Game of Throw-ins Read online

  ‘Oh my God,’ Honor goes, laughing, ‘look at the way he spells peace! Er – P, I, E, C, E?’

  Sorcha’s there, ‘The spelling doesn’t matter, Honor. As my dad said at the time, all it does is show how committed he was to his work, that he didn’t have time to read back over every single word he wrote. I think it actually adds to their authenticity?’

  Sorcha carefully puts the other letters into a hord-backed envelope and I realize that I’m running out of time here.

  I’m there, ‘The other thing I was going to say was that I think Honor should maybe have them. They’re, like, her birthright? They should be passed down through the generations and blah, blah, blah.’

  Honor goes, ‘I don’t focking want them.’

  ‘They were written by Nelson Mandela, Honor,’ I go. ‘Mindimba.’

  ‘So focking what?’

  ‘Okay, I’ll put it to you another way. They’re worth a hundred grand!’

  With my eyes I’m subtly trying to encourage her to say that she’s changed her mind, that she actually does want them? Except she’s not going to say it, because she’s picked up on the fact that it’s what I want her to say? And she’s determined to fock me over for denying that I gave her alcohol.

  ‘One hundred Ks,’ I try to go. ‘Imagine the amount of shit you could buy for that, Honor? You’d probably be the youngest customer in the history of Brown Thomas ever to go platinum.’

  Honor looks at Sorcha and goes, ‘Just to let you know, if you ever did give me those letters, the first thing I’d do would be to rip them up in front of your face and put them in the bin – and I’d do it out of pure spite. In fact, the only reason I haven’t ripped this one up is that I’m dying to find out why he’s so keen for you not to sell them.’

  I’m there, ‘I just think they should be kept within the family. And they’re boring.’

  Honor hands the letter back and Sorcha sticks it in with the others.

  I watch Sorcha seal the envelope. I’m there, ‘I’ll post that for you this morning, Babes. I’ll be passing the post office in Ballybrack.’

  Sorcha laughs and goes, ‘You don’t post something this valuable, Ross! I’m sending it by international courier! Where are you going, by the way? You don’t have another match, do you?’

  ‘We’ve one every week, Sorcha. It’s a league. I’ve explained that to you.’

  ‘And where are you playing?’

  ‘A place called Derry.’

  ‘Derry in the North?’

  ‘I’m not much of a geography buff, Sorcha, but that’s the talk, yeah.’

  ‘But you’re coming home tonight, I presume?’

  ‘Yeah, no, that’s the thing I meant to mention. We’re heading to Bundoran for the night.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a guyatus.’

  Honor goes, ‘He’s definitely having a nervous breakdown.’

  I’m there, ‘I’m not having a nervous breakdown. We’re going to have a few drinks tonight, then tomorrow we’re going to hopefully catch a few waves.’

  Sorcha’s like, ‘Waves? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about surfing, Sorcha.’

  ‘Surfing? Ross, you can’t even swim.’

  ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Is my Hollister T-shirt out of the wash, by the way?’

  It’s at that exact moment that the buzzer at the front gate sounds. Sorcha goes, ‘That’ll be DHL!’

  Shit, the letters. This is my last chance to actually do something. I suddenly act – totally on impulse. I knock over the coffee pot. I don’t even make it look like an accident. I just do it and the coffee spills across the island. Except Honor very focking helpfully manages to whip the envelope up a split second before the spillage reaches it.

  She’s like, ‘Oh my God, you’re such a klutz!’, delighted with herself.

  And Sorcha goes, ‘Ross, can you please be more careful? This could be The Mount Anville Africa Fund’s operating costs for its entire first year!’

  I’m there, ‘Yeah, no, I’m sorry,’ and she gets up from the island and tells me to mop up the mess while she brings the envelope down to the front gate.

  Honor’s just, like, looking at me with a grin spreading across her face, the exact same expression she uses when she’s staring into the fish tank in Daniel’s of Glasthule, deciding which lobster she wants killed and plated up.

  ‘I’m going to find out the truth about those letters,’ she goes.

  And of course I know that she won’t rest until she does.

  Rainey Old Boys doesn’t sound like a rugby team. Rainey Old Boys sounds like a group of elderly dudes who play Dominoes together on wet winter nights for the want of company.

  Never was a team so wrongly named.

  They’re not old boys. Neither are they Dominoes players. That much is obvious sitting in our dressing room, listening to them shouting and roaring next door.

  I turn to Maho and I go, ‘What even language is that?’

  They sound like focking Vikings.

  He laughs. He goes, ‘You’re Up North now, Rossi.’

  Which means fock-all to me. In my mind, Drumcondra is Up North.

  I look around the dressing room. There’s a lot of nervous faces.

  ‘Yoy noyd to shoy these goys that you’re not skeered,’ Byrom goes.’

  One of their players steps into our dressing room. He’s a big dude with a shaven head and biceps like Galias. He’s old as well – older than even me.

  He goes, ‘Ay just wanted to see, on behalf of the taim, welcome tee Lonhon Tarry.’

  I haven’t a focking clue what he’s saying. It’s kind of like when I run into Paddy Jackson. I usually just nod at him, not a focking clue what he’s trying to even say to me.

  All the goys are like, ‘Yeah, no, thanks – nice of you to say it. Have a good game.’

  The dude goes to leave, but then he suddenly sticks his head through the door again. ‘Och,’ he goes, ‘Ay forgat tee ask yee, who’s your nomber tan?’

  I think he’s asking who our number ten happens to be, because Senny instantly goes, ‘It’s me.’

  And that’s when the atmosphere suddenly changes.

  ‘Yee’re a morked mawn,’ he goes. ‘Ay’m gonney fockun breek yee up, so Ay awm.’

  I might only recognize the occasional word, but I know a threat when I hear one. I happen to be sitting right behind the door at the time. I kick the door with the sole of my left boot and it hits the dude smack in the face.

  Then I pull the door back to find him wiping blood from his nose and I go, ‘You’ll have to come through me first.’

  My reward for trying to protect Senny is eighty minutes of war with this focker. It turns out that the dude is their hooker? And he knows all the same tricks as me. Collapsing. Pulling down. Wheel and shoe. The fake chorge.

  He rips my cheek with his stubble just like I rip his. He sledges me and I sledge him back. And we tackle each other as if the intent is to kill.

  I can hear the old man going, ‘Watch the Rainey scrum, referee! There’s skullduggery afoot!’

  By half-time, with the scores tied at 6–6, I feel like I’ve been in a cor crash rather than a rugby match.

  And then the strangest thing happens as we’re walking back to the dressing room. The dude puts his orm around my shoulder and goes, ‘Och, this is greet, isn’t ut?’

  I laugh.

  I’m there, ‘Great? What are you, some kind of masochist?’

  ‘Ay most bay,’ he goes, ‘stull pleeing rogbay at forty-five! Hay old are yee?’

  ‘If you’re asking me how old I am, the answer is thirty-five.’

  ‘Och, yee’re good, Ay’ll guv it to yee. Have yee always pleed in the front roy?’

  ‘No, I used to be a ten. I hadn’t even played rugby in years. I just wanted to come back for one year to prove that I could.’

  ‘One more yurr? Ay’ve been seeing the seem sunce abite 2002!’
/>   That’s when I cop it. He’s their version of me.

  He’s there, ‘The neem’s Griggsy, bay the wee.’

  And I go, ‘I’m Ross. They call me Rossi.’

  ‘Nace to meet yee, Rossay. Yee’re fockun dayud in the sacond hawf, bay the wee.’

  I laugh and I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, you’re focking dead, too.’

  Byrom’s half-time team talk is basic enough. He tells us to keep our discipline. If we do, he says, we’ll get a chance – he’s sure of it. ‘Goyms loyk thus,’ he goes, ‘are abaaht whoy blunks first.’

  As a spectacle, it’s even worse than 6–6 suggests. In the second half, it doesn’t get any better. Me and Griggsy go back to war, but we avoid doing anything stupid – or rather we avoid getting caught doing anything stupid – and for the first half an hour of the second half, there ends up being no scores, just a lot of heavy tackles and a lot of desperate defending, mostly by us.

  They need the win to stay on top of the table and they stort upping the intensity.

  ‘Lat’s keep the prassure on them,’ their number eight shouts, between the, I don’t know, twentieth and the twenty-first phases. ‘These gorls are abite tee crack, so thee are.’

  And that’s when it happens.

  He gets the ball in his hands and he tries to make some yordage. I go in low and I go in hord. Mathieu Bastareaud would be proud of this tackle. It’s the kind of hit that’d change the direction of your bloodflow.

  The dude goes, ‘Hhhnnnggghhh!’ as the air leaves his lungs.

  The ball gets turned over.

  ‘Och,’ their goys are all shouting, ‘yee drapped it, so yee dud.’

