Game of Throw-ins Read online

  ‘Coolock Scum,’ I go. ‘That’s what I’m presuming. He’s the dude who burned out the bus.’

  She’s more than a bit surprised by this news. She’s like, ‘The bus was burdened out?’

  She obviously didn’t know.

  I’m like, ‘Look, is he giving a tour today?’

  She goes, ‘Yeah, he’s in towun, so he is.’

  And I’m there, ‘Okay, Shadden, leave it to me.’

  I hang up, then I tell Christian that I’m going to run on ahead. I need to grab the cor and head into town. He raises his hand between hurls to tell me it’s cool.

  Shadden wasn’t exaggerating. When I hop on the new replacement Love/Hate bus, just past the Ha’penny Bridge, I notice that Ronan’s got, like, a full plaster cast on his orm, from his wrist to his shoulder.

  Of course, he won’t tell me how it happened.

  He goes, ‘I fell, Rosser – playing rubby.’

  I’m there, ‘I wish that was true, Ro. I really do.’

  ‘Rosser,’ he goes, ‘Ine in the middle of gibbon a toower hee-or. So eeder take yisser seat along with evoddy body else, or get off the bleaten bus. The choice is yooers.’

  I stare at him for a long time. Then I go, ‘Okay, I’m going to sit down. But I’m going to get the truth out of you, one way or the other.’

  He stays standing at the front of the upper deck of the bus while I take my seat. He picks up the microphone and all of the chatter on the bus comes to an end.

  ‘Ladies and jettlemen,’ he goes, ‘I hope yiz are enjoying the toower so feer and that yiz all enjoyet seeing Ado’s actual flat. Like I said to yiz eerdier, that was where the lovable dealer and shooting gallody proprietor got kneecapped at the steert of Seerdies Tree. It’s also where John Boy’s geerlfrent, Debbie, used to go to scowur gear behoyunt John Boy’s back in Seerdies Two.’

  The people on the bus are all just nodding, totally – I suppose – captivated by him? He definitely has a way with people. I suppose he’s not unlike me in that regord?

  ‘Now,’ he goes, ‘in a half an hour or so, we’re gonna be heading up the mountains, so we eer, to visit a cadavan that’s an izact replica of the cadavan that was owunt by one of me own personiddle favourite cadickters offa the show – the dog lubber, cigadette smoogler and loan sheerk, Fradden, who became one of Nidge’s most thrusted henchmen in Seerdies Tree, even though Nidge maimed he’s boord wirra pipe bomb after riding her in an eardier episowut.

  ‘Theer, you’ll get the chaddence to walk arowunt a cadavan joost like Fradden’s and to howult the actual golf club that Nidge used to smash Tommy’s head open when he fowunt out that Tommy was arthur been riding Dano’s wife, Georcheena.’

  We’re, like, flying down the quays. Buckets of Blood really has his foot down.

  ‘But foorst,’ Ronan goes, ‘we’re gonna grab an ould bit of lunch. Ine gonna bring yiz now to a chipper in Christchoorch that’s owunt by a toord cousint of the actor Tom Vodden-Lawdor. Thee do the best chips addywhere in towun, so thee do, and if you mention that you’re on the Love/Hate Tewer of Dublin, you’ll get a free can of minner doddle with orders over foyuv euros.

  ‘And if you’re reedy hungry, I can veddy much recommend the Soorf and Toorf – smoked cod and a spice boorger with chips and a minner doddle for a tedder. Thrust me, it’ll sort you out for the day, so it will. So we’re just pudding up outside it theer now – it’s on yisser left – and I’ll see yiz all back on the bus in a harp an hour.’

  He’s good. There’s no denying that. But I’m not letting the issue of that broken orm go. I follow him down the stairs of the bus, going, ‘Shadden rang me. She’s worried about you.’

  He’s there, ‘I toalt her not to be woodied.’

  ‘But you won’t tell me how it happened?’

  ‘Hab I ebber been a tout, Rosser?’

  ‘Telling your old man hordly counts as touting, Ro.’

  ‘Yeah and you’ll go sthraight to the Garda Shickaloneys and tell them ebbedy bleaten woord.’

  We pass Buckets, who’s still sitting in the driver’s seat. Ronan goes, ‘I’ll get the loonches, Buckets – you moyunt the bus.’

