The Oh My God Delusion Read online

  Amie with an ie thinks that Manolo Blahnik should be indicted for – oh my God – war crimes? And Jimmy Choo as well. ‘Those shoes of theirs,’ she goes, ‘they’re, like, the real weapons of mass destruction?’

  The birds know she doesn’t mean it. She’s upset. They’re all upset. Hospital waiting rooms aren’t exactly top of anyone’s fun list and, having worn pretty much nothing but designer heels themselves since they were seventeen years old, they wouldn’t be human if they weren’t worried about their own sherbets. ‘It’s an actual fact,’ Sophie goes, ‘that most shoes are designed by, like, gay men?’ You could suddenly cut the atmosphere with a knife. Sorcha’s like, ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ because some of her best friends in first year in college were gay. ‘Er, it stands to reason,’ Sophie goes, ‘that they hate women, doesn’t it? It’s, like, why else would they make something so beautiful so deadly.’ Fionn looks up from his newspaper and pushes his glasses up on his nose. It’s obvious he’s going to say something about the state of the country. What he ends up saying is that in ten years’ time, all of those destination spa hotels they put up in, like, Wicklow and Kildare will be our Iranian palaces – as in, they’ll just be, like, museums, to remind people of the shame of our decadent past. I roll my eyes, thinking, yeah, that might pass as conversation in the school staffroom, Dude, but not here. Except JP ends up actually encouraging him. He says, yeah, what Chloe’s going through in there is the perfect metaphor for our age, isn’t it? As in, we all walked tall for a time, but nature always claims its forfeit. Of course there ends up being a whole conversation then about how bad shit is out there and how it’s affecting us each personally. Amie with an ie says the Berkeley Court is doing rooms for, like, twenty euros a night now, which is, like, cheaper than a taxi home for her. Even The Dubliner is saying that staying out is the new going home. Sorcha just stares at me. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure there’s, like, a tear in the corner of her eye. ‘We had our wedding in the Berkeley Court,’ she goes, a definite edge in her voice, like it’s somehow my fault? She shakes her head and looks away. ‘Oh my God, it’s just, like, everything. Did I tell you guys about the Denby?’ Everyone nods. Sophie says let’s not depress ourselves. Chloe wouldn’t want us sitting around all miserable. I disagree. Like I said, she is a bitch. I remember how horrible she was when Sorcha finished fifth in the UCD Fashion Show Young Designer of the Year competition. In dorker moments, I’ve heard Sorcha say that arthritis in her hips is the least she deserves. But Sophie’s right about us being all, I suppose, down about shit? She’s there, ‘Let’s just have, like, an everyday conversation, like normal people.’ No one says anything for ages. Then Amie with an ie says she’s just storted the second season of Californication and she’s loving it. Fionn says he’s nine episodes into the first season of Prison Break and – please! – no one tell him what happens, although JP says that if he likes Prison Break, he’ll love Dexter, which he can lend him, because he’s just finished, like, the second season? Sophie says she’s eight episodes into the third season of Six Feet Under and five episodes into the first season of Lipstick Jungle, while Sorcha is seven episodes into the first season of Mad Men and also seven episodes into the second season of Damages. I’m just sitting there thinking how one of my great regrets in life is not having had sex with Chloe more often. She has a face like a two-day-old helium balloon, but she rides like an electric bull. ‘Oh my God,’ Sorcha suddenly goes, ‘what is keeping that surgeon? It’s, like, how difficult could it be?’ Amie with an ie puts her orm around her shoulder and tells her everything’s going to be okay. The important thing is that we’ll be the first people she sees when the anaesthetic wears off. ‘Whose hip is she even getting?’ I just happen to go – not an unreasonable question, I would have thought. They all just suddenly crack their holes laughing. And I’m like, ‘What?’ JP’s there, ‘Ross, she’s not getting it from a donor. You don’t leave someone your hips when you die.’ ‘Don’t you?’ ‘No,’ he goes, laughing, again not able to stop himself. ‘She’s getting a prosthetic one.’ I’m like, ‘Oh,’ my mind suddenly working at, like, a hundred miles an hour, or possibly more. ‘Because I was actually thinking when they took her in, imagine if you were given a hip from some random skobe from, I don’t know, Coolock or Sallynoggin or any of those. You get out of hospital, blah blah blah, it’s all coola bualadh, until Saturday afternoon, when you wake up and suddenly find yourself in, I don’t know, the off-licence or the Ilac Centre. As in, the thing’s got focking GPS, built-in …’ Literally everyone laughs, roysh, and I’m thinking, see, this is what I’m famous for, in other words, putting a smile on people’s actual faces. Of course I’m straight on my feet, roysh, and I’m suddenly doing this hilarious shit, as in, walking without actually bending my knees, like the dude out of that Wallace and Gromit – The Wrong focking Trousers – up and down the waiting room, going, ‘Where are you taking me now? Oh, no – Paddy Power in, I don’t know, focking Firhouse, to put the labour money on a horse …’ The head nurse – a total focking goose-flesher, by the way – comes out of the nurse’s station and tells me I’m going to have to either keep the noise down or leave, except I can’t, roysh, because I’m on, like, a roll now? At the top of my voice, I’m giving it, ‘Where are we going now? Oh no – the 75 bus to Tallaght, to see Shamrock focking Rovers play against, I don’t know, whoever else there is! Nooo!’ Fionn and JP are, like, holding their sides laughing, while Sorcha, Sophie and Amie with an ie are crying pretty much tears. ‘Oh my God,’ Sophie just about manages to go, ‘you are so funny.’ I’m there, ‘It’d actually be a good movie, wouldn’t it?’ The nurse – she really is a disgrace, looks-wise – reminds me that this is a hospital, full of people who are either sick or having important cosmetic procedures and any more disruption from me and she’ll be forced to phone for security. But the important thing is, roysh, everyone’s laughing. One of the things I’ve always really loved about myself is that in times of – I think the word is, like, adversary? – I’ve always been able to inspire people and boost their spirits. But then, roysh, without any warning at all, the big double doors swing open and Chloe is suddenly pushed through them on, like, a trolley, still out of the game. The birds have suddenly forgotten about my words of, I suppose, inspiration. They’re running alongside Chloe, talking to her, even though she can’t actually hear them? They do say that kind of shit helps with, like, coma victims and blah blah blah. Amie with an ie tells her that they’ll all go for a medi-pedi when she gets better, in maybe Revive, or The Beauty Suite, we’re talking, like, the full Indian rose scrub? The next thing, roysh, the trolley takes a right turn into what turns out to be the recovery room and we’re all suddenly left outside again, looking through a big round window at Chloe, spitting zeds, the heavy bandaging visible under, like, her hospital gown. Sorcha bursts into tears. It’s all very Izzie focking Stevens. She says what if Chloe can never wear amazing shoes again? I put my orm around her and tell her that won’t happen. Don’t even think it. Sophie just, like, stares through the window and says if she can’t, she’s going to ask her for her Viktor & Rolf aubergine closed-toes. As in, like, the patent ones? It’s Erika who answers the door. It’s, like, ages since I’ve even been in her gaff, although the old man seems to have got his Deep Heat under the table, given the way he’s shouting his focking mouth off in there. At first, roysh, she’s not going to even let me in. She goes, ‘Hennessy’s here,’ like she expects me to go, oh, pity that, I’ll talk to the old man some other time. Instead, I just go, ‘So focking what?’ and she obviously can’t think of an answer to that, because she sort of, like, rolls her eyes, then steps to one side. I’m there, ‘What is your issue? I’m not going to steal him away from you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m only here because my cor insurance is due.’ ‘You’re here to bleed money out of him. God, he must be so proud of you, Ross.’ There’s, like, no way I’m ta