  Dordo feeds Senny from the ruck and Senny sets off on an unbelievable run. He beats one player, then another, then he crosses into the opposition half and he has eyes only for the line.

  The Rainey players are going, ‘Stap hum! Someboday stap hum!’, but they have no one who can match him for pace.

  He covers the ground like Usain Bolt chasing the man who mugged him. He grounds the ball under the posts, then adds the two to give us the win.

  ‘Yee were fockun steeped,’ Griggsy tells me as we walk back to the dressing room after the final whistle. ‘But Ay hope yee stay op – after thot, yee desorve ut, so yee doy.’

  He ends up being actually sound.

  Back in the dressing room, everyone’s just, like, sitting around, too tired and too sore to even take their clothes off and get into the shower.

  Outside, I can hear the old man going, ‘A victory fashioned in the smithy on the scrum! First rate! Bravo to both teams for a wonderful display of old-fashioned forward play!’

  I actually chuckle to myself as I sit down and pull off my boots without even opening the laces. I’m tired and I’m bashed up, but I feel great. Of course, the only thing I have to worry about now is the fact that I’m almost certainly going to drown tomorrow.

  She’s a ringer for Georgia May Foote. I’m not the only one who says it either. Little Davy Dardis is convinced that it’s actually her?

  Ollie Lysaght goes, ‘What the fock would Georgia May Foote be doing drinking in The Kicking Donkey in Bundoran?’

  Dordo’s there, ‘Same thing as us. She could be over here on holidays.’

  She’s with a group of about six or seven other birds – some of them nice, some of them hogs.

  Dordo goes, ‘I’d nearly be tempted to go over and talk to her.’

  Bucky laughs. He’s like, ‘There’s only one man in this pub who’s up to the job of pulling that kind of quality.’

  I lift my pint glass to my lips, smiling modestly, at the same time thinking, These goys actually idolize me.

  But then he goes, ‘Johnny Bliss.’

  My hort for some reason sinks. I think I mentioned already that Blissy is a bit of a looker and the closest thing the team has to an actual ladies’ man.

  He looks over at the birds and goes, ‘I presume we’re talking about the one with the black hair,’ obviously sizing up the job.

  I go, ‘Hey, do you mind if I have a crack first?’

  All the goys laugh. They’ve never seen me in action, of course.

  Blissy’s there, ‘Yeah, no, you fire ahead, Rossi!’ like it’s a challenge.

  Senny goes, ‘Are you not married, though, Rossi?’

  Seriously, sometimes I wonder is it the same sport that I played at all.

  I go, ‘I’ll give you a wave as we’re leaving!’

  I tip over to where the girl is standing, with her mates, drinking pints of cider. I’d say she’s in, like, her twenties.

  I’m there, ‘Hey, there.’

  She’s like, ‘What abite yee?’ in a friendly enough way. ‘Are yee eer toxi draver?’

  I’m like, ‘Taxi driver?’

  ‘Aye, we phoned for a toxi.’

  ‘Er, no, I’m not your taxi driver.’

  ‘Okee. Hee are yee then?’

  ‘I’m actually just a dude. Ross or Rossi. Believe it or not, I came over here with the intention of chatting you up.’

  She actually laughs. All of her mates laugh as well.

  ‘Yee?’ she goes, staring at my belly. ‘Hoy old are yee?’

  I’m there, ‘How old do you think I am?’ flirting my orse off and at the same time hoping that she guesses low. She doesn’t, though.

  She goes, ‘Ay’d see you’re un your fortays. Fortay-tee, fortay-throy.’

  One of her mates – who’s a focking disgrace, by the way – goes, ‘Ay’d see fortay-eet.’

  I feel like nearly going, ‘Would you now? Look in the focking mirror, Love.’

  The Georgia May one looks over my shoulder and she sees the goys all sniggering behind me. ‘Och,’ she goes, ‘yeer deeing ut as a bat!’

  I’m there, ‘As a what?’

  ‘As a bat?’

  ‘Oh, as a bet?’

  I realize I need to somehow save face here. I can’t go back to the goys having just crashed and burned.

  So I go, ‘No, yeah, it was actually a joke. The real reason I came over was because the goys over there would love to meet you.’

  ‘Hoy’s the gay with the blond heer?’

  She mean’s goy, not gay.

  I’m there, ‘The dude with the blond hair is called Johnny Bliss,’ even though it makes me sick to have to say it. ‘He plays outside centre. We’re a rugby team, by the way. We won our match today.’

