Rhino What You Did Last Summer Read online

  He’s there, ‘I picked up the phone. I said you got something, Kid, and I want to work with you.’

  I’m there, ‘So where does that leave me?’

  He goes, ‘All washed up, Starry Eyes. I couldn’t even call you a has-been. You’re a never-was.’

  4. This is my comeback, girl

  According to a poll on the internet, I’m the most hated man in America. Second in the world after Osama bin Laden and just ahead of Kim Jong-il, whose nuclear ambitions have apparently raised the spectre of annihilation for the planet. So I’m in the scratcher, roysh, shocked by this and, I’d have to say, even depressed.

  I’m lying there also thinking, was that it? Was that really my moment of fame? I should have enjoyed it more, even for the seven days it lasted. I can suddenly understand why all these stars end up going focking bananas when no one’s looking at them anymore.

  I flick through the channels and find, like, an entertainment one, torturing myself I suppose. Because Amy Smart portied with fellow celebs Sandra Oh and Camilla Belle at the Foley + Carinna store opening in LA last night and even Sienna Miller was spotted enjoying herself in Foxtail looking fabulous in a Viktor & Rolf shirtdress with Sergio Rossi eel-skin pumps in blue.

  I’m going, ‘Enjoy it while it lasts, girls. Enjoy it while it lasts.’

  Then, suddenly, up comes this photograph on Fox News that has my eyes out on actual stalks. It’s a woman, roysh, totally naked, but painted from head to toe – including all of her various bits – in gold paint.

  I’m actually lying there thinking it’s one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen when all of sudden I realize that it’s her – as in the old dear? – and the old Malcolm does a quick lurch.

  I have to turn up the sound.

  ‘Now,’ the newsreader dude goes, ‘she’s already the golden girl of women’s fiction – now Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly is set to become the golden girl of marketing. The controversial writer – from Ireland – has been painted from head to toe in gold paint for a role in a commercial for Midas – a new brand of canned Prosecco. A warning to viewers that the following report contains bodhrán music…’

  I don’t focking believe it.

  It comes on. It storts with, like, a picture of a leprechaun and – the dude’s right – skiddly-eye music in the background. ‘According to Irish mythology,’ a bird’s voice goes, ‘the leprechaun is a type of male fairy who, many of the country’s famously simple people will tell you, acts as a custodian for the pot of gold… contained at the end of every rainbow.

  ‘Like the fabled creatures so beloved by Ireland’s idiot people, Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly has shown that she, too, has the golden touch. Karma Suits You – States of Ecstasy, her steamy bodice-ripper about an Irish woman who experiences a sexual reawakening after coming to America, has topped the New York Times bestseller list for three weeks. And now Midas, a drinks company marketing a new brand of canned Prosecco, are banking on the fact that the stunningly attractive author… is worth her weight in gold.’

  Then it switches to this dude with, like, a goatee? The caption says he’s Richard Schor – Product, Promotion and Brand Executive, Midas. ‘Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly is fresh, she’s perky, she’s effervescent,’ he goes. ‘But she also possesses a certain class and sophistication. The self-same qualities we associate with Midas Canned Prosecco. So in terms of matching a product to a star? This is what we would call a perfect strategic fit…’

  ‘What he perhaps forgot to mention,’ the report goes, ‘is another quality they have in common – a great body…’

  Whoosh. Up she comes on the screen, wearing half-nothing.

  A focking bag of cement in a bikini. She’s standing in what looks like an ort studio with all these, like, cameras and lights spread about the place and they’re painting her – I shit you not – with, like, a paint gun?

  ‘In the Irish language, Gay Lick, Fionnuala means, literally, white shoulders. Turning her into all-over gold was a job that took a total of six hours… and a lot of patience. First, they used a compressor gun loaded with liquid gold to give her body a first coat. A second and third were later added. Artists also used a special liquid gold leaf to colour her hair… while glitter varnish and eye shadow were painstakingly applied… to her nails and eyelids.

  ‘Once the paint job was completed, Fionnuala had to remain deathly still – something that the highly driven author of three bestsellers back in her native Emerald Isle is unused to doing. And here – begorrah and be-to-hokey – are the results…’

  They show her, like, fully painted, pulling various ridiculous poses in front of the camera.

  ‘Fionnuala, who once posed naked for a Yummy Mummy calendar back in the Land of Saints and Scholars, was delighted with her new look, which is expected to adorn magazine spreads and billboards right across the country…’

  They show her, like, afterwards – the focking whelk – with all the shit washed off her, going, ‘Yes, it was wonderful fun. I’ve always said, as women, we should never be ashamed of our bodies – we should flaunt them more. Especially in later years. Like good Prosecco, they improve with age,’ which was obviously totally rehearsed.

  Then they show, like, one of the photographs of her in all the muck again and the reporter goes, ‘Midas will certainly be hoping that this Gay Lick Goddess helps them unlock the secret… of alchemy! Jess Cook, Fox News, in Santa Barbara.’

  I straight away grab my phone. Trevion answers on, like, the third ring and I’m straight on the attack. ‘I can’t believe you let her do that. She’s sick in the focking head. And you’re taking advantage of that.’

  ‘Hey,’ he goes, ‘quiet down, Tinkerbell – what do you want?’

  ‘What do I want? What do you think? How would you like it if I painted your old dear and stuck her on TV?’

  ‘She looked a million dollars up there.’

  ‘She looked like she’d fallen off the top of a sumo wrestling trophy.’

  ‘You know who I had on the phone today? Nous Model Management – mean anything to do you?’

  I’m there, ‘Not really.’

  ‘Same crowd handles Paris fucking Hilton. Yeah, that’s right, Smart Mouth. They’re all over your mother. Offering her all kinds of work. I got Columbia on – can’t wait to get her in the studio.’

  ‘Studio?’

  ‘They want her to make a record. Here in LA. Meanwhile, I can’t move in my fucking office for all the shit that’s getting sent to her. Shoes. Dresses. Bags. You like ladies’ dresses?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you do. I think they get you off.’

  ‘They actually don’t?’

  ‘Yeah they do. My phone ain’t stopped ringing. I got Marc Jacobs on one, Tony Burch on two, Zac Posen on three. They want to see her in their shit. I got a list of shows want her to cameo. Ugly Betty. Desperate fucking Housewives. Everyone wants a piece of your mother and you want to know why?’

  ‘Go on, enlighten me.’

  ‘Cos she ain’t you.’

  ‘Exsqueeze me?’

  ‘Hey, you heard it, Ladylove. She ain’t you. She don’t sit around getting fat and pissy. And remember this – she done something for her fame. Yours fell in your fucking lap and you still never knew which way was up.’

  I’m there, ‘Well, I would have thought in, like, a five-minute report there would have been some mention of the fact that her son happens to be Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.’

  ‘Who?’ he goes. ‘Who’s that? Never fucking heard of him. I got a newsflash for you, Friend – your mother’s a star. You? You’re nothing. You’re last month’s celebutard.’

  You’ve no idea how actually hurtful that is to hear. ‘Well,’ I go, ‘what if I told you I wanted to make, like, a comeback?’

  He actually laughs.

  I’m there, ‘I’m serious. How do I get back up there again? I’m actually only realizing now how much I want all that shit – the clothes, the record deal, the whole blahdy blahdy blah
.’

  He tells me he’s too busy with his real stars. I tell him I’ll do anything he wants.

  I’ve got, like, a roomful of people staring at me like I’m some kind of monster.

  ‘You did what?’

  And this from a dude called Snake, who’s just admitted pimping out his wife for heroin.

  ‘I gave my baby daughter a double espresso,’ I go, shrugging my shoulders and trying to make it sound less of a big deal than it apparently is.

  ‘You give me one good reason,’ Bret, this sort of, like, trailer-trash dude, goes, ‘why I shouldn’t go over there and punch you into a twenty-year coma.’

  Coke and gambling are Bret’s bag. He sold his mother’s gaff to pay off some bookie in Reno. She was still lying in her bed when they threw it out into the focking street.

  ‘Bret,’ Priscilla goes, ‘one thing we don’t dispense here is judgement – remember that?’

  Bret takes a deep breath. ‘It’s just, you know, I got kids myself…’

  Addiction Education was, like, Trevion’s idea? He thought it might play well with the press, but I’ll be lucky to get out of here with this pretty face intact.