king that from her. ‘Remember,’ I go, ‘you haven’t known him that long? This is all still new to you. Give it time – you’ll learn.’ She gives me this look, like a girl who’s just dropped a wet fart in her wedding dress, then she leads me down the hall to his new study, which, I can’t help but notice, is almost identical to his old study – as in, the one in Foxrock? – right down to the oak-effect panelling and the photograph of him with Dermot Desmond and David Duval in the lobby of the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados. I don’t know why it pisses me off? It just does? ‘Here he comes,’ is his first reaction when he sees me, ‘the greatest unfulfilled talent in the history of Irish rugby,’ trying to suck up to me. He’s smoking a Cohiba the size of a focking chilli dog – as is Hennessy. ‘Did you see the Harlequins match?’ I’m there, ‘Course I saw the focking Horlequins match.’ ‘Whither the ladyboys tag now, eh, Ross?’ Hennessy tries to get in on the act then. ‘They certainly proved they can win ugly.’ ‘They most certainly did,’ the old man tries to go. ‘I was just saying to your godfather here, Ross, I know it’s the – inverted commas – old enemy of Munster next, but I’m rather coming to the view that this might be Leinster’s year …’ I’m there, ‘I said that ages ago.’ ‘Did you?’ ‘Yeah – ages! In focking Idle Wilde in Dalkey. It was even after we lost to Castres. I was having a bit of brekky with Fionn and JP, like we do the morning after every big game. I’d the eggs focking Benedict, if you don’t believe me. Then I said I’ve a feeling we’re going to win the European Cup this year. That was my actual analysis – ask them.’ ‘Not necessary,’ he goes, still trying to butter me up. ‘I believe you. Your reading of the game was always second to none.’ I look over my shoulder. Erika’s standing in the doorway of the study. There’s, like, a definite tension between them? ‘We, er, might reconvene,’ the old man goes to her, ‘in, shall we say, twenty minutes?’ I suddenly cop it. They were obviously talking about the whole Toddy Rathfriland thing when I walked in on them. ‘I doubt it’ll be twenty minutes,’ she goes. ‘He’s only here for the money for his car insurance,’ then she swans off down the hall to the kitchen with her focking nose in the air. ‘What is her issue?’ I go. ‘Why does she always have to be so unpleasant?’ Hennessy makes his excuses then. He says he’s going to ask her to make another pot of that French vanilla coffee of hers, then he focks off and leaves us to it. ‘This is very cosy,’ I go, nodding at the walls. I’m talking about the photo of him sitting on Hennessy’s shoulders, the night he was elected to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, then the autographed picture of Tiger Woods I gave him – his pride and joy, even though I actually forged the signature myself when I woke up one Christmas morning with no present for the focker. See, all this shit used to be in his study in Foxrock. ‘Anyway,’ I go, seeing no point in wasting time here, ‘Erika’s right, my insurance is due. And the bad news for you is that it’s going to be, like, four and a half grand …’ He’s suddenly giving it, ‘Whoa, Ross, not so fast. Let’s you and I have a little catch-up – well, we’ve hardly seen each other since Cardiff …’ ‘Maybe that’s because, unlike Erika, I’m not into playing happy families.’ He ignores that one and goes, ‘The big news is that plans for the Mountjoy Hotel and Conference Centre are at an advanced stage and the signals that Hennessy and I have been getting from the Office of Public Works, re our submission, have been of a very positive nature …’ ‘Whoopee-focking-doo.’ ‘The good news doesn’t end there either. No, I’ve asked your mother if she’d be interested in running A Hungry Feeling, the lobby café. You know she’s taken a sabbatical from her writing – got this new cookery show of hers on RTÉ. Well, imagine, when we’re opening our doors, if we could say, ‘Menu in the lobby lounge devised by Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly, the star of RTÉ’s FO’CK Cooking.’ Oh, it’d be a coup, Ross, and no mistake.’ He balances his cigor on the edge of the desk and says he had an ortist draw up an impression of what the café’s going to look like, just to try to persuade her, then he storts rooting through drawers, obviously looking for it. I’m about to tell him not to bother his hole, I’ve zero interest anyway, when all of a sudden – for whatever reason – this piece of paper on his desk catches my eye. I’ve no idea how, roysh, but it’s like I instantly know that this is what he was discussing with Erika and Hennessy when I walked through the door. It’s, like, screaming out for me to read it, so I sort of, like, turn it towards me, then stort giving it the old left to right. The first thing that leaps off the page is the signature at the bottom, we’re talking Regina Rathfriland, who I immediately take to be Toddy Rathfriland’s wife. It turns out to be her, I suppose you’d have to call it, testimony? ‘It must be here somewhere,’ the old man’s going, turning the place over behind me. ‘I had my hand on it this morning.’ ‘Just try and find it,’ I go, just to buy myself some time. ‘Maybe I can help you talk the old dear into it …’ I stort reading. It’s like, Toddy always kept late hours. That’s the nature of the restaurant business. I can’t say exactly when I suspected that he was having an affair. He’d withdrawn from me a long, long time before that. I think it was something that slowly dawned on me. Maybe it was the sudden improvement in his mood. He definitely started to take more of an interest in his appearance. His hair’s dyed, everyone knows that, but he was suddenly having it recoloured every two weeks, instead of every, say, six. And much blacker than he used to. Definitely a shade or two. I thought it put years on him, not took them off … Blah blah blah. Ah, here we go. One morning he was on the phone. I came home from gospel choir practice – I admit, I’d started to sneak around, hoping to catch him in the act – and I heard him say Sugar Tits. Yes, Sugar Tits. But like it was a pet name or something. Then I started to question myself, as you do. I thought maybe I’d misheard him – trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, you see. But then he said it again, clear as a bell this time. I love you too, Sugar Tits … I actually laugh out loud. So much for the old man’s lies and innuendo. I didn’t confront him about it. Oh, it was partly shock and partly being scared. I didn’t want to bring it to a head immediately. It would mean our marriage was over – which it was in that moment, don’t get me wrong – but I needed time to come to terms with it. But about a month later, I decided I was ready. I told Toddy I was going to London for a few days to visit my sister Naoise, which I wasn’t at all. I stayed in the Grand in Malahide, which is only a mile from the house. I suppose I was setting a trap. I knew he’d bring her – whoever she was – to the house, because that’s Toddy. He’d want to show her everything he owned, because that’s how just pathetically insecure he is … The old man’s still opening and closing drawers, going, ‘Perhaps Helen took it …’ I’m there, ‘Just keep focking looking, you dope.’ I thought he might at least wait a night or two. But no, it was that very night. I left the hotel at about eight o’clock, intending just to drive past the house. There was a black Ford Explorer parked in the driveway … Yeah, Erika drives a black Ford Explorer. I parked out on the road, used my remote control to open the gates, then let myself into the house, as quietly as I could. I tiptoed upstairs, even though it wasn’t necessary. I could have driven ten horses up there and they wouldn’t have heard for the noise they were making in that room. I had to see it, even though I knew it was going to be painful. So I pushed the door … Toddy was on top of her, naked, except for – and this is difficult for me – the pink Gant tie that I bought him as a present when he opened The Garden of Eatin in Howth. She had no clothes on either and he had smeared her body with this, well, this cardamom pear sorbet that I had in the freezer. It’s funny the things that go through your mind at a moment like that – I remember thinking, Toddy’s never been a sorbet eater. She was the one who noticed me first. Like I said, he was on top, with his back to me. She was lying on her back, looking at the door. Anyway, she saw me standing there and it didn’t seem to bother her one bit. In fact the opposite was the case. She looked me straight in the eye and, ho
nest to God, she actually smiled at me, obviously getting some kind of sick pleasure out of me catching them in the act. She didn’t tell him either. She just tightened the tie around his neck, two or three twists and said, ‘Keep going, Toddy – don’t stop now!’ ‘Perhaps I’ll just check with Hennessy,’ the old man goes. ‘See if he can’t tell me what I’ve done with the bloody thing …’ He slips out of the room. I’m thinking, so much for his sweet, innocent daughter. I grab the page and bring it over to the fax machine. It’s the one we had in Foxrock, roysh, so I know straight away how to use it. I put the page in place and press the copy button. It goes through, like, an inch at a time, spitting the photocopy out the other end, again, bit by bit. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting him to blunder back into the room at any second. It takes about a minute, roysh, but it eventually goes through. I put the original back on his desk, then fold up the copy and stick it in the sky rocket of my chinos. Then I spot his cigor, balanced on the side of the desk, still smoking away. I pick it up, then hold the lit end to the nice cream-coloured corpet, burning a dirty big hole in it. Then I lay the cigor down beside it. It’s at that exact moment that he comes back, going, ‘Found it, Ross! Panic over! Seems Helen was perusing the thing over breakfast this morning. Can you smell burning, by the way?’ I’m there, ‘No.’ He hands me the so-called ortist’s impression. I barely even glance at the focking thing. ‘Amazing,’ I go, handing it straight back to him. ‘The tosser deserves a gold stor for that.’ He’s there, ‘And you can imagine how packed it’ll be – what, with your mother’s prawn and harissa couscous, to say nothing of her venison sausages with mash and leek gravy? Are you sure you can’t smell something, Ross?’ I’m like, ‘How the fock would I know? Maybe you dropped your focking cigor on the floor – have you considered that?’ His eyes immediately go to the edge of the desk, where he left it, then to the floor below. ‘Oh, no,’ he goes, the big drama routine, reaching down and picking it up. ‘Look what I’ve done to the Axminster!’ I’m there, ‘Anyway, klutz – like I said, I need four and a half grand. Transfer it to my account, will you?’ ‘Yes, of course,’ he goes, barely able to tear his eyes away from the damage. I decide to hit the bricks, though I only manage to get as far as the door before he’s in my ear again. ‘Oh,’ he shouts after me, ‘your mother’s booked L’Ecrivain for next Friday. For the five of us. A kind of extended family dinner. You and I might work on her together. A Hungry Feeling, what? Bit of persuasion? The old O’Carroll-Kelly pincer movement?’ I’m just like, ‘Whatever.’ Or maybe I don’t say anything. Complimentary green tea beberos. Yeah, that’s exactly my reaction. ‘Er, what?’ ‘Don’t give me that,’ Sorcha goes. ‘It’s a premium matcha tea, Ross. In fact, it’s practically a superfood?’ I’m there, ‘Is it?’ except, of course, she’s got a face on her now, because she knows I’m Scooby Dubious. ‘I don’t remember even asking for your opinion,’ she goes. ‘If you must know, it’s, like, a 900-year tradition in Japan. It’s grown under the shade of handmade bamboo-reed canopies and it’s got, like, antioxidants, B-complex and, oh my God, loads of other stuff in it.’ I’m there, ‘Babes, I’m not dissing the actual tea. I’m just not sure that giving it out for free is the way to get bodies into your shop. What you seem to be forgetting is that people – especially Irish people – love ripping the piss when it comes to, like, free shit. They’re going to go, “Hey, don’t have to spend four or five snots on a macchiato on the way to work any more – job’s a good ’un!”’ She just, like, stares into her Flirtini – flattened by the old Straight Talk Express. I’m there, ‘Look, Babes, one of the things that even you’d have to admit about me is that I’ve never been afraid to tell it. What I’m saying is, I don’t think it’s going to help you sell any extra clobber. In fact, all you’re actually going to do long term is piss off Storbucks. And you know how I feel about that.’ ‘You sound just like Erika.’ ‘Erika?’ ‘She said the same thing.’ I pull a face. ‘I think Erika would be better off concentrating on her own problems. I’ve found out one or two things, let’s just say.’ ‘Things?’ ‘Yeah, no, she basically broke up that dude’s marriage and my old man knows the full focking story.’ ‘You’re making it sound sleazy, Ross, which I happen to know it wasn’t.’ ‘I’m just making the point, Babes. All his focking talk – not wanting to see his daughter’s name being dragged through the gutter – when he knows all along what she did. And now I know what she did.’ ‘You couldn’t know.’ ‘Oh, I know. And it was sleazy, by the way – even though I’m a fine one to talk. Actually, I’m thinking of putting the whole thing up on my Facebook page.’ ‘What whole thing?’ ‘Hey, you’ll see. Just keep your eyes on my status updates, especially one that says, Ross has become a fan of “Toddy Was Never a Sorbet Eater!”’ Saba is rammers, especially for a Monday night in a country that’s supposedly focked? I ask her if she fancies another Knickerdropper Glory, although obviously I don’t call it that. She says no. ‘I don’t even know what I’m doing here,’ she goes, sort of, like, making to stand up. This is before our storters have even arrived? ‘I should be with my daughter.’ I reach over and sort of, like, touch her orm. ‘Honor’s fine,’ I go, which she obviously is, because Sorcha’s old pair have her for the night. She’s there, ‘Maybe I should just ring and check on her.’ ‘Or maybe,’ I go, ‘you should just chillax. How long is it since you had a night out?’ She doesn’t answer, just sits back in her seat again. I catch the waiter’s eye and tell him I’ll have the same again drinks-wise. Did I mention that she looks incredible? ‘Anyway,’ I go, ‘let’s just forget about the whole current economic thing. It’s, like, so depressing. Let’s just change the subject.’ ‘Okay,’ she goes, spreading her napkin across her lap. ‘I heard you slept with Keelyn.’ It’s like, whoa, she pulled that out of nowhere. I’m there, ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Don’t even try to deny it, Ross. She came into the shop today and told me that you slept with her.’ She snaps her chopsticks aport. I’m there, ‘Is that what she’s claiming?’ ‘Come on, Ross,’ she goes, ‘the only reason she slept with you was so she could come into the shop and tell me. For someone who prides himself on being a male slut, you don’t understand women, do you?’ ‘Hey, I never claimed to – if some of the most intelligent men in, you’d have to say, history couldn’t understand them, what chance have I got?’ My drink arrives – another Sidecor. I’m there, ‘Do you mind me saying, you don’t seem as pissed off as I thought you’d be?’ She shrugs. ‘Why would I be? We’re both free agents,’ then we end up just sitting there for the next few minutes, neither of us saying shit. It doesn’t take long for the conversation to return to the whole current eonomic business. ‘I’m only doing what your dad suggested,’ she eventually goes. ‘I’m talking about his letter in last Saturday’s Irish Times? He said there’s still money out there during an actual recession, Ross. You just have to find out what it is that people want – preferably something original – and give it to them …’ I reach across the table and give her hand a bit of a rub. ‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ I go. ‘All I’m saying, Ross, is I’m really trying.’ ‘I know you’re trying. Like I said, I’m really sorry and shit?’ This, you might be surprised to hear, isn’t me suddenly trying to get in there while she’s vulnerable. No, this is one of those situations – like when you ask your new girlfriend to hide in the bathroom while your ex gets the rest of her shit together. It’s called being a gentleman. ‘You know Guess is gone from South Anne Street?’ she suddenly goes. I let go of her hand and nod sort of, like, sadly. I tell her I heard. I just didn’t know whether to say anything. ‘It’s like, if that can just be gone one morning,’ she goes, ‘it’s, like, oh my God, what chance is there for anyone else? Calum Best opened it, Ross.’ ‘I know, Babes. I know.’ I can’t bring myself to tell her that Nine West went tango uniform in the rhubarb this morning as well. I know I should, but she seems so already down? She’s suddenl
y, like, staring over my shoulder at all the black and white photos on the wall of all these – I have to say the word – Asian people, driving tuk-tuks and doing basically whatever else. She says that some days she feels like just taking off and doing something really mad. I remind her that she’s been talking for ages about trekking the Annapurnas to raise money for river blindness. Maybe it’s time to give that a whirl. She just shakes her head. ‘I’m talking, like, totally mad,’ she goes. ‘Like just dropping out of the whole – I don’t know – rat race. Maybe backpacking around Thailand, Vietnam and Laos …’ She shrugs, then takes a sip of her drink. ‘Claire came home last weekend,’ she goes, ‘and – oh! my God! – the experiences she had!’ I’m there, ‘Experiences? As in?’ She’s like, ‘As in, loads, Ross. I can’t give you specifics. Have you not been reading her mails?’ ‘The odd one. They’re shit.’ ‘Well, loads is all I’m saying. She even got some Asian writing tattooed on her wrist.’ ‘Claire is from Bray,’ I remind her. ‘She can carry that kind of shit off.’ ‘I’m not saying I want a tattoo, Ross. I’m just saying that sometimes I want to just, like, flip out and do something wild. Like, just as an example, another day, she got talking to this guy who was just reading a copy of The Sorrow of War outside an internet café in Hanoi. It turned out he was from, like, Greystones. Can you believe the coincidence of that?’ Er, considering that half of focking Ireland’s over there at any given time, yeah. ‘It is pretty amazing,’ I go. She’s like, ‘It’s more than amazing – it’s, like, fate, Ross. Because now they’re back here and they’re actually madly in love. They called in to the shop on Saturday – Garret’s his name – and she looked amazing, Ross, even though she was only wearing this, like, printed tea dress from Urban Outfitters?’ ‘But you couldn’t just take off like that anyway,’ I suddenly go. ‘We’ve got an actual daughter together, remember?’ She immediately looks guilty for even thinking it and I feel guilty for reminding her. Our main courses arrive. I go to pick up my fork and she asks me if she can say something that might sound a little bit, I don’t know, cheesy? I’m there, ‘Cheesy? Shoot, Babes – let me be the judge of that.’ ‘Okay,’ she goes, ‘I was thinking about what you were saying that day in the shop – about us maybe putting the divorce on hold?’ I actually stop, a prawn from my Pad Thai frozen in mid-air somewhere between my plate and my Von Trapp. I’m there, ‘Excuse me?’ She goes, ‘I’m saying I don’t want to get divorced, Ross. Not at the moment. Everything’s just – oh my God – so already depressing? I’m asking can we just let things sit for a while?’ I’m wondering has the Keelyn thing reminded her that she still has feelings for me. I don’t want to take advantage of the situation, but I still end up having to go, ‘Are you saying I could get back in there – if I wanted?’ and don’t ask me why, roysh, but I end up nodding at her chest. She goes, ‘No, Ross, you can’t get back in here, as you put it. We’re over. We were over a long time ago. And you being with Keelyn was – oh my God – so a reminder of why? The thing is, I don’t want to be married to you – but it’s just that I don’t want to be divorced from you even more. Can you understand that?’ And there’s me, not a focking didgeridoo what’s she’s banging on about. I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course – a hundred percent.’ One F rings me while I’m in the scratcher watching Loose Women, which isn’t anything like the programme it promises to be, by the way. He says he’s looking for a favour. It turns out some colleague of his in the Plumber’s Shithouse Companion – or whatever rag it is he writes for – is looking for my old dear’s number. I go, ‘Dude, my old dear’s number is, like, a state secret. You have no idea how seriously she takes that whole privacy thing. What do they want it for anyway?’ ‘Ah, they’re ringing around various RTÉ celebrities,’ he goes, ‘and trying to embarrass them into taking a cut in their wages.’ I’m there, ‘Now that is what I call journalism.’ ‘Thanks.’ ‘Okay, take this down …’ ‘Bet you never thought you’d be sitting in the front of a flatbed truck,’ JP’s old man goes to me. He’s right – although my defence is that at least I’m only along for the ride. ‘Lot of people out there doing a lot of shit they never thought they’d be doing,’ he goes. ‘You see the news last night?’ I shake my head. Not unless it was the one that Glenda Gilson was reading. Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon’s reps have denied rumours that the couple are set to split. ‘People queuing,’ he goes, ‘for fucking burger jobs. And I’m talking about good people – solicitors, architects, accountants, quantity surveyors. I’m telling you, this country is royally fucked,’ except he says it like it’s an actual good thing? JP’s sitting on the other side of me, behind the wheel. ‘What my dad means is that we’re only going to get busier,’ he goes. ‘I mean, this truck is only the start of it, Ross. We’re already talking about hiring.’ I get the distinct feeling that I’m about to be offered a job. I quickly change the subject. I ask them what we’re even repossessing here and JP says a hot tub. We all hop out of the truck. It’s pissing so hord you’d nearly feel the urge to stort rounding up two of every animal. ‘It was bought on hire purchase,’ JP goes. ‘The guy stopped making repayments about six months ago.’ His old man grabs a toolbox from the back of the van. ‘No sledgehammer?’ I go. He actually laughs. He says no, they always get the hot tubs without a fight. ‘You take someone’s E-Class, his A6, his X5, his Continental GT, you could be driving away with that bastard sprawled across the bonnet, sobbing his fucking heart out. But the hot tubs, they generally come quietly …’ ‘People are embarrassed by them,’ JP goes. ‘Remind them of how stupid they were.’ I suppose we were all guilty of stupidity. I paid ninety squids for a Nigella Lawson saltpig for Sorcha one Christmas. I’d say even the word ‘saltpig’ is going to, like, disappear from the language. The front door of the house opens and out walks this dude, probably about my age, two o’clock in the afternoon, still in his dressing-gown, although a lot of my critics would say that I’m one to focking criticize. ‘It’s back here,’ he goes, leading us around the back of the gaff, not seeming to give a shit. Seems to just want it gone, just like JP’s old man said. It’s at, like, the bottom of the gorden. There’s, like, two or three steps up to this little decking area, then in the corner of it there’s this, like, humungous bath, as big as the one I saw Hugh Hefner sitting in on Cribs, except this is at the back of a gaff in Luttrellstown. JP says we might need a bigger truck, but his old man says no, you’d be surprised how small these things are when they’re, like, broken down. The dude they’re, like, repossessing it from just shakes his head. He’s like, ‘What was I thinking?’ The rain’s hammering off the tarpaulin cover like a donkey pissing on a flat rock. ‘Ah, I saw people do crazier shit,’ JP’s old man goes. Then he shrugs. ‘They were the times.’ The dude just nods. ‘I don’t know who we thought we were,’ he goes. He looks back up at the house. ‘A million-euro mortgage doesn’t make you a millionaire – that’s the lesson, isn’t it?’ Of course he’s saying it to the man who might have even sold him the gaff. ‘Ah, maybe we’ll all deal with it better the next time round,’ JP’s old man goes. ‘Hey, have you got the assembly instructions for this thing? Makes it easier for us.’ The goy just nods, then turns around and trudges back to the gaff. The second he’s gone – I swear to fock – JP’s old man storts taking off his clothes. First he whips off his Barbour Stockman, then he takes his shirt and his pink cable-knit Ralph off over his head together. This is in the pelting rain, remember. ‘Er, what are you doing?’ I end up having to go. ‘Well,’ he goes, tipping up the steps, then ripping back the tarpaulin, ‘if I’m guessing right …’ He sticks his hand into it. ‘Still hot,’ he goes, delighted with himself. ‘See, they never can resist it – one last guilty dip.’ He steps out of his Kurt Geigers, then in one movement whips down his yellow cords and his boxer shorts, while me and JP stand there watching his grey flabby orse disappear over the side like a focking elephant seal finding the ocean. JP ju
st shrugs, then storts whipping off his own threads and, the next thing anyone knows, he’s in there as well. So – suddenly feeling like a spare tit just standing there – I end up having to just follow them in. The water, it has to be said, is amazing – as in, roasting hot? JP’s old man fannies about with the controls and gets the jets going and all of a sudden, roysh, you could nearly forget you were sitting in the total raw in some random stranger’s gorden in the middle of, I don’t know, wherever the fock Luttrellstown is. ‘So what about it?’ JP’s old man suddenly goes. I have to nearly squint to see him through the fog of eucalyptus steam. He’s lying back with his head resting on a leather pillow and his eyes closed. ‘You want to join us? The team that helped build the Celtic Tiger – re-formed and taking it back!’ I’m there, ‘I don’t know, Mr Conroy …’ ‘Do you want to know what I like about you, Ross?’ ‘I’ve no conscience. You told me that when I was selling gaffs for you.’ ‘Well, I wasn’t blowing smoke up your hole either. I meant every word of it. Now I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told you before. Do you remember that bird Alice, used to do the accounts for me, with the big milkers?’ ‘Is she one of the ones who took the sexual harassment case against you?’ He suddenly opens his eyes. ‘Why are you bringing that up? I’m telling you a nice story here.’ ‘Sorry.’ ‘Okay. Well, before all that, Alice was a medium. And I’m not talking about her fucking bra size here. She had powers, Ross. Genuine powers. Could contact the dead and all sorts of shit. Anyway, the very first day you walked through my door, your first day at work, I caught her looking at you …’ ‘She did have a thing for me.’ ‘No, I mean looking at you funny. See, I thought the same as you. I thought, oh, here’s another poor mare about to get her heart kicked around in the dirt. But then you were on the phone. Ah, you were trying to bleed an extra thirty grand from some pair of newlyweds – for some fucking ant chamber on the Lucan Road. Yeah, they were the days. And Alice was just looking at you, like I said, funny. ‘So the next thing, she jumps up from her desk and she runs out of the place. Out the fucking door. So I ran after her. She was standing outside Hemingways, trying to light a fag, except her hands were shaking too much. Cut a long story short, I says to her, “What’s wrong?” And she says, “That guy in there – the new guy? – he has no aura.”’ ‘No aura?’ ‘That’s what she said. No aura. Means you’re empty. Fucking dead inside. Here, take it as a compliment. JP and me, we could certainly use someone like you. In these times – you know what I’m saying?’ I don’t know what to say. I’m a bit, I don’t know, taken aback? I’m there, ‘Er, I think I might, er, pass on it.’ ‘The money’s great,’ it’s JP who goes. ‘Yeah, no, I know things are supposably bad out there? But I honestly hadn’t figured on getting a job …’ ‘Well,’ JP’s old man goes, ‘if you change your mind …’ The owner of the gaff suddenly arrives out again, with the instruction manual in his hand. ‘Don’t mind, do you?’ JP’s old man goes, sort of, like, indicating the water with a flick of his head. The poor focker doesn’t know what to say, looking at these three randomers, stark Vegas naked in his gorden. ‘Er, no,’ he ends up going, setting the instructions down on top of the patio log burner. ‘I’ll, er, leave you to it.’ JP’s old man is suddenly squinting back at the house. ‘That your wife,’ he goes, ‘looking out the upstairs window?’ The dude has a look over his shoulder. He’s like, ‘Yeah,’ and then, for whatever reason, he adds, ‘She was in recruitment.’ JP’s old man nods, I suppose you’d have to say, thoughtfully? He says she sure is a pretty lady. The old man says he’s already looking forward to dessert. The cheese board rolled past a minute ago and he says he’d bet ten euros to my twenty that he smelled Roomano. I shrug, as if to say, what makes you think I give a fock? He goes, ‘Dutch, don’t you know, despite the Italian-sounding name. Bears a certain resemblance to the Parmigiano Reggiano, except with caramel and butterscotch notes.’ ‘Chaaarles,’ the old dear suddenly goes, sort of, like, pleadingly – the same voice she used to use when she wanted a piece of Lladró or a new baby seal for her back. ‘What was your cholesterol the last time you had it checked?’ ‘Oh, something or other,’ he goes, then he sticks his head back in his menu. Erika chips in then. ‘Fionnuala, it’s like talking to the wall,’ she goes. ‘Mum and I have been trying to get him to slow down …’ Helen shakes her head. ‘Yes, if it’s not the shop, it’s the hotel. If it’s not the hotel, it’s some other idea he’s had. Four o’clock this morning, there he was, bolt upright in the bed, night light on, scribbling away with that Mont Blanc pen of his.’ I check the old dear’s face for a reaction – she bought him that pen, as a thank you present, when the council gave up trying to stick a halting site on Westminster Road – although she genuinely doesn’t seem to give two shits? ‘Oh, it’s just this recession,’ he goes, suddenly looking up again. ‘It isn’t so much that hard times are coming; the change observed is mostly soft times going! Marx said that. Karl or Groucho, I can never remember, though I can check it for you.’ I’m just, like, staring at Helen, wondering what the fock she even sees in him. I’ve always thought she looked like Diane Lane. ‘The point I’m making,’ he goes, ‘is that there’s never been a better time for business. Interest rates are low. Oil is cheap. No pressure on wages. There’s nothing like it, eh, Ross, for getting the old haemoglobin pumping?’ I’m there, ‘Don’t focking include me in that,’ but he just keeps blabbing on. It’s impossible to hurt the focker. ‘I saw Paddy Kelly the other day … cycling! Paddy bloody Kelly – him with all his Rolls-Royces – and there he was, sitting on – quite literally, Fionnuala – one of these famous push-bikes. Well, I knew things hadn’t been going quite so well for him. I shouted out to him. “That’s the spirit, Paddy!” Or something of that colour. Although Erika thinks I might have clipped him with my mirror taking the turn on to Ailesbury Road.’ ‘You did clip him,’ Erika goes, but at the same time she’s, like, laughing? The old man laughs then. It’s, like, way too cosy and it pisses me off that he’s still in obvious denial about the person his daughter actually is? The old dear throws her tuppenies in then. ‘Charles, I know you’re excited, but you and Helen should be enjoying these years together.’ Then she smiles across the table at the woman who’s basically scoring her husband. ‘God knows, you waited long enough.’ I think she really is over him. Helen’s there, ‘Thanks, Fionnuala,’ and I’m honestly about two seconds away from hurling. The waiter suddenly appears – he’s, like, French by the sounds of him – and asks us if we’ve any questions about the menu. The old dear actually laughs. ‘You’re obviously new,’ she goes. ‘I’m Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly. I’m a regular in L’Ecrivain,’ except she totally overdoes the pronunciation, so it sounds like Llleccckkk-ruvon. The dude just nods, then goes, ‘Well, zis week, we haff ze special menoo – fife corsees for seeksty-fife yoro …’ The old dear suddenly stands up. The legs of her chair screech along the wooden floor, causing pretty much every conversation in the place to stop. ‘How dare you!’ she goes. ‘Do we look like the kind of people who want the sixty-five euro menu?’ The poor focker hasn’t a bog. He’s like, ‘Madame?’ ‘Have another waiter sent to our table,’ she goes, ‘this instant! And it’ll be à la carte, like it always was and always will be,’ and she sits down again, then turns to the couple at the next table and goes, ‘Early birds! Grill menus! This used to be the happiest place in the world to live! A survey found that out – hard as it is to believe it now!’ There’s suddenly this, like, awkward silence in the restaurant. I’m just there, ‘Get a focking grip on yourself, you cocktail-crazed good-time girl …’ Erika suddenly pins me with this look and – this is unbelievable – goes, ‘Ross, don’t speak to your mother like that.’ This is Erika, remember. The rest of them are all delighted, of course. The general vibe is that Ross has met his match at last. Let him stick that in his flan crust and bake it. A new waiter appears. Helen says she can’t decide between the scallops and
the Challans duck, then the old dear says she could have one as a storter and the other as, like, a main course? ‘Do you know what I’d love?’ I suddenly go, staring straight at Erika. ‘Sorbet!’ She just freezes. You can see her, roysh, in that split second, trying to work out where I’m getting my actual information from. ‘Sorbet?’ the old man goes, obviously not making the connection. He’s as slow as bananas digesting, see. ‘Yeah,’ I go, ‘I don’t know what’s making me think of it. I’ve just got this sudden craving for the stuff.’ He’s like, ‘Well, it’s just the thing to freshen the palate, Ross. It’s very popular in some places.’ And I’m there, ‘Some places more than others, eh, Erika?’ The old dear obviously hasn’t a clue and neither has he, although I can tell that Helen has suddenly copped it. Erika storts taking a sudden interest in her menu again, totally humiliated. I laugh. I’m thinking, that’s you back in your box. We all order. I end up asking for the scallops followed by the duck as well. The waiter focks off and that’s when the old dear’s phone suddenly rings. She looks at it, sitting there on the table – the ringtone’s some focking Snorah Jones song. ‘Number blocked,’ she goes, picking it up. ‘It might be RTÉ. They’re having awful problems getting their hands on Dwarf Cape gooseberries for my show on Monday.’ ‘A regrettable sign of the times,’ the old man goes. ‘Better answer it, then.’ Which she does. ‘You’re who from what newspaper?’ she’s suddenly going, at the top of her voice. The old man and Helen exchange, I suppose, concerned looks. After, like, five or ten seconds of silence, the old dear goes, ‘A paycut? Why in heaven’s name would I volunteer to take a paycut?’ Obviously, roysh, we can only hear, like, her side of the conversation? ‘Well, good for Pat Kenny!’ she goes. ‘But that’s his concern.’ The old man tells her to just hang up. ‘Share the pain?’ she practically screams down the phone. ‘National interest? How did you even get this number?’ You can imagine me at this stage. I’m practically on the floor laughing, to the point that I suddenly need the Josh Ritter – eight inches of dirty spine that wants crimping. Anyway, to cut a long short, I hit the jacks and do whatever needs doing. Five minutes later, I’m stepping out of Trap Two, a good three pounds lighter, when who’s standing right in front of me – this is in the gents, remember – only Erika, with a face on her as mad as a focking meat-axe. It’s automatic, roysh – I’ve always been a slave to the one-liner – I end up just going, ‘Hey, Sugar Tits – how the hell are you?’ and what happens after that, I can’t exactly say, because it happens in, like, a blizzard of movement. One minute, I’m heading for the sink to wash the old Christian Andersens, the next my head is being cracked off the tile wall and I’m struggling to breathe with this feeling of sudden tightness in my throat. It’s only when my head and my vision clear, roysh, that I realize I’m lying flat on the toilet floor and Erika is standing over me, with the heel of one of her black Christian Louboutin courts pressing down on my windpipe. ‘Where is it?’ she goes, her face so red that I’m convinced she’d be capable of actually killing me here. I’m barely able to get the words out. I’m like, ‘Where’s … what?’ She presses down horder, with pretty much her entire body weight, and I swear to fock, I think my Adam’s apple is about to burst. ‘It’s in my … sky rocket,’ I end up having to go. She’s there, ‘Give it to me,’ the tone in her voice telling me not to even think about focking with her. I reach for my chinos and whip it out. She takes it and then, with her foot still gripping my throat, pops it into her XOXO clutch. ‘I’m … sorry,’ I go. ‘I was tired of the whole … I suppose happy families thing …’ ‘You ever pull a stunt like that again,’ she goes, sort of, like, grinding her foot now, to the point where I’m actually retching, ‘and I’ll kill you.’ Then she takes her foot off my throat, checks her make-up in the mirror and focks off back to the table. I end up just lying on the floor for a good five minutes – even with other customers coming in and out. They all just step over me. One or two ask me if I’m okay, but I just lie there trying to get my breathing back to normal. Eventually, roysh, I get up, fix myself, then go back out to the restaurant. They’ve all, like, finished their storters and my scallops are sitting there, basically cold. ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ the old man goes, ‘I helped myself to one of your thingamys.’ I’m just there, ‘Er, no … it’s cool.’ I can’t even look at Erika – focking scared, I admit – though I know she’s looking at me, grinning like a focking undertaker. ‘What’s that there?’ the old man suddenly has to go then, sort of, like, indicating the right side of my neck with his butter knife. I put my hand to it. There’s something there, all right. It’s, like, an indentation, maybe half an inch deep. ‘It looks about the size of a Louboutin heel,’ Erika goes, with real badness in her voice. Real focking badness. I wake up in some random bed in some random gaff in Rathgor of all places, alone and just lying there while my eyes adjust to the light. I search my head for a name. Estelle? No. Stella? Could be. I do remember her going out the door, though – it must be, like, hours ago now – saying she had to go to work, telling me to let myself out. Hang on. No, Stella was what I was drinking. That was it. Cocoon closed down last night. Another victim of the blahdy blah. You’d almost feel sorry for Eddie Irvine if he didn’t own half of focking Monte Corlo. I remember being all full of concern, asking him, ‘What’s going to happen to all the hairdressers, Irv?’ and he said he didn’t know. Then he got this, like, distant look in his eyes and said I was always popular with that crowd, that I went through Toni and Guy like a dose of contact dermatitis. Which was nice of him. But whoever I went home with last night, I’ve no memory of what she even looked like? I roll out of the bed and throw the old threads on, then tip out to the sort of, like, living room. There’s, like, a photograph on the sideboard of what I presume is her, sitting in a water taxi, with the Sydney focking Opera House in the background. Another one who’s done the whole travelling thing. I pick it up and give her the quick once-over. She’s not great, but then she’s not exactly a daywalker either, just average. Parsley. Vanilla. Cheese and focking onion. I really need to raise my game. My phone rings in my pocket. I’m thinking, it’s either her, making sure I’ve gotten the fock out of her gaff, or it’s JP or Fionn, checking have I still got the old Lemony Snickets for the Leinster v Munster match next weekend. We still owe those fockers at least one, by the way. It ends up being none of the above. It’s, like, Sorcha. And from the, I suppose, commotion I can hear in the background, it’s immediately obvious that something’s wrong. I’m there, ‘Is everything okay with Honor?’ ‘Er, yeah,’ she goes. ‘It’s just that it’s, like, absolutely packed in here today? The Gords have even been in, threatening to charge me with, like, public order offences,’ and something – maybe something in her voice – tells me that she doesn’t mean that in, like, a good way. ‘It doesn’t look like I’m going to get out for lunch,’ she suddenly goes. ‘Would you be an absolute angel, if you’re in town, and get me a slice of quiche from Fallon & Byrne? Mossfield organic cheese and bacon lardons, if they still do it.’ I’m about to ask her what bacon lardons are when, all of a sudden, I hear this woman’s voice on the other end of the line go, ‘This is lukewarm!’ then Sorcha go, ‘Oh! My God! I am so sorry!’ and then the same woman again go, ‘Maybe if you got off the focking phone, you might be able to get my order right.’ Sorcha immediately hangs up. By the sound of things, she’s in obvious trouble, so I decide to hit town. This, after all, is my – still – wife. I walk out on to the street, grab an Andy McNab and get the dude to drop me at, like, Stephen’s Green. I literally peg it down Grafton Street, hang that left turn just after Bewley’s and don’t stop running until I reach the actual Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. When I get there, I literally can’t believe the sight that awaits me? There’s a focking line of people out the door – not the door of the shop, I should add, we’re talking the door of the actual shopping centre? – we’re talking five or maybe six h
undred people, men and birds, young and old, standing on the pavement, two- and three-deep, all the way up South William Street, way past the rear of the actual Westbury. Of course, I’m thinking, no, it couldn’t be, but then I stop and ask some random bird – think Emily Deschanel but as, like, an emo? – what everyone’s queuing for and she sort of, like, shrugs, then goes, ‘Something for free.’ Green tea beberos. What did I tell her? Irish people would sell your focking orse for ports. The mood of the crowd, it has to be said, is pretty hostile, as I follow the line inside the shopping centre and up the steps. People are making a big show of checking their watches and quoting their focking wait time to each other. ‘An hour,’ some dude with floppy hair and a scorf goes to no one in particular. ‘That’s my entire focking lunchbreak!’ Then, as I get closer, I hear this bird say that she’s been waiting even longer than she waited yesterday and that it’s just not good enough. I make my way through the throng of people to the actual shop and I look through the window to see Sorcha, dressed up like a barista, standing behind the counter, her old dear’s Burco bubbling away behind her and three Aeroccinos on the permanent go. Of course she’s working like a cat burying shit on a wooden floor, making sure everyone gets their … whatever the fock these things even are. And at the same time she’s going, ‘I’ve just got exclusive new lines in by Percy, Literature, Nicole Miller and Sue Wong. And Radcliffe jeans, which I think are even more slimming than Sevens, if you can believe that.’ Then other times she’s going, ‘All those items on that rack are ecologically sound!’ But of course no one’s paying the slightest attention to that. They’re collecting their drinks, then turning around and walking straight out of the shop. And that’s if she’s lucky. Some of them have the actual towns to complain. ‘They’re not nearly as nice as I thought they’d be,’ I hear this one old dear go, though she’s still focking drinking it, I notice. Sorcha tries to tell her that she’s going to be doing green tea espressos from tomorrow, but all to no avail. The woman actually laughs in her face and goes, ‘Well, I, for one, won’t be coming back.’ The next person in line, this big fat bird, is just like, ‘Are you going to serve me or are you just going to stand there with your mouth open?’ I know we’re, like, technically not a couple any more, but I can’t even begin to tell you what it does to me, seeing Sorcha treated like that, a girl, remember, who recently changed her Facebook status from ‘Single’ to ‘It’s Complicated’ for me. She suddenly looks up from her, I don’t know, frothers and her various other bits and pieces. ‘Ross!’ she goes, and I swear to God, roysh, the look of, I suppose, desperation in her eyes breaks my actual hort. ‘It looks like you could do with some help,’ I end up just going, no stranger, a lot of people would say, to playing the hero. She smiles at me. ‘Go on,’ I go, ‘hand me that other apron,’ which she immediately does. She thinks, of course, that I’m going to put the focking thing on. Instead, roysh, I get the apron and I twist it into something resembling a bullwhip. Then – without saying another word – I just stort lashing people across the focking shins with it – foo-tish! – going, ‘Out! What the fock do you think this is, a soup kitchen? Out! Out!’ It’s honestly like that scene in, I suppose, the Bible, where Jesus went basically apeshit in the temple. There’s all of a sudden panic. People are turning and running, screaming, for the door. Foo-tish! Foo-tish! I’m cracking the fockers across the backs of their legs and at the same time I’m giving it, ‘Out! Out, you focking parasites!’ There’s suddenly, like, a bottleneck of people at the door, all trying to squeeze through the same space to avoid the wrath of the old Rossmeister. That’s when I spot the big fat bird who said that shit to Sorcha about standing there with, like, her mouth open? She makes, like, a dive for a gap that doesn’t actually exist and she gets sort of, like, jammed there in the crush of bodies. It’s like looking at Gavin Quinnell’s orse sticking out of a ruck. ‘Looks like you want it to go,’ I give it, then I shape up, roysh, to make it a good one. Foo-foo, foo-foo, foo-foo, foo-TISH! Right across the old Derry Air. She roars like a focking bull taking an orseful of buckshot. ‘You want more whip on that?’ I go. These lines are just coming to me, by the way. I suppose you pick them up over the years going in and out of Buckys. Foo-foo, foo-foo, foo-foo, foo-TISH! That finally releases the blockage. The people at the front sort of, like, fall through the doors, then the ones behind them clamber over their bodies to get out. I shut the door and put the catch on, then turn around to Sorcha, expecting her to suddenly throw her orms around me, as grateful as she was the first night I ever slept with her. Her reaction, though, takes me by total surprise. ‘How could you?’ she goes. I’m there, ‘Er, excuse me?’ ‘They were customers, Ross!’ ‘They were freeloaders!’ ‘Someone might have bought something! I heard one girl admire those hibiscus jacquard-print minidresses by Milly.’ ‘Well, I heard another bird say it was a disgrace that you weren’t doing pastries. A disgrace, Sorcha!’ She tries to look away. ‘There’s a recession happening out there,’ I go, ‘and you can’t pretend otherwise. Babes, you can’t make eye contact with people these days without them asking you to validate their focking porking.’ She knows that deep down I’m right. ‘Well,’ she goes, in her usual sulky voice, ‘you scared Honor.’ I’m like, ‘Honor?’ suddenly looking around me. There she is, roysh, sitting on the pink PVC sofa opposite the changing rooms, chatting happily to herself and flicking through the copy of Ross Kemp’s Gangs that Ronan bought her for Christmas. I go over and scoop her up into my orms. ‘Daddy!’ she goes, which is always nice to hear. Whoa! I’m suddenly thinking to myself. How many weeks has she been out of Pre-Montessori now? I’m like, ‘That swine flu scare can’t still be going on …’ Sorcha just turns away from me. ‘Don’t give me that,’ she goes. Which is a strange reaction. I grab her by the shoulder and, like, spin her round. I’m like, ‘Sorcha! Whoa! What the fock is going on?’ It’s Honor who ends up answering. ‘Mommy is sad,’ she goes. I just stare at Sorcha. I’m like, ‘That much is obvious, Honor. But I’d prefer to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.’ Sorcha takes, like, a deep breath. ‘She was expelled,’ she goes – out with it, just like that. It rocks me back on my pretty much heels, I can tell you. I’m there, ‘Expelled?’ Sorcha shakes her head. ‘Expelled, sent home, whatever you want to call it …’ That’s when it all finally comes out. ‘Because I didn’t pay her fees.’ ‘But I pay her fees,’ I go. ‘Hennessy set up that direct debit to your account …’ But then it suddenly hits me. ‘You’ve been using the money to keep this focking place going.’ The tears suddenly arrive. The only surprise is that they’re hers and not mine. ‘The bills were piling up on me,’ she goes. ‘I’ve been struggling to make the repayments on the loan I took out to refit this place. Then there’s, like, rent, rates, suppliers. Something had to give …’ ‘Oh, and that something just happened to be our daughter’s education?’ She ends up losing it with me then. ‘The one thing I always wanted, Ross, ever since Honor was born, was to have something that I could one day pass on to her …’ I’m thinking, you will – a six-figure overdraft. ‘So don’t put that on me,’ she goes. ‘Don’t put that on me, even if it is true.’ I feel automatically bad then, seeing how upset she is and everything? ‘When was it that she was expelled?’ I go. She’s there, ‘A week before Christmas. I asked for more time to pay, but … It was – oh! my God! – horrible, Ross! They pulled her out in front of her entire Mathematical Reasoning class. Made her pack all of her things into a black plastic bag. Plastic, Ross!’ ‘That’s out of order.’ ‘I’ll tell you what else is out of order. She wasn’t even allowed to sit her Royal Academy of Dance ballet examination.’ ‘Jesus.’ ‘So much for Pre-Montessori providing a comprehensive educational approach from birth to adulthood based on the observation of children’s needs.’ I shake my head, I think the word is ruefully? ‘Well, I did tell you to stop ordering in new shit,’ I go. ‘I’m not one for
saying I told you so, which is lucky for you, in this case. But what I still don’t get is, why can’t you just tap your old man for the moo? He must be good for it – family law solicitor, blah blah blah.’ ‘Because,’ she goes, ‘I’m too proud to ask my parents for money – can you understand that?’ ‘Being honest, no.’ ‘You heard my dad talk about me at his sixtieth birthday party, Ross. He described me as one of the great success stories of the Celtic Tiger. I can’t let him know the mess I’ve got myself into – it’d break his, oh my God, heart.’ ‘Don’t cry, Mommy,’ Honor suddenly goes, and it’s amazing, roysh, how the innocence of a child can put everything into sudden perspective. Sorcha sort of, like, laughs, wipes her tears away with her open palm, then takes Honor out of my orms. ‘You know what the worst thing is,’ she whispers to me, ‘every morning when she wakes up, she puts her little boater on her head, thinking she’s going to school …’ I suddenly feel like I’m about to cry? And that’s even before she delivers the even worse news. She takes, like, a deep breath. ‘They’re threatening to repossess the house.’ I’m there, ‘Who?’ ‘See,’ she goes, ‘I knew this is how you’d react.’ ‘I only said who?’ ‘Who the fock do you think, Ross? The bank!’ ‘But why?’ ‘Because of all the money I owe them.’ ‘Jesus, we’ve just come through the Celtic Tiger – everyone owes them money.’ ‘Well, I’ve … missed a lot of repayments.’ ‘I focking suspected that. How many are we talking?’ She looks away again. ‘All of them.’ ‘All of them? Fock’s sake, Sorcha. I thought that last dude you went out with was supposed to be some kind of hotshot auditor?’ ‘Don’t try to lay this on Cillian,’ she goes, pretty much spitting fish out her hole. ‘No one could have predicted this recession, Ross – not when I took out that loan.’ ‘So now they’re threatening to take the roof from over your heads …’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Have you talked to them?’ She shakes her head. ‘I’ve been avoiding their calls.’ I’m there, ‘Jesus Christ, Sorcha. It’s time you took your head out of the basic sand. You’re in serious trouble here. You need to, like, face up to that fact?’ Her face suddenly softens. She doesn’t say anything for ages, just keeps combing Honor’s hair with the tips of her fingers, until Honor eventually gets annoyed by it and sort of, like, slaps her hand away. ‘Well, maybe, I’ll make an appointment to see them,’ she, in the end, goes. ‘First thing Monday morning. They do say that, don’t they? Whatever you do, don’t ignore the problem. Go and talk to them and make, I don’t know, some kind of repayment plan.’ I’m there, ‘It suddenly sounds like you’re talking sense.’ She smiles at me, then gives me the cow eyes, which I never can resist. ‘Ross,’ she goes, ‘will you come with me?’ ‘The auction rooms – I’m told – are full of repossessed X5s,’ Garbhan says, then I pull a face, as if to say, fock, where is it all going to end? Blathin’s old man seems to agree with me. ‘Parents with professions – real professions – are asking schools for time to pay their children’s fees,’ he goes. ‘I heard an economist on the radio this morning – I can’t remember which one – saying this could be the end of the Irish middle class as we know it.’ And this coming from an obstetrician. Maybe my old pair are wrong afer all. Tina’s hanging off the edge of the conversation, probably delighted to hear that people are finally suffering on this side of the river. I subtly check her out. Clothes-wise, she’s a disaster area – we’re talking Ground focking Zero. She’s still wearing, like, her white hospital uniform – I don’t know if I mentioned that she’s working as, like, a trainee nurse in Beaumont now? – having just come off a fourteen-hour shift, with just a fleece thrown over it, then Uggs, which aren’t even real ones, and big hoopy earrings that wouldn’t look out of place with a Chinese gymnast handstanding on them while planning an aerial focking dismount. It’s her son’s girlfriend’s first day as a teenager – she could have made the effort. ‘It’s focking Clonskeagh,’ I go to her out of the side of my mouth. She either doesn’t hear or pretends not to. ‘I’m not sure if it’ll be the end of the middle class in Ireland,’ this Garbhan dude goes. ‘The IMF would step in long before it ever came to that …’ I just nod – all I can do in the circs. But then Tina’s suddenly about to open her trap. I’m thinking, don’t embarrass yourself any more than you already have. ‘I wootunt see dat as bean a good ting,’ she tries to go. ‘De foorst ting deed do if dee kem in would be to cut poobalic seervices. In utter words, it’s the poo-er bein made to pay again for de greed of de rich.’ I turn to Blathin’s old man. ‘She doesn’t mean any offence, Dr Roberts. Possibly just thinking out loud …’ ‘No, she’s quite right,’ he goes. ‘It was greed and speculation that got us into this mess. Nothing else. And there is evidence there – I’ve seen the data – of a sudden spike in diseases such as tuberculosis and cholera in countries that received aid from the IMF.’ I just nod. I’m there, ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.’ ‘Well,’ he goes, ‘what other way is there?’ The three of them are suddenly stood staring at me, waiting for an answer. If I learned anything from being in school, it’s how to bluff my way out of these situations. I sort of, like, laugh to myself – like it’s a private joke? ‘You do not want to get me going on the whole world affairs thing!’ I go. ‘We’d be here until focking midnight!’ then I turn around and go off to work the room. First, though, I need a drink – especially after all that heavy talk – so I hit the kitchen, where the booze is all laid out on the table. There’s no sign of the Celtic Tiger being over in this gaff, by the way – they’ve pushed the boat out in a major way. I grab a glass, then dip it into the punchbowl. I’m just looking around, thinking how porties have certainly changed since I was their age. Blathin’s old pair hired, like, a sushi chef to cater the event – that’s what kids are eating these days – and a team of beauticians to give Bla and her friends makeovers. ‘Excuse me,’ I hear this woman’s voice go, reaching for the gin. I look up and I end up nearly shitting my pants. It’s Granuaile Kneafsey, a bird I used to, well, know, back in my Club 92 days. I’d love to be able to say it ended well. I’m like, ‘How the hell are you?’ thinking, the past is the past – we’re at a kid’s birthday porty, which is no place for a scene. ‘I presume you got the morning-after pill that time, did you?’ Except I say it a bit loud and one or two heads turn our way, including – shit! – Blathin’s old dear. She’s not exactly a fan of mine as it is. Do you ever get the feeling that it’s going to be one of those days? Granuaile looks at me, pretty appalled, it has to be said, then just shakes her head. She pours herself probably a larger whack of gin than she originally intended. I take a sip of my punch, which is weak as piss. ‘So,’ I go, trying to come in from a different angle, ‘are any of these kids yours?’ ‘No,’ she goes, like she’s just barely managing to keep her rag with me, ‘I’m Blathin’s teacher.’ It’s a small world – well, especially if you’ve been around it as many times as I have. ‘This punch needs something,’ I go, acting a bit Jack the Lad, if I’m being honest. ‘Oisinn – I’m not sure if you remember him; big dude – he used to make one back in the day. I’m trying to remember what was in it …’ There was definitely gin, now that I think about it. I’m like, ‘Are you finished with that?’ and I take the bottle out of her hand and lorry a shitload of it into the bowl. There was also brandy, unless I’m very much mistaken, except there’s none on the table, so I grab the Southy and use that instead. Then vodka. Oisinn loves a focking voddy. I tip maybe half a bottle of that in, then throw some JD in on top and give the whole thing a bit of a stir with the ladle. ‘This is going to be actual rocket fuel,’ I go. ‘Don’t be surprised if I end up swinging from the focking chandelier!’ Granuaile looks me up and down and says I haven’t changed, which isn’t intended as a compliment. I just shrug. ‘Never will,’ I go, then I fill my glass and go off looking for Ro. He’s in the living room, surrounded – I’m proud to say – by girls, in other words Blathin and all her friends, who are, like, hanging on his
every word. Birds from this side of the town love a whiff of danger. The boy’s only ploughing ground that his old man worked for many happy years. He’s, like, reeling off all the injuries that his friend Gull managed to get compensation for before he was finally jailed for fraud. I’m just standing in the doorway, so unbelievably proud of him. There’s, like, serious competition for his attention as well and I notice Blathin use her wheelchair to block off this one girl who tries to get too close. You can see that this bird – Kandra – totally loves herself. I leave Ro to it and move on. I go back into the dining room, where I spot this little huddle of young mums – a personal favourite of mine – and I roll in there like a focking bowling ball. ‘Sushi,’ I go, for openers, shaking my head. ‘When I had my thirteenth, it was, like, miniature goat’s cheese quiches and pancetta-wrapped chipolatas. How times change, huh?’ You can see them all looking at me, at the same time thinking, who’s this obvious player? ‘Well, my daughter loves it,’ this one woman, the spits of – being honest – Agyness Deyn, goes. ‘I bring her to Dundrum and I go off shopping and leave her and her friends at the sushi bar …’ I’m like, ‘Raw fish, though. Jesus!’ She laughs. ‘I know. My ex-husband gives out to me – he says, “She’s a twelve-year-old girl, Doireann, not a penguin!”’ I laugh then. I never miss a trick, though. ‘Did you say ex-husband?’ You focking bet she did, because she’s giving me the not-so-subtle message. You can see the other ones looking at her like she’s some kind of fallen woman. I turn my body slightly, to separate her from the herd. ‘Do you mind me paying you a compliment?’ I go. ‘I love birds with short hair.’ She laughs. She’s like, ‘Oh … thank you.’ I’m there, ‘Well, I’ve said it – it’s out there now. I hope you don’t think I’m cracking on to you, but the hair, the cheekbones, even, I have to say it, the big lips – you’ve got it all going on …’ She laughs, except it’s, like, a nervous laugh? Then she takes a sip of her champagne, obviously thinking, pull yourself together – he’s, like, ten years younger than you. I’m there, ‘Like I said, that’s not me coming on to you …’ It’s important to keep saying that, get them thinking, er, why not? See, they actually like you having to work for it? We chat for the next, maybe, hour. I keep giving her more little compliments – one of my tricks of the trade – then I tell her that I’m in pretty much the same boat as her relationship-wise, as in, divorce going through the system, blah blah blah. And you can picture me, I’m sure, with a sincere focking face on me. The upshot of all this is that we sort of, like, agree in principle to go for a coffee some time, as friends, nothing in it, of course. She keys my number into her phone, going, ‘It’s just a coffee!’ and I’m thinking, yeah, you keep telling yourself that, girl. You can see the other women looking at her, thinking, what is she doing? I’m a master of my craft – ain’t no bout-a-doubt it. I’m actually telling her that they do a pretty amazing flat white upstairs in Donnybrook Fair when all of a sudden a scream from the kitchen pretty much pierces our eardrums. Doireann’s hand goes to her mouth. ‘That’s Kandra!’ she goes. I immediately put two and two together and realize that she must be Kandra’s old dear. She goes pegging it out of the room, roysh, and I follow her – out of curiosity as much as anything. It’s when I’m in the hallway that I hear another girl scream, ‘You slut! You focking slut!’ over and over again. I’m thinking, that’s not a phrase you’d associate with Mount Anville – certainly not the junior school anyway. When I reach the kitchen, I end up having to do a double-take, because I literally can’t believe what I’m actually seeing? Blathin – we’re talking sweet, innocent Bla – has gone totally apeshit. She’s got a hold of Kandra’s hair, roysh, and she’s shaking the girl’s head like she’s trying to pull it out. ‘You’re all focking over him!’ she’s at the same time going. ‘He’s my boyfriend, you slut! You focking slut!’ And – get this – Ronan’s stood in between them, trying to loosen Blathin’s grip but the girl’s either too strong, roysh, or in too much of a rage. Even with Doireann’s help, he can’t get her to let go. I’m looking over at Tina, as if to say, it’s all ahead of him – take it from someone who knows. That’s when I hear this sudden splash on the tiles beside me and I look down to see that another one of Blathin’s friends has spewed her sashimi all over the floor, splashing my Dubes, I might add, in the process. Blathin’s old man comes running over to help Ronan and Doireann and he’s the first one to cop it, I suppose being a doctor and everything. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he goes, after he’s managed to prise the two of them aport, ‘they’re drunk!’ Has it ever happened to you, roysh, that you instinctively know that something’s your fault, it’s just that you haven’t found out how yet? ‘Drunk!’ he’s going. ‘How on earth did they …’ I see his nose suddenly twitching, like he’s smelt something, then I watch him follow the trail all the way to the punchbowl. The fumes from it would be enough to put you on your back. ‘Someone’s spiked the Mini Mosa!’ he goes and there’s, like, a collective intake of breath. ‘Someone put alcohol in it.’ The girl who yacked on my shoes suddenly falls – I’m not exaggerating – face forward on the focking floor. I’m thinking, shit! This is bad! This is very, very bad! ‘Someone spiked the what?’ I go – you can picture me, playing the big-time innocent. The woman beside me goes, ‘The fruit punch, for the kiddies,’ and I pull a face, roysh, as if to say, what kind of a focking animal … ‘It was you!’ someone suddenly shouts. I’m there, ‘Sorry?’ getting ready to deny it. Except it’s focking Granuaile – who saw me do it. She’s waited a long time for this moment. Forward she steps. She looks at Blathin’s old dear. ‘It was him,’ she goes, nodding in my general postcode. ‘I watched him. He put everything in there. Vodka, Southern Comfort …’ The looks I’m suddenly getting. Shit! There’s, like, a boy and a girl – couldn’t be more than eleven – wearing the faces off each other outside the back door. Luckily, no one seems to notice – they’re all too busy giving me daggers. ‘Okay,’ I go, holding my hands up, ‘in my defence, I would add that I didn’t know that it was for the kids. I just wanted to liven things up a bit in here. Jesus, I’ve been at focking autopsies with a better atmos.’ There’s a lot of oh-my-Gods from the other mummies and daddies. I spot Ro, backing into a corner of the kitchen, trying to be invisible. I’m thinking, okay, Ross, shut the fock up now – except, roysh, my mouth keeps going? ‘It’s actually not even my cocktail. It’s a mate of mine called Oisinn invented it. He calls it Liquid Cocaine …’ Ross, stop focking talking! Blathin’s old dear, who, like I said, has never been a fan of my whole act, fixes me with this look of absolute hatred. ‘Get out of my house,’ she just goes. There’s, like, total silence in the kitchen, to the point where I can hear another girl in the next room tossing her cookies. ‘Get used to it,’ I just go, trying to get them to see the funny side. ‘A couple of years’ time, they’re all going to be going to Wesley.’ ‘Get out!’ I don’t need to be told a third time. 3. It’s the Stupid, Economy