The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress Read online

  We sit on two high-stools and watch the couple do their last few, I suppose, rotations, then Trevor sort of, like, claps his hands together – like a girl, it has to be said – and shouts, ‘Bravo… Bravo,’ then turns to me and goes, ‘They had a good coach, of course.’ I go, ‘Do you want a pint?’ and Trevor’s there, ‘What’s up with your voice, Ross. Is it deeper or something?’ and I’m there, ‘Not that I’ve noticed. Pint?’ and he’s like, ‘Heavens, no, Dorothy,’ and he turns to the borman and goes, ‘I’ll have a Slow Screw Against The Wall, please. Make that two,’ and a couple of minutes later these two Angel Delight glasses arrive with straws and umbrellas and focking fireworks sticking out of whatever piss it is we’re about to drink.

  So Trevor claps his hands together again and goes, ‘I want to know everything, Ross. How’s the delightful Sorcha? Ooh, that girl – she’s just like a young Judy Garland.’ and I’m there, ‘Oh, em… we broke up. But it’s Kool and the Gang. I’m getting on with my life. I’m actually going back to rugby, in a coaching capacity,’ and his jaw just, like, drops. He goes, ‘Broke up? No! So there was no wedding?’ and I’m there, ‘No, no, we actually got married. It just didn’t work out, I suppose,’ and he’s like, ‘Didn’t work out? Ross, you got married three weeks ago. When exactly did you discover that you were growing apart?’ and I’m there, ‘Oh, about two-and-a-half hours after the ceremony, I’d pretty much have to say,’ and he turns to the borman and goes, ‘You’d better fix us a couple more of those.’

  I don’t know what it is, roysh, but I just find it so easy to talk to Trevor and I end up spilling my guts out to him about everything, roysh, we’re talking the night I broke my duck with Tina, my old pair buying her off when they found out she was up the Ballyjames and the whole thing coming out at the reception. Trevor goes, ‘Your father sounds like quite a man,’ and I go, ‘No, he’s actually a total penis,’ and it’s only after I say it that I realize he’s being, like, ironic, if that’s the roysh word.

  He goes, ‘Well, you know what you’ve got to do, don’t you?’ and I’m there, ‘Well, I’ve already phoned her a couple of times and tried to explain. I suppose I could send her flowers, if push comes to shove,’ and he goes, ‘I’m not talking about Sorcha. Ross, you’ve got to go and see your boy,’ and it’s probably the way he says it, roysh. Your boy. Not my kid, or my saucepan, or – as JP calls him – the fruit of my overactive loins. He’s my boy. My boy. I have a boy. A son, I suppose you could call him.

  So suddenly, roysh, I stort getting all, like, emotional and out of nowhere, roysh, I’m suddenly bawling my basic eyes out. So Trevor – he’s funny, you have to give it to him – he leans over and, like, stirs my drink with the straw and goes, ‘Ooh, don’t, Ross. People’ll start talking,’ and I sort of, like, laugh and go, ‘I should go and see him, I suppose,’ and he’s there, ‘Believe me, this isn’t a time for sadness. Your parents, probably your friends as well, have been telling you that this is something to be ashamed of, when it’s not. It’s life. Life, Ross. Wonderful life.’

  And I realize, roysh, that Trevor’s roysh, he’s totally roysh, and now the only questions going through my head all of a sudden are: What does he look like and is he good in school and is he into rugby and do all the girls in his class love him and… Trevor goes, ‘Sorcha will come round, Ross,’ and I’m there, ‘What if she doesn’t, though? What if she can’t handle the idea of me having a kid with another bird?’ and he’s like, ‘That’s not the Sorcha I know. I dare say it’s not the one you know either. She’ll come round. Soon as she sees you facing up to your responsibilities. You know what you’ve to do, don’t you?’ and I’m there, ‘Go and see Ronan?’ and he’s like, ‘More than that. Be a man, Ross. It’s time,’ and I just, like, nod my head.

  He goes, ‘But before we say goodbye… a dance,’ and he jumps down off the stool, roysh, and gets everyone to clear the dance-floor, then he says something to the band and all of a sudden they strike up the first notes of the song me and Sorcha had for our first dance, that pile of shite from Dawson’s Creek, ‘Kiss Me’, or whatever. Trevor stands opposite me, roysh, with a big smile on his face and he goes, ‘It’s been three weeks, Ross. Let’s see how much of this you remember,’ and I go, ‘Prepare to be amazed.’

