Though I hadn’t seen the prize-winning short film for years. I checked the credits and cast list on IMDb – no names I recognised, apart from Jeremy Gill. He had played the male lead himself, as well as directing, and had used various other unknown actors, I guessed, for budget reasons. They were probably people he worked with or friends of his. There was a teenage girl in it, too. According to IMDb, her name was Rhona Macbride. She was talented, from what I remembered, and I would’ve put money on her having a career as an actress but she hadn’t, or at least I hadn’t heard of her. She didn’t have a profile on IMDb, and showed up as a cast member on just that one film. I googled her. There were a few Rhona and Rona McBrides, and several Rhonda Macbrides, but no Rhona with that spelling of Macbride. She’d be over thirty by now. Maybe she’d married and taken her husband’s name.

I found the short film on YouTube. Another Bad Day at the Office told the story of a world-weary, overworked businessman, with a failing career, who develops a platonic friendship with a fifteen-year-old girl he meets in a park while she’s on her school holidays. The joke of the film, and probably what appealed so much to young viewers like Deirdre Carney, is that the girl, played by Rhona Macbride, is much more mature than the Gill character. She becomes his counsellor and business adviser and, as a result, he turns around his flagging career and becomes hugely successful. Until the girl goes back to school after the holidays, when he starts to flounder again and has ‘another bad day at the office’. The film was brilliantly made, with a light touch and extraordinary comic timing.

And, with the benefit of hindsight, was the storyline just a little creepy? Maybe. Though nobody had thought so at the time. Even if it was, it wasn’t evidence of anything. Still, I would talk to the Film Festival about their Child Protection arrangements. I wouldn’t mention Jeremy Gill by name but I’d remind them that the festival could, and should, take appropriate precautions, as the law required. It had policies in place, I knew, but it might be a comfort to Sean Carney to hear that I had double-checked.

It was time for bed, long since. I logged out and picked up the 1998 catalogue again, intending to put it back in the pile on the floor. Before I did, I turned to the Schools section of the catalogue to see the selection of films Deirdre and her schoolmates would have seen, though I knew already that one of them was Gill’s film.

But, underneath the Schools listing for Another Bad Day at the Office was a photograph of Deirdre Carney and a piece of text which read: