The Oh My God Delusion Read online

  I shake my head.

  ‘Luke Fitzgerald!’ I go, except I say it in, like, an admiring way? ‘The names I’ve called him over the years. But right now, I don’t care where he went to school. That try. There’s no one happier for him in this so-called stadium.’ JP’s quiet. See, he always gets nervous when Leinster play? He says there’s still, like, half an hour left. And it’s, what, 18–6? Which is far from over. I tell him not to sweat it – it’s in the bag. Even Fionn agrees with me. Munster are basically bottling it in pretty much the same way that we did three years ago? ‘Wherever he is in the world,’ I go, ‘I just hope that Oisinn’s watching this.’ I’m looking around me at all the supporters in red jerseys. Even though they objected – some of them with threats of violence – TO OUR IRISH BY BIRTH, MUNSTER BY THE GRACE OF A DEFECTIVE GENE banner, I’m beginning to feel, believe it or not, sorry for them? This news takes Fionn by surprise. ‘You always said they despised our civilization,’ he goes, ‘and wanted to destroy our way of life …’ ‘I did say that, I know.’ ‘When we’re singing “Ireland’s Call”, you always change the line to, “The three proud provinces of Ireland … ”’ ‘That’s also true. Maybe it’s just because Drico and the boys are down there putting out the gorbage this time, but I’m storting to feel nothing but genuine pity for Munster. I mean take a look at some of their fans. There’s a dude two rows back, red hair growing in four directions at once, mouth like a box of broken Doulton …’ Fionn and JP both look over their shoulders. ‘I mean, recession or not, we’re still unbelievably privileged compared to these people,’ I go. ‘Think about it – where we’re from, there’s always something for us to do, be it Toys for Big Boys, the internet, blah blah blah … Electricity at the flick of the switch. But these people have literally nothing …’ ‘Except Rog, Big O and the rest of them,’ JP goes. ‘Exactly.’ Fionn’s there, ‘And they’re not exactly doing them proud down there today.’ JP’s still looking around him. ‘Goys,’ he goes, ‘you’ll never guess who’s sitting, like, six rows back there …’ Me and Fionn instantly turn around, going, ‘Who?’ The two of us are getting on pretty well these days, even though he’s so far in the closet he’s practically finding his Christmas presents. ‘What did they call him?’ JP goes. ‘Was it Mocky?’ Mocky – I never knew his actual name? – captained the Newbridge College team that we made shit of in the Leinster Schools Senior Cup final ten years ago. ‘It is him,’ Fionn goes. ‘And that’s that dude, Muiris Bán, beside him, their prop. And their number eight – what was he called? Something Óg …’ I laugh. ‘Fock, the years haven’t been kind to them,’ I go, because they’ve all, like, packed on the pounds. Mocky still has a lashback, I notice. ‘Hey, let’s have a bit of fun here …’ ‘Ross, don’t,’ Fionn tries to go, because he knows I’m about to stort ripping the serious piss. I never can resist it with those fockers. I stand up. ‘Mocky,’ I go, singling him out, I suppose, because he made the Irish schools team and Fionn and JP here didn’t. I make the world-famous L sign with my thumb and forefinger. ‘Focking loser!’ I go. He looks at me, roysh, with his face all scrunched up and confused – pretty much the same face Sorcha’s granny pulls when she’s trying to use the TV remote. ‘Put it on my soul,’ he eventually goes, ‘but ’tis him!’ and suddenly the three Newbridge goys are all staring at me in, like, total shock. ‘God save the hearer! We were only after being talking about you!’ I raise one eyebrow, smooth as eggs. I’m like, ‘All good, I presume.’ Mocky looks at the other two, like he can’t actually believe the nerve of me? ‘He’s a right one, isn’t he? As mild a man as ever on stirrabout smiled!’ and then they all laugh, whatever the fock it even means – focking Kildare – then he looks back at me. ‘God bless the mark! I swear by all the brindled Bibles of the Pope, ’twas not good. In fect, we were recalling the day of the Schools Cup final, collecting our runners-up mittles. We were talking about thet good-for-nothing slattern thet was stood at the bottom of the stips – cocked up to the height of his vanity – saying, “You’re shit!” to each and ivery one of us …’ ‘I stand by that analysis,’ I make sure to go. That’s when Muiris Bán totally loses it with me. He’s like, ‘The devil fire your ribs, you stump of a fool!’ which – as you can imagine – draws quite a bit of attention from the Leinster contingent. ‘You’ll be better off with a bit of sense!’ He looks like he’s about to get out of his seat to come down to me until Mocky makes him see reason. ‘Hold you whisht,’ he goes, grabbing him by the orm, ‘for there’s no cure for misfortune than to kill it with patience.’ The other dude – Something Óg – throws his thoughts into the mix then. ‘In the presence of my maker, he thinks ’tis out of his own poll the sun does rise!’ ‘I’ll grant you,’ Mocky goes, ‘he’s a brave man on his own floor! And the very divil for causing thrubble! But I swear you, by the black curse thet Finn put on the bairneachs, thet even a noble horse can’t run for ever!’ The three of them seem to find this hilarious. The shit that must pass for comedy in that port of the world. ‘Yeah, whatever,’ I go. ‘We handed you your orses ten years ago,’ and then I flick my thumb in the direction of the pitch. ‘Just like we’re handing you your orses out there today.’ They look at each other then, totally confused. Actually, they’re permanently confused – that’s what happens when your old pair are brother and sister. ‘We’re from Linnstar as well,’ Mocky tries to go. I laugh. It just sounds so ridiculous? I’m there, ‘Dude, Kildare’s hordly in Leinster …’ He’s there, ‘My love for ever, is it no sense you have? Have you ever looked at a mep?’ There is a map that’s supposed to exist. I’m like, ‘I’m proud to say no.’ ‘It actually is in Leinster,’ Fionn has to go then, forgetting whose side he’s supposed to be on, the occasion bringing out the focking schoolteacher in him. ‘Why do you think they were playing in the Leinster Schools Senior Cup, Ross?’ I’d honestly never thought about it from that angle. ‘Well,’ I go, still staring Mocky out of it, ‘my point is, you might technically live in Leinster? But do you honestly believe that the likes of Dorce and Fitzy and Johnny Sexton down there are representing you and the way you choose to live your lives?’ I laugh, then shake my head, mainly for effect. ‘As far as rugby is concerned, Leinster storts at Terroirs and ends at Foxrock Church.’ Mocky turns to the other two and they exchange what would have to be described in hindsight as knowing smiles? ‘Look at you,’ he goes to me, ‘at the height of your glory. Well, you may cut the sign of the cross on yourself that it stays fine for you. Sha, there was niver a tide flowed west but didn’t flow east again!’ I don’t get the chance to hit him with an amazing comeback line, because it’s at that exact moment that a roar goes suddenly up and I turn back to the pitch, roysh, expecting to see that Munster have got a try back. Except they haven’t? Drico’s suddenly in, like, acres of space, with the ball tucked under his orm and Rog baiting after him like a focking shoplifter leaving, I don’t know, Todds. ‘He intercepted him!’ JP’s going. ‘He read his focking mind.’ I’m there, ‘He’s got the legs! He’s got the focking legs!’ Drico touches the ball down under the posts and we go absolutely mental. Everything else is forgotten, including the borney with the mullers. It’s like, game over. We certainly won’t be hearing ‘The Fields’ sung again this side of Christmas. It’s only, like, half an hour later, roysh, as we’re leaving Croke Pork, that Mocky pops into my head again, in other words something he said that obviously stuck in my mind. I’m there, ‘Goys, what did he mean when he said, there was niver a tide flowed west but didn’t flow east again?’ JP just shakes his head, I suppose just wanting to enjoy the moment. He’s there, ‘I presume it’s something that just got lost in translation.’ ‘Is that Ronan?’ I go, because he seems to be disguising his voice. He’s like, ‘Who wants to know?’ I’m there, ‘Who wants to know? Ro, it’s me – your old man.’ ‘Ah, Rosser,’ he goes. ‘Sorry, I’m out and about – on one of me skites.’ Him and his skites. Still, he see
ms surprisingly okay with me. ‘Look,’ I go, ‘I just wanted to, er, you know, apologize for what happened at Blathin’s porty, even though it wasn’t technically my fault? How is she?’ ‘Ah, she’s foyin now …’ ‘That’s good news. I heard she had to have her stomach pumped.’ ‘She did, yeah.’ ‘Jesus,’ I go, ‘I’ve been that soldier once or twice myself. It’s no picnic.’ Weirdly, he laughs. ‘You were probably older than torteen, but.’ I laugh then. ‘Just a bit, yeah. Still, it might actually put her off ever drinking again, which long term might be a good thing …’ ‘Heh, heh – true, Rosser … True, man.’ Something’s not right. ‘Ro,’ I go, ‘is everything okay?’ ‘Er, yeah …’ ‘It’s just you don’t seem, I don’t know … I thought you’d be pissed off with me? It can’t have been easy for you – the whole porty ending up in A&E …’ ‘It’s awreet,’ he goes. ‘Are you sure everything’s okay?’ ‘Er, yeah. I have to go, Rosser.’ Claire and whatever-the-fock-he’s-called got engaged – that’s Sorcha’s big news from last weekend. He took her for a walk on Saturday afternoon, don’t laugh, roysh, but along Bray Seafront, where he got down on one knee and, with the sound of the waves crashing behind him, popped the question. ‘So when’s the baby due?’ I go. She just glares at me. She’s there, ‘That’s not the only reason people from Bray get married, Ross,’ but I can tell deep down that she wants to laugh? Then something suddenly occurs to me, as it would, I’m sure, to anyone. ‘Saturday afternoon?’ I go. ‘Er, why wasn’t he watching Leinster make shit of Munster? They’re in the European Cup final, Sorcha.’ She’s like, ‘That’s the amazing thing about him. He has – oh my God – zero interest in rugby, Ross. Or any sport.’ I actually laugh out loud in her face. ‘He’s beginning to sound like a real catch,’ I go. And there the conversation has to end, roysh, because all of a sudden we’re shown into this little room and, the next thing we know, we’re sitting across a desk from a bird called Aibhril, who turns out to be Sorcha’s branch manager. She’s focking disgraceful-looking, by the way. I don’t know what the bank were even thinking. Big Taylors, no chin, hair the shade of the nation. In front of her, on the desk, she’s got a file as thick as foundation English and she’s going through it, roysh, page by page, sort of, like, nodding to herself – this is without even acknowledging our presence? We’re sitting there like a couple of spare ones, before she eventually closes the file over, looks up and goes, ‘You borrowed, I see from your file, two hundred thousand euros …’ ‘Yes,’ Sorcha goes. ‘To refurbish a … fashion boutique?’ and she says fashion boutique like she might as well be saying head shop. ‘It wasn’t so much a refurbishment as, like, a total refit?’ Sorcha goes, not picking up on it. ‘I wanted to restyle it along the lines of Kitson in LA, which is where – oh my God – all the major celebs go to shop. That’s why there’s always, like, paparazzi outside?’ You can tell, roysh, that this cuts no ice whatsoever with the bank bird. This is the same crew, bear in mind, who six months ago were throwing moo at actors and focking surfers. ‘This two hundred thousand euros …’ she goes, obviously loving the power, ‘paid for what exactly?’ Sorcha manages to keep the head. It’s the debating background again standing to her. ‘Oh my God, everything!’ she goes. ‘The new interior, the sound system, the pink PVC sofas, the giant plasma screen televisions playing catwalk footage from all the major fashion shows. Plus, I opened out into the unit next door – that’s, like, the vintage section? As in, Sorcha & Circa …’ The bird – if you could call her that – is scribbling all this shit down. I throw one in then. ‘Here, what about all those framed prints of, like, whales and lions and giraffes,’ I go, backing her up, ‘with those big words underneath them – Synchronicity and Grace and, I don’t know, Pride …’ ‘Well,’ Sorcha goes, defensively, even though I’m on her side, ‘that’s because if customers are inspired, they will buy – a girl who actually did retail in college told me that?’ ‘What else?’ the bank bird goes, like all that she’s just heard isn’t even enough. She’s all business, this bird. I suppose when you look like that you’ve got to play to your strengths. ‘Two hundred thousand euros is a lot of money. The refit couldn’t have cost more than, what, seventy? What was the rest of the money for?’ ‘Sorry, excuse me,’ Sorcha goes, screwing up her face, ‘can I just say, there were none of these questions when I asked to borrow the money in the first place?’ The bank bird has the actual balls to laugh. It’s obviously some private joke. ‘I understand that,’ she goes, still smiling, ‘but, as you may have heard, credit conditions have changed somewhat in the past six months.’ In other words, as Cinderella said to Snow White, everyone loves you while your goose is shitting golden eggs. I’m looking at Sorcha suddenly, wondering what her comeback’s going to be. ‘You’re asking what else did it pay for?’ she goes, a definite snippiness coming into her voice now. ‘Okay, in a word, research …’ ‘Research?’ ‘Yes, research,’ Sorcha goes, then looks at me for back-up. I have to say, though, I’m pretty focking curious myself. She’s there, ‘I spent nearly a year living in LA, basically studying retail …’ You can tell immediately that the bank bird’s struggling with this. ‘Studying retail?’ she goes. She means obviously shopping. ‘Er, yes?’ Sorcha gives it. ‘If it wasn’t for the time I spent in the States, I wouldn’t currently be the only shop in Ireland doing Jay Godfrey sheaths. I wouldn’t have been literally the first to get in the new Jimmy Choo Idol platform sandal. And the Dior by John Galliano bag …’ She’s losing her. You can see it. You’ve got to know your audience. I doubt if this bird has ever worn anything decent. I’m not being a bastard, roysh, but what would be the point? Luckily for Sorcha, though, the phone on the desk suddenly rings and then – for whatever reason – the bank bird has to suddenly excuse herself and step out of the office for a minute. The second she’s gone, Sorcha turns dog on me. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she goes. I’m genuinely there, ‘What? I haven’t done a basic thing.’ ‘Exactly,’ she goes. ‘You’re just sitting there with your focking mouth open.’ ‘Excuse me, I was the one who brought up the whole framed animal prints thing.’ She sort of, like, rolls her eyes, like she’s totally lost patience with me? ‘Where’s this famous way with women that you’re supposed to have?’ I’m suddenly thrown. ‘Sorcha, what are you saying?’ She sighs, then looks over her shoulder, like she’s looking for someone else to share my focking stupidity with. ‘Flirt,’ she goes. I’m there, ‘Flirt?’ ‘Yes, flirt – tell her she looks like someone.’ I pull a face. ‘She does. Rupert focking Grint. But I don’t think that’s going to melt her Magnum, Babes.’ That’s when she all of a sudden does the weirdest thing. She reaches for my shirt, roysh – this is my pink Apple Crumble that I’m wearing – and before I manage to ask what the fock she thinks she’s playing at, she undoes the second button, exposing an extra one or two inches of skin. I’m, like, way too in shock to even say shit. She looks at my chest, roysh, like she’s studying, I don’t know, some focking picture or other in the National Gallery, then she obviously thinks, ah, what the hell, and opens the third button down as well. I’m suddenly there freezing my tits off – literally – but before I get a chance to do the buttons back up the bank bird arrives back, all apologies, and of course her eyes are immediately out on stalks, staring at my Rory Best. She could hang her focking cape on these pecs and she knows it. She tries to be professional, though, and gets straight back to business. ‘Okay, can I just outline one or two of our concerns,’ she goes, ‘and I’m speaking for the bank now. You haven’t made any repayments on this loan …’ ‘Well,’ Sorcha tries to go, ‘retail has been affected right across the board. I mean, look at the Royal Hibernian Way – it’s practically a no-go area.’ ‘And,’ the woman just goes, ‘you’ve ignored repeated letters from us, detailing our concerns regarding these arrears,’ and while she’s fluting through the file, looking for actual copies, Sorcha storts giving me the eyes and mouthing the words, ‘Fock
’s sake, Ross! Do something!’ Now, I’ve chormed some of Ireland’s most beautiful women horizontal – ask around – but this is suddenly a lot of pressure to be heaping on me. Sorcha keeps giving me the death rays, so suddenly I sort of, like, clear my throat, as if I’m about to make a statement, and the bank bird suddenly stops what she’s doing and looks up at me. ‘Must, er, must get pretty boring,’ I end up going, ‘looking at facts and figures all day. Do you mind me asking, do you ever let your hair down?’ and at the same time, roysh, I’m touching my schools cup medal and – this is going to sound sleazy? – I’m giving her what Oisinn used to call my Strangers Have the Best Candy smile. ‘Where do you tend to do your socializing?’ She’s too in shock to even answer. She just looks at me, her big ugly mouth slung open like something out of Wrights of Howth’s window, with no actual words coming out. You can see her suddenly telling herself to get her shit together and focus. This is supposed to be a place of business. She’s looking at me, going, ‘Em … Em … Em … Oh, the letters …’ and then she turns to Sorcha. ‘You haven’t acknowledged any of our correspondence – and that’s going back over several months …’ ‘Well,’ Sorcha goes, ‘I’m not making excuses, but I’ve been mostly concentrating on my summer range? I think this year’s going to be all about vintage-inspired styles with quirky modern twists, like angular heels, square toes and sultry colours,’ and at the same time, roysh, she’s kicking me under the desk, presumably telling me to give the girl more of the magic. ‘Be that as it may,’ she goes, ‘you’ve also failed to make any recent repayments on a pre-existing loan …’ She shuffles through the file. ‘… of fifty thousand euros. Which you took out in September 2006, I see from your application, to restyle the shop along the lines of the Betsey Johnson shop in Covent Garden, London …’ ‘Do you know who you’re an actual ringer for?’ I hear myself suddenly go. ‘Jessica Stroup – and that’s not me being sarcastic.’ She just, like, stares at me, loving it deep down, of course. Then she looks back at Sorcha. ‘Look,’ she goes, suddenly sounding reasonable? ‘You can’t go on just pretending this problem doesn’t exist. Remember, we’re here to help you. We’re not just a lending institution. We’re also here to offer you financial advice, to help you meet, head-on, the challenges of the new economic paradigm, going forward.’ Sorcha looks at me. I’m thinking, don’t bother, I didn’t catch a focking word of it either. ‘So,’ Sorcha, ‘what exactly would your advice be?’ The bird looks at her, roysh, and goes, ‘Close the shop down, sell the stock and start paying us our money back.’ Of course that doesn’t go down at all well. Sorcha’s like, ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Your shop,’ the bird goes, ‘is no longer a viable commercial proposition.’ Sorcha stands straight up. I’m thinking, oh fock! ‘Firstly,’ she goes, ‘it’s not a shop – it’s actually a store? And secondly, would you mind cancelling my subscription?’ The bird is like, ‘Subscription?’ not unreasonably in my humble op. I look back at Sorcha. I’m thinking, no, she’s not going to say it, is she? But she is. She clicks her fingers, going suddenly all Tyra Banks on the girl, and goes, ‘Yeah – because I’m tired of your issues!’ Then she turns around and focks off, leaving me sitting there with the ginger minger. It’s pretty embarrassing, it has to be said, me having gone out on a limb like I did. I stand up. ‘Just to let you know,’ I go, ‘that stuff I said was all horseshit, just to try to get you to …’ ‘Goodbye!’ she just goes, suddenly going back to her work. Hell hath no fury – and blahdy blahdy blah blah. Sorcha’s waiting outside – as mad as I’ve ever seen her. ‘Can you believe what that woman said to me?’ she goes. Of course, I don’t make the kind of noises she’s looking for, because – despite having a face like a busted orsehole – I think the woman had a point. ‘And did you see the way she was looking at you?’ she goes. ‘Er, you’re my husband?’ Something – possibly instinct – tells me that there’s a whole world of trouble ahead of us. ‘Babes,’ I go, ‘don’t take this the wrong way – that cancel my subscription shit? That’s okay to say to, like, Sophie or Amie with an ie or any of them. You can’t, I’m presuming, go around saying it to, like, the bank?’ She looks at me like she could snap my neck in two. ‘Where do you tend to do your socializing?’ she goes. And she says it in this, like, mentally deficient voice – which hurts, it has to be said. ‘Do you know who you’re an actual ringer for?’ I tell her to keep her focking Spanx on. ‘It was actually a lot of pressure,’ I go. ‘It was like trying to come up with my usual cracking lines with a focking drumroll sounding in my ear.’ She looks me up and down and tells me I’m – oh my God – useless! Hilarious. There’s, like, a photograph of the old dear on the front page of the Mail, coming out of, I don’t know where, but laden down with shopping bags. The headline’s like, ‘Recession? What FO’CK-ing Recession?’ and then underneath, it’s like, ‘Author and TV chef drops €200 in astonishing TWO-HOUR shopping binge!’ I’m standing in the petrol station on the Rock Road reading this shit. It’s like, Bestselling-author-turned-celebrity chef Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly sought to forget about her own financial crisis yesterday – with a little retail therapy. The stunningly attractive host of FO’CK Cooking is the only RTÉ high-earner still refusing to accept a cut in her reputed €500,000-a-year salary to help ease the station’s crippling financial position. But the multimillionaire author of such international bestsellers as Criminal Assets and Karma Suits Ya yesterday braved the storm of controversy caused by her stand by taking to Grafton Street for a shopping spree that was straight from the movie Pretty Woman … It’s only then I realize that they’ve, like, superimposed her face on to Julia Roberts’s body. I thought she was looking a bit too well for her. In little more than two hours, it says, the estranged wife of disgraced former councillor Charles O’Carroll-Kelly spent an astonishing €200. The splurge included €27.50 on a Miniamo wire cupcake tree from Stock Design on South King Street, €12.50 on a copy of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan in Dubray Books on Grafton Street and €12 on a silver-plated candle snuffer from Avoca Handweavers on Suffolk Street. And she wasn’t finished there. She also visited Carluccio’s on Dawson Street, where she picked up a bottle of aceto balsamico di Modena for €26.25 and a large packet of Conchiglioni Puglia pasta for €3.95 … It’s too focking funny for words. A year ago, you were off your meds if you weren’t buying three investment aportments on the Black Sea. Now you can’t be seen buying shit. I’d feel sorry for her, roysh, except it’s too actually hilarious. O’Carroll-Kelly is the last of the taxpayer-funded station’s Big Fish still holding out against pressure to accept a pay revision commensurate with the new economic realities. After filming her show yesterday, however, she hit Grafton Street, clearly intent on shopping her blues away. She rounded off the day with a visit to Brown Thomas, where she paid €22 for two Villeroy and Boch espresso cups, €40 for a Revol crème brûlée-scented candle, €60 for a jar of La Prairie concealer and €36 for a jar of Diptyque apricot hand balm. Fellow shoppers stood by open-mouthed as she swept through the exclusive department store like a tornado. ‘You’d swear there was no recession going on at all,’ said one shocked on-looker. ‘She was literally shopping without a single thought for anyone else’s financial circumstances. It was obscene. I had my eight-year-old daughter with me and I had to put my hands over her eyes.’ An RTÉ insider said, ‘As a role model, she would certainly seem to be setting the wrong example by spending money so openly at what is a difficult time for a great many people.’ Something’s eating Ronan. I can just tell. We’re in Dr Quirkey’s Good Time Emporium and he hasn’t kicked the coin cascade once. I also happen to be beating him at Hummer Racing Extreme Edition, which never happens. It’s like he’s not even trying? He’s also smoking a lot more than usual. I’d like to be able to say that he’ll tell me when he’s good and ready, except I can’t be even sure of that? The kid is only, like, three IQ points away from being considered officially gifted. It’s the strangest focking thing to
be twenty-nine years old and to have a twelve-year-old son who’s already smorter than you’ll ever be. Ronan’s screen says Game Over. Me, I’m through to the fourth level for the first time ever, though I don’t bother playing it. I catch his sad little reflection in the glass and I leave the wheel and turn to him. ‘Did you, er, see that cocaine seizure in Drogheda?’ I end up going. ‘Eighteen millions’ worth. Whose prints would you say are on that?’ He doesn’t answer. His little head is down. I’m there, ‘We’ll get the Sunday World this weekend. Williams will have put a name on it. He always focking does. Matter of fact, I’ll pick up a first edition in Spar on Saturday night, then drive it over to your old dear’s.’ He looks up at me. ‘But you go out on a Saturday night,’ he goes. I’m there, ‘Well, maybe this Saturday, I’ll give it a miss. Get you the paper instead. You’ve got to stay ahead of the curve, don’t you, especially if you want to be a criminal mastermind yourself one day?’ He says he supposes so. I’m there, ‘Look, Ro, is it still the porty? Again, I’m sorry I gave your girlfriend alcohol poisoning …’ ‘It’s not that,’ he goes. ‘Okay. Look, there’s not a lot that I can teach you as a father, Ro. You’re, like, very, very nearly a boy genius, whereas me, well, there’s little or nothing going on inside my head – that day in Clonskeagh just proved the point. Possibly the only thing I do have over you is life experience. I think what I’m trying to say is that if there’s ever anything, Ro, that you want to talk to me about, you can?’ He just nods. It doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything until suddenly, unexpectedly, he goes, ‘It’s Bla …’ I knew it. I’m there, ‘Are her old pair breaking your balls because of me?’ But he just goes, ‘How do you …’ and then he suddenly stops. ‘How do you know if you’re not in love any mower?’ That totally floors me. I’m there, ‘You’re saying you think you might have fallen out of love with her?’ He doesn’t answer, just shrugs his little shoulders. I take a breath. ‘Well, there’s no hord and fast rule, Ro. But what I would say to you is this. Sometimes when we think we’re confused about our feelings, we’re not really confused at all. We just don’t want to face up to them, especially if it means hurting someone. But deep down, my guess is, you know how you feel.’ He just stares into the distance over my shoulder. ‘I was watching this programme,’ he eventually goes, ‘thudder week – was one of them David Atten Buddahs …’ I’m there, ‘They can be good,’ wondering where the fock this is going. ‘Was all about the migration …’ ‘The what?’ ‘Thee were wildebeests, Rosser – there’s a million of these shams, maybe mower, and thee move in this massive heerd, looking for food and warther. And thee get bleaten slaughtered, so thee do – lions and leopards and cheetahs picking them off, then even crocodiles when thee do be crossing the rivers …’ ‘Jesus.’ ‘So I was just watching it, thinking, I’d have luffen to have seen that …’ ‘What do you mean, you’d have luffen to have seen it. You’re, like, twelve – who’s to say you one day won’t?’ I stop. I suddenly know where this is going. It’s me who ends up saying the unsayable. ‘You think you won’t be able to go to – I don’t know, is it Africa? – because Blathin’s in a wheelchair …’ He doesn’t answer. ‘Ro,’ I go, ‘people in wheelchairs go on safari all the time – that’s my guess anyway. Do you want me to check it out online? I could even go into Trailfinders – ask the hord questions. No better man.’ He shakes his head, like I’m missing the obvious point. ‘It’s not just that, but. It’s not just Africa. There’s gonna to be loads of things we’re never gonna be able to do thegedder – do you get me?’ ‘I think so.’ ‘Ine afraid … afraid she’s gonna … hold me back …’ ‘That’s your answer, then, Ro. If you really loved her, you wouldn’t think of it as being held back.’ ‘So what kind of a fooken pox does that make me?’ ‘It doesn’t make you a focking pox at all.’ ‘What, wanting to break up with a boord because she caddent walk?’ ‘That’s what I’m trying to get you to see, Ro – you want to break up with her because you don’t love her. And because you’re twelve and because you’ve got so much living to do and you shouldn’t even be in a serious relationship anyway, even with someone from Clonskeagh. I’ve always thought that, even though I love Bla. But when you think about it, Ro, her being in a wheelchair is the reason you’re not breaking up with her …’ He knows, deep down, that I’m talking sense, but he’s eaten up with guilt just thinking the things that he’s thinking. Where did he get his sense of shame from? It certainly wasn’t from my side of the family. ‘Ro,’ I go, ‘you’re going to have to finish it with her and not even think about the fact that she’s in a wheelchair …’ ‘It’s heerd.’ ‘Of course it’s hord, telling a bird you’ve no interest any more. But it’s one of those things you just have to face.’ That night with Breege suddenly pops into my head. I’m one to focking talk. I’d rather fall six storeys to my death … Still, if the worst thing anyone can say about me as a father is that I’m a hypocrite, then I won’t have done too badly. I hand him a euro. ‘Another shot of Hummer Racing?’ He just nods. I watch him feed the coin into the slot, roysh, then grip the wheel. ‘Ready?’ I go, then the race storts. I slam my foot on the pedal and he’s in my mirror straight away, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred yords behind me, clipping trees and sliding into ditches, his poor little head full of thoughts that only grown-ups should ever have to deal with. The last person I expected it to be on the phone, after what happened that night in L’Ecrivain, is Erika. I even say it to her. ‘This is a surprise.’ ‘Look, can we call a truce?’ she just goes. I’m there, ‘Er, cool,’ genuinely taken aback. ‘We can’t go on fighting the way we always have.’ I’m like, ‘Er, I suppose I agree,’ port of me waiting for the punchline. See, it’s hord to get used to her being anything other than a total and utter bitch. ‘Fighting for Charles’s attention like two teenage girls!’ I laugh. I’m there, ‘I suppose I’m prepared to admit that I was, like, jealous of you? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still think he’s a dick – you’ll find that out given time – but he used to have, I don’t know, time for me. Now it’s suddenly all you and obviously your old dear …’ ‘I think I can understand that.’ ‘Well, that’s a stort.’ ‘Look,’ she goes then, ‘I did something stupid …’ I get the instant impression she’s talking about Toddy Rathfriland. ‘Are you talking about Toddy Rathfriland?’ ‘Yes. Ross. It was a stupid thing to do, getting involved with someone like him, and I got myself into a lot of trouble. Whatever you think about him, Charles was there for you growing up, Ross. He wasn’t there for me. That’s why he’s so keen to fight my battles for me now.’ ‘Did Hennessy get that injunction to stop it being in the papers?’ ‘Yes, but do you understand what I’m trying to say?’ ‘I suppose.’ ‘What you did that day, Ross, taking that woman’s deposition …’ She lets it hang there for twenty seconds until I realize that what she’s looking for is an apology. ‘Okay, that was out of order,’ I go. ‘And, I’m admitting, bang out of order.’ There’s another, like, ten seconds of silence on the other end, before I hear her go, ‘Okay, then let’s forget about it. We need to talk about Sorcha.’ ‘Sorcha?’ ‘I hear the bank didn’t go well.’ That’s one thing you’d have to say about Erika. She’s a focking wagon at the best of times – but she can also be a good friend. ‘Er, that’s one way of putting it,’ I go. ‘Sorcha just won’t listen to reason.’ ‘Ross, they’re going to repossess her house.’ ‘Hello? I was there, remember?’ ‘She needs to close the shop.’ ‘That much is obvious.’ ‘Okay. I’m going to work on her.’ ‘And how do you propose to do that?’ ‘I’ve been helping her do a stock-take the last couple of days. Anyway, in passing, I offered to show the books to Charles – just for an independent third-party view? And she agreed.’ ‘Sorcha loves my – sorry, our – old man. Hopefully he’ll look at the accounts and tell her the place is focked seven ways till Sunday.’ ‘Now, what you need to do, Ross, is come up with some money, enough
to keep the banks happy and stop them foreclosing on the house.’ ‘Er, I’m pretty sure I can manage that.’ ‘Tell me you’re not thinking of asking Charles for it.’ ‘Okay, give me another few minutes, then …’ She ends up losing it with me a little bit. ‘Can you not do anything yourself, Ross? You really need to man-up here.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘This is your wife we’re talking about. You were a pretty lousy husband to her. Could you at least try to be a better ex?’ It’s, like, an hour later, while I’m watching The Afternoon Show, that the weirdest focking thing happens. I’d be tempted to put it down to coincidence if I didn’t already believe it was Father Fehily, I don’t know, smiling down on me from above. The doorbell goes and I check the little screen, except I don’t instantly recognize the bird who’s standing outside, even though she seems to know me. ‘Hi, Roth,’ she goes, ‘ith Ailith.’ I’ve always had a thing for birds with lisps, focked as that might sound. I’m there, ‘Okay, come on up,’ and I buzz her in. She airkisses me on both cheeks. It’s how are you and blah blah blah and I still have no focking idea who she is, remember, until she finally gets down to business. ‘That thing we thalked about the lath day,’ she goes. ‘Are you thill intrethted?’ She’s no Blake Lively up close, in fairness. I’m there, ‘The last day, yeah,’ trying to bluff her. ‘What a day that ended up being …’ She sees straight through it. ‘You have no ithea who I am, thoo you?’ I’m there, ‘Not a focking clue, no – being honest.’ ‘Then why thid you leth me in?’ ‘Good question – because you might have been a looker …’ ‘A looker? Roth, we meth that night … in Cocoon?’ Ailish! That was her name! I recognize her now, from her photo in front of the Sydney Opera House. Don’t remember any speech impediment, though. ‘No offence,’ I go, ‘but I was really, really pissed that night …’ She’s like, ‘Not thoo pithed – I’m happy to thay!’ She smiles, then she sort of, like, shivers with excitement at the memory. ‘I had thuch an amathing nithe.’ Jesus, she’s as soppy as a sponge. I tell her to sit down – sort of, like, indicate the couch. She’s there, ‘I’m prethuming, then, you thon’t remember the converthathion we hath,’ and she doesn’t give me a chance to answer. ‘Have you ever hearth of an aparthment development called Rotha Parkth?’ I laugh. ‘You mean Rosa Parks?’ I go. ‘Well, yeah, as it happens. I’ve a very good friend who works in repossessions – he’s never out of the focking place.’ ‘Okay, well, I work for Ethie Torsney …’ ‘Eddie Torsney?’ ‘Yeth – he’s the builther.’ ‘I know him. He’s been all over the news. Okay – I’m still trying to work out how this is any of my beeswax.’ ‘Well, you thaid that night that you might be intrethted in moving …’ ‘Moving?’ ‘To Rotha Parkth?’ I laugh. ‘Look – being honest? – I probably only said that to get into your, you know …’ Her face drops. ‘Oh,’ she goes. ‘You theemed prithy genuine.’ ‘Well, that’s just a skill I’ve learned – like a mind trick?’ She’s literally crushed. But I suppose I’m, like, curious now. ‘Do you mind me asking, how did the subject even come up?’ She’s there, ‘Well, when you thold me you lifthed in The Grange, I thaid to you that Ethie was looking for an aparthment in there.’ ‘I wouldn’t blame him. What is it that sign on the dualler still says? Few Addresses Generate This Kind of Dream? End of.’ ‘There are vacanth aparthments in there, but Ethie wants a penth houth.’ ‘Wouldn’t blame him either. Look at this place …’ ‘And I thaid to you that he’d be prepared thoo offer you a penth houth suite in Rotha Parkth, brand new, fully furnithed – it wath originally the thow aparthment – ith about thwice the thize of thith place.’ ‘Like I said, it was probably only to get you – not being crude – but lengthways.’ ‘Pluth,’ she all of a sudden goes, ‘one hunthreth thousanth euroth …’ There’s, like, silence from me all of a sudden. She senses my sudden interest. Oh, she’s good – wetter than a focking logride, but good. ‘One hunthreth thousanth euroth, Roth. There are very few people can thurn their nothes up at that kind of money – in the currenth economic climath.’ She’s not wrong either. I’d have the poppy to stop Sorcha and Honor being made homeless. I’d even have enough to put Honor back in Little Roedean. Plus, Erika’s possibly right. It might well be time for me to man-up. A hundred Ks is a hundred Ks. Now is not the time to be selfish. ‘But Rosa Parks is an absolute shithole,’ I go, ‘with all due respect. I mean, there’s only, like, twenty percent of the aportments even occupied. JP told me there’s one entire building with only, like, five people living in it.’ She’s like, ‘Noth for much longer.’ I’m obviously there, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, thrictly between uth, Ethie’s thone a theal with UCD, to leth out almoth all of the remaining vacanth as thtudent dormitoreeth. From Theptember, Rotha Parkth ith going to become bathically an exthtenthion of the UCD camputh.’ It’s like she knows what buttons to press with me? ‘Fock,’ I end up going. ‘Orts students walking around morning, noon and night, wearing half-nothing, porties, blah, blah, blah … Be just like the old days …’ ‘Tho whath thoo you think?’ What I think is, it’s like a focking lookalike competition in China – in other words, everyone’s a focking winner. ‘Maybe I need to sleep on it again,’ I go, even though I know – and she knows – what my answer’s possibly going to be. We smile at exactly the same time. She gets the words out before I do. ‘Perhapth we thould thleep on ith thegether.’ I honestly couldn’t have put it better myself. The New Westies. That’s who Paul Williams is putting that eighteen million yoyos worth of coke down to. It’s a new one on Ro. He practically rips the paper out of my hands, then his little head is suddenly going from side to side, taking in every word, his face lit up like he’s reading his first bench warrant. He’s giving me the edited highlights, of course. No regeerd for human life … Even more rootless than the originiddle Westies … I know I’m only feeding his obsession with that whole world, but it’s good to see him back to something like his old self, even if it’s just for a short while. Tina asks me what I’m doing here on a Saturday night. Well, what she actually says is, ‘Why ardent you out tonight?’ making it sound – like everything else that comes out of her mouth – like an accusation, at the same time pulling her ski pants out of her orse. Don’t ask me how I ever went there. ‘Er, I’m spending some time with our son?’ I go, except I say it, like, sarcastically? ‘If that’s okay with you.’ She doesn’t care one way or the other. She’s on her way out herself. It’s obviously single mums’ night in the Broken Arms in Finglas. ‘Me fadder was gonna pop in and look arthur him,’ she goes. Living next door to your old pair is another one of those things that’s, like, so working class. ‘He’ll be delighrit, he can go for he’s few beers arthur all.’ She says goodnight to Ro, then she can’t resist one last dig at me about Blathin’s porty. ‘If you’re gonna be givin him spidits,’ she goes, ‘give him vodka and oddinge juice – it’s much bether for their little stomachs, Ross …’ She cracks her hole laughing, then disappears out the door, leaving a focking vapour cloud of Coleen X in her wake. Me and Ro end up sitting there for practically the entire night, watching boxsets of The Wire on the big plasma TV that I helped JP repossess. And you know the script, it’s all, ‘Grab a hound, yo,’ and ‘You can’t go round droppin Five-Oh – now they takin doors …’ ‘Jesus, Ro,’ I go, at some point in the evening, ‘I honestly can’t understand a focking word of this.’ He laughs. ‘Grab a hound means get a Greyhound bus,’ he goes. ‘Droppin Five-Oh is shootin coppers. Takin doors – well, if you came up arowint here, you’d know what takin doors means … Do you want me to stick the subtitles on, Rosser?’ I’m there, ‘Er, I don’t think so! That sounds too much like work to me.’ It’s maybe, I don’t know, half an hour later that I bring up the whole Blathin thing. He seems all right now, but I’ve never seen him as sad as he was the other day. I’m there, ‘Have you done the dirty deed yet? As in Bla, blah blah blah?’ He doesn’t say anything and I take his silence to mean no. ‘I did the doort on her,’ h
e eventually goes. I feel my eyes go suddenly wide. He’s there, ‘With Kandra …’ I just shake my head. It turns out he’s more like me than I ever gave him credit for. ‘That’s who you were with that day when I rang you – when you said you were on one of your famous skites … You sounded like you were up to something all right.’ ‘I feel shit abourrit, Rosser.’ All of a sudden Keelyn pops into my head. Keelyn and a thousand others. ‘Ro,’ I go, ‘I’m telling you this as someone who has a lot of experience with the old Deadlier of the Species. You’ve got to tell her – and soon. Because if you don’t, I can guarantee you this, Kandra will.’ ‘Seriously,’ this Garret dude goes, ‘once you’ve been to Thailand, you can never go back to eating Thai food in Ireland ever again.’ ‘Well, you can?’ Claire goes. ‘But it’s so not the same.’ Sorcha and Erika are sitting there just nodding, like they’re listening to the tales of two, I don’t know, intrepid explorers. Who gives a fock? The point is, Sorcha and me have already spent time in that neck of the woods – in other words, Indonesia? – while Erika wouldn’t be orsed going any focking place where the electrical system couldn’t take her BaByliss Pro 2000 and her ghd. Listening to them dissing our Thai food makes me feel, in a weird way, patriotic. ‘How is it different?’ I end up going. Erika’s loving watching me put them under pressure, having always hated Claire’s guts. ‘I’m only asking,’ I go, ‘as a fan of Saba, Diep, all those – how is it not the same?’ Claire rolls her eyes – this is someone from Bray, remember, rolling her eyes at me? ‘If you’d ever eaten food,’ she goes, ‘from a stall in Thailand, Ross, you’d know.’ ‘I ate food from a stall once in Bali. Ended up with the Hershey squirts and a hole like the Japanese flag.’ Sorcha shoots me a sudden filthy – the exact same look she gave me on our pre-marriage course, when I squeezed one out, then asked the priest in front of four other couples whether it was maybe something he’d eaten. Erika gives me a secret smile, though. He’s a dick with ears, by the way. I hate these people who come back from supposedly travelling and insist on dressing like they’re still away. He’s wearing, like, board shorts, Birkenstocks and a short-sleeved shirt – er, it’s pissing today? – and up and down his orms he’s got all these different coloured bits of wool and string tied – friendship bracelets he was given by people he met once, maybe twice, and who’ll be following the boring twists and turns of his life on Facebook until the day they die. I could add that he’s sitting with, like, one foot up on his own seat and his orms folded across his knee – so chilled out from all the travelling and all the experiences that he’s forgotten how to sit in a focking chair properly. He’s no fan of mine either – I can tell that from the tude he’s giving me. I suppose if they are getting married, she’s probably given him her full service history. Which is why he can’t even look me in the eye – see, my name’s all over that logbook. Our grub finally arrives. Whatever about Thai food, Sorcha says, one thing that is always amazing is the wings in Elephant and Castle. Everyone agrees. ‘So,’ she goes then, ‘how are the wedding plans coming along? Have you set a date?’ ‘It’s going to be in late August,’ Claire goes. Sorcha’s like, ‘Oh my God, that’s only, like, three months away.’ Claire smiles, then looks at him. ‘We’ve decided it’s not going to be, like, a big wedding?’ she goes. Then he’s like, ‘We just think weddings are such a rip-off. Like two grand for flowers, three grand for a dress. Er, thanks, but no thanks?’ Sorcha’s nodding in agreement – this the girl who spent a hundred and fifty Ks on our wedding, a day that ended up in tears and threats of annulment before a drop of the forty-euro bisque had passed anyone’s lips. ‘That’s the thing about doing the whole travelling thing,’ Claire goes. ‘You meet people from all walks of life – the States, England, Australia. And you realize that the whole, I don’t know, commercial thing, it’s just … oh my God!’ ‘It’s all for show,’ he goes. She’s there, ‘That’s what I mean. It’s like, we don’t need to hire the ballroom in the Shelbourne Hotel to make this commitment to each other? Especially with the credit crunch. Or pay, I don’t know, two grand to hire a fleet of cars for, what, a couple of hours?’ Jesus Christ, it’s a wonder they ever let these two across the focking Dargle. ‘In Thailand,’ he goes, ‘they don’t go in for these big, three-hundred-euro-a-plate weddings. God, we’re obsessed in this country. Their weddings are, like, pretty much spiritual.’ ‘We’re actually going to include some aspects of the traditional Thai wedding in our day,’ she goes. ‘We’re going to get a monk to bless my mum and dad’s house before we leave for the church …’ I’m there, ‘That’ll be a first for Ballywaltrim.’ She decides to ignore it. ‘Then, for the reception, we’re going to go back to the house to do the whole Rod Nam Sang thing, where, after the meal, Garret and I will sit on the floor – in, like, the wai position? – with a chain of flowers connecting our hands, with our families and friends all sitting round. Then my dad – who’s big-time Catholic, so he needed obviously a bit of persuading – is going to soak our hands in water poured from a conch shell and wish us luck. Then everyone else will do the same …’ It’s funny to see the different reactions to this. Sorcha’s got this, like, fake smile just frozen on her face – like one of those people you see in the papers, receiving those giant novelty cheques and grinning so hord they look like they’re about to shit a carjack sideways. Erika looks like she’s about to throw up – she even pushes away the rest of her Chandler Bings. ‘And does your mum definitely have the room in the house?’ Sorcha goes. Claire’s like, ‘Yeah, because the sun room will be finished by then?’ ‘And,’ he goes, ‘it’s going to be a pretty small gathering, really just close family and friends.’ ‘That’s the reason I wanted to talk to you,’ Claire goes and the next thing I’m expecting her to tell us is that we’re not going to make the cut. Instead, roysh, she goes, ‘Sorcha and Erika, would you be my bridesmaids?’ My jaw just drops. To say it’s a big turn-up would be like saying Dolph Lundgren is a big Swede. I mean, there’s no real surprise with Sorcha. They’ve been friends since they were, like, fifteen, when they both worked in Gorta on Lower Liffey Street as part of, like, transition year? But Claire’s always hated Erika and Erika’s always hated Claire. I suppose it shows you how hord-up she is for mates. Anyway, this turns out to be the main topic of conversation after Claire and Garret leave – apparently, porking, like, everything else, is a total rip-off in this town. They also want to hit HMV, to see if they can get Bridge on the River Kwai on DVD. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I end up having to go, ‘you used to call her The Charwoman’s Daughter, Erika – do you remember that?’ It was when she found out Claire’s old dear used to clean Pres Bray three evenings a week. It used to drive Erika mad that she was always trying to fit in with, I suppose, our kind. ‘I was awful to her,’ she even goes. ‘Why would she ask me to be her bridesmaid?’ Sorcha shrugs. ‘She did get very into Buddhism while she was away.’ Erika considers this for a few seconds, then goes, ‘I’m going to be a bridesmaid at a credit crunch wedding. I wonder should I mention that I’m allergic to crimplene …’ and we all laugh, even Sorcha. It’s great watching Erika be a bitch to other people. Ten minutes later, the three of us are walking up Grafton Street – I’m porked in the Royal Surgeons – and I decide it’s time to hit them with my amazing news. Sorcha actually says thanks for paying for everyone and I tell her it’s cool. I didn’t see him sticking his hand in his pocket, by the way. I wonder is that, like, a Thai custom as well, stinging every other focker for the Harry Hill. ‘Money’s not an issue for some of us,’ I go. ‘Which, by the way, is something I wanted to talk to you about …’ She’s like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘What I mean is that you and Honor can stop worrying about the current economic blahdy blah.’ Sorcha and Erika both just stop – this is outside Laura Ashley – with looks of genuine surprise on their faces. ‘What are you talking about?’ Sorcha goes. ‘What I’m talking about is, I’ve managed to get the old Cora Venus together to get the bank off
your back – and to put Honor back in Little Roedean.’ ‘Ross,’ she automatically goes, ‘I couldn’t take money from your mum and dad.’ I laugh. ‘Er, it’s not from them? For once in my life, Babes, this one is down to me.’ I look at Erika. She’s more in shock at this than she was to be asked to be Claire’s bridesmaid. Sorcha’s there, ‘You haven’t done anything stupid, have you, Ross?’ I’m there, ‘Like gotten a job? Er, no – what I can tell you, though, is that it’s all legal and above board.’ ‘Are you saying …’ ‘I’m saying our daughter’s going to be back playing the glockenspiel again quicker than she can say, I don’t know, konnichiwa. And you don’t have to worry about being focked out on to Newtownpork Avenue either – at least for a few months.’ And the way she looks at me – the way they both look at me? – makes me prouder of myself than I’ve possibly ever been. ‘You haven’t told me what you think yet.’ My voice echoes through the empty aportment. See, I wanted, like, an independent opinion from someone who knows his property. JP just shrugs. ‘Big and spacious,’ is all he goes and that – unbelievably – is the nicest thing he can think to say. I’m there, ‘Dude, it’s an unbelievable pad. Imagine the focking porties I’m going to be able to throw. And what about the jacuzzi? Alpa-focking-cino.’ He’s there, ‘You couldn’t exactly describe it as trading up, though.’ He steps through the French doors, out on to the balcony. ‘I mean, instead of looking down on the N11,’ he goes, ‘you’re looking down on, what, the M50? You’re still just watching traffic go by.’ Er, this coming from a Formula One fan? ‘Plus,’ he goes, ‘no one lives here. Look at this place. It’s been abandoned. The builder’s never going to sell the rest of these aportments, so it’s never going to be finished. A lot of these blocks are going to end up bulldozed.’ Of course that’s where he’s wrong. I’m there, ‘I told you what Ailish said. He’s actually going to finish the whole thing this summer – it’s about to become port of the UCD campus.’ JP stares out over the mounds of muck and bricks and abandoned diggers. ‘We’re in Ticknock, Ross. You couldn’t see UCD from here with the Hubble focking Telescope.’ I just let it wash over me. ‘Yeah, you come back and say that to me when this place is Tequila Central!’ He just shrugs. ‘Okay,’ he goes, ‘as long as you know what you’re doing …’ I tell him I do. The next thing, Ailish steps out and joins us on the balcony. ‘Tho,’ she goes, clapping her hands together, like she’s talking to a four-year-old, ‘thoo you know anything about the original Rotha Parkth?’ Which is pretty insulting to my intelligence, it has to be said. I’m there, ‘Yeah, I know how to work the internet,’ possibly a bit too defensively? But I want to let her know that I’m not the type to just rush into something like this without fully researching it first. She’s there, ‘Wathn’t thee an amathing woman?’ obviously having Googled her herself. ‘You know, when thee refuthed thoo give up her theat on that buth all thoth yearth ago in America, thee became a hero for noth juth black people, buth for women thoo! And for anyone who wanth a bether worlth! Ith like, “Go Rotha – you thell ’em, girl!”’ I’m there, ‘I suppose fair focks to her would be my own basic attitude as well.’ JP’s just staring at me, judging me. I told him that me and her did it on the floor of my kitchen, though I didn’t mention that she was a focking sap. ‘Ith tho, tho thad,’ she goes, ‘that Rotha never lifthed long enough to thee thith plathe. Thadly, thee patht away in Octhober ’05 – the very week thath An Bord Pleanala granthed final planning permithion, with one hundreth and thixthy-theven condithionth attached …’ I’m there, ‘Bummer.’ She nods. ‘Of courth the tragedy ith we’re not thure if thee even knew about thith plathe. Ethie and I were hoping to bring her thoo Ticknock thoo perform the official opening theremony – which made her death doubly thad …’ I’m just staring at her, thinking, okay, have you stopped babbling yet? ‘Tho,’ she goes, ‘whath thoo you think, Roth?’ I’m just there, ‘Is the hundred Ks still port of it?’ ‘Abtholutely.’ ‘Then you’ve got yourself a deal.’ Her face lights up. I don’t even look at JP, though I can tell he’s giving me, I suppose, disapproving looks, so I leave him out there on the balcony, and step into the kitchen with Ailish to do the business – I’m talking about the business, this time, as opposed to the bidiness. She produces the paperwork and spreads it out on the island in the kitchen. You could focking honeymoon on the thing, it’s that big. I actually love signing my autograph. Most of the time that I did spend in class during my final two years at school, I spent just practising it. I do it, like everything I do, with a bit of a flourish, then Ailish reaches inside the jacket of her trouser suit and goes, ‘I think thith belongth to you.’ She puts the Ant and Dec down on the old Numerär birch worktop in front of me. I pick it up and end up just standing there, staring at it for, like, thirty seconds. ‘Look at all those noughts,’ I can’t help but go. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …’ The word ‘Fuck!’ suddenly slips from Ailish’s lips and, for whatever reason, she suddenly snatches it from my hand. She looks at it for, like, a second or two, then hands it back to me, the panic suddenly over. ‘Roth,’ she goes ‘thoo of those noughth are afther the dethimal pointh?’ I’m there, ‘They all count, Baby. They all count.’ Fionn’s early. We’re meeting in, like, Kielys and he’s already sat at the bor, reading – this’d be very Fionn – a book of all things? ‘How the hell are you?’ I go, then I give the borman a nod. Two pints of the old Milk of Amnesia. I’m there, ‘What are you reading?’ deciding not to even bother about the whys. He’s straight away on the big-time defensive, thinking I’m going to rip the piss out of him, of course. ‘It’s, er, a book …’ ‘Continue.’ ‘A book about physics. I’m reading about the possibility of profound symmetry transformations in the hot soup of quarks, antiquarks and gluons.’ I’m left just looking at him in total awe. ‘Is it possible to weigh someone’s brain?’ I go. He laughs. ‘What?’ ‘Exactly what I said – is it possible to weigh an actual brain?’ ‘It is possible, of course.’ ‘Well, I’d love to know what your focking brains weighs, Fionn. If ever you find out …’ ‘I’ll be sure to tell you.’ ‘Do. Something unbelievable, I bet. Jesus.’ He laughs again, then pushes his glasses up on his nose. The thing is, roysh, I’ve always given the dude a hord time – Goggleboy, Captain Nerdstorm, Filburt Shellbache – but if anyone else ever did, he knows deep down that I’d be the first one decking them. That’s how far back we go. We stort shooting the shit. I tell him about Ro and Bla – how your first hort is always the hordest to break. I tell him about Sorcha’s shop being in a jocker and her performance the other day in the old Hilary Swank, then about me moving to Rosa Parks. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ he goes. ‘I’ve passed that place once or twice – it’s still a building site, isn’t it?’ I’m there, ‘Not for much longer, Fionn. Not for much longer.’ I ask him how school’s going, as in the old teaching? He’s there, ‘Fine. I’ve probably taken a bit too much extracurricular work, with the Maths Olympiad and the Young Science Innovators.’ I don’t think I’ve ever met a man more in need of a ride. ‘How’s McGahy?’ I go. ‘Still a dick?’ He laughs. ‘Tom’s, er, much the same as a principal as he was as a teacher.’ In other words, yes. I’m there, ‘I can’t imagine what it’d be like having him as a boss. I hope you don’t take shit from him.’ The dude just laughs. I’m halfway through my second pint when he suddenly goes all deep on my ass. First he mentions, roysh, that we’re going to be, like, thirty next year? Then he goes, ‘Do you ever look back on the years, Ross, and think, what have I done with my life?’ The thought has never focking occurred to me – that’s being honest. I’m there, ‘Fionn, you’ve done loads – you’ve degrees coming out your ears.’ ‘Yeah, I know. And I’m very happy teaching. I know we’re all supposed to be up in arms about this pension levy, but, to be honest with you, I’d nearly do what I do for free.’ ‘Hey, whatever bloats your goat.’ He laughs. ‘No, I just mean, do you ever look back and … Ah,
I don’t know what I mean.’ The thing is, roysh, I suddenly do? It’s the first time it’s ever occurred to me but I think Fionn might actually be lonely. I know for a fact that he hasn’t been with a bird since, well, Aoife died and that must be, like, three years ago now. ‘Fionn,’ I go, ‘do you not think it’s time – you know, time you maybe met someone else?’ It feels a bit Jodie Morsh saying it to him but he can’t spend the rest of his life sitting in listening to Elbow and playing focking Jenga by himself. He must have balls like camel humps. ‘That’s what my mother says. You know, I’ve grieved long enough, Aoife wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life on my own …’ ‘Well, she wouldn’t. I think it’s time you maybe put yourself back on the morket.’ ‘I know you’re right. But it still feels, I don’t know, weird – just the idea of it. Like I’m cheating?’ See, I’ve never had any issue with cheating – he’s talking to the wrong buachaill here. I order two more pints of the old Prep H. He’s like, ‘It’s difficult anyway – you know, meeting someone?’ and I’m there, ‘Dude, a surprising number of birds are actually into glasses – they do exist, is all I’m saying.’ ‘I’m not talking about my glasses, Ross. I’m just saying, as you get older, it obviously gets harder. There’s less out there – statistically, I mean.’ I’m there, ‘Statistically?’ I even laugh. ‘Jesus Christ, Fionn, what have statistics got to do with anything? Every bird you meet doesn’t have to be the bird you’re going to marry. Choose ’em, use ’em and lose ’em – it’s what I’ve always done. And do you see me all depressed about turning thirty?’ He smiles at me. We’ve had our differences over the years but he’s still a major fan. ‘You know,’ he goes, ‘sometimes I wish I’d been a bit more like you.’ I laugh. ‘There’s room for only one Ross O’Carroll-Kelly on this planet that we call, I suppose, Earth?’ ‘Well, maybe I wish I’d let myself go more often.’ I remember we’re heading for Edinburgh this weekend for, like, the Heineken Cup final? I make, like, a mental note to get him the most shiftfaced he’s ever been. The old man asks me for my thoughts on all this – quote-unquote – share the pain rhetoric that’s coming from the government. I just stare him out of it. He’s got, like, cappuccino froth on his nose, but I don’t tell him. It makes it easier for me to hate him, if that doesn’t sound too weird? ‘From each according to his means,’ he goes, just shaking his head. ‘I never thought I’d live long enough to hear those words pour from the mouth of an Irish cabinet minister. Thirty years ago, you’d have been shot in the street for that kind of talk.’ I look across at Erika, as if to say, are you beginning to see it now? ‘Thee’ve trun anutter twenty-five cents on a packet of smokes,’ Ronan goes. The poor kid’s putting a brave face on things. ‘Hitting the weak again. Here, you’ve something on your nose there, Grandda …’ This is us, by the way, in the restaurant in the middle of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, waiting for Sorcha to show her boat. The old man’s had a look at the books and we’re all waiting for his honest opinion. You know mine. I’ve already shelled out the guts of fifty Ks to get Honor back into Pre-Montessori and stop the old Hilary Swank putting the two of them out on the road. I don’t want that shop bleeding me for the rest. Sorcha even said it herself. Working in town these days is like doing the dayshift in a battlefield hospital – you go in every morning and find out who went in the night. Jack & Jones. Harriet’s House. Sasha. Golden Discs. It was touch and go for Karen Millen for a while. And Oasis. Now – without wanting to come across as a bastard – it looks like her turn has finally arrived. She comes in and sits down. Her and Erika give it a bit of blahdy blah. Claire – oh, yeah, this is hilarious – she’s just chosen their bridesmaids dresses. She got them from – get this – Yo Thai in Donnybrook, as in the restaurant above Kielys. They had, like, a closing-down sale last weekend, flogging off everything from the plates and cutlery to the waitresses’ uniforms – which, incidentally, is what the girls are going to be wearing on the day. Sorcha puts, like, a positive spin on it by describing them as silk-effect kaftans. Erika goes, ‘Silk what kaftans?’ not unreasonably in my HO. ‘Effect,’ Sorcha goes. ‘Well, it’s actually acetate, which is usually, like, a lining fabric?’ I laugh. Erika laughs. Even Sorcha can’t help smile. ‘Come on,’ she goes, ‘they’re trying to save money.’ I’m there, ‘Speaking of which …’ deciding it’s time to get down to business. Sorcha suddenly looks at the old man – I know it’s not a word – but expectantly? ‘Well,’ he just goes, giving himself plenty of fanfare, ‘I’ve looked at the accounts – just as you asked – and one thing strikes me very clearly. You’re not making enough money in retail sales to meet your shop’s outgoings.’ I end up just shaking my head. ‘Thank you, Stephen focking Hawking. Are you saying you needed to take the books away to work that one out?’ But Sorcha nods like she’s just learned something new. ‘What isn’t in there, Charles, can I just say, are the two sales I made this week. A Christian Lacroix pleated dress and a Gerard Darel crochet bag …’ Then he’s suddenly nodding, roysh, like this is new information. I end up totally losing it then. And we’re talking totally. Because, at the end of the day, I’m the one who’s going to end up paying for this. ‘Gerard Darel?’ I go. ‘Sorry, we’re supposedly here to decide whether we’re going to keep flogging this dead horse – or are we going to decide to, like, shut it down?’ Erika nods. ‘Sorcha, you said it yourself,’ she goes, ‘people aren’t spending money. They’re scared. And if the major high street names are in trouble, what chance have independent operators like you got?’ I’m there, ‘Sounds like we’re coming to a decision here …’ Ronan pipes up then. ‘Why doatent you burden it?’ Sorcha, Erika and the old man all look at me. ‘He means burn it?’ I go. ‘My twelve-year-old son is suggesting we commit orson, presumably for the insurance.’ The old man – if you can believe this – goes, ‘Let’s hear the little chap out, Ross. There’s no such thing as a bad idea – that’s one lesson I’ve learned from forty-something years in business.’ ‘Ine just sayin,’ Ro goes, ‘you know Nudger?’ The old man’s like, ‘Yes! I shared a landing with his brother. How is he?’ ‘He’s moostard, Grandda. Moostard. In anyhow, this happens to be a sideline of he’s. Calls heself a conflagration specialist. He has a cussint, woorks in the fire brigade – knows how to make it look like an electrical fault …’ The old man’s actually there nodding away. ‘What are we looking at in terms of overheads?’ he even goes. That’s when I really flip. ‘Overheads? What the fock is this – Dragon’s Den? You’re not burning anything, Ro.’ Sorcha goes, ‘I don’t think I could bring myself to do it anyway, Ronan. What, destroy all those beautiful creations? The Giuseppe Zanotti gold gladiators? The tulle strapless Lanvin – as in, the exact same one that Katherine Heigl wore with gold Loubs when she went brunette that time. Oh my God, I literally couldn’t stand there and watch them go up in flames.’ ‘Plus,’ Erika goes, ‘you’re not even on electricity any more. You had the shop converted to wind power …’ I’m there, ‘Exactly! Which no one seems to be factoring into the equation.’ A waitress stops by to take Sorcha’s order. And to tell Ronan that he can’t smoke in here – she gives me a filthy then? I’m there, ‘Believe me – I’ve no control over him.’ Sorcha asks for a soy milk latte. Then she turns to the old man and says she thinks that maybe me and Erika are right – maybe she should just close it down. Erika’s there, ‘You’d be cutting your losses, Sorcha.’ I’m like, ‘And what have you lost, when you think about it? I mean, your old man only set up the shop for you to give you something to do when you finished college. I mean, what the fock else were you going to do with an Orts degree?’ She knows we’re talking sense. In fact she’s on the point of actually agreeing with us. She’s nodding her head and she’s about to say okay – her mouth is even forming the little o, when the old man has to go and open his trap. ‘That sounds very much like defeatist talk,’ he suddenly goes, waving his cappuccino spoon at me. ‘Are we all just going to give in now? Surrender an
d become Communists, like our friends in Kildare Street?’ ‘Charles!’ Erika goes, meaning shut the fock up. Sorcha’s there, ‘No, no, Erika, let’s hear your dad out.’ He goes, ‘I’m simply saying, Sorcha, that this isn’t the attitude that brought about what looked for a few years there like being an economic miracle!’ His words seem to, like, stir something in her. ‘You know what, Charles? You’re right. Nespresso have just brought out five new flavours. Except they’re not calling them flavours – they’re calling them personalities. It’s like, at least someone’s trying to keep this Celtic Tiger going.’ The old man’s like, ‘There you are, see. That’s the spirit. As Winston Churchill said, success is the ability to go from one failure to the other with no loss of enthusiasm.’ Winston Churchill! I’m trying to boot him under the table, to tell him to shut the fock up, except the damage has already been done. ‘I’ve always tried to ask myself,’ Sorcha goes, ‘whenever I’ve had a difficult decision to make, in life as well as fashion – what would Stella do?’ That’s how there ended up being fourteen wind turbines on the roof of this shopping centre. ‘I don’t think Stella would just give in,’ she goes. ‘She didn’t give in when people in the fashion world were being – oh my God – so bitchy about her.’ ‘There’ll always be critics,’ the old man goes. ‘I can tell you, for my part, I’ve said some terribly harsh things about Declan Kidney, which I now regret. Go back and read the letters pages …’ Sorcha’s face is suddenly full of – I’m pretty sure the word is, like, resolve? In other words, her mind is made up. She’s there, ‘I’m going to keep the shop open …’ Erika tries one more time. ‘Sorcha, I think you should think about this more carefully.’ She’s like, ‘No, Erika. I was thinkng anyway, shops like mine are so needed right now. I don’t know if any of you have noticed but 1980s fashion is suddenly back – and, oh my God, it wasn’t even good the first time around. Shoulder pads, tight jeans, plimsolls, Members Only jackets. And, oh my God, garish colours. Somebody’s going to have to offer an alternative.’ She all of a sudden stands up. I know her well enough to know that this conversation is over. She goes, ‘Thanks, everyone – now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a business to run.’ If you could call spending the afternoon on Facebook and TMZ running a business. I turn to the old man, except I don’t get a chance to say a word. He just goes, ‘Looking forward to Auld Reekie, Ross?’ I’m like, ‘What?’ giving him a serious filthy. He’s there, ‘You and your chaps, you’re heading over for the Heineken Cup final tomorrow, aren’t you? Edinburgh! The Athens of the North! Nisi Dominus Frustra!’ I look at Erika as if to say, you see what I’ve had to put up with for the last nearly thirty years? I look over and watch Sorcha disappear back into her shop. There is no talking to her. There’s going to be a price to pay for this and somehow I already know that I’m the one who’s going to be paying it. 4. Lions and Tigers and Bare Bottoms, Oh My!