  This bird called Hazel ( painkillers and surgery) says she recognizes my boat, then this Filipino bird called Dalisay (shoplifting and cybersex) says she saw me in a magazine. ‘Giving that little girl coffee,’ she goes. ‘Laughing, real ugly,’ and then all of a sudden Bret loses it again. ‘You ever give my daughter anything,’ he goes, jabbing his finger in my direction, ‘be it a cappuccino, a macchiato, whatever – I will, personally, beat you unrecognizable with a fucking tyre iron. God fucking help me!’

  ‘Let’s control that anger,’ Priscilla goes. ‘Just visualize yourself back in that cell in Carson City and remember the breathing exercises we learned.’

  Jesus Christ!

  Priscilla turns to me then. ‘Okay,’ she goes, ‘if we might take what I like to call a client-centred approach with you – what do you think was at the root of this behaviour?’

  It’s like being back in detention with the focking Jesuits – except there’s no pulling the Senior Cup cord in here.

  ‘Was it low self-esteem? Focal anxiety? Maybe simple insensitivity to the conventions of appropriate social behaviour?’

  I’m there, ‘I think it was simply the fact that she wanted coffee? If you knew her mother… Even though, I’ve noticed, she’s become more of a tea person since she came to the States.’

  ‘Piece of shit,’ Hazel goes – meaning me – and I look around, roysh, at the other faces and I realize that I’ve got to get out of here. To be honest, roysh, the only reason I even came was so the paparazzi could get a shot of me on the way out.

  According to Trevion, people love a comeback story. But this crowd aren’t loving my story and I’m sensing that my life is in serious danger here.

  Priscilla wants more, though. ‘Tell me,’ she goes, ‘about some of your close, interpersonal relationships?’

  Shrinks, I know from personal experience, are like lions or tigers or any of that crew – throw them the odd bone and they’ll generally leave you the fock alone.

  ‘My home situation is pretty focked,’ I go, then I notice Bret and one or two of the other men straighten up in their chairs. I wouldn’t say they’re on my side yet, but they’re definitely prepared to hear me out.

  I’m there, ‘My old man, for instance. He’s a dickhead and I won’t give him the pleasure of even talking about him. Except to say that he had, like, a daughter – in other words, Erika – who he kept a secret for, like, twenty-and-whatever years…’

  This bird Jennie (compulsive disorders and crystal meth) goes, ‘Man, that is fucked up!’ and suddenly I feel like I’m in an episode of Maury.

  I’m there, ‘I’ve been trying to tell people what a dick he is for years, but no one listened. So Erika gets wind of this – that he’s her actual old man – and she ends up not even hating his guts. She’s even calling him Dad…’

  ‘That’s not right,’ Bret agrees.

  I stare into the distance. ‘The thing is, this bird Erika – before I knew she was my sister, I hasten to add? – I would have, you know, once or twice…’

  ‘Ain’t no shame in that,’ Bret goes.

  I suspect there probably isn’t wherever he comes from. It’s not the kind of thing I want bandied around the Merrion Inn, though.

  ‘If I’m being honest,’ I go, ‘I’d say she’s possibly the most attractive girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.’

  Hazel goes, ‘Don’t you go blaming yourself. It’s his fault – your father.’

  I’m there, ‘In many ways, I wish he was in this room to hear you say that.’

  Hazel’s there, ‘No wonder you gave your baby coffee – you ain’t in your right mind.’

  I’m there, ‘Exactly. I wish my ex-wife could see it like that. She’s banging on about court orders and all sorts.’

  Suddenly, everyone in the room wants to share.

  ‘My ex-wife’s a bitch,’ Bret goes.

  ‘Mine’s a prostitute,’ Snake goes, ‘slash exotic dancer.’

  By the end of the meeting, roysh, they’re all on my side. Bret even apologizes for earlier – the tyre iron, blahdy blahdy blah. He says he’s been pretty wound-up since the police seized his fighting dogs.

  I’m thinking, I’ve always had, like, a way with people. ‘Anyway,’ I go, standing up, ‘you’ve heard enough of my tales of woe…’

  ‘Your agent’s right,’ Harvey goes. ‘You could do with losing some weight.’

