Rhino What You Did Last Summer Read online

  ‘It’s actually the ball?’ I go. ‘It’s basically heavier than what I’d be used to…’

  She’s like, ‘Sure!’ but she says it like she doesn’t believe me.

  My legs feel weak, like there’s no actual blood in them?

  I try it again.

  Same result. And, of course, the laughter.

  They move it forward ten yords. Same shit. Fourteen times I try it and fourteen times I miss the posts completely. ‘Let’s just do it with CGI,’ Danny goes and that’s when I end up totally losing it.

  ‘I’d love to focking see you do better,’ I go. He immediately takes it as, like, a challenge?

  ‘Chubby,’ he shouts, ‘let me take a shot at this.’

  So this is what happens. I’m told to step out of the picture, while he walks – like he owns the focking place – over to where I’ve been taking the shots from.

  I watch him spot the ball in the cup.

  I’m turning to the assistant one, going, ‘It’s actually a lot horder than it looks. It took me years to, like, perfect it.’

  ‘And… action,’ someone shouts.

  The cameras roll.

  The little focker runs at the ball, connects with it – even I have to admit – absolutely perfectly and sends it sailing straight between the two posts.

  There’s, like, cheers from everyone.

  I turn to the assistant and tell her I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. ‘I’d actually have one or two criticisms of his technique.’

  Danny – the little prick – turns around, points at me and goes, ‘Get him off the fucking set! Now!’

  No one says a word. No one even looks at me. It’s like I’m dead to them? Kobe storts walking over in my general direction and I know to just leave.

  As I’m walking past his chair, Chubby goes to me, out of the corner of his mouth, ‘What can I say? Studio loves the little turd. Me, I go home and take it out on the wife.’

  So I’m in the cor, still in a rage, when I pass the shop on Sunset and see the sign in the window. It’s like, ‘Book Soup presents… An Evening with Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly’, and I suddenly remember what Chubby said. I’m thinking, it’s about time this woman was taken down a peg or six – and preferably in front of an audience.

  A bird stops me at the door, before I even get my foot into the place, and asks me if I’ve got, like, an invitation.

  ‘My face is my invitation,’ I go, because at first I think she has to be pulling my wire. It’s like, who would come to an event like this except homeless people looking to get in out of the heat and, I don’t know, the sick in the head.

  But she is serious. She says it’s invitation only. I tell her I’m Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly’s son, though I also mention that I don’t want the fact broadcast.

  She stares hord at me, then opens her copy of Karma Suits You – States of Ecstasy and has a quick read of the old dear’s biography on the inside of the, I suppose, dust cover?

  She’s there, ‘There’s no mention of a son here,’ which is pretty hurtful, it has to be said.

  ‘That’s because she hates my guts and I hate hers,’ I go. ‘I’m embarrassed to be even related to the swamp monster,’ and the bird looks at me like it’s the weirdest thing in the world to say.

  She’s still Scooby Dubious, though, so I end up letting a roar at her. ‘Do you honestly think I’d be interested in listening to a woman reading out her twisted sexual fantasies in public if I wasn’t actually related to her?’

  She obviously gets my point because she suddenly lets me in.

  I wouldn’t be into, like, bookshops – or even actual books? – but it is a pretty impressive shop, in fairness to it. We’re talking floor-to-ceiling shelves – a dream of Sorcha’s since she saw it in Ikea in Belfast – and books everywhere.

  Again, if you’re into that kind of shit.

  The place – if you can believe this – is rammers, and it’s not just her usual followers, in other words desperate, menopausal old trouts. There’s, like, young girls – a lot of them serious lookers – one or two surfer-type dudes, a few stoners, then a lot of, I suppose the word is, literary types?

  No sign of Marcia Cross, Kim Cattrall or any of that crew, though I do spot a bird who may or may not be Kirsten Bell – and then suddenly Sorcha, who’s here with Emmy, the bird who’s big-time into me, and Analyn, the one who’s having, like, fertility treatment?

  I take a couple of steps backwards and hide behind a stack of atlases, though I can still hear Emmy banging on about my old dear’s graphic realism and Sorcha mention her linguistic daring.

