The Oh My God Delusion Read online

  Danuta Jankauskas is the new Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. Or that’s the word that JP and his old man have been putting around the Merrion Inn.

  See, when I heard they’d hired this six-foot, nineteen-year-old Russian stunner to help them with the old repossession business, my instant reaction – like everyone else’s – was that the poor girl was going to have her orse handled more times than a prize cow at auction. Because Mr Coroy is a filthbag – always has been. But then, roysh, when the stories storted to filter back to me about how amazing she was at the ort of actually repossessing shit, I thought, no, no, no – this is, like, a ruse? They’re using her as bait to try to get me to take that job offer, knowing how much I love a challenge. I suppose what I’m admitting is that I was curious. If she really was all she was being cracked up to be, well, I had to, like, see it for myself? When I first clapped eyes on her, sitting in the front of the flatbed truck, I’ll be honest, roysh, I actually laughed. There was no way I could take her seriously. She wasn’t six foot, she was taller – six-two, six-three – and a ringer – and I mean a ringer – for Maria Kirilenko. I opened the passenger door and sort of, like, indicated for her to scooch up, but she just looked at me, roysh, coldly. Wasn’t even coldly– this was, like, contempt, like I was a fly she could reduce to mush if only she could be orsed. So I ended up having to get in the driver’s side and I sat in the middle. JP was driving this particular day because his old man was in court – I presumed fighting one of the many sexual harassment cases that were all that remained of his once famous estate agency business. Now, no one could honestly say I didn’t make the effort with Danuta? I asked her where exactly in Russia she was from but she said Novosibirsk like she could have been telling me to go fock myself. I even cracked on that I’d heard of it – nice to be nice – but she just rolled her eyes, then under her breath went, ‘Stoopit boy,’ and storted fiddling about with her actual iPhone. I turned to JP – we were halfway to Shankill, at this stage – and looked at him as if to say, what is her issue? He just shook his head, as if to say, fair focks to you for making a major effort, Ross – you’re actually great like that – but do not even think about going there. To change the subject, he said he met Sorcha coming out of Crunch Fitness last night. ‘She was in much better form,’ he went. ‘She seems to think this recession was just a blip.’ I was there, ‘Er, really?’ ‘She said that if the evidence of her shop was anything to go by, we’ve definitely turned a corner as a nation …’ ‘That’s, er, good to hear.’ ‘And she did that course, didn’t she?’ ‘Focking Smurfit School, yeah.’ ‘Well, she says consumer confidence has returned with a vengeance. People are back spending.’ I certainly was. It was only, like, the first week in June and I was already down nearly eighteen grand. The Cora Venus from the Rosa Parks move was disappearing fast. The one upside, of course, was that Sorcha hadn’t been making a holy tit of herself on Grafton Street. Still, I knew I was going to have to switch from clothes and shoes to bags and accessories if I was going to keep the illusion of, I suppose, prosperity going for any longer. While this conversation was going on, Danuta was basically mute, except for the odd time when she looked up from her iPhone to, I don’t know, pronounce comment under her breath on the driving skills of other drivers on the road. ‘Indicate, you fugging beetch,’ she’d go, or ‘You harr in ze fast lane why – because you harr turning right in fife miles time?’ To break the tension as much as anything else, I asked JP what he was even repossessing today. He said a bouncy castle and I was suddenly sat there wondering what would a bouncy castle cost and is that how bad things have actually gone? The next thing I knew, we were pulling up outside a redbrick gaff in the middle of some random housing estate in – like I said – Skankill. JP killed the engine. ‘It’s a big bouncy castle,’ he went, obviously reading my mind. ‘Three grands’ worth.’ I thought, even so … We all hopped out of the truck. I had a sly look at Danuta, who, with her hand, was smoothing out the creases of her skinny jeans while looking – being honest – incredible. JP had barely set foot in the front gorden when this woman – if anything, you’d say she was an older version of Jordana Brewster – came pegging it out of the gaff, going, ‘No, please! Not today!’ It has to be said, it took me kind of unawares. JP, roysh, did his best to blank her and it’s me she ended up telling that it was Lila and Giovanna’s joint birthday porty and could we not show some humanity by coming back some other day. I went, ‘It’s actually nothing to do with me. I’m along for the ride,’ and then – speaking of rides – I turned around to see what Danuta was up to. She was still standing next to the truck – get this – checking out her focking manicure. I laughed – had to. I went, ‘Your old man was right, JP. She’s a real go-getter,’ then I followed him around the back of the gaff, while Jordana Brewster chased after us, calling me in particular a selection of names, none of which was especially original. JP wasn’t shitting me when he described it as a big bouncy castle. It was literally the biggest one I’d ever seen – we’re talking two storeys high – and definitely modelled on Princess Fiona’s one in, like, the first Shrek movie? See, I watched all that shit with Honor, which is how I know. There must have been, like, fifty or sixty kids – we’re talking half the actual neighbourhood – playing on the thing, jumping up and down, hanging out of the windows and blahdy blahdy blah. Kids being basically kids. There were, like, ten, maybe eleven other parents there too and they were suddenly looking at me and the J-Dog as if to say, who the fock are these two suddenly arriving? I was just, like, hanging back, wondering how he was going to clear all of the kids out before he deflated the thing. By this stage, roysh, the Jordana Brewster one had copped that JP was in actual chorge and she storted to concentrate her anger on him. She was, like, stood in front of him, asking him why he couldn’t let the children, no, the kiddies, have one day – one last day – of fun in the thing, had he ever been young himself and did he have any Christian compassion in him whatsoever? Personally, I thought the questions were storting to hit home. The seminary, or whatever you call it, left its mork on him. I was leaning against the side of the old Hampton Orangery, watching JP struggle with his conscience in the face of this serious guilt-tripping. That’s when I heard the clop, clop, clop of Danuta’s high-heeled boots on the gravel pathway and I turned to see her coming around the side of the gaff, her walk as cool and confident as that of a basic catwalk model. Everybody turned to see her and, once they saw her, they couldn’t take their eyes off her, because she was – like I said – a sight worth seeing. Everyone – we’re talking men and women – just stood in total awe as this magnificent creature strode, all sultry but full of – you’d have to say – purpose, towards the air-pump that was keeping the castle inflated and then, without even batting one of her three-inch eyelashes, kicked the switch to the off position. The sound of the motor stopped and the walls of the castle immediately storted to fall. The gorden was suddenly filled with the sounds of children screaming. Except the adults, roysh, were too in shock to move. And I’m included in that. It took, like, fifteen seconds for the entire structure to collapse. Two or three kids managed to, like, jump clear in time, but the rest of them were trapped in this, I don’t know, latex landslide. It was only then that the parents got over the initial shock phase and storted to react. It was like watching the Red Cross going in after one of those, I suppose, tragedies that Sorcha’s always contributing money to, sifting through the folds, pulling out crying children missing their shoes. I was suddenly thinking about Honor – as in, what if she was trapped in there? – and for a moment I was actually considering helping with the rescue effort. But that was when I sensed the mood of the gathering suddenly turning from one of shock and panic to one of – you’d have to say – anger. ‘You focking animals!’ one of the parents suddenly shouted at Danuta. I looked over at JP, who was watching all of this with a worrying lack of concern. ‘Dude!’ I went – except I had to say it a second time
before he even heard me. ‘Dude!’ and then I gave him the eyes, as if to say, we better make like shepherds and get the flock out of here. He shook his head at me and that’s when Danuta opened up on one of the parents. ‘Who harr you to call us aneemals?’ she went. ‘You cannot pay, you fugging giff beck. Git your fugging cheeldoren out of there – we wheel be beck een one hour to collect,’ and then, with a flick of her hair, she walked – all hips and shoulders – back to the truck. Me and JP followed a few paces behind. He put his orm around my shoulder and said it had finally happened – we’re talking the thunderbolt. He said he was in love. Rebel TV chef Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly was at it again yesterday – shopping up a storm while the rest of the country faced up to the gravest crisis to hit Ireland since the Potato Famine … This story is, like, splashed across the front page of The PAYE Daily Monkey or whatever it’s called. The former multimillion-selling author and host of RTÉ’s FO’CK Cooking is continuing to hold firm in the face of pressure from station bosses to accept a revised pay deal. And while hundreds of thousands of Irish people face up to life on the dole – and even on the streets – the sixty-year-old presenter … Sixty? I’m thinking, Jesus Christ, are they going to add five years to her age every week until she finally caves? … sent a clear message to the rest of the country yesterday – FO’CK the lot of you! That’s good, you’d have to say. Our photographer captured the millionaire socialite in the midst of yet another of her famous shopping binges yesterday afternoon, this time in Dundrum Town Centre, where in little more than an hour she spent a STAGGERING €38 on a miniature ornamental bird cage in House of Fraser, an ASTONISHING €22 on a bottle of Re-charge Black Pepper Bodywash in Molton Brown and a MIND-BLOWING €54 on a copy of Andrew Pern’s Black Pudding and Foie Gras in Hughes & Hughes. Asked how he felt about the idea of O’Carroll-Kelly lording it up on what is essentially public money, unemployed father-of-six Damien Fennessy, who lost his job when Dell closed in Limerick, said he was ‘sickened’. Fighting back tears, he said, ‘Share the pain is the message we keep hearing from our politicians – well, she’s certainly not feeling any. Black pepper body wash? If I brought that into the house, my kids would probably eat it.’ Fionnuala had no words of comfort for Damien and tens of thousands more like him yesterday. Asked by our photographer for a comment, she simply said, ‘I’m having a wonderful day, thank you.’ I’m still actually laughing at this when my mobile suddenly rings and, by sheer coincidence, there’s some bird on the line saying she’s from, like, RTÉ and shit? I presume at first that she’s ringing to tell me the old dear’s had a sudden meltdown and been corted off to the booby house. Except it turns out to be not that at all. This bird’s from, like, Nationwide, that programme that’s always on after the news, with that whole Country People Do the Darnedest Things vibe? She tells me they’re doing an item on the way in which the downturn in the economy has narrowed the social divisions within Irish life, even in terms of simple propinquity. Of course you can picture me. I caught so little of what she said that I couldn’t tell you whether she’d even finished her sentence, so I give it a good ten seconds before I decide that it’s safe to answer. ‘Er, is there actually another way you could put that?’ She has the cheek to laugh. ‘Yes,’ she goes, ‘we’re doing a feature on how the recession has – if you like – taken the various socio-economic classes, which became polarized during the years of the boom, and thrown them back together again.’ It’s a good job I’m already lying down. I’m there, ‘Er, give it one last shot.’ ‘Okay, for instance, I don’t know if you saw it but in Galway yesterday there were engineers, solicitors, quantity surveyors, queuing up alongside non-skilled workers for Subway sandwich franchises.’ The only reason I’m entertaining this, by the way, is because she has, like, a cute voice and I’m guessing she looks a little bit like Leighton Meester. ‘In addition to that,’ she goes, ‘a lot of people who bought apartments when the property market was at its most buoyant are suddenly discovering themselves living alongside people who’ve been housed by the Department of Social Welfare in the exact same properties …’ I suddenly get it. ‘Someone’s clearly been talking,’ I tell her. She doesn’t seem at all embarrassed. She said she overheard my old dear telling Miriam O’Callaghan that I was living next door to people who challenged the notion of human beings as evolution’s final word. I actually didn’t think she cared that much. ‘What we’d like to do,’ she goes, ‘is maybe talk to you and your neighbours about some of the tensions that are perhaps involved.’ I’m there, ‘Have you asked them?’ ‘We have, yeah.’ ‘And they’re up for it?’ ‘Yeah, they’re happy to be interviewed.’ ‘Okay, then I probably should say something. Warn the public to be vigilant – or they’ll end up living next door to skanks. This is all going to depend obviously on whether it’s Mary Kennedy doing the interviews, or, I don’t know … the dude.’ She says it’s almost certainly going to be Mary. Then I tell her I think I could definitely add something to this whole debate. Come on over. The second she’s off the phone, I’m out of that bed like I’ve pissed it. I give the place an unbelievable going-over, Flash Wiping every surface, throwing all the clutter into the hot press, even making three or four attempts to flush the toilet. To cut a long story short, two hours later, roysh, there’s a knock on the door and I practically tear the thing off its hinges I open it that fast. And there I am – at long last, is the way I feel – face to face with Mary Kennedy. ‘Hey,’ I go, smooth and nice, yet at the same a little bit flirty? ‘Hello,’ she goes, sticking out her hand. I laugh and tell her I think we can do better than that? I kiss her on either cheek, then I think, ah, what the hell, and I repeat the dose. Of course Terry and Larry hear the commotion in the hallway and come out of their gaff at that exact moment. ‘Jaysus,’ Terry, naturally, has to go, ‘what counthree are you living in – Ferrants?’ trying to make a show of me in front of her. I’m there, ‘Er, this is how civilized people greet each other? We don’t all shout, “Hee-er, Wanker!” like you did to me in the corpork this morning.’ Mary laughs. ‘Please,’ she goes, ‘save it until we start filming!’ Terry’s like, ‘Ah, we widdle, don’t you woody. We’ve plenthy to bleaten say, so we have.’ ‘He toordened eer dog gay?’ Larry goes. I’m there, ‘I did not turn their dog gay.’ Terry backs him up, of course. ‘Ya did, yeah – pooer Rooney. Do you not member him tryin to royid ya?’ ‘Of course I remember him trying to ride me … But I had nothing to do with turning him gay. He was obviously gay before.’ ‘I’d luffen to see ya say dat to he’s face,’ Larry goes. Mary laughs, then says she’s going to interview me first, then pop next door to talk to them in, say, twenty minutes? The two boys are like, ‘Feerd enuff, Meerdy,’ then she breezes past me into the gaff, the sweet smell of – I’m pretty sure – Fifth Avenue by Elizabeth Orden following her like the contrails of an F15. Oh, there’s also some director dude, two cameramen, then one or two, I don’t know, technicians or whatever they’re called, who set up everything while Mary and me shoot the shit. She asks me if I think my old dear will ever write again and I tell her, with a bit of luck, no. Then they sit us down, mike us up, and she storts hitting me with the hord questions. ‘You and your neighbours, you’re from, I think it’s fair to say, very different backgrounds …’ she goes. I laugh. ‘You can say that again,’ I go, trying to give not only Mary, but also the viewers at home, a little flavour of what I’m like. She’s there, ‘You’re from quite a privileged background.’ ‘And proud of it.’ ‘Money. Status. Private, rugby-playing secondary school.’ ‘All of that.’ ‘I suppose what I’m asking,’ Mary goes, keeping her eye on the bigger picture, like the pro that she is, ‘is how have you all been rubbing along, if you like, now that you’re neighbours here in the stunning, stunning Rosa Parks?’ ‘That’s a very good question, Mary. Well, you saw us out in the hallway there. Sometimes it’s like World War … I don’t know – whatever one we’re up to. Look, I’m not going to mak