  This is us in Newsroom on Robertson, finally getting that coffee, although what I’m actually drinking is one of these Taiwanese Milk Teas that he’s been banging on about – I suppose just to show him that I am open-minded, even though I think he’s accepted that nothing’s going to happen between us.

  ‘It’s weird,’ I go, rubbing my hands up and down my body, ‘because in Ireland, this would be considered pretty much ripped.’

  He pulls a face as if to say, sorry to disappoint you. ‘You’ve got, like, a little cellulite,’ he goes. ‘Don’t take offence – two or three weeks, we can work it off you.’

  I’m flicking through his training journal and I can’t believe the sessions he’s putting in. ‘I have to tell you,’ I go, ‘I was pretty proud of what I was bench-pressing until I read this.’

  He tells me that I have to decide, from the outset, what my fitness goals are and I tell him I want abs like focking grill morks.

  ‘Well then,’ he goes, ‘let’s get to work,’ and the next thing we’re tipping across the road to the gym.

  This is, like, step two of Trevion’s plan to, what he calls, refloat my career.

  I start off with, like, twenty minutes on the treadmill, then a few weights. ‘It’s always a good idea to rotate muscle groups as you work out,’ Harvey goes. ‘Or alternate, if you can, between cardio and lifting? It gives your muscles more time to rest. And it keeps your routine from getting monotonous.’

  I tell him I wish I’d had him with me in Andorra. There were one or two guys on the team could have done with a good fitness coach.

  He holds my two legs while I do, like, a hundred sit-ups. I ask him how his weekend went – because there is that whole getting-to-know-each-other vibe?

  ‘Mike and I got in, like, a huge fight,’ he goes.

  I stop mid sit-up and I’m like, ‘Who’s this Mike?’ but not in, like, a jealous way. Again, I’m more making conversation than anything.

  Mike turns out to be some dude who’s been dicking him around for a couple of years. He’s married, roysh, but he’s been stringing Harvey along with the promise that he’s going to one day leave his wife for him. Except if you ask me, he’s obviously not. A player always recognizes a player.

  ‘He was supposedly leaving her in April last year,’ he goes. ‘Then again in September. Then again last week. But when it comes to it, there’s always something. “She’s having a hard time at work.” “Her sister’s no
t well.” “Let me just get through Christmas with her.” And all this time I believed his bullshit. He’s never going to leave her.’

  I shake my head, do another ten sit-ups, then stop and go, ‘Dude, do you mind if I say something to you? You let people treat you like that, they’re never going to respect you. Take it from someone who’s been dicking birds around his entire life.’

  He rolls his eyes. ‘Ross, this is nothing I haven’t heard before.’

  ‘Well, I’m just saying, I’d imagine you could do better. You know, you’re actually a good-looking goy…’

  Even that doesn’t cheer him up.

  ‘Do you mind me asking,’ I go, ‘how old are you?’

  He’s there, ‘Twenty,’ which actually surprises me, roysh, because I thought he was maybe twenty-four, twenty-five. I think I actually laugh. ‘Twenty?’ I go. ‘Why do you want to be settled down at twenty? Especially with someone dragging his baggage – what, a marriage break-up? Harvey, you’re just a kid – you should be out there breaking horts, loving it, loving it, loving it.’

  He smiles, in fairness to him.

  I’m like, ‘Twenty? If you only knew the craic you’re going to have in the years ahead.’

  He shrugs. ‘It’s just that Mike was my first relationship,’ he goes.

  I’m there, ‘A goy of your age shouldn’t even know that word. Okay, when I break up with someone, especially someone I like – my wife is just one example – I always ask myself one question: was I happy the day before I met her? So, like, were you happy the day before you met this Mike dude?’

  ‘I guess.’

  I give him the guns. ‘Then you can be happy again.’

  He laughs, finally, and tells me I have a good perspective on things.

  I do another fifty sit-ups straight and end up putting in, it has to be said, an unbelievable session – the kind I haven’t done since I was at school. Practically every muscle in my body is hurting at the end, which is all good.

  Even Harvey has to high-five me, as if to say, you worked today – respect.

  We grab a quick Jack Bauer – yeah, together. That’s how much it doesn’t actually bother me? I even borrow some of his Ein Gedi Organic Dead Sea Mineral body scrub.