  The bird who wasn’t going to let me in steps up to the mic – I’m beginning to think she looks a bit like Molly Sims – and a sudden, I suppose you’d have to call it, hush descends on the shop.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she goes, ‘Book Soup is honoured this evening to have, as its guest, a very special writer, but also a very special woman, who is taking the literary world by storm. Not for a long time has a woman written so graphically and yet so truthfully about female sexuality. Karma Suits You – States of Ecstasy, her debut novel on this side of the Atlantic, calls to mind not just the writing of Catherine Millet but also earlier pioneers in the world of erotic literary fiction. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to introduce you to… Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly…’

  Everyone just claps – except me, obviously. I don’t want to hear her bullshit.

  She comes shuffling out from behind a set of bookshelves, like something out of the ‘Thriller’ video, botoxed to the point that she can’t stop baring her teeth, dressed in some focking mother-of-the-bride outfit that makes her look like what she is – a landfill in a Michael Kors pant suit.

  ‘Thank you,’ she’s giving it and the applause, if anything, gets louder. ‘Thank you,’ she goes, then she storts giving them the royal wave.

  Some dude beside me actually wolf-whistles and I have to tell him to cop the fock on and he tells me I’m an asshole.

  She opens her book on the sort of, like, podium thing and the noise suddenly dies down. She gets stuck straight in.

  ‘“Petrol?” said the man in the service station, affecting a look of bewilderment.

  “Gas!” Valerie snapped. “Or whatever you people call it,” for she was certain he knew what she had meant. Why was it necessary to go through this tiresome catechism every time she stopped to fill up the Chevrolet? How many tourists drive the Cabrillo Highway every day? she wanted to ask him. Had he never met someone from out of town before?

  But she didn’t wish to engage him any longer than the exigencies of the transaction required. He was a nauseating animal – grossly over-weight, his mean-spirited face crosshatched with stubble, and a sheen of sweat covering his body like a coat of cheap varnish.

  She handed him a fifty-dollar bill and he turned to the till. His low-slung jeans revealed three inches of cleavage, which made her stomach heave.

  She tried not to think about it.

  Instead, she thought about the journey that had brought her to this point – the snaking road along the wave-lashed shore between San Francisco and Monterey, through the mist-shrouded pine groves to Carmel, then on again, along the dangerously precipitous road, to take in the vertiginous and deadly allure of the Big Sur…’

  Everyone claps. Don’t ask me why, roysh, because it’s obviously shit. I spot Marcia Cross up the front, looking around. I catch her eye and pull a face as if to say, can you believe she gets away with this bollocks? But she ends up just looking away.

  ‘The garage attendant turned and held out her change – a crisp, twenty-dollar bill. She stretched for it, but at the last moment he pulled it away.

  “You give me that,” she heard herself say. “You give me that money this instant!”

  It sounded shrill, effete, like Claudette Colbert – though he was clearly no Clark Gable.

  “Take it,” he said, proffering the note a second time. With an ill feeling, she observed his sausage-like finge
rs and the dirt gathered under his nails. “Take your change,” he repeated.

  But again, as soon as she tried to, he pulled it away, then laughed cruelly.

  She felt her heart quicken. “What do you want from me?” she said, her voice weak and skittery.

  She felt his eyes trace the articulation of her breasts through her thin cotton camisole. Then he wiped his mouth with his open palm.’

  ‘For fock’s sake,’ I shout from the back and one or two people, including Marcia Cross, turn around and shush me. She looks incredible, by the way, and I’ve a serious one on me.

  ‘“She should have been repulsed by this. But the truth was she suddenly felt herself oddly aroused by his teasing.

  “Please!” she said plaintively. “Give me my money.”

  “First,” he said, still drinking her in, “you’ve got to tell me where a pretty thing like you is headed.”

  She looked away, then looked back at him, essaying a look of defiance. “If you must know,” she said, “I’m on the way to Santa Barbara.”

  “Santa Barbara,” he said, considering the words for a moment. “Santa Barbara. You want I take you to see the Redwoods?”