  *

  I whip out the old Wolfe and bell Sorcha and she gives me the what-do-you–want? treatment when she answers. I’m like, ‘How are things, Babes?’ and she’s there, ‘Fine,’ and it’s real, like, frosty. I’m there, ‘Hey, did you hear I’m actually coaching. Castlerock have asked me to go back and–’ and she just goes, ‘Whatever!’ and then there’s this, like, silence until I try to get the conversation going again. I’m like, ‘Hey, I met Trevor last night,’ and that gets a response. She goes, ‘OH MY GOD, how is he?’ and I’m there, ‘He’s drinking the Kool-Aid, Babes. Was asking for you… so… is Fionn there with you?’

  And she totally flies off the handle when I say that, roysh. She goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! I’ve seen him, like, once, Ross, since he got back from France. I cooked him dinner. Oh my God, what is your problem?’ and straight away I’m there, ‘I actually don’t like him,’ and she’s like, ‘He’s your friend, Ross,’ and I go, ‘Well, I don’t trust him then. He has a thing for you. As in, the big-time hots,’ and she’s there, ‘HELLO? He’s a friend, Ross, that’s all,’ and I’m like, ‘He doesn’t see it like that,’ and she goes, ‘Why am I even – oh my God! – discussing this with you? We’ve nothing to do with each other anymore. I can spend time with whoever I like.’

  Just as I’m about to remind her, roysh, that she’s still my wife, she goes, ‘You still haven’t been to see your son, have you?’ and I’m there, ‘Well, I’m actually going to. I’m actually thinking of going today, if you must know,’ and she goes, ‘If you spent a bit less time worrying about Fionn and a bit more time looking after your responsibilities, you might just succeed in winning back some of the respect I lost for you,’ and she hangs up, roysh, leaving me there thinking how unbelievably spot-on Trevor was.

  So what do I do, roysh, only bell Tina, then take my life – not to mention my new CD system – into my hands and hit the old Fleck Republic to see this kid, my kid, I suppose you’d have to call him. I have to say, roysh, I’m pretty nervous driving out there and it’s not just because it’s basically Dodge City. Being a father is something you usually get time to prepare for, roysh, but I’ve got this, like, instant seven-year-old son, but at the same time, roysh, I’m excited about finding out what sort of kid he is and all that shit.

  So I’m driving through this estate – I mean, who the fock came up with that name to describe places like this? – and I’m looking for the gaff because it’s, like, eight years since I was here. It’s still like the focking Wild West, roysh, there’s more horses in the gardens than cors and so many ugly birds in tracksuits that I’m wondering if the women’s mini-marathon has taken a detour this year.

  After, like, ten minutes of driving around, roysh, I finally pull up outside the gaff and it’s all beginning to look familiar to me now, exactly the way I remember it, except eight years dirtier. I get out of the cor and lash the old alorm on. There’s this little Ken Acker doing graffiti on the wall across the road, roysh, so I go over to him and I go, ‘Want to earn ten lids?’ and he just looks at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. I go, ‘If that jammer’s still got a full set of alloys and hasn’t been keyed by the time I come back, there’s ten sheets in it for you,’ and as I’m walking away, roysh, I hear him go, ‘Wanker,’ but I let it go. The kid didn’t ask to be born a peasant.

  Then I go and knock on the door. Not being a snob or anything, but the place could do with a blast or six of Glade. Tina answers, roysh, and I decide it’s important that she knows where she stands straight away, roysh, so I go, ‘Don’t get any notions about us playing happy families,’ and she calls me… well, she calls me a few names and she tells me she already has a boyfriend – no, ‘a fellah’ – and then she makes a couple
of not-too-favourable comments about my, like, performance that night. Sixty thousand birds would, like, testify that I’ve improved a bit since then, though after that little outburst, she’ll never find out.

  I decide to cut straight to the chase. I go, ‘I’m here to see the little goy,’ and I have to say, roysh, I’m suddenly kacking it, the old hort doing ninety to the dozen there on the doorstep. Tina goes, ‘Did you not see him out there?’ and this, like, horrible feeling hits me that it’s the little skobe who just called me a wanker. Tina’s like, ‘There he is over there, at the wall,’ and I turn around slowly, roysh, thinking that if I pegged it now, I could still ring Sorcha and tell her I saw the kid and I wouldn’t be lying.