e any secret of it. I gave up a perfectly good aportment in the old Spirit of Gracious Living to move here. I got stitched up in a major way. And as you can imagine, I wasn’t exactly a happy camper when I found out I was sharing the penthouse floor with – no offence – the lowest of the low …’ Mary seems a bit taken aback by that. ‘Well, on the contrary,’ she goes, ‘I think a great number of people would take offence at that description.’ I’m losing her, so I decide to reel it in a bit. ‘Yeah, no, to go back to your question about the main differences between us, I’d say the hours we keep is a major one. See, I tend to do a lot of my sleeping during the day, when they’re up and about and making a lot of noise, doing whatever it is they do in there. Then at night, when I’m playing Xbox or listening to music or – as has been known to happen occasionally, Mary – entertaining female company …’ I give the camera a little wink. ‘… they’re hammering on the walls, telling me to keep the noise down.’ I continue in this vein for, like, twenty minutes or so, giving it to her and the viewers as it basically is. And it’s all good stuff – take it from someone who watches a lot of TV. Anyway, it’s as they’re packing up their shit that one of the technician dudes turns around to me and happens to mention that I’m a brave man. I just nod. I can take a compliment. I’m there, ‘Like I said, I didn’t choose to live beside them? But you can’t just roll over either. Otherwise, the next thing you know, they’re sticking a pigeon loft on your balcony.’ I say my goodbyes to Mary, then she disappears in next door. ‘Good luck,’ I shout after her. ‘No, no,’ the technician dude goes to me, ‘what I mean is the way you speak to them. You know who they are, don’t you?’ I’m there, ‘Er, no …’ genuinely not having a clue. ‘Well,’ he goes, ‘I could be wrong …’ I don’t like the sound of this. ‘I mean, I thought I recognized them out in the hallway there.’ I’m like, ‘Who are they?’ the concern pretty obvious in my voice. ‘Well,’ he goes, ‘I think they call them the New Westies.’ I’m there, ‘Er, please tell me you’re shitting me.’ ‘No,’ he goes, ‘you know the crowd I’m talking about.’ Know them? They’ve been all over the news for the past two weeks. I’m there, ‘Blah blah blah was believed to have been murdered as part of the ongoing feud between the New Westies and Skobie Gang B …’ ‘Exactly,’ he goes. ‘But, like I said, I could be wrong.’ ‘Holdall’ is one of those words you only ever hear used in relation to criminal activity. I’m wondering – as I watch, through the spyhole, the comings and goings of the two next door – whether anyone in history has ever had an honest reason to own one. Of course, my old man made pretty much the same point when he ran in the local elections on, like, a law and order platform, arguing that the way to stamp out working-class crime was not better gun control but better holdall control, and that those who deal in these ‘instruments of misery’ should be required – by law – to keep a register of anyone who buys one. It’s actually the old man who flashes into my mind as I take in this fish-eye view of Terry and Larry making their seventh trip up from the underground corpork in the space of an hour, each time carrying one of these, again, holdalls in either hand, stuffed to practically bursting point with, well, I can only guess what, but I’m pretty sure it’s not shopping. I suddenly hear Omar whistling. I pull my eye away from the spyhole. It’s Ro returning my call from last night. The poor kid’s still got the major guilts, I can instantly tell. Of course, he’s young. He’ll get over it when he gets his first straight red from a bird. ‘She sent me the cheerm bracelet back,’ he instantly goes. ‘The one from Tiffany’s.’ See, that’s changed from my time. The Mounties always held on to the shit you gave them. Same as Alex and Holy Child Killiney. It was the Loretos – Dalkey, Foxrock, the Green – who’d usually fock stuff back at you. ‘Why don’t you, er, give it to Kandra?’ I go, trying to put myself in his shoes. He’s there, ‘Ine not seein Kandra. I told you, Rosser, I was only wit her that once.’ ‘Well, hang on to it for the moment,’ I go. ‘There’s going to be loads more girls, Ro – believe me.’ Through the door I hear the lift ping. I look out through the spyhole again. The two boys are going back down to the corpork to fill up their holdalls again. I tell Ronan I have a question for him. ‘Have you ever heard of two – I suppose – goys, called – are you ready? –Terry and Larry Tuhill?’ He laughs for maybe the first time in months. ‘Tetty and Laddy Tuhill?’ ‘Yeah, now think carefully, Ro.’ ‘I doatent have to think. They’re the New Westies, Rosser …’ ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ ‘It was in that Sunday Wurdled you brought me. They’re into all sorts of shit, them boys. Thrugs, guns …’ ‘Shit!’ ‘From what I hear, Tetty’s the Avon Beerksdale of the operation and Laddy’s apposed to be the Stringer Bell …’ ‘Fock! I think I may have, er, made a few derogatory remorks about them on RTÉ’s Nationwide …’ ‘What the fook did you do that for?’ ‘It’s a long story. It’s supposed to be going out on Friday …’ ‘Rosser, them boys don’t dance.’ ‘Er, I know that, Ro? I’m the one living next door to them …’ There’s, like, silence on the other end, but I can almost hear him smiling down the phone. ‘You’re wha?’ ‘Why do you think I’m shitting babyfood here? I thought they were just a couple of hormless skanks!’ He cracks his hole laughing. I’m glad to to hear he’s suddenly over Bla. ‘Here,’ he goes, ‘I might call into them – welcome them to the neighbourhood and that.’ I end up losing it and letting a roar out of me. ‘You stay away from that underworld scum!’ It’s at that exact point, roysh, that there’s a sudden knock on the door. Not even a knock, more like a hammering, like someone’s hitting it with the heel of their hand. I’m thinking, shit, they definitely heard what I just shouted. Ronan’s hung up, by the way, and left me to it. Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! The only thing to be done, I decide, is to get into bed, get under the covers and pretend not to be in. But the hammering just continues. Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! I put my eye up to the spyhole and it’s with a sense of massive relief I discover that it’s not Terry and Larry at all, it’s actually, like, Erika? I open the door and I’m suddenly there going, ‘Come in, come in,’ but as usual, the happy feeling of seeing her lasts all of five seconds. ‘What the hell is going on?’ is her opener. I tell her I was just about to pack. I have to be out of the country before Nationwide hits the screens on Friday. ‘I’m talking about Sorcha,’ she goes. ‘I’m talking about the shop,’ and I automatically look away. ‘Yeah,’ I go, ‘I, er, heard it’s suddenly flying …’ I sit down and flick on the TV. Lisa Cannon’s catching up with X Factor finalist Eoghan Quigg. Erika could bore a hole in my forehead with the look she’s still giving me. ‘Bit unusual, isn’t it?’ ‘Unusual? As in?’ ‘The economy’s still in freefall. Retail sales are at a twenty-year low. The Grafton Street area is full of vacant units. A lot of shops are only surviving because they’re having all-year-round, fifty-percent-off sales …’ ‘Your point being?’ ‘My point being that in the past month, Sorcha’s turnover is the same as it was for the twelve months of last year.’ She’s shorp, I’ll give her that. ‘Well,’ I try to go, ‘it might have been her taking the message to the streets that day. There might be something in that shit she was saying about people actually wanting quality at a time like this?’ There’s no bullshitting this girl, though. She knows me too well. She just stares at me until I end up having to look at her. And once I do that, there’s nowhere to hide. ‘Okay,’ I end up having to go, ‘I’ve been giving money to birds to spend in the shop …’ She’s delighted, of course. ‘That’s what I thought. These are all your … tarts, are they, who’ve been coming in?’ I actually resent that word. I’m like, ‘Pretty much, yeah. How did you know?’ She smiles but not in, like, a good way? ‘They were all of a type, Ross.’ Maybe I should have sent in one or two hogs, even just to keep it realistic. ‘So now the only other question,’ she goes, ‘is why?’ I shrug. ‘Sorcha’s old man threatened me.’ ‘Threatened yo
u? Physically?’ ‘No, although he’s done that plenty of times in the past. No, he threatened to ruin me – as in, financially? I think one or two of his barrister mates saw her on Grafton Street with the focking megaphone. You can’t blame them, they were probably thinking, er, how much did it cost Edmund to put her through Mount Anville again?’ ‘And he said he’d ruin you?’ ‘Yeah, in the divorce. Said unless I got her off the focking street, he was going to make sure I was the one who ended up paying her debts. Can I just point out, Erika, I was the one telling her to close the shop …’ In fairness to her, she agrees with me. She sits down, roysh, suddenly not so aggressive – more like an actual sister, in fact? ‘I even had to trade down,’ I go, ‘just to get the old Hilary Swank off her back. That’s how I ended up living in this focking … building site …’ ‘What is that barking?’ she goes. I shake my head. ‘It’s next door’s dog. He’s actually supposed to be in love with me. And that’s not me being big-headed.’ She looks at me like it’s the most focked-up thing she’s ever heard. I’m there, ‘Erika, you’re not going to tell her, are you?’ and she just laughs. ‘Of course I’m going to tell her.’ ‘What, just to be a bitch?’ ‘No, not to be a bitch … Ross, have you even thought about what’s going to happen when you run out of money?’ ‘Well,’ I go, ‘I’ve enough to maybe see it through the summer. I figured the recession would probably be over by then. Do you know how long they usually last?’ She shakes her head. ‘This one,’ she goes, ‘might even outlive us. And all you’re doing is giving Sorcha false hope and putting off the inevitable. You know she stood up at the AGM of the City Centre Business Association last weekend and said the recession was nothing more than a media invention.’ ‘And how did that go down?’ ‘As well as you’d expect … You can’t go on doing this, Ross. Besides, I’ve better things to do with my time than to go on serving bogus customers in some shop that’s already failed.’ I’m there, ‘She’s going to go chicken jalfrezi. I mean, probably worse than the time I nailed her little sister.’ ‘Let me talk to her,’ she goes. ‘If she knows that your intentions were good …’ I end up just shrugging. There’s at least two very large shit-storms blowing this way and deep down I just know that I’m about to get splattered. ‘She swims. And I don’t just mean as a hobby. When she was only, like, fifteen, she was a first reserve in the Russian team for the 2004 Olympics – I think in the 200-metres individual medley …’ This is JP, by the way, totally smitten with Danuta, only, what, two dates in? We’ve had her Cuban fusion cooking. We’ve had her two Konik ponies called Raisa and Vladena. We’ve had her encyclopedic knowledge of Russian ballet. ‘What about the age thing?’ Fionn goes. That did cross my mind as well. She’s, like, ten years younger than him? ‘It’s not a thing,’ JP goes. ‘It’s not like going out with a nineteen-year-old girl from, say, Dublin – Uggs and Facebook and robbing drinks at last orders. Danuta’s different. You’ve met her, Ross, she’s …’ She’s horder than Dolphin’s Born, is what she is. I don’t say that, though. I just go, ‘Stunning,’ and keep up the fake smile. ‘Exactly,’ he goes, ‘and it’s also nice to go out with someone with a different, I don’t know, worldview to your own. I mean, she’s got me doing all sorts of crazy shit. She’s got me, for instance, reading Nabokov …’ I roll my eyes – can’t help it. Fionn, though, says he loves Nabokov. He would, of course. Even when he’s on his summer holidays, he can’t help being a schoolteacher. ‘I told you she was studying literature in Trinity, didn’t I?’ ‘Yes,’ I go. ‘At least twice.’ ‘What I don’t get,’ Fionn goes, ‘is how she ended up doing repossessions.’ I’m thinking, if you saw her in action, Fionn, you’d get it straight away. ‘Well,’ JP goes, ‘that’s her old man’s line of work too – as in, back in Russia? I mean, she’s been helping him from the time she was, I don’t know, ten or something. So when she saw my old man’s classified ad in In Dublin, she thought, hey, job’s a good un …’ We’re all tanning it, it has to be said, for a Thursday night in Café en Seine. ‘Goys,’ I go, ‘maybe try to remember to keep your clothes on tonight, will you?’ and they both laugh, in fairness to them. JP’s there, ‘McGahy never found out, Fionn, no?’ and Fionn goes, ‘No. God knows what he’d have said.’ I’m like, ‘Would have been another excuse for him to hate rugby, I can tell you that for free.’ ‘You know,’ Fionn goes, ‘I don’t regret it – what we did. I know I’d drunk an awful lot, and, yeah, I was embarrassed initially, probably worried for my job as well. But it felt good to cut loose for once – like we used to when we were young.’ ‘Well, some of us never stopped,’ I go. ‘Just as a matter of interest, have you had any, let’s just call it, trade since we had our little chat?’ JP’s there, ‘What’s all this about?’ ‘I was telling Fionn it’s time to get back in the game. He needs to be back out there – like you – getting down and sweaty again.’ Fionn’s there, ‘Ross! Jesus!’ all embarrassed. I’m there, ‘Okay, left hammer, sitting at that high table over there – she’s drinking, I think I’m right in saying, a Cosmo? She’s been giving you the deep meaningfuls all night.’ He has a sly George Hook over his shoulder and turns back with a look of, like, total disgust on his boat. ‘You pick out the only girl in here tonight who’s wearing glasses?’ I’m there, ‘Well, I’m just saying, you’ve got to have something in common – you always read that in these magazines, don’t you, that that kind of shit’s important?’ ‘We are allowed to breed outside our species, you know?’ ‘Whoa, beam me up, Snotty! I’m actually trying to help? As it happens, I don’t even think she’s that horrendous – nice shopfrontage on it.’ He’s there, ‘Well, I can look after myself, thanks all the same.’ I’m like, ‘Fair enough. Oh, by the way, did I tell you, I might soon be joining Oisinn in hiding?’ The two goys look at me as if to say, whoa, don’t say that Rossmeister, you’re needed around here. I’m there, ‘Yeah, no, all of those people who said that I’d one day get my comeuppance – they might be about to finally have their moment. See, I’ve been paying people – exes of mine, basically – to spend money in Sorcha’s shop …’ ‘Why?’ they both go, at the exact same time. ‘It’s a long story. Anyway, she’s about to find out about it. On top of that, well, I’ve said some pretty horsh things about the two yahoos next door on tomorrow night’s Nationwide. And then of course it turns out that they’re both major underworld figures …’ They’re both just staring at me with their mouths wide open. ‘So,’ I go, ‘if I’m suddenly found floating in the sea, chopped up in a milk churn, with my balls in my mouth, you’ll know why. And that’s just what Sorcha’s going to do to me!’ Of course it turns out that the reason Fionn and JP are staring at me open-mouthed is that she happens to be standing right behind me. See, I was just born unlucky? I spin around on the stool. ‘Don’t bother, Ross,’ she goes. ‘Erika told me everything,’ and she looks at me like she knows she could actually kill me, then get off on the grounds of justification. ‘You bastard,’ she goes. ‘All your little whores …’ ‘That’s horsh.’ ‘… coming into my shop and – oh my God – laughing at me behind my actual back …’ Fionn tries to get in between us then. Of course, he represented Norway in the Model UN. ‘Sorcha,’ he goes, ‘sit down. Let’s talk about this thing …’ ‘Stay the fock out of my affairs,’ she goes, then she turns to me. ‘So how much of it was real?’ ‘What?’ ‘I want to know, Ross. How much money did you spend in my shop?’ I sort of, like, sigh. ‘Thirty-something grand – we’re talking ballpork?’ She’s like, ‘Thirty-something grand?’ and at the same time you can see her doing the calculations in her head. Then her face suddenly drops. It’s obvious, roysh, that it’s her entire turnover for the past few weeks. ‘Hey, I was the one trying to tell you to close the shop down,’ I go. She’s there, ‘You focking bastard!’ ‘To be fair, your old man threatened to bankrupt me in the divorce if he saw you on Grafton Street with that megaphone again …’ Her expression suddenly changes from one of
anger to one of, like, sadness. She shakes her head and tells me that this is the worst thing I’ve done to her – this coming from the girl I gave oral thrush to the night before her graduation. She goes, ‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Ross. Never …’ Five to seven on Friday evening and they’re stood at my door with twenty-four bottles of Fink Bräu, grinning like two focking donkeys eating glass. Of course I can’t come up with an excuse quick enough. Before I can say a word, they just borge in. Larry goes, ‘What were you doin, havin a wank?’ See, this is how they talk the whole time. I’m there, ‘Er, no?’ except they’re not even listening now. They’ve, like, settled themselves on the sofa and they’ve switched the TV over to RTÉ1. ‘Eer big night, wha?’ Terry goes to me. ‘Here, me ma has all her neighbours arowint to see it in hers. Fooken mad proud, so she is …’ Oh, fock. My hort’s suddenly pumping like a pimped-up Vauxhall Nova. ‘It’s, er, not today,’ I go, trying to bluff them. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s, like, next Friday?’ And of course no sooner have I said it than the credits roll and Mary Kennedy’s going, ‘On Nationwide tonight …’ and there we are, coming up in a moment, squeezed in between an item about a new holistic healing centre for Tullamore and one about a group of nuns from Ballyduff who make Braille bibles for blind street kids in Belize. ‘See, it’ll be another ten minutes at least,’ I go, ‘let’s see what else is on for the moment,’ hoping to find some, maybe, soccer to distract them? ‘Here, Tetty,’ Larry goes, ‘I hope he’s not arthur sayin sometin derogatoddy abour us and he doesn’t want us to see it.’ I laugh. ‘Yeah, roysh,’ I go, making a grab for the remote. ‘As if …’ ‘Leaf that fooken telly as it is,’ Terry goes, like a man who’s used to getting his way. Oh, fock! It’s, like, the nuns who are up first. All the work is done by hand and blahdy blahdy blah. I’m sitting there, roysh, trying to remember some of the shit I said. All I know is that very little of it could be described as good. I stand up and wander over to the French doors, thinking, maybe I’ll go over the balcony again. Climb down there and never come back. Just leave this place to the focking elements. ‘Sit dowin!’ Terry goes. ‘I was just going to grab a lungful of air …’ ‘Sit fooken dowin!’ I do immediately what he says. Larry’s there, ‘Dat’s good woork dem nuns is doin – will we trun a few bob at dem?’ and his brother goes, ‘Yeah, why not?’ and I’m thinking, underworld characters who give money to charity … Jesus. The report seems to go on for ever. But eventually, roysh, it ends and then we’re suddenly up. The two boys cheer when they see Mary Kennedy standing in the hallway between our two doors. ‘Yeeeaaahhh!’ they both go, raising their bottles to the screen. ‘Go on, Meeerdy!’ ‘Now,’ Mary goes, ‘the economic downturn that we are currently experiencing has been described by economists as the most socially democratic recession ever to hit Ireland, affecting people across a whole range of economic groups. One of the most interesting features of the downturn, according to a recent study by NUI Maynooth, has been a blurring of many of the social divisions that once existed in this country. Here, in the beautiful South Dublin suburb of Ticknock, I visited two sets of neighbours from vastly divergent social backgrounds and spoke to them about the tensions involved in living next door to each other in the new, post-Tiger Ireland …’ The next thing, roysh, on come the opening notes of Coldplay’s ‘In My Place’ – which is a clever touch – along with a montage of slow-motion images of me playing GTA 4 on the Xbox and doing sit-ups with my top off, then Terry and Larry smoking in their tracksuit bottoms and their wife-beater vests, then wrestling with Rooney out on the balcony. Then it cuts to the two of them, sitting side by side, on the sofa. ‘For me,’ Terry goes, ‘the heerdest ting – bein honest wit ya – has been de language baddier. Does be veddy heerd sometimes to wontherstand him and I’m shewer it does be heerd for him to wontherstand us. Like, he does say goys when what he means is feddas. He does use diffordent words. But then we’d often say royid – “Did you get the royid off her?” – whereas he does say scooore …’ ‘Did you scooore her?’ Larry goes, then the two of them crack their holes laughing. The next shot is me going, ‘Hash. The focking smell of it, constantly. In the lift. In the hallway. Focking everywhere …’ I have a quick look at the two boys. They’re sitting there watching with their mouths just open. Meanwhile, I’m up on the screen going, ‘Don’t get me wrong here, I’ve got nothing against hash per se. I just think it’s a gateway drug that can lead to more serious shit, like holidays in Benalmadena and going to see Pink Floyd tribute bands …’ Then I give the camera one of my sly little smiles. Okay, I’m thinking, they’re going to stort slagging me off any second now – to, like, balance the whole thing up? ‘When we moofed in foorst,’ Larry goes, ‘we tought, he’s a snoppy little so-and-so next doh-er. Like, he’d almost look dowin he’s nose at you when you met him in de lift. Sure, he rang de loar on us, foorst day we moofed in, tought we were stroking de gaff. But den de both of us – Tetty and me – we decided dats probley just de way he was raised. I tink now, we’d both say, he’s actually a veddy nice toype of a fedda …’ That’s not what they focking think! Shit. I’m up again. ‘The first thing that entered my head when I saw them, roysh, was that they were the kind you always see on the news, coming out of court, one hand cuffed to a Gord, the other covering their faces with a tabloid newspaper …’ They’re still just staring at the screen. ‘Goys,’ I try to go, ‘just to say, this was before I found out who you actually were?’ Except they don’t answer. And I go on hanging myself up there. ‘Those kind of people, you know the sort, their only ambition in life is to own pubs and restaurants in focking Alicante … All their washing hanging over the balcony rail – er, hello? … I’d say, roysh, in all honesty, having them living next door to me has probably knocked about sixty, possibly seventy Ks off the value of my aportment. So you tell me whether that’s, like, a good thing.’ They suddenly both stand up at exactly the same time. I’m literally shitting myself, expecting them to pull a couple of Glocks. I get ready to dive for cover behind the Blake occasional table, honestly expecting to die in a hail of bullets and birch-veneer splinters. Except their actual reaction takes me by total surprise. ‘Eer fooken ma’s watchin dis!’ Terry goes, more disappointed than angry? I’m there, ‘I know – you mentioned. It’s just, look, no offence, I thought we were all going to be slagging each other off. I thought you were going to be talking about Rooney trying to, you know, ride me that day …’ ‘What, you tink I’d say sometin like dat knowin me ma was gonna be watchin?’ They’ve obviously got a different relationship with their old dear than I have with mine. ‘Well, yeah …’ He shakes his head. ‘Dat Rooney ting was just a joke, Ross. But what you’re arthur just sayin abour us … it was veddy hoortful …’ I suddenly can’t even look at them. It’s weird, roysh, because they’re giving me the major guilts, even though I know deep down that these are the country’s two biggest dealers in, like, illegal drugs and fireorms? ‘I tought we were frents,’ Larry goes. I’m like, ‘Friends?’ because it’s honestly news to me. ‘Yeah, frents!’ He shakes his head then and picks up the tray of Fink Bräu. ‘Mon, Tetty,’ he goes. ‘We’ll thrink these next doh-er – bether company,’ and off they go – to my considerable relief, it has to be said. It’s, like, five seconds after the report ends that Fionn rings. ‘Do you need a bed for tonight?’ in his opening line. He’s obviously watched it. I end up just laughing, which obviously surprises him. I’m there, ‘Would you believe me if I told you they watched it here with me?’ He’s like, ‘What?’ He probably thinks I’m, like, delirious with fear. ‘They called in, with beers from Lidl …’ He sounds suddenly full of concern. ‘Are they holding a gun to your head there, Ross? Cough if they are.’ ‘No, they’re gone, Dude. See, that’s, like, the weirdest thing? I honestly thought there was going to be, like, frogmen out searching for me tonight.’ ‘Are you telling me they’re not even angry, Ross … after that?’ ‘No, they were just, again,
