of my vinyl stored in there.”
“Vinyl!” I go. “Is it any wonder that I want to punch him in the face in the same way that I want my next breath?”
Hennessy – strictly business – goes, “Give me a figure then.”
Claire’s like, “Seventy thousand,” and I actually laugh. The neck on the girl. Bray, of course. Enough said.
'Vinyl is for attention-seekers. I said that to you the first time I ever met you'
“Goys,” Sorcha goes, “we can’t afford to give you seventy thousand euros,” obviously forgetting that my old man will be picking up the tab just like he picks up the tab for everything.
“Thirty,” Hennessy goes. “That’s our final offer.”
Garret’s like, “Thirty for the caravan and ten for the vinyl.”
I’m there, “Vinyl is for attention-seekers. I said that to you the first time I ever met you.”
“Thirty for the caravan,” Hennessy goes, “and that includes contents.”
Garret ends up losing it. He stands up. He’s there, “Maybe I’ll just go to the guards and tell them what I know.”
Hennessy reaches into his drawer and whips out his gun again. He points it at the dude. Garret laughs.
“You’ve already done that,” he goes. “It’s not going to work a second time.”
Hennessy goes, "The problem with my Glock 38 novelty cigarette lighter is that it looks just like my real Glock 38. You know, I can't even tell them apart. Susan, my secretary, she's always on at me to keep them in separate drawers. I mean, I can't remember the number of times I've gone to light a Double Edmundo in here and shot a hole in the ceiling."
We all automatically look up and – yeah, no – the ceiling above his desk riddled with bullet holes.
“Oh! My God!” Sorcha goes.
I’m like, “Focking hell!”
Hennessy’s there, “How many holes do you count, Ross?” and you can see why he chorges two grand an hour.
I’m like, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.”
He smiles at Garret and goes, “You were saying – about going to the guards?”
Garret is just, like, shaking. He’s there, “I’m not going to let you threaten me.”
But Claire’s like, “It’s thirty grand, Garret. Think of what we could do with that money. We could take on another chef and expand the menu of the restaurant. You were only saying yesterday how you’d love to do folk sardines and redacted olives and shellshocked beetroot tartare.”
“Okay,” Garret goes, and you can nearly hear his knees knocking, “we’ll take the money.”
And Hennessy’s just like, “Clever boy.”