  “The Redwoods?” she said. “But… I don’t even know you.”

  “Just being hospitable,” he said, putting a toothpick between his teeth. “You being from out of town and everything.”

  He held out the twenty-dollar note. He let her take it this time. He rolled up a newspaper and then, with an almost effortless flick of his wrist, swatted a mosquito into a dirt-begrimed window.

  Valerie wanted this man. She didn’t understand why, but she wanted him to fill her.’

  ‘You’re a focking disgrace to the animal kingdom!’ I shout.

  I notice Sorcha look around with a look of concern on her face and I take another step backwards to get out of her line of vision.

  One of the staff comes over, puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me that if I shout anything else, he’s going to have to ask me to leave.

  I can’t believe no one else is pissed off about this.

  ‘“Yes,” she said. “That would be very nice.”

  After thirty silent but tension-filled minutes in the car, Valerie found herself staring up at the God-like majesty of these natural superstructures.’

  Another round of applause. Er, for what exactly?

  ‘“Big,” he whispered. She felt his hands seize her tiny waist and felt his breath in her ear, rank, like bad Gorgonzola. “Big… and firm!”

  She no longer had mastery over her actions. She spun around, threw her arms around him and they wrestled each other to the ground.

  Frenziedly, he kissed her face and neck, his stubble lisping cruelly off her cheek, his toothpick almost puncturing her windpipe. But she liked it. She liked the pain. Somehow it was as sweet as the Pinot Noir she’d had with lunch – the Wente Reliz Creek Reserve.

  He pulled her camisole over her head, then explored the veritable Napa between her breasts. They writhed around on the forest floor, her nose taking in the bouquet of bougainvillea and body odour.

  She opened his jeans and almost bucked with delight. For he, too, was a Big Sir.’

  Jesus Christ, the dude beside me is playing pocket snooker. ‘You focking filthbag!’ I shout.

  ‘Ssshhh,’ comes the reply.

  ‘He tore off her light cotton skirt and panties and could suddenly feel his manhood hang between them like some throbbing Golden Gate Bridge – bold and graphic and a magnificent feat of engineering.

  She was naked now but for her espadrilles. He attempted to mount her with all the charm of the elephant bull seals she’d seen in Ana Nuevo State Park. But she stopped him and guided their bodies into the position she wanted to be taken from – the reverse cowgirl.’

  ‘Dirtbag!’ I go.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ someone shouts. It might even be Marcia Cross.

  ‘He made several blunt thrusts and she opened like the San Andreas fault. Suddenly they were thrashing nakedly among the bracts. Earthquakes were going off inside her, her crustal plates rubbing bare and sending seismic shudders through her every synapse.’

  ‘You’re a focking filth-monger!’

  I’m suddenly grabbed from behind – it takes, like, two or three of them – but I’m dragged, kicking and screaming, towards the door, going, ‘You’re a focking shambles of a woman! A shambles!’

  ‘Her pleasure came roaring like a giant kahuna breaking on a Pacific beach. He rode his own wave to the finish, then they lay there…’

  I’m going, ‘A sad sack of a woman. With a face like a bag of bent euros.’

  ‘Dirty, naked and perspiring profusely, enjoying the post-coital moment…’

  Sorcha must cop me because I hear her go, ‘Ross? Ross!’

  ‘For an hour they lay there in this Golden State.’

  5. Ross, His Mother, His Wife and Her Lover

  Degrees are fine, Fionn used to always say – but never, under any circumstances, trust a man who frames his diplomas.

  Especially a doctor, he could add.

  I’m having what they call a body assessment, standing stork naked in the consultation room, with San Sancilio poking and prodding me in various places, while constantly tutting and shaking his head, I suppose, disapprovingly?

  He tells me to flex my stomach muscles, which I do. ‘Meester Prune Belly,’ he goes and he laughs, his little pencil moustache bobbing up and down, like he thinks he’s focking hilarious.

  He moves up my body. I wonder is that whiskey I can smell or, like, disinfectant?

  He tells me to flex my pectorals and I tell him I already am. He nods in that just-as-I-suspected kind of way.