  Buckets nods.

  I follow Ro into the chipper.

  ‘Look,’ I go, ‘if you’re in over your head, Ro, you can tell me.’

  ‘Ine nowhere near ober me head,’ he goes. ‘Doatunt you woody about that.’

  He’s so proud.

  He approaches the counter. ‘Two Soorf and Toorfs,’ he goes to the bird. ‘Rosser, do you want a Soorf and Toorf?’

  I’m there, ‘No, I’ve got a match tomorrow. We’re at home to Sunday’s Well.’

  He rolls his eyes like that’s no kind of answer, then he goes, ‘Just the two Soorf and Toorfs, so, Love. And lowuts of salt and videgar.’

  She’s like, ‘What minner doddle?’

  ‘I’ll hab a Coke and Buckets will hab a Sebben-Up.’

  She turns around to put the order together. I’m as determined to get the truth as Ronan is determined to get Type 2 Diabetes.

  I’m like, ‘Ro, whatever trouble you’re in, I’m sure we can pay someone some money to sort it out.’

  He goes, ‘No one’s paying addyone athin.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be coming from me. I’d get it from my old man.’

  ‘We’re at war, Rosser.’

  ‘Is that not a bit over the top, though, Ro?’

  ‘Thee burdened eer bus out, so we burdened theers out.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Top of O’Coddle Street. Nudger knows what to do wirra a can of petro doddle and a lyrer.’

  ‘So, what, I’m presuming this Scum came back at you? A revenge attack and blah, blah, blah?’

  ‘I was woorking yesterdee. We’d no skewill – peerdent-teacher meeting –’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything about a parent-teacher meeting.’

  ‘Do you want to hear this stordee or not, Rosser? It was ford o’clock in the arthur noon and I was upsteers counting the take. Buckets had gone arowunt to Supermacs for a slash.’

  Supermacs. Jesus, it’s like an actual storyline out of Love/Hate.

  ‘Ine sitting upsteers on the bus, up the veddy fronth. Like I says, Ine counting what we’re arthur eerdning. The next thing I hear is footsteps cubbing up the bleaten steers. Foorst, I thought it was Buckets cubbing back arthur he’s slash. Then I look oaber me shoulter and what do I see? Scum and two udder shams cheerging towarts me – all tree of them with bleaten machetes.’

  I’m like, ‘Machetes? Are we talking actual machetes?’

  ‘We’re not thalken inflatable ones, Rosser. Bleaten pox bottles. I jumped up on the seat and threw meself oaber the soyut of the bus. Off the top deck, Rosser. Lanthed on me ardum – which is how I broke it. Then the filth arroyved on the scene. I ditn’t call them – I want to fooken emphasoyuz that.’

  ‘No one thinks you’re a tout, Ro.’

  ‘Thee just happened to be going by. Scum and the boys legged it. I was lying theer, bleaten howlin with the payun. Thee took me to James Zuzz, then thee questioned me for tree or four hours arthur I gorrout. I nebber breathed a woord.’

  I’m there, ‘Ro, you have to end this.’

  He goes, ‘Doataunt woody, Rosser – we’re gonna end it.’

  ‘By doing what?’

  ‘That’s for us to know and Scum to foyunt out.’

  ‘Ro, I think I’d prefer you to just concentrate on your Leaving Cert before someone gets actually murdered.’

  Jesus, talk about sentences you never thought you’d hear yourself say.

  The bird behind the counter hands him his order.

  Ro just goes, ‘Pay the woman, Rosser.’

  Between psyching myself up for the old dear’s wedding, trying to save the lives of my best friend and my son and then Ireland’s defeat to Wales in the Six Nations, Saturday ends up getting away from me and I totally forget to ring Oisinn to ask him for some more dirty tricks to use in the scrum.

 
I don’t even think about it, in fact, until we’re walking out onto the pitch to face Sunday’s Well, with Byrom’s shout of, ‘Lit’s git beck to wunning woys,’ still ringing in our ears.

  It’s going to be a tight game. According to Bucky, it nearly always is when Seapoint and Sunday’s Well come together. The scoreboard tends to turn over only three clicks at a time. A lot is obviously going to depend on Senny’s accuracy with the boot, so I make sure to have a word with him while we’re walking out.

  I’m there, ‘We need a massive game from you today, Dude.’