  The goys sense that the castle’s defences have been broken and they all come swarming over the wall, Blissy leading the chorge.

  ‘Johnny Bliss,’ he goes, introducing himself to Georgia May, or whatever she’s actually called. ‘Do you know who you’re the absolute spits of?’

  That ends up being that. Their taxi eventually arrives and the goys order four or five more to take them all to a nightclub in Ballyshannon called Bualadh Bos. No one even asks me to go with them. They just thank me for putting in the spadework, then they disappear out the door, leaving me and Byrom Jones on our Tobler, drinking pints into the night.

  He goes, ‘Thoy absoloytloy oydolioyz yoy, Rossoy.’

  I’m there, ‘I don’t know. Five years ago, I would have left with that bird. She thought I was forty-three.’

  ‘Oy’m talking abaaht in terms of rugboy. Yoy royloy put your bodoy on the loyn todoy.’

  ‘Yeah, no, I’m sore all over as a result.’

  ‘Yoy were moy maahn of the mutch. You’ve got them royloy beloyving they can escoype the drop, Rossoy. I just got a tixt mussage. Bictuv lost to Sundoy’s Will todoy. Knoy what thet moyns? Moyns we’re aaht of the bottom toy. For the first toym thus soyson, we’re aaht of the rilegoyshion zoyne.’

  I’m there, ‘Okay, that definitely calls for another pint.’

  He goes, ‘Oy woyn’t, Moyte. Oy’m goying toy git beck to the Boy and Boy. Oy’ve got an earloy staaht tomorroy. Got toy git bick to Dublin. Ut’s moy youngest son’s birthday. Oy promused hum Oy’d Skoype hum.’

  ‘Skype him? Where is he?’

&
nbsp; I suddenly realize that I know absolutely nothing about this man who threw me, literally, a rugby lifeline.

  ‘Un Noy Zoyland,’ he goes. ‘With hus mother. And his brothers and susters.’

  I’m like, ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah, moy mirriage dudn’t work aaht. Aw, long storoy, but moy woyfe mit someone ilse and, well, Oy dudn’t want to watch another maahn roysing moy kuds. So Oy coym to Oyrlund. Oy’ve got a couple of moyts luving here. They coych schools. Everyone’s koyn on Koywoy coyches so Oy thought, woy not guv ut a goy for a year or toy?’

  ‘So, like, you were a coach in New Zealand, were you?’

  He smiles mysteriously, then goes, ‘Can Oy lut yoy untoy a luttle soycrut, Rossoy?’

  I’m there, ‘Yeah, no, what?’

  ‘Oy’ve niver coyched rugboy in moy loyfe. Moy sport is cruckut.’

  ‘Are you trying to say cricket?’

  ‘That’s ut – cruckut.’

  I actually laugh. I’m there, ‘So you’re, like, a total spoofer?’

  He goes, ‘Doyn’t git moy wrong, Oy’m a fen of the goym. Yoy groy up in Noy Zoyland, yoy can’t avoid ut. And loyk Oy sid, Oy’ve got some moytes coyching schools. Thoy hilp me aaht with advoyce and that. Thoy were the ones who toyld moy Oy noydud toy foynd a ployer skulled in the daahk aahts.’

  ‘Meaning me.’

  ‘Moyning yoy. Do yoy beloyve in fate, Rossoy?’

  ‘Fate? I don’t know. Do you?’

  ‘Oy niver dud. But Oy thunk Oy’m staahting toy.’

  ‘Maybe I am, too.’

  ‘Oy’ve boyn quite deprissed, Rossoy. What wuth everythung thit’s heppened to moy in the laahst couple of yurrs. Look, Moyte, Oy knoy ut’s oynloy koyping Seapoint in Division Toy Boy of the All Oyerland Loyg. Toy or throy months from naah, Sinnoy will join the academoy and the toym will probabloy be rilegoytud nixt soyson innywoy. But sunce yoy came in, Oy moyt as well tell yoy, Oy’ve staahted to foyle something that Oy hiven’t filt in a long toym. And thet’s heppiness. Heppiness and fuckun hoype. So, look, here’s to yoy, Moyte!’

  He holds up what’s left of his pint. Jesus Christ, I’m suddenly on the point of tears here. It’s one of the most incredible tributes that’s ever been paid to me. I return the toast and he knocks back the last of his pint.

  He gets up off his stool. ‘And doyn’t yoy fuckun deer till innyone Oy’m a fuckun cruckut coych,’ he goes.