  I turn around, roysh, but now there’s, like, two kids standing next to the wall, the one who called me an oil tanker and then another kid, who’s, like, two inches smaller than him, but who’s, like, giving out yords to him. He’s, like, pointing his finger in his face, roysh, and the bigger kid just has his head down and he’s taking whatever the other kid’s saying to him, then he hands over the spray can and this new kid pulls a wad of bills out of his Davy Crocket, peels off a couple and hands them to him, and the bigger kid beats it. The other kid crosses the road and comes into the gorden. He holds up the can and goes, ‘Honest to Jaysus, Ma, have these kids nuthin’ better to be doin’ at all?’

  Tina goes, ‘Ronan, dis is Ross. ‘Member I told ya abour im?’ and he looks at her, roysh, then he looks me up and down, then he looks back at her and the two of them break their shites laughing. He goes, ‘Sorry, Rosser, I thought you were that social worker back again. Nice to meet ye,’ and he offers me his hand.

  Doing the whole fatherly bit, roysh, I go, ‘Hey, I’ve got something for you, young… goy,’ and I go out and lash open the boot of the old GTI and give him a Leinster jersey, as in the new one, eighty focking sheets it cost me as well. He goes, ‘Rugby, is it?’ and I’m there, ‘Yeah. You know, the man here was the best outhalf in the country in his day?’ and he goes, ‘Game ball,’ and out of the corner of my eye, roysh, I catch him winking at Tina and I hear her go, ‘I’ll change it in Marathon durin’ de week.’

  I’m brought inside. I’m, like, bracing myself for the worst, roysh, but they’ve obviously come into a few bob since I was here last, roysh, because it’s actually unbelievable inside. I’d say they shelled out a lot more for their furniture than my old pair, roysh, but none of it goes in a council Lego house. It’s all, like, chez longues and big, fock-off ornamental rugs squeezed into these tiny little rooms. It’s like Buckingham Palace, except shrunk in the wash, with giant plasma-screen television everywhere.

  Tina goes off to the kitchen to make tea and Ronan and me sit there, chatting away, bonding, I suppose you’d have to call it. I tell him I’m married, though I don’t mention the break-up, and that I’m one of the élite few people in the world who’s a proud possessor of a Leinster Schools Senior Cup winner’s medal. I’m there, ‘Even Brian O’Driscoll would envy me this,’ and I whip it out of my pocket and show it to him.

  He tells me he plays ‘ball’, which is, like, Working Class for soccer, and that he’s pretty good in school, except he hates it. I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up and instead of going, ‘An astronaut,’ or, like, ‘A train-driver,’ he turns around and goes, ‘A solicitor specialising in personal injuries claims,’ and I’m thinking, There’s clearly a morket for that kind of shit around here. Smort kid.

  I’m there, ‘Are you sure you should be smoking?’ He’s just taken out a pouch of Old Holborn, which is full of, like, roll-ups and lit one up. I’m looking over my shoulder, expecting Tina to walk in any minute. He goes, ‘Ah, relax, Rosser. She knows. I’m trying to get off them, but you know how it is.’

  Tina comes in, puts the tray down on the coffee table, looks at Ronan and goes, ‘I don’t know how you can smoke dem tings,’ and she focks off again and Ronan gives me a wink. I go, ‘Whatever happened to Anto?’ and he’s there, ‘Me Uncle Anto?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, my old pair really liked him. They’d love to know whatever happened to him,’ though they’re actually more interested in knowing what happened to the Jack B. Yeats original that went missing from the old man’s study. Ronan goes, ‘He’s nsoyid’ and I’m thinking, No surprise there, and he’s like, ‘He got tree year. Ram-raided the offy in a robbed Peugeot, the fooken tulip.’ I’m there, ‘And you, Ronan? You stay out of trouble, I hope?’ suddenly feeling all, like, I don’t know, fatherly, I suppose. He goes, ‘Acting the mickey in school, that’s about the worst of it,’ and I’m there, ‘Kool and the Gang.’

  After an hour or so, I get up to go, roysh, and I tell him I’ll take a spin out to see him soon and we might, I don’t know, hit town or something, or maybe go and see the Lions play in Donnybrook. He gives me his mobile number and he goes, ‘Game ball, Rosser.’ As I’m leaving the gaff I look across the road, roysh, and the kid who called me a wanker is back and he’s got, like, a tin of white paint and he’s painting over the graffiti he did earlier. He looks over his shoulder, roysh, and Ronan gives him the thumbs-up.

  I get into the cor and stort her up. The kid shouts something at me, but I don’t hear it. I turn off the Snoopster and wind down the window. He goes, ‘No one touched your car, Mister,’ suddenly all full of, like, respect for me. I’m there, ‘Ten bills, isn’t that what I said?’ and he looks over at the gaff, then back at me and goes, ‘No, er, Ronan already paid me.’

  2. Caught in the Net

  I pork the GTI out on the road, roysh, because I actually want to experience the basic sensation of, like, walking through the gates again. Above the orchway, it’s like, CASTLEROCK COLLEGEin these big, like, wrought-iron letters and I swear to God, roysh, a shiver goes up my actual spine. It’s, like, ten-to-one, we’re talking lunchtime, and everyone’s outside, roysh, throwing rugby balls around the place or, like, sitting around, basically eating their lunch.

  Pretty much everybody stops what they’re doing when they see me, roysh, and there’s this, like, I suppose you’d have to say murmur in the air. Everyone’s like, ‘OH MY GOD! He’s actually here!’ and, ‘Ross O’Carroll-Kelly – the legend returns!’ which I have to say, roysh, is pretty flattering.

  Someone throws a rugby ball to me and – six years out of the game, roysh – the reflexes are as good as ever because I catch it, look up, see the posts of the back pitch maybe fifty yards away in the distance and I drop-kick that baby straight over the bor. This, like, round of applause breaks out, roysh, then this big loud cheer and everyone’s like, ‘OH MY GOD! Did you focking see that?’ and I look around at everyone and I go, ‘Goys, your pride’s just walked back through the door.’

  I hit the staffroom. Fehily hordly ever goes in there, but I want to see the faces on the teachers when they find out that the man is back. I just barge straight in there, roysh, and McGahy, as in Geography, and old Lamb Chop Lambkin, as in Biology, are having some really interesting discussion – I don’t think – about Iran, or Iraq, or wherever the Septics bombed the shit out of.

  I don’t say anything, roysh, just sit down, put the old feet up on the table and this bird – she’s actually a new teacher, roysh, but not much to look at – she’s just, like, staring at my Dubes, roysh, in total disgust, then she pulls her sandwiches away and sort of, like, tuts to herself. I’m like, ‘Is there any coffee in that?’ pointing to the machine in the corner and she’s about to answer, roysh, when all of a sudden McGahy turns around to me and goes, ‘I don’t know where you think you are…’

  I whip off my baseball cap, look around me and I go, ‘I’m in the staffroom at Castlerock College. Hey, and you thought Geography wasn’t my strong point,’ and I crack my hole laughing. He’s like, ‘This room is reserved for members of–’ and before he gets the chance to finish I just go, ‘I am a member of staff. I’m coaching the S, as it happens. Fehily asked me to come back and bail out your sorry orses,’ and of course being teachers, roysh, they’re dying to, like, give me line
s or detention or some shit, but all they can actually do is, like, throw their eyes up to heaven because they know I’m basically untouchable.

  I’m sitting back with my hands behind my head, basically loving it. I look at my shoes and I go, ‘Think I need a new pair of Dubes. Of course, I can well afford it, what with my coach’s salary of two grand a week,’ and I see the new one turn around and look at McGahy with her mouth wide open and I know this is going to be, like, item number one on the agenda at the next teachers’ union meeting. I’m there, ‘You wouldn’t be pulling in anything close to that kind of bread, would you, McGahy?’ and he’s looking at me, roysh – big focking bald head on him – and he goes, ‘What I earn is none of your business,’ and of course straight away, roysh, I’m like, ‘Yeah, what ever!’ and then I just go, ‘Can’t sit around chatting all day. Got a meeting with the Principal,’ and on the way out the door, roysh, I turn around and I’m just like, ‘Later… Losers!’

  Fehily’s cracking his hole laughing when I go into his office. He’s like, ‘Couldn’t resist popping into the staff-room, eh?’ and I’m there, ‘Yeah. Wankers,’ and he goes, ‘Wankers is right. Always looking for more money. You know, I think some of them are under the impression that what they teach in class actually matters,’ and I go, ‘Unbelievable,’ sort of, like, shaking my head. He goes, ‘And on that self-same subject, there are one or two players on the senior team who are, shall we say, a little too interested in their studies. Got it into their heads somehow that the Leaving Cert, is important. Read what that says, my child,’ and he points to this, like, plaque on the wall behind his desk.