  He looks at me with a look of worry on his face. He goes, ‘Apparently, there’s one or two goys from the Leinster Academy here to watch me.’

  ‘Then show them what you can do,’ I go. ‘Are you feeling okay?’

  He looks like shit, it has to be said. I’m presuming it’s, like, nerves?

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he goes. ‘Just not sleeping great. Well, it’s Torah really. I don’t know if I said it to you during the week but we’ve got a prowler.’

  Uh-oh.

  ‘A prowler?’ I go. ‘Is that not a bit random?’

  He’s like, ‘It was last weekend, just after I was talking to you. We were in my gaff, you know, doing stuff and there was some focking weirdo looking in the window at us.’

  ‘Did they get a good description of the dude?’

  ‘No, it was actually my neighbour who saw him. He hit him over the head with a wok or something, but the focker managed to overpower him. Of course, Torah’s barely slept since. Every little noise outside, she thinks it’s him back again.’

  ‘Dude, the best thing you can do is put this so-called prowler out of your mind, not just for today but for good. It sounds to me like there’s probably a totally innocent explanation for it. You need to just concentrate on your game.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  We high-five. And that’s the moment when I realize that I’ve totally forgotten to talk to Oisinn. It’s too late to go back to the dressing room for my phone because we’re about to kick off, so I decide to just wing it for today.

  Sunday’s Well are another shower from Cork and no sooner are we out on the pitch than they stort sledging us in that strange yokel language they speak down there.

  Their hooker is easily the worst offender? He tries to get inside Senny’s head from the first minute, trying to basically soften him up. He’s practically in his face, going, ‘I own to God and the world, would you look at the measure of this fella! The whole country is wild with the news that you’re the one they’ve come to see! Well, you may cut the sign of the cross on yourself, for you’ll get nothing easy out of us this day, only torment!’

  None of the other Seapoint players does anything. But I’m not having anyone talking to one of my teammates like that, even though I only understand about a quarter of what he actually said. I walk over to the dude. I put my hand on his chest and I shove him backwards.

  He tries to go, ‘What ails you at all?’

  I’m there, ‘Back the fock up or you’ll be decked.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a class of plucky and no mistake. The will of my breast and soul, I’ll warm your shins and you’ll be better off with the sense that’ll come of it!’

  ‘I’m not going to say it again. Back the fock up, you focking broccoli rapist.’

  He goes to shove me then? And we end up having a bit of a scuffle. Maho, Bucky, Dilly and Gilly run over and they help pull us aport – this is before a ball has even been kicked, bear in mind – and at the same time they’re going, ‘Fair focks to you, Rossi!’

  And I’m going, ‘What the fock were the rest of you doing? It’s our job to protect him.’

  But this focker keeps up his tirade against Senny, even when Senny is shaping up to kick a penalty in the fifth minute. Showing disrespect for a kicker is something I’ve never tolerated – no matter who that kicker happens to be. I took Sorcha to see Ireland versus France at the Aviva once and she booed Morgan Parra as he shaped up to take a penalty. I couldn’t have sex with her for about three months afterwards – and no one hates Morgan Parra more than me.

  So this focker watches Senny do his little pre-kick dance and – at the top of his voice – storts going, ‘Man dear, tis queer behaviour to be sure! The heart in my breast but you’ve notions!’

  So I wait until the third or fourth scrum to fix the focker. He’s giving us loads as well, by the way? The same kind of shit and it’s, like, constant. We’re, like, binding and we’re getting ready to engage. He turns to his own teammates and he storts going, ‘God spare you the health, fellas, isn’t that the prettiest front row you’ve ever put eyes on? Twas often I said that before my bones were laid under the green sod, I wanted to see a ladyboy with mine own eyes – and my word to you if there aren’t three of them standing before me this very night!’

  In Cork, a ladyboy is any man who sits down to take a shit.

  We crouch and he’s still giving it loads. He’s going, ‘My sorrow, you’ll not leave here today without the taste of blood on your teeth.’

  As we’re getting ready to engage, I decide to go early and I use the top of my head to crack the focker right on the bridge of his nose. It’s a trick I remember Oisinn using once or twice back in the day to soften up front rows who had ideas about themselves.

  So I hit him with my head and there’s, like, a sickening crunch and down their scrum goes.

