The Oh My God Delusion Read online

  The Oh My God Delusion

  ROSS O’CARROLL – KELLY

  (as told to Paul Howard) Illustrated by ALAN CLARKE

  PENGUIN

  *

  IRELAND PENGUIN IRELAND Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England www.penguin.com First published 2010 Copyright © Paul Howard, 2010

  Illustrations copyright © Alan Clarke, 2010 ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’, words and music by Steve Harley © 1975

  RAK Publishing Ltd. Licensed courtesy of RAK Publishing Ltd Penguin Ireland thanks O’Brien Press for its agreement to Penguin Ireland using the same design approach and typography, and the same artist, as O’Brien Press used in the first four Ross O’Carroll-Kelly titles

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-718-19208-2

  You spoilt the game, No matter what you say, For only metal, What a bore. — ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel Contents

  Prologue

  1. A New Career in a New Town

  2. ‘A Million-Euro Mortgage Doesn’t Make You a Millionaire’ 3. It’s the Stupid, Economy 4. Lions and Tigers and Bare Bottoms, Oh My! 5. A Closed Shop 6. Crème de la total Mare 7. Sei parte ormai di me 8. From My Dead Cole Haans 9. The Wire 10. Only Metal … Epilogue

  Prologue

  So I check the time. It’s, like, eight o’clock in the morning? I peel back the duvet – slowly, roysh, so as not to wake her. I swing the legs out of the bed, again gently, then stort gathering up the old threads, like Hansel and Gretel, following the trail to the living room, where it all kicked off last night.

  One of my better one-night stands, it has to be said. Breege. A lady Gorda, of all things, the spits of Vida Guerra, and that’s not just me trying to cover over the fact that she’s from, like, Mullingor. I throw on the old Apple Crumble, step into my chinos and my Cole Haans, then fix my hair in the mirror. Cheeky focker on the door of Copper’s, by the way. See, I actually met the bird in, like, Kehoe’s? The usual. Gave her one or two of my lines and it turned out Horcourt Street was where she was headed. Well, I wasn’t going to break up the porty. Of course the bouncers in there know me and they know my MO. ‘Bringing a bogger to Copper Face Jacks,’ one of them went. ‘That’s a new one for you, Ross. We probably should charge you corkage.’ It was a good line, though, and I decided to be the better man and just laughed. I tiptoe back out to the hall, passing the bedroom, where she’s still spitting zeds. Out of the game. I’m not bragging but bulled groggy. I try the handle of the front door. Except it’s locked. It’s like, fock! Not to worry. It’s far from a new situation for me. I tip back into the living room and, using my, you’d have to say, vast experience, stort looking for a key. I check practically everywhere. On top of the bookshelves. Under the sofa cushions. In the Nigella Lawson Living Kitchen bread bin in beech and blue. I literally turn the place over but it’s no good. I can’t find one. I do find her bag, though, and I have a quick mooch in there. No keys, just her Wolfe Tone. I whip it out and scroll down through her contacts, just out of curiosity. I find my number, then delete it. I can’t believe I gave it to her. Getting slack in my old age. I tip over to the door that leads out on to the balcony and it’s like, jackpot! It’s one of those, like, sliding doors – the same as mine – that you open by just, like, flicking the catch? So I flick the catch and then I’m suddenly out on the balcony. It turns out we’re a lot of storeys up. It’s incredible, roysh, given the number of times I’ve done this over the years, that I’ve never developed, like, a head for heights. I’m suddenly like a monkey sizing up a tree. I’m thinking, if I can climb over the railing there, then hang down, off the edge of the balcony, I could step down on to the rail of the balcony below. Then do the same again, then again, then again. I’ll be back on terra whatever-the-actual-phrase-is in sixty seconds, then in a taxi home. I swing one leg over the balustrade, then the other. Then I take, like, a deep breath and try to, I suppose, gather myself? It must be, like, a seventy-foot drop. The obvious crosses my mind. The big question. Is it worth risking my life just to avoid an awkward goodbye? And the answer – as always – is probably yes. I take another deep breath. Then for some reason I look back up. And I end up nearly having a hort attack. Breege is standing on the balcony in front of me, staring at me like she can’t believe what she’s actually seeing? I feel automatically bad. ‘I just didn’t want to wake you,’ I try to explain. ‘No offence but I only wanted it to be, like, a one-night thing?’ She’s, like, ‘What?’ obviously pretty pissed off. I’m thinking, hey – hate the game, baby, not the player. ‘Look, it’s nothing personal,’ I go. ‘I’ve just never been one for, like, post-match chat?’ And her reply, I have to admit, causes me to nearly lose my grip on the rail. ‘Ross,’ she goes, ‘we’re in The Grange. This is where you live.’ 1. A New Career in a New Town

  Rosa Parks, if you can believe the bumf, is a development of highly prestigious aportments in the rapidly maturing South Dublin suburb of Ticknock. Just like the Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement – with whom it shares its magical name – this stunning, well-appointed development is, at once, elegant, stylish, intelligent and creative. But, unlike her, it’s no trouble at all when it comes to public transport.