  The next thing I hear is the door opening behind me, then Trevion’s voice.

  ‘Out of control,’ he goes and somehow I know that he’s reading the headline from a newspaper. ‘Twelve hours in the life of an Irish hellraiser. Thrown off movie set after row with child star Danny Lintz. Verbally abuses author mother at public reading. Then falls down drunk in Area Nightclub.’

  ‘Look, it’s all true,’ I go, bracing myself for a serious bollocking.

  Instead, roysh, he just laughs. ‘Kid,’ he goes, ‘I got to admit it, I got you all wrong. All wrong. I mean, here I been trying to turn you into the next Joey Fatone…’

  There’s something different about him. It’s his clobber. Yeah, he’s wearing, like, a jacket and tie. I’ve only ever seen him in, like, short-sleeved shirts before?

  ‘You ain’t no Joey Fatone,’ he goes, ‘and you ain’t never gonna be neither. This is you!’ and he waves the newspaper at me. ‘An asshole! I forgot how much people love an asshole.’

  ‘Well,’ I go, ‘that’s very much what I would have been considered back in Ireland? I’ve always believed in, like, playing to your strengths?’

  He’s there, ‘I got all sorts of people ringing today. I got MTV asking about you.’

  ‘As in actual MTV?’

  ‘That’s right, Snowflake. You fucking betcha. They’re excited. Might even want to do something with you. But I want you to forget about all that for a minute – I got a question for you. Now, you know I’m not normally a man who goes in for all that mushy shit, right?’

  I’m like, ‘Er, right,’ wondering where this is going.

  ‘You ever pull a Korean bayonet out of your own stomach?’

  ‘No – it’s on the list, though.’

  ‘Laugh it up, Smart Mouth. What I’m saying is, when you look at that knife and you see, smeared all over it, the fucking shit you had for breakfast, it changes you. You never see the world through the same eyes again…’

  I’m like, ‘Er, where is all this going?’

  He goes, ‘What kind of flowers does your mother like?’

  I laugh. The jacket and tie. Suddenly it all makes sense. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for her – you focking sap!’

  ‘Hey, I just want to send her some flowers,’ he goes, a bit too defensiv
ely?

  I’m there, ‘Dude, honestly – you do not want to go there. I swear to fock, two weeks and you’ll be wishing you were back in Korea.’

  ‘You won’t tell me what flowers she likes?’

  ‘All I’m saying is you can do way better than her…’

  The thing is, roysh, I’m also thinking about him? Having him as her agent is one thing, but there’s no way she’d be seen in public with him on her orm, especially with that face. Knowing her, she’s probably got designs on Andy Garcia or one of that lot. If she burns Trevion, it could fock up my career before it gets even properly storted.

  But he ends up just staring at me, roysh, until I eventually tell him that her favourite flowers are birds of paradise, knowing of course that she’s allergic to them – they make shit of her sinuses.

  He says good, twice, maybe three times, then he turns around to San Sancilio and asks him what he thinks. San nods and says he thinks he can do something with me, then he thanks Trevion for the Lakers tickets and Trevion says forget about it already. He goes, ‘You’re doing this, ain’t you?’ meaning my operation.

  I’m like, ‘Whoa back!’ suddenly grabbing my clothes. ‘He’s doing it for Lakers tickets?’

  ‘No,’ Trevion goes, ‘he’s doing it for great Lakers tickets. Centre court, front fucking row, my friend. Anyways – San, talk him through what you’re going to do,’ then he whips out his mobile, dials directory enquiries and asks for the number of a florist in Beverly Hills.

  So San storts rattling off all the shit he’s going to do to me? First, he’s going to slice me from hip to hip – or heep to heep, because he talks like focking Manuel out of Fawlty Towers. And as he says it, I can feel his felt-tip morker trace, like, a dotted line right across my waist. He’s going to detach the skin from my abdominal wall, tighten the muscles and fascia using sutures and then remove the excess fat and skin.

  I’m like, ‘Er, I’m not sure I need to be hearing this?’ suddenly feeling Moby again.