  ‘Penalty, Seapoint!’ the old man shouts from the sideline. ‘Deliberate collapsing!’

  The dude stands up, blood streaming from his nose.

  The Sunday’s Well players are trying to tell the referee that it was a straight decking. But he seems happy to accept my explanation that it was an accidental clash of heads.

  He even makes their captain apologize to him after he goes, ‘Yerrah, there’s no bigger fool under the bright sun than you, referee!’

  The referee orders a reset, but the Sunday’s Well hooker ends up having to go off so they can try to fix his face. He’s gone for maybe five minutes. When he arrives back, his nose is completely strapped, with tape all over his face, holding the bandage in place.

  He’s a hell of a lot quieter now. Anytime he storts sledging, I just give his nose a rub with my head when the two front rows come together and that softens the focker’s cough.

  Senny ends up having one of those matches that every outhalf dreams about, with scouts from the academy watching. He directs the play like – and I say this in all modesty – me in my prime. Early in the second half he’s kicked five from five and we’re, like, 15–3 ahead and fully in control.

  And that’s when I end up doing something stupid.

  Their inside centre is an absolute flier. He gets the ball in his hands and he attacks our twenty-two-metre line. He beats two players, three players, four players – he absolutely burns them for pace. There’s no doubt he’s going to get over for a try.

  Until I clothesline the focker.

  I hang a foreorm out there and he runs straight into it. He hits the deck. The Sunday’s Well players are immediately surrounding the referee, going, ‘He’s the very devil for causing trouble – Old Nick himself would be in fear of him!’ and ‘God direct you to do what’s right, referee!’

  I know I’m in serious shit here. The ref reaches inside his pocket. The cord he produces is thankfully yellow, but it still means I’m going to be missing for ten vital minutes of the second half.

  The Sunday’s Well players are shouting, ‘Long life to you!’ and ‘God’s blessing on your road!’ as I walk off the field with my head down.

  I apologize to Byrom, but he’s cool with it. He just goes, ‘Stay warm,’ and he throws me an ankle-length coat.

  Their number ten kicks the penalty, then Goffo – rattled now, because we’re down to fourteen men – immediately concedes another, which they also kick? Suddenly it’s, like, 15–9 and Sunday’s Well are only one score from taking a lead they definitely don’t deserve.

  I end up
taking out my frustration on the giant recycling bins in the cor pork, kicking the shit out of the one for aluminium cans.

  Those ten minutes end up being among the longest of my life. By the time I’m allowed back onto the field, Sunday’s Well have pulled level and I’m apologizing to Bucky, going, ‘I let you down.’

  We all know that another draw is fock-all use to us.

  But he just goes, ‘There’s twenty minutes left. We’ve won this match once, Rossi. Let’s win it again.’

  It’s exactly what I need to hear.

  My return manages to shore things up and we stop conceding silly points. Then, five minutes from time, our full-back, Ollie Lysaght, kicks a long ball deep into the Sunday’s Well half, but fails to find touch with it. Their full-back sprints over to get it and something, I don’t know, maybe some little voice inside my head, tells me to go after it, which I do.

  The dude reaches the ball and the most incredible thing happens. It’s what every player who’s ever chased a lost cause dreams about.

  The focker snots himself.

  He slips on a patch of wet grass and up in the air he goes, screaming, ‘Aroo!’ before landing on his orse.

  By the time he does, I’ve scooped up the ball and I’m heading for the line with the sound of Sunday’s Well players behind me, their feet eating up the ground, so that it sounds like I’m about to be run over by a stampede of horses.

  Our goys are going, ‘Keep going, Rossi! You’re nearly there! You’ve got the pace, Rossi! You’ve got the pace!’

  The truth is, I don’t have the pace. I’m thirty-five years old and the oldest player on the field by a good decade. But I do have one thing, and that’s just the right amount of field in front of me.

  I’m tackled around the waist just as I reach the line. I fall sideways to my right. But as I do, I manage to twist my orm and ground the ball.

  ‘May bad luck melt you!’ one of the Sunday’s Well players goes to me.

  Seconds later, I find myself lying at the bottom of a pile of my tearful teammates.

  Sorcha still hasn’t decided what she’s going to wear to this so-called wedding tomorrow, despite the fact that we’re already on Ari’s yacht and we’re moored five miles off the Dalkey coast.