  ‘Jesus,’ I go, ‘who writes this stuff?’ JP takes his eyes off the road for a second and cops the brochure on my lap. He laughs. ‘Back in the day,’ he goes, ‘you and I did.’ I laugh then? ‘No,’ I end up having to admit, ‘I never came up with anything like this. I mean, this is, like, genius.’ I’m staring at, like, the centre spread, which is a photograph – not of what the aportments actually look like? It’s not even a dude putting on cufflinks or a couple sharing a hilarious joke over a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice at the breakfast bor. No, it’s a photo of a proud, smiling – and I have to say it even though it’s racist – black woman, who could actually be Vivica Fox’s more sensible older sister. Then beside it – you’ve got to take your hat off to these fockers – it’s, like, ‘The original Rosa, honoured by this stunning development of 1,736 cleverly crafted homes, became a leading champion of African-American rights after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery City, Alabama, bus. And, in that same spirit, we’re not asking you to give up anything either – this resplendent
collection of homes combines the pulse of the town with the sedate pace of the countryside …’ JP’s suddenly lost in thought. We’re sat at the Leopardstown roundabout, waiting for a break in the traffic. He shakes his head and says that people would have literally eaten shit back in the day if you’d put enough sugar on it. I’m there, ‘Who are you telling?’ because he needs the odd reminder that I was, like, a way better estate agent than he ever was? We get a break in the traffic and he floors it. I tell him I have to admire him, though – as in, honestly admire him? When Hook, Lyon and Sinker went A over T, a lot of us thought he’d go mental dental oriental again – like the time he joined the priesthood. ‘I do get sad,’ he goes, ‘especially when I pass the old office.’ I’m there, ‘Me too – it’s real, I don’t know, nostalgiaish, if that’s an actual word?’ He nods – which means it must be – then he takes the ramp down on to the M50. ‘It’s when I think of all the years my old man spent building the business up,’ he goes. ‘You’ve heard what’s in there now, have you?’ An all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. I’m there, ‘Hey, don’t do it to yourself, Dude. You’ve got to let go of the past. You and your old man are doing this now. And who’s to say you’re not going to end up loving it as much as you did using your gift of the gab to sell people into a lifetime of debt?’ He doesn’t seem convinced, even though he used to love my pep talks, back when we played rugby. He takes exit thirteen, then a few minutes later we’re taking the turn into Rosa Parks. We get out of the cor. He’s driving his old dear’s Renault Mégane these days – talk about changed times. The place is deserted and it looks like an actual building site. There’s, like, no roads, roysh, only dirt tracks, and there’s big mounds of, like, earth everywhere. Only four of the ten blocks were ever finished, according to JP. A couple of them still have the scaffolding on them and there’s, like, two or three cranes that have just been left there, basically abandoned. I notice they’ve still got the billboard up. It’s, like, a police mugshot of the same bird as in the brochure – except in fairness she doesn’t look quite as hot? – and she’s holding up a number, we’re talking 7053, then underneath it, in humungous block capitals, it’s like, BECAUSE COURTEOUS LIVING IS A CIVIL RIGHT. ‘That 7053,’ I go, ‘I wonder is that how many gaffs are still unsold,’ which immediately puts the smile back on his face. He takes the sledgehammer from the boot and throws it over his shoulder. Originally, roysh, we’re talking back when this was still all formland and they were selling these gaffs off the plans, they were going to have, like, a concierge, sitting in the lobby of each block – like in Manhattan? – tipping his hat to you as you go in and out. That’s obviously had to be scaled back a bit, what with the current economic blahdy blah. So instead of Alfred out of Batman or someone like that, they’ve ended up with some total schnack, who’s carrying out extensive excavation work on his nose when we walk through the door. ‘Pick any winners?’ is the first line out of my mouth. I’m actually on fire today? JP hands him the paperwork and tells him why we’re here. The goy just shrugs, like he’s only paid to sit there, not to read shit. We head for the lift slash elevator, whatever you want to call it. JP punches the button for the top floor. I’ve got my nose in the brochure again. Another line leaps out at me. ‘The anti-segregation theme is very much in evidence in the combined kitchen-and-dining area …’ Fock, the whole Celtic Tiger thing seems like such a long time ago now. ‘Can I hang on to this?’ I go. ‘As, like, a souvenir?’ He’s there, ‘It’s yours. I only brought it so I could see the layout of the place.’ I stick it in my back pocket and ask him if he’s, like, nervous. He says no and I don’t think he’s lying. The lift pings and the doors suddenly open. We tip down the hallway – pretty nice, it has to be said – and find aportment 273. We knock twice, maybe three times, leaving a good thirty seconds between each. ‘The dude must be at work,’ I end up going and JP looks at me like he can’t believe how actually stupid I am? ‘Work?’ he goes, then he sort of, like, indicates the sledgehammer to me. ‘Ross, why do you think we’re repossessing his TV?’ I hadn’t actually thought about it like that. He tells me then to suddenly stand back. He grips hord on the handle of the hammer, then swings the head of it over his shoulder, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, like he’s building up to it or some shit? I get this sudden memory of him at Funderland – fourteen, maybe fifteen years of age – somehow managing to ring the bell on the strongman game, despite being a weedy focker, and winning a Buzz Lightyear for Radha Neilan from Holy Child Killiney, who he was madly in love with at the time and possibly still is to this day? I know she still has it in her bedroom – at least she did the last time I put her over the jumps. He suddenly opens his eyes, then swings the hammer and it’s, like, BOOM! The door immediately gives way and we walk in. ‘The bank are in the process of repossessing the place,’ he goes, although I don’t know why the fock he’s whispering. ‘The dude’s supposed to be back living with his parents. Or his wife’s parents.’ We find the sitting room. Doesn’t take long. The gaff’s actually tiny. In fact, the TV covers pretty much one entire wall? Cleverly crafted is focking right. JP bends down and unplugs the thing. I’m there, ‘Do you think, I don’t know, God would approve of what we’re doing here?’ I don’t know why I ask that question? It’s just, he might not be studying for the priesthood any more, but I know he’s still a major fan. He laughs. ‘The Lord who commands armies told me this,’ he goes, checking out the brackets fixing the TV to the wall. ‘Many houses will become desolate. Large, impressive houses will have no one living in them … Men will be humiliated … The proud will be brought low …’ See what I mean? ‘Okay, which one is that?’ I go. He says it’s Isaiah and I’m not going to argue with him. ‘I’d love a focking TV this size,’ I go, as we each take one end and lift it off the actual wall. He goes, ‘I’m sure the finance company are prepared to listen to offers.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, it might make a nice present for Ro, even though I hate to sound like a vulture and shit?’ The thing weighs an actual tonne and I can see why he needed me now. We hulk it out to the lift and he uses his elbow to hit the down button. The doors immediately open and we step in. That’s when I decide to bring up the whole Oisinn thing. ‘I’m going to try and find him,’ I go. He looks at me, Scooby Dubious. ‘He could be anywhere in the world, Ross – literally.’ ‘Well, then, I’ll just have to search the entire world – literally. We need to find him and bring him home.’ I can tell from his reaction that he doesn’t actually agree. ‘Whoa,’ I go, ‘out with it, Dude.’ He’s like, ‘Ross, do you not think he’s better off wherever he is?’ I’m there, ‘How can you stand there and actually say that?’ ‘Did you see yesterday’s Irish Independent? They’re saying he has debts of, like, seventy-five million?’ ‘So?’ ‘So? Do you really think he wants to be found?’ I don’t say anything because I’m a bit annoyed at his reaction. The lift doors ping again and we wrestle the TV out to the cor. He has to put the back seats down and push the front seats forward about six inches to fit it actually in. ‘I’m just saying,’ I go, ‘if I was, like, seventy-whatever million it is in debt, I’d want my friends around me – friends who’d soldiered with me through good times and bad. Jesus, we played rugby together. Does that count for nothing?’ He goes, ‘Friends who’d want to bring you back to this?’ and he flicks his thumb at one of the half-finished blocks, except he’s not just talking about Rosa Parks, of course. He’s talking about the banking crisis and Renords supposedly in trouble and Dell pulling out of Limerick and Town Bor and Grill going into supposedly examinership and the end of the construction boom and Subway outlets suddenly focking everywhere. ‘The best thing we can do for Oisinn,’ he goes, ‘is to hope he’s happy, wherever he’s gone.’ I decide to let it rest for now. I just ask him where we’re headed next. He says we’re going to drop this off first, then we’ve an Alfresia stainless-steel six-burner gas grill to collect from the Beacon South Quarter, Cube On
e. Then he laughs. ‘It sounds like something George Orwell might have dreamt up, doesn’t it?’ I laugh as well, even though I neither know nor care who George Orwell is. He goes back into the building again to bring down the sledgehammer. I climb into the front-passenger seat and sit there just staring through the front windscreen. There’s, like, two dudes up on ladders, I notice, painting over the COURTEOUS LIVING IS A CIVIL RIGHT sign and I’m wondering is that what you’d consider a metaphor. Ronan rings and I ask him where he is. He says he’s in Tiffany’s on Grafton Street and it says a lot about my son and the company he keeps that I’m picturing him not in the shop but in the focking vault. ‘What are you doing in there?’ I go, except what I really mean is how did he get through the door of BTs. ‘Ine wit Bla,’ he goes, which explains it. What security gord is going to turn away a twelve-year-old – albeit skobie – kid pushing his girlfriend in a wheelchair? ‘Her toorteent boortday’s coming up,’ he goes. ‘She’s arthur seein a cheerm bracelit she likes …’ I’m there, ‘Let me guess – you want me to give you the moo to buy it for her?’ Mount Anville girls are expensive to keep. I can tell you that from painful experience. ‘No,’ he goes, ‘I took your credit card from your wallet thudder day. But this fooken sham here says he can only process poorchases made be the owner of the card.’ I laugh. I’m there, ‘I’m on my way.’ I hear Blathin go, ‘Don’t forget to ask him, Ro!’ Ronan, all embarrassed, goes, ‘Eh, she’s havin a peerty in her gaff. In a couple of weeks. In anyhow, you’re invirit.’ Amy Huberman’s wearing the Elie Tahari cork wedges that Sorcha was going to get – as in, the Liana purple suede ones? – and I go, ‘Oh,’ somehow managing to sound interested. She says she has such a girl-crush on Amy Huberman. She looks up from her Irish Tatler and lets a sudden roar out of her, loud enough to pretty much shatter the front window of the shop. ‘Nooo!’ I spin around and it’s basically nothing, except that Honor’s got herself tangled up in a dress hanging on the New Arrivals rack. I tell Sorcha I’ll sort it, then I get down on my, I suppose you’d have to say, hunkers, then slowly twist the dress until our daughter finally pops out. ‘Boo!’ I go and Honor storts laughing, pretty much uncontrollably. Her mother unfortunately doesn’t see the funny side of it. ‘That’s a Lilly Pulitzer,’ she tells her – like an actual three-and-a-half-year-old’s going to know what the fock that is. Honor’s there, ‘I’m sorry, Mommy!’ which I don’t think she should even have to say? I tell her she was only playing – I don’t mention the mucky carob prints she’s put all over it – but I end up getting the evils from Sorcha then. I’m wondering is she, like, snookered behind the red this week. The shop is quiet today. There’s, like, one bird having a mooch around in here, while not one has walked into Circa, her new vintage section, in the hour that I’ve been hanging around. And this is, like, lunchtime we’re talking? She asks me how me and Erika are getting on, which is a good question. We storted going on these, I don’t know, platonic dates for a little while, to try to – as Erika called it – reimagine our relationship, except then we gave up. To be honest, I think it still weirds her out that we had basically sex twice before we found out we were, like, brother and sister. ‘She’s too busy getting to know him,’ I go, meaning the old man. Our old man. ‘He’s no focking time for me either.’ ‘I’m sure that’s not true, Ross. You were in Cardiff with him for the Grand Slam, weren’t you?’ I laugh. ‘That’s, what, ten days ago? I haven’t seen him since.’ ‘Well, he and Helen are trying to make a real go of the cheesemonger’s,’ she tries to go. ‘Why don’t you call to see him?’ ‘Because I couldn’t be orsed basically.’ ‘Well,’ she goes, ‘suit yourself – he probably has enough on his plate anyway, helping Erika with her case.’ This is, like, totally out of the blue. I’m there, ‘What case?’ because I genuinely have no idea what she’s talking about. Sorcha goes suddenly red. She can’t hold her piss, see. ‘Er, what case?’ I go again. Of course she ends up telling me because she knows I won’t leave the shop until I know. ‘She’s been named as a co-respondent in a divorce,’ she goes, slapping a price sticker on a black Rachel Comey dress while she’s dropping this bombshell. ‘A co-respondent? As in?’ ‘A co-respondent as in the other woman. Look, there’s a chance it’s going to be in all the papers, so I might as well tell you – it’s Toddy Rathfriland?’ I end up just shrugging. ‘The only Toddy Rathfriland I know is the dude who owns all the restaurants that are supposed to be in trouble …’ She just continues stickering shit. ‘You are pulling my focking chain!’ I go. ‘Him?’ ‘Yes …’ ‘He’s … He’s focking ancient!’ ‘He’s sixty-three, Ross. And stop shouting, you’re frightening Honor.’ ‘We are talking about the same dude, are we? Fat little focker? Hair dyed off his head?’ ‘There’s no proof of that, Ross. And anyway, he’s actually a young sixty-three?’ ‘Sixty-three is sixty-three, Babes. When was all this?’ She sighs, trying to make me feel childish for asking. ‘It happened about six months ago. His marriage has been as good as over for years.’ I laugh. ‘Well,’ I go, ‘she’s definitely let her standards slip. This is the girl who knocked me back, er, how many times before I finally sealed the deal?’ ‘Ross, that’s your sister you’re talking about?’ ‘Half-sister – and it doesn’t count as incest, before you say it, because at the time we didn’t know. One thing I’ll say for me, though, is at least my hair and eyebrows match.’ ‘According to Erika,’ she goes, ‘he’s very charming.’ ‘Very loaded, more like. I can’t wait to see her again. I’m going to rip the piss in a major way.’ ‘Ross, please don’t say anything!’ ‘No, no, hopefully this will have taken her down a peg or two …’ ‘That is such a beautiful item,’ Sorcha suddenly says over my shoulder, then she makes an immediate beeline for her one lunchtime customer, whose eye just happened to linger for more than two seconds on a Catherine Malandrino white cotton bolero with bead trim. ‘It’d go amazing over a tunic blouse,’ she storts giving it, ‘with maybe, like, a grey woollen pleated skirt? Very Betty from Mad Men. Do you have patent Jimmy Choos? Or even Alexander McQueens? Oh my God, so Betty Draper!’ I can’t put a name to the bird but something tells me I’ve woken up beneath her once or twice. She’s not that unlike Jessica Szohr. It’s only when she opens her mouth to ask where the changing rooms are that I cop the gap between her Yasmine Bleeth and realize straight away that it’s Keelyn Errity, a bird I knew from UCD back in the day. Not only knew her either. I stallioned her senseless on more than one occasion as well. ‘Oh, hi, Ross,’ she goes, clearly delighted to see me, and I’m obviously there, ‘Hey, Keelyn – how the hell are you?’ laying it on like subsidized butter. Fock, those teeth, though. She gave me a lovebite one night and it looked like I’d been stabbed in the neck with a focking barbecue fork. The look that passes between us doesn’t escape Sorcha’s attention, and the second Keelyn pulls across the curtain on the changing room she takes Honor out of my orms and goes, ‘While we’re on the subject of divorce, is Hennessy still handling your side of things?’ I’m there, ‘There we were getting on fine – why have you suddenly brought that up?’ ‘Er, because we’re actually getting one, Ross?’ ‘I know we’re getting one. But I was thinking we might, I don’t know, put it off for a little while. I just thought, er, hello? There’s enough doom and gloom about the place at the moment?’ She asks me what I’m talking about and I tell her obviously the whole, you’d have to say, recession thing. She sort of, like, stares into the distance, suddenly sad, and says she can’t believe that Tesco are selling the same Denby collection that we paid how much for in BTs? She shakes her head and says sometimes she wishes she’d stayed in the States, even though everyone’s saying that things are just as bad there. Then she suddenly perks up again. ‘It really is the quintessential take-anywhere piece,’ she goes in the general direction of the changing room, even though she’s copped that me and Keelyn have history. See, she’s nothing if not professional. ‘It’s formal – but it’s also
fun and flirty? Which means it’s wearable if it’s just, like, drinks and dinner, but also if it’s, like, oh my God, a wedding!’ The curtain goes back and out walks Keelyn, staring at the label with a look of, like, total confusion on her face. ‘Is this right?’ she goes. Sorcha dumps Honor in my orms again. It’ll be a focking miracle if she grows up without issues. ‘You did say a size eight, didn’t you?’ Keelyn’s there, ‘Yeah, no, I’m talking about the price? It says, like, twelve hundred euros here?’ Sorcha smiles at her, you’d have to say patiently. The Society of the Sacred Heart teaches its daughters well. ‘It is a Catherine Malandrino,’ she goes. ‘You know she did Project Runway a couple of years ago?’ This obviously means fock-all to Keelyn. ‘Well,’ she goes, checking herself out in the long mirror, ‘I was only really looking for something cheap and cheerful – just to go over, like, a dress I bought?’ Cheap and cheerful? Sorcha stares into the changing room and cops the H&M shopping bags she walked in with. Even though she’s still smiling, you can tell she suddenly wants to rip her focking hair out by the roots. I’m wondering should I offer to take Honor to Stephen’s Green. ‘Well, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you,’ Sorcha goes, ‘that this is a very – oh my God – very exclusive item.’ ‘Hmmm,’ Keelyn goes, still not convinced, checking it out now with one hand on her hip and – for all the focking difference it makes – her head cocked to one side. ‘It’s just, you know, I wasn’t expecting to spend anything like that amount?’ This is even though her old pair live on Appian Way. Sorcha’s there, ‘Well, the other beauty of this item is that, because it’s cut so high, it accentuates a slim, natural waist like yours.’ Keelyn doesn’t fall for her shit. ‘Hmmm,’ she goes again, then she tries it with her cheekbones sucked in, but she’s still not John B. What happens next is unbelievable. She goes, ‘So what’s your recession price?’ It’s out of her mouth without any, like, pre-warning? ‘My what?’ Sorcha goes. She actually pins her shoulders back as she says it. I’m there, ‘I think me and Honor might take a stroll up to see the ducks.’ ‘Ducks!’ Honor goes. ‘Let’s go to the ducks, Daddy!’ ‘Stay where you are!’ Sorcha goes, without even looking at us. Then to Keelyn, she’s like, ‘My what price?’ It’s obvious, roysh, that Keelyn doesn’t know how bang out of order she’s being here? ‘Well,’ she goes, ‘everyone’s saying it, aren’t they? During the Celtic Tiger, we all became price-insensitive …’ I’m, like, subtly shaking my head, trying to tell her to shut the fock up, quit while she’s ahead. Except on she goes. ‘Everything in Dublin is at least twenty percent overpriced – that’s a well-known fact.’ ‘Oh, it is?’ Sorcha goes, except she’s actually being sarcastic? ‘Er, yeah? And I don’t know why you’re giving me this attitude. You work in retail. You’re going to have to get used to people asking you what your best price is.’ Sorcha turns to me then. For some reason – possibly instinct – I immediately know to block Honor’s ears. ‘Cheap,’ she goes. ‘Exactly your type, Ross.’ See, I knew Sorcha recognized her. I remember now trying to explain the hickey away at Sorcha’s granny’s seventy-fifth birthday porty – it was in, like, Sandycove Tennis Club? Keelyn’s there, ‘Excuse me?’ and Sorcha ends up just losing it with her, we’re talking nought to menstrual in two point five seconds. ‘My best price? What do you think this is, a focking souk?’ she goes. ‘Get out of my shop now before I call security …’ Keelyn just laughs at her. She has the courage of Lassie, I’ll give her that. But then she also has the teeth to back it up. ‘You can’t have me thrown out,’ she goes, ‘just because I asked for a discount.’ ‘Oh, can’t I?’ Sorcha goes. ‘Er, this is still the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, can I just remind you?’ Keelyn looks at me then, presumably for back-up, but I end up just nodding, knowing from painful experience not to, like, cross Sorcha when she’s in this kind of form. I’ll ring the girl later to apologize. Keelyn reefs off the bolero, not giving a fock if it rips, then practically throws it at Sorcha. She goes, ‘Er, good luck staying in business with that attitude?’ Then off she focks. It’s only when she’s gone, roysh, that I realize how much shit Sorcha’s shop must be actually in? Because she suddenly bursts into tears and says she wishes she’d taken that job that Stella McCortney offered her. ‘But no,’ she goes, ‘I had to come back here. And all because I wanted Honor to have the same magical childhood that I did – junior dressage, classical piano, Cumann Gaelach debates …’ I throw my free orm – the one that’s not holding our daughter – around her and I sort of, like, rub her back and tell her that everything’s going to work out, even though I know fock-all about, I suppose, economics and blahdy blahdy blah. She looks at me – her mascara sliding down her face now like a focking oil spill – and says she’s been trying so hord. She’s storted opening the shop at 9.45 instead of 10.00, then closing at 5.30 instead of the old 5.15. I thought she looked wrecked all right. I can understand why she’s worried? She’s already borrowed two hundred Ks from the bank to restyle the place on Kitson in Hollywood, after seeing Shenae Grimes walking out of there in some magazine or other, laden down with bags and the paparazzi chasing her skinny orse up Robertson Boulevard. I’m all of a sudden wondering could she be bringing in enough to make the loan repayments. I mean, even Morgan’s gone wallop. It’s unbelievable how quickly the world is changing. So I go, ‘Do you mind me asking, what have you sold today?’ She takes, like, a deep breath and goes, ‘Nothing.’ I’m like, ‘Nothing? What about yesterday?’ meaning Wednesday. She shakes her head. I’m there, ‘Are you serious?’ She says all she’s sold in the past week was a Gypsy 05 Paloma purple rainbow silk maxidress and a Tt Collection romper, both of which the girl returned the following morning. ‘No reason,’ she goes, ‘except that she checked her credit cord balance and got the big-time guilts.’ I shake my head. ‘God, when I think back to what April used to be like in here …’ She pulls away from me and wipes her eyes with her open palm. She says she has to pop out and she asks me if I’ll look after the place for an hour. Not that she needs me to. She could leave the focking door wide open and the flies wouldn’t come in out of curiosity. I’m there going, ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know how to work the till,’ humouring her more than anything. She says it’s not the till – she’s expecting a delivery. ‘Will you sign for it?’ I just happen to go, ‘Er, what kind of delivery are we talking?’ ‘Two boxes of Olivia Morris pumps,’ she goes. ‘The amazing patterned silk ones that Celia Birtwell created?’ She kisses Honor on the top of her head and tells her to be good for her daddy. Of course I’m more than a little bit taken aback by this. I’m there, ‘You’re ordering in new stock?’ She shakes her head and tells me not to stort – they’re going to be huge this year. I ask her shouldn’t she, I don’t know, maybe try to sell the shit she’s already got first? ‘They’re saying even people like us are going to have to stort tightening our belts,’ I go. ‘I mean, a year ago, who would have seen Habitat being gone from Suffolk Street?’ I tell her she has to possibly stort facing reality, except she says she has to go, because she’s booked into La Stampa for a Mint-Chocolate Body Scrub. ‘Good morning,’ the voice goes. ‘The Plaza. How may I direct your call?’ She has one of those voices that has me picturing her as Chelsea Staub. I tell her that I’m looking to speak to an Oisinn Wallace. She asks if he’s a guest there at the hotel and I tell her that’s what I’m wondering. All I know is that it’s his favourite hotel in the actual world. It was where he stayed anytime he was in, like, New York. She says that’s nice, then I hear her, like, tapping away on her obviously keyboard. ‘I’m sorry,’ she eventually goes, ‘we have no guest staying by the name of Wallace. Do you know when he might have checked in?’ I’m there, ‘See, the point is, I don’t? This is a goy who’s, like, one of my best friends. Long story, roysh, but a few months back, he left his cor at Dublin Aiport and basically disappeared …’ ‘Disappeared?’ ‘Well, pegged it is probably more the case. Keys still in the ignition, blah bl
ah blah.’ ‘Oh, dear.’ ‘Yeah, no, there’s actually a lot of it going on. Park and Hide, they call it over here.’ ‘I see.’ ‘Yeah, I’m the one trying to find him. Hey, you probably even know him – he’s stayed there loads.’ She sort of, like, laughs. ‘Sir, we have hundreds of rooms here.’ ‘He’s, like, a big stocky dude? Irish, obviously. He actually invented, like, a scent for women, which is how he made his money.’ ‘The perfume guy?’ she suddenly goes. See, I knew she’d know him. The dude’s like me – Charmin focking Ultra. I hear her turn to the bird beside her and go, ‘This gentleman’s a friend of Oh Sheen – you remember the perfume guy?’ The bird beside her goes, ‘Oh! My God!’ and she says it in, like, a good way? ‘Eau d’Affluence. I only wore it, like, two days ago!’ The two of them are suddenly having a good old, I don’t know, reminisce, if that’s a word. ‘Do you remember his medal?’ I hear the Chelsea Staub bird go. ‘He used to ask us to put it in the hotel safe.’ ‘Yeah, that would have been his Leinster Schools Senior Cup medal,’ I cut in. ‘See, he was always kacking it – case he got mugged.’ ‘It was made of, like, tin,’ I hear the other bird go. ‘It was, like, totally worthless?’ She wouldn’t focking say that if she’d been there to see him win it. ‘So,’ Chelsea goes, ‘how is he?’ I’m there, ‘Er, not great, I’d imagine. He owes, like, seventy-something million. Seventy-five – that’s according to the Indo.’ As I’m saying it, I’m thinking, that possibly explains why he’s not staying at the Plaza? ‘Well, sir, if you manage to find him, tell him that the girls at the front desk send their best wishes.’ Erika looks incredible – although obviously not in that way? But talk about people doing shit you never thought they’d end up doing. At first, roysh, I think, her working in a cheesemonger’s? Come to think of it, her working at all. But when I walk into the shop, she’s in, like, mid conversation with one of those middle-aged women who’s not exactly hot but not exactly a gruffalo either? The woman’s asking what the difference is between the Mimolette and the Manchego. And of course that’s when I realize I’m wrong. ‘Do I look like I work here?’ Erika goes. ‘Well, yes,’ the woman goes, not unreasonably either; ‘you’re standing on that side of the counter and you’re wearing a long white coat with Cheeses Merrion Joseph written on it …’ Which would have been my exact point. ‘I’m standing this side of the counter,’ Erika goes, ‘because I’m here to see my father. And I’m wearing this coat because I don’t want to end up smelling like a focking nursing home. Is that okay with you?’ The woman reacts, roysh, as if she’s been shot – no one expects to be spoken to like that, especially not in the Merrion Shopping Centre. She turns around to me, looking for obvious back-up, except she’s so in shock that she can’t think of anything to say, except that in future she’ll be buying her cheese in Superquinn – as if Erika even cares – then she turns around and focks off. I laugh. ‘It’s good to see the old Erika back,’ I go. ‘For a while there, a few of us thought you were going soft.’ She looks at me like I’m a focking yeast infection. ‘What do you want?’ she goes. I’m there, ‘I’m just as entitled to be here as you are. He’s my old man as well, even though he seems to have forgotten that basic fact.’ ‘Charles and I are going for lunch,’ she goes. ‘And before you ask, Ross, no, you can’t join us.’ I act all casual while she’s saying saying this, arranging the shrink-wrapped wedges of Caerphilly into a perfect – you’d have to say – wheel. I’m there, ‘I, er … heard about Toddy Rathfriland.’ She suddenly goes – I’m not exaggerating – white. I’m like, ‘You’ve dropped your standards, do you mind me saying?’ It’s, like, rare that you find Erika stuck for words. I have a little chuckle to myself then. ‘Toddy Rathfriland, though! I can see why you kept that one quiet. I used to always see him in Renords, throwing his money away, buying champagne for everyone, trying to chat up birds …’ She just, like, glowers at me. She’s still trying to work out how I even know. ‘Trying to relive his youth,’ I go. ‘It’s long gone, Toddy. Long focking gone!’ All she can come up with, in terms of a comeback, is, ‘Fock you, Ross!’ and I end up just laughing. See, victories over Erika are so rare that they have to be savoured. ‘Black hair and red eyebrows,’ I go. ‘Yeah, a rul catch, Erika – a rul catch.’ It’s at that exact moment that the old man suddenly appears through the plastic ribbon curtain at the back of the shop. ‘Hello there, Ross,’ he tries to go. ‘I thought I heard your dulcet tones.’ He’s wearing – the state of him – a blue and white striped apron with a focking ridiculous little white hat. ‘What has you in the Merrion Shopping Centre?’ he has the actual balls to go. ‘Come to visit the city’s newest purveyors of coagulated milk protein, who’ve put Sheridans of South Anne Street, Dublin 2 – let me tell you – on the proverbial back foot?’ I just laugh in his face. ‘Everyone knows this place is an obvious front,’ I go. ‘You’re laundering the moo you stashed in Andorra.’ That softens his cough. I watch his face just drop – believe me, he has no desire to go back to Stoney Lonesome. ‘And that hat’s so gay, by the way, it could marry a focking dude in Sweden.’ He mutters and stutters for a few seconds, then sort of, like, regathers himself and asks what I think of the government pushing ahead with the public sector pension levy and hang what the unions think! Of course he might as well be speaking, I don’t know, Swahilish to me. ‘Wait a minute!’ he tries to go. ‘Is that a frown I see on your face there, Ross?’ I’m there, ‘No, I’m actually trying to work out what the fock you’re talking about.’ ‘Well, thank the Lord for that,’ he goes. ‘Thought you might have become infected with all this talk of doom – to say nothing of gloom!’ I’m there, ‘I can’t see how it’s going to affect me personally – so why would I give a fock?’ ‘Well, good for you,’ he just goes. ‘The very attitude that made this country great for eleven and a little bit years – and will again, you mark me. You’re a chip off the old block,’ and then he turns to Erika, obviously having to include her. ‘The two of you – a pair of, quote-unquote, go-getters. Economic downturn, how are you!’ He rubs his hands together then, delighted with himself for whatever reason. I’m there, ‘I don’t know why you’re mentioning her in that. What’s she done, except end up getting mentioned in, like, a divorce case?’ She looks at me like she wants to rip my dick out by the root. ‘Oh, you heard?’ he just goes, not even embarrassed about it. ‘Lies and innuendo!’ I’m there, ‘Is that what you think?’ ‘Of course – you know why it’s suddenly come up, don’t you?’ ‘Go on, why?’ ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? That restaurant business of his – word on the grapevine is that it’s in trouble. Lot of restaurants in the same boat. Overstretched, you see. Tried to grow the business too quickly, all based on borrowings. Obviously, trade is down and the banks are getting nervous. She – the wife – well, she realizes she’s no longer married to a man of means. Wants out. And she’ll do anything to get out, even if it means traducing the name and reputation of your sister here …’ ‘Half-sister.’ ‘Who just happened to be there for her husband when he needed a friend …’ I laugh. Then I look at Erika and she just gives me a big, shit-eating grin. She can do no wrong in his eyes. ‘And now this woman wants to drag her name through the papers – except it’s not going to happen, because Mr Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara is on the case, as ever! Talking about a High Court injunction and all sorts – stop these bloody newspapers dragging her name down into the gutter. We’re meeting him for lunch. I’d ask you to join us, Ross, but it’s a bit …’ He pulls a face, which I take to mean awkward. ‘Sub judice,’ he goes. ‘Pardon the Latin …’ I’m trying to think of something unbelievably hurtful to say back to him, roysh, but he just keeps blabbing on. ‘So how’s young Sorcha?’ he goes ‘How’s she weathering the – inverted commas – storm?’ ‘Not great,’ I end up having to go, ‘not that it’s any of your focking business. She’ll turn it around, I’m sure …’ At the same time, roysh, I’m wondering is this just, like, wishful thin
king? I’m there, ‘I mean, we all know how determined she is. Do you remember her debating at school? Even the argument she made that time for rerouting the Liffey to put Crumlin and Drimnagh on the Northside – she had practically the entire Conrad Hotel on its feet.’ ‘You see, that’s the spirit that’ll see us through this thing! As old Denis Fehily used to say, what is a diamond but a piece of coal that did well under pressure! If I know Sorcha like I think I do, she’ll have that shop turned around quicker than she can say –’ ‘BCBGMAXAZRIA,’ I go. He’s there, ‘Exactly. It’s like I said to JP’s old dad only the other day …’ I’m there, ‘You met JP’s old man?’ ‘Yes! In Shanahan’s, don’t you know! Oh, he’s making a real go of that new business of his – Last Resort Asset Reclaim or some such. I said to him, “You know what? I have to admire the way you and that son of yours have bounced back.” He said he was sick to the teeth of hearing about this so-called financial crisis. I said, “Precisely! Do you think Messers McManus and Desmond are talking about a financial crisis? No, no, no. If I know those two chaps, they’ll be staring down the ninth fairway of the old Green Monkey – for my money the most difficult par five in the game – ruminating on this financial opportunity.” ‘You tell Sorcha that you heard it from your old dad – we have as much to fear from this recession as a field has from the fire that burns away the residue of last year’s harvest and prepares the ground for the next growing season. Recessions rejuvenate, Ross. They take old, tired ground and they make it rich and fertile again.’ Erika takes off her white coat. Even though I’m pissed off with her, I have to say that I like what she’s wearing underneath. The old man takes off his as well, then pulls on his camel-hair. As I’m walking out the door, I hear him go, cheerful as you like, ‘Manchego is a sheep’s-milk cheese from Spain, in case you’re caught on the hop again, Erika. Whereas the Mimolette is a bit like an aged Edam, except sweeter and ever so slightly fruity.’ What is it about people who ‘do the whole travelling thing’ that makes them think the rest of us are interested in every boring detail of their trip? My inbox is literally full of their shit. Claire – as in Claire from Bray – is the latest of Sorcha’s friends to go to South-East Asia and send constant e-mails to everyone she’s ever met in her life, giving us her thoughts on the place, like she was the one who focking discovered it. I open one or two, just at random. ‘Where do I even begin?’ she goes. ‘It’s useless even to try to convey in words the beauty of this part of the world!’ Except she then goes on to try, in paragraph after focking paragraph, mail after mail. I read a few more and it’s all the usual blah. ‘You honestly haven’t lived until you’ve observed the dawn chorus at Chiang Dao … Sitting there by the side of the road, just eating noodles! … Did the whole full-moon party thing – although Ko Pha-Ngan is SO commercialized. Avoid at all costs! … We went rubber-tubing down the river in Vang Vieng! Aaaggghhh! … No tourists there, just locals … Hoping to hook up again with some Aussie friends we met in Luang Prabang … Could live on almost literally nothing here … We walked across the bridge over the River Kwai – amazing to think, the ACTUAL bridge! – even though I’ve never seen the film. Does anyone know what it’s even about? … Did Hanoi. Did Bangkok. Did Ho Chi Minh City … Before I set eyes on Halong Bay, I knew literally nothing about karst formations … Ran out of cash – ended up sleeping on the beach! … Trekking in the far north – you have to avoid Chiang Mai if you want a more authentic experience … Did Phonm Penh, did Phuket, did Vientiane … The temples are SO peaceful – we stayed in one all day, just soaking it in … The beach at Ko Phi Phi Leh is the one from the actual movie The Beach. We’ve ticked SO many things off the list at this stage … Watching the sun set from Sunset Beach is oh my God one of THE most jawdropping sights I think I’ve ever seen … The rumour is you can shoot a cow with a bazooka …’ And blah blah focking blah. It’s as I’m, like, deleting them all from my inbox that Sorcha decides to finally return my call from this morning. See, something suddenly occurred to me last night. The last two times I called into the shop, Honor’s been there – in other words, she hasn’t been in, like, Pre-Montessori? And I can, like, hear her in the background again now. Little Roedean is costing me, like, twenty-five Ks a year. Sorcha reacts to just a simple question by pretty much tearing me a new one. ‘If you must know, Ross, I took her out because a little boy in her class has gone down with swine flu.’ ‘Swine flu? Do you know what that so-called school charges per term?’ ‘Swine flu doesn’t just affect poor people, Ross.’ ‘Well, that’s news to me.’ ‘Anywaaay,’ she goes, like the subject is closed for discussion, ‘I’ve taken her out for a couple of weeks, just as a precaution. That other little boy’s in hospital. And speaking of hospitals – what are you doing the weekend after next?’ ‘Er, I don’t know – why?’ ‘Chloe’s having her hip replaced.’ ‘Again?’ ‘Don’t give me that, Ross – it’s the other hip this time?’ This, famously, is the result of her wearing nothing but designer heels that cost the price of a small family cor every day for, like, twelve or thirteen years. Some chiropractor apparently told her she’d the gait of a ninety-year-old woman. ‘We’re all rallying around,’ she goes. ‘Make sure to tell Fionn and JP.’ I’m like, ‘Rallying around? Where?’ ‘The Beacon Private.’ ‘The Beacon Private?’ I laugh. ‘Even though she’s almost as big a bitch as Erika?’ ‘She might be a total bitch, Ross, but she also happens to be Honor’s number two godmother.’ And Erika’s her number one. I’ll say it again. It’ll be a focking miracle if she grows up without issues. ‘One upside,’ the old dear goes, ‘of this thing that’s obviously happening is that it’s so much easier to get tradesmen. Angela rang for an electrician last week – do you know, he came that very afternoon.’ We’re sitting – just the two of us, if you can believe that – in the Lord Mayor’s Lounge of the Shelbourne Hotel. ‘And Delma,’ she goes, ‘she’s just had her new individually designed, hand-crafted kitchen installed. She said there was none of the usual nonsense you get from these types. Came in, did the job and left. They didn’t even mind when she told them they’d have to eat their luncheon-meat sandwiches – or whatever they had with them – in their van. Although she did have to dock them fifty euros when she found their bread wrappers in her perennials. Oh, they’ve threatened her with the small claims court but they’ll get nowhere.’ She’s had, like, a facial peel this morning and it’s made shit of her skin. ‘They could stick your head in the sea and use you as focking shark-bait,’ I make sure to tell her. I grab a warm buttermilk scone, cut it in half, then dump a shitload of blueberry compote on to it. ‘Being honest,’ I go, ‘I don’t even know what the fock I’m doing here.’ ‘I invited you,’ she goes. ‘I thought it would be nice to spend some time together – like any mother and son.’ ‘Well,’ I go, ‘it’s good to see you’re finally getting around to it. I’m still only twenty-nine, of course.’ And before anyone storts feeling sorry for her, I should point out that the only reason she wants me – and even Delma and Angela – is because she’s got fock-all else to do. The big news is that, after three bestselling so-called books, she’s finally run dry, in more ways than one. Writer’s block, she’s calling it, though the actual truth is that she’s been found out. She’s supposedly taking a time-out – to try to ‘reconnect with her craft’ – but of course she’s going off her cake with fock-all to do all day. See, all the great battles in her life have been fought. The last was the campaign to stop the Luas coming to Foxrock – they’re routing it instead through Leopardstown and Carrick-mines. And now that the country’s supposedly focked again, there’s no actual money out there to do the kind of things she made her name organizing mass protests against. To stay sane – her word, not mine – she’s agreed to host a new food programme, FO’CK Cooking, on RTÉ in the afternoons, before Seoige. ‘Next Monday, I thought I’d do my ballotine of Anjou pigeon,’ she goes. ‘It’s like Heston’s, but with my own twist, of course – Jabugo ham, shaved fenne
l and a bavarois of vanilla mayonnaise …’ I’m practically salivating here. The shit she can do with a Le Creuset and a pound of mince, in fairness to her. I reach for the clotted cream. She’s there, ‘It’s a truly wonderful thing to be doing something you love and to be appreciated for it. And it’s like I told Mary Kennedy in the canteen yesterday – good food is the perfect antidote to all this negativity we’re hearing at the moment.’ ‘I take it you’re talking about the whole current economic blahdy blah?’ She sort of, like, clicks her tongue in disgust. ‘Brian Dobson has started standing up to read the news,’ she goes. ‘What kind of message is that to be sending out? Oh, I’ll say it to him when I see him.’ I’m thinking, how even old is Mary Kennedy? I would so love to have sex with Mary Kennedy. She asks me if I’ve heard from the old man and I end up having to laugh. ‘Him? Yeah, no, I called in to the shop yesterday. Other than that, I haven’t seen him since the Grand Slam. He made a complete tit of himself in Cordiff, can I just say. He was shouting at Jack Kyle, ten rows back, “Sixty-one years of hurt, Doctor! Over at last!”’ She even laughs, to be fair. I’m there, ‘And he was wearing one of those leprechaun hats that you get in Caddle’s Irish Gifts – with the big focking buckle on the front?’ ‘I expect he was excited,’ she goes. ‘He waited a long time to see it. He’s been predicting it every year for as long as I’ve known him.’ ‘Well, aport from that, the answer is no, I haven’t seen him – not really.’ ‘I’m not making excuses for him,’ she tries to go, ‘but he has been busy.’ ‘What, with his new daughter and her mother? And his cheese shop? And that ridiculous plan of his to turn Mountjoy into, like, a six-star hotel?’ She smiles, I think the word is, like, thinly? ‘Well, the hotel has been a kind of catharsis for him,’ she goes. ‘None of us can even imagine, Ross, the horrors he must have endured in that prison. The drugs. The violence. The table tennis. To say nothing of the carbohydrates, morning, noon and night. He doesn’t like to talk about it, but still waters run deep. I think turning the place into a hotel is his way of painting over that period in his life … And yes, he’s also in love.’ I just, like, roll my eyes. ‘We should all go out for dinner,’ she even goes, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to say. ‘Perhaps to L’Ecrivain. You and I, your father and Helen, your sister …’ She shoves a whole Shelbourne Fancy into her mouth, practically sideways. It makes me think of a clip I saw on the internet once of a focking python eating a kangaroo. ‘Do you mind me saying,’ I go, ‘it totally weirds me out the way you’re, like, cool with it?’ ‘Cool with what?’ I’m there, ‘Er, him suddeny living with Erika’s old dear on Ailesbury Road for storters? And you all being friends. I just think that’s focked up, that’s all.’ She stares up at the Louis whatever-the-fock chandelier, suddenly lost in thought. ‘Well, I’m a romantic novelist,’ she eventually goes. That’s seriously pushing it, but I end up letting it go. ‘I know what a wonderful miracle it is to find, as it were, your other.’ That stops me dead in my tracks, roysh, because I know she’s thinking about Trevion. See, if I hadn’t threatened to expose him as a US Ormy deserter, she’d probably still be with him in the States, basically married. Instead – like Oisinn – no one knows where the fock he is. I feel the sudden need to say something. See, I’ve never been big on uncomfortable silences. ‘If I could turn back the clock,’ I go. ‘Blahdy blahdy blah.’ ‘There’s no need to apologize,’ she goes. ‘We agreed to draw a line, remember?’ I shrug. I didn’t. She decides to change the subject. ‘I met Oisinn’s mother,’ she goes. ‘In Marian Gale. The poor woman – oh, she’s aged two years, Ross.’ I nod. It’s nice that she gives a fock – they were Senior Cup Mums together. I’m there, ‘I know. I met her myself coming out of David Lloyd Rivervew. She was cancelling his membership – which is never a good sign.’ ‘How could he do it to her, Ross? Just disappear like that. No note! Not even a phone call!’ ‘He had a lot of problems,’ I go, ‘debts and blah blah blah. It all just got on top of him. But don’t you worry, I’m going to find him. I’ve been making phone calls, suddenly asking a lot of questions – like focking Columbo. You know me when I put my mind to something.’ She smiles, but she doesn’t really say anything, except, ‘Shall we get more tea and coffee?’ and her neck pops up like a focking periscope, looking for a waitress. I’m like, ‘Just going back to the whole, I don’t know, recession thing – you seem to be one of the few people I know who isn’t actually worried.’ ‘I just feel it should simply be ignored until it goes away,’ she goes. I actually laugh – probably relief as much as anything. I’m there, ‘Sorcha’s one person who’ll be happy to hear that. Her shop looks like it’s about to go tits-up in a ditch. No one’s buying anything.’ She puts on, like, a sympathetic face? ‘Yes, I called to see her this morning,’ she goes. ‘I told her, you hang on in there, girl! People still want quality, despite all these seventy percent off sales we’re reading about. Oh, just vulgar!’ ‘I think Pia Bang closing her interiors shop was a major shock to her, though. They’ve been, like, friends since for ever.’ ‘Well, it’s like Harry Connick, Jr says, Ross – this too shall pass.’ ‘That’s actually a good quote to remember, in fairness to you.’ God, she’s so focking ugly when she smiles. ‘You know,’ she goes, ‘during the 1916 Rising, there were forty British soldiers garrisoned here, in this very hotel! The so-called Volunteers riddled this room with bullets, Ross. Riddled it! And do you know what the people did? They simply lifted their teacups and moved to the drawing room.’ I didn’t know she knew so much about history. I suppose there’s a lot of shit I don’t know about her – and, being honest, don’t want to know. The waitress comes over. ‘Ross will have, what, another coffee?’ the old dear goes. I tell her yeah, as long as she’s paying. She just smiles. ‘Yes,’ she goes, ‘and I’ll have my Oolong.’ Keelyn says she has never been spoken to in the way Sorcha spoke to her. ‘Even when I switched courses,’ she goes, ‘from Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to just Environmental Biology – and my dad was, like, so mad – he never shouted at me like your wife did.’ ‘Soon to be ex-wife,’ I remind her. ‘And even though I’d never in a million years defend the way she acted, she does have a point – as in, shops just can’t go around giving people money off shit, just for the crack of it. See, the more you make shit affordable, the less people actually want it.’ I heard the old dear telling Delma on the phone that that’s what happened to Waterford Crystal. It’s basic economics, when you think about it. Still, Keelyn says, she was surprised when I rang her out of the blue like that – as in, like, pleasantly surprised? – and I take that as my cue to slip my hand under the covers, and run it up and down her bare thigh. And of course she loves it – loves it like chocolate cake. ‘Well,’ I go, ‘as I said to you on the phone, I thought Sorcha was way out of line the way she spoke to you and I wanted to make it up to you. Plus, I won’t lie, I did cop the way you were looking at me in the shop that day.’ She’s there, ‘Looking at you?’ ‘Er, yeah – and that’s not meant to sound big-headed?’ Of course she tries to play it the big-time innocent. ‘I wasn’t looking at you in any particular way.’ I just give her knee a little tweak. ‘You were, Keelyn – believe me. You might not have even realized it …’ She sort of, like, swats my hand away, says Oh! My God! three or four times, then tells me that I so shouldn’t flatter myself. ‘I actually think you’ve disimproved?’ she tries to go. ‘And that’s not me being a bitch. I even said it to Gretchen Kennedy.’ ‘I’m happy to say, not everyone would agree with you. Who the fock is Gretchen Kennedy?’ ‘She’s, like, my best friend? She was in UCD at the same time as us.’ ‘Don’t remember her.’ ‘You were with her, like, three times – as in with with?’ ‘Doesn’t exactly narrow the field, Keelyn.’ ‘Well, anyway, I said it to her, that day I saw you in the shop, either you were never as good-looking as everyone thought you were, or your looks are actually fading.’ I can tell you, she wasn’t saying that at, like, e
leven o’clock last night, when I was pleasuring her cross-eyed and she was screaming her hosannas loud enough to wake up half The focking Grange. There’s another letter of complaint on the way from the property management company – that’s as sure as she dropped a jeans size with the workout I put her through. ‘Again,’ I go, ‘I’d just add that not everyone would agree with you.’ She’s there, ‘Hey, don’t be so defensive. I’m just saying, I think you used to be really, really good-looking? But then again you’re, what, thirty now?’ ‘Twenty-nine.’ ‘Twenty-nine, whatever.’ She suddenly reaches for my chest and takes my Leinster Schools Senior Cup medal in her hand. ‘And how long are you going to go on wearing this thing?’ ‘What do you mean, how long?’ ‘Ross, this was, what, ten years ago? It’s, like, get over it already?’ If she wants me to repeat the dose I gave her last night, she’s going about it the wrong way. ‘If you must know,’ I go, snatching it out of her hand, ‘I’m never taking it off.’ ‘Never?’ ‘That was the deal we made back in 1999, me and all the goys. We said we’d wear them forever …’ She laughs. That gap in her Jasmines again. She could eat a focking coconut through a tennis racket. ‘Oh my God,’ she goes, ‘that is so sad.’ I’m there, ‘Sad or not, I could write you out a list of players who never got their hands on one of these babies and never will. And I’m not just talking about Drico, the obvious – even though it does eat him up inside every time he sees me, Grand Slam or no Grand Slam. But Jamie Heaslip is another example.’ ‘Ross,’ she goes, suddenly whipping back the sheets and swinging her legs out of the bed, ‘the point I’m trying to make is, what does it matter now? Nobody cares any more.’ She storts walking around the room then, picking up clothes where they landed last night and throwing them on her. ‘Where are you going?’ I go. ‘Do you not want to stay for …’ She sits on the side of the bed and pulls on her Uggs. ‘I don’t eat breakfast?’ she goes. I was actually going to say another treatment. I’ve got a horn on me like a focking railway sleeper. ‘Anyway,’ she goes, suddenly standing in the doorway, ‘thanks for last night. I feel a lot better about the whole Sorcha thing now.’ ‘Obviously don’t mention this,’ I go, ‘if you happen to run into her.’ What can I say? None of us will ever really know women, will we? 2. ‘A Million-Euro Mortgage Doesn’t Make You a Millionaire’