disappointed …’ ‘Disappointed?’ ‘Yeah, exactly the same as Sorcha.’ ‘Well, thank God for that.’ ‘Big time – disappointment is something I can more than live with.’ Claire calls around with what’s-his-face, while I’m watching a rerun of the Heineken Cup final on Sky Plus. Then she proves that she knows fock-all about rugby by going, ‘Oh my God, Brian O’Driscoll’s wearing blue! Does he not play for, like, Ireland any more?’ It’s one of those questions that I wouldn’t even dignify with an answer, so I end up just blanking her. He ends up sitting – get this – cross-legged on the sofa, like he’s doing yoga or some shit, and I’m thinking, I swear to fock, if he puts dirt on my cushions, I’ll take one of those Birkenstocks and give him something to focking meditate on. What’s his even name again? ‘Is this a big game?’ Claire goes, the way birds do when they want you to mute the TV. I’m like, ‘Er, you could say that, Claire, yeah.’ Then he has the actual cheek to shake his head and go, ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t get sports,’ with a big smirk on his face as well, like he finds everyone in the world just a bit focking ridiculous. It’s like, yeah, maybe if I went into Trailfinders and booked a Qantas around-the-world-in-three-stops trip, I’d end up being as cool as him. Claire has the cheek to laugh at me then. She’s there, ‘Oh my God, is that what I think it is, Ross?’ and what she’s talking about is my Leinster Schools Senior Cup medal. ‘Are you telling me you wear that whenever you watch a rugby match?’ ‘No,’ I go, ‘I wear it all the focking time. I just take it out from under my shirt when I’m watching Leinster play.’ ‘Oh, dear!’ he goes, the patronizing prick. So I go, ‘Yeah, Claire, like you’ve never seen your reflection in it, panting like a focking dog,’ and that shuts the two of them up long enough for me to enjoy Johnny Sexton’s drop goal. ‘Is there a reason, by the way, that you two are even here?’ That’s when she makes a big show of clearing her throat and goes, ‘Okay, obviously it’s only, like, two months until the big day and we want to square off as many things as we can now, just so we can, like, relax and enjoy it.’ ‘Cool,’ I go, quick as a flash, ‘I’ll have the Cantonese spring rolls followed by the king prawns in black bean sauce …’ She gives me an absolute filthy. He just tries to ignore it, the focking Zen master over there. ‘Or is it just going to be chicken balls with curry sauce for everyone?’ The whole Bray thing is something she’s never going to be able to live down – neither should she. ‘To make sure the day runs smoothly,’ she goes, ‘we’re trying to identify areas of potential conflict early on and, like, tackle them?’ ‘Meaning?’ ‘Well, I heard about the little stunt you pulled with Sorcha’s shop …’ ‘That’s nothing to do with you.’ ‘And I know she told you she never wants to see you again …’ ‘Again, none of your focking business.’ ‘We just want to make sure that none of the ill-feeling between you spills over into our wedding day, the theme of which is supposed to be serenity and oneness?’ ‘Is that everything?’ ‘What?’ ‘Is that everything? Because I’d really like to go back to enjoying my Saturday afternoon …’ The two of them exchange looks. ‘Well, no,’ she goes, ‘I also had a favour to ask …’ I sort of, like, snort at her. Bray people would live in your ear, then stick three foreign-language students in the other one. ‘You know the e-mails that I sent to everyone,’ she goes, ‘about my travels around Asia?’ I don’t even give her the satisfaction of an answer. ‘Well, Garret thinks I should put them all together and publish, like, a book?’ I laugh. No option. ‘And I was wondering, do you think your mum would give me any advice on how to go about getting it published?’ ‘Definitely,’ I go. ‘She’s the one with the track record for writing boring shit that feels like actual work to read.’ I suddenly remember what it said on the radio this morning. O’Carroll-Kelly is now the last of RTÉ’s high-earners holding out. Which means she’ll be as pissy as a dipso’s mattress. ‘Definitely give her a ring,’ I tell her. ‘Here’s her number …’ I can see her through the glass, sat slumped on the floor with her back to the wall, looking totally defeated, her fingers playing with something, which turns out to be a buckle that Honor pulled from a pair of Mary Jane five-strap peep toes. It’s the only evidence left of what this place used to actually be. I give the window another quick tap. ‘Please, Sorcha!’ I go. ‘I didn’t ever want to see this day.’ That for some reason gets her attention. She peels herself up off the floor and walks to the door. She looks horrific, by the way, like she hasn’t slept in two nights. It turns out she hasn’t slept in two nights. She unlocks the door and opens it, except only an inch or two, not enough to let me actually in. ‘I used to wish you had something wrong with your brain,’ is her opening line, ‘as in, like, a tumour?’ Of course that rocks me back on my heels. ‘I know you’re upset, Babes, but that’s possibly a bit over the top?’ ‘Whenever you did something awful,’ she goes, ‘like when you slept with my little sister, or the time you swore you saw Stella McCortney in the lane beside Iskanders eating a shish kebab, I used to always say to my mum, maybe he’s got something pushing down on his brain and – oh my God – making him act the way he does?’ In fairness to her, she has always tried to see the good in me. ‘Mum and Dad would be just like, “Cut him out of your life, Sorcha, like a leg gone bad with gangrene.” But I’d be there, “No, you see this kind of thing on TV all the time! Chicago Hope, ER … ” actually defending you, Ross! Thinking that if I could just get you to go for an MRI, it might suddenly explain everything.’ I shake my head. ‘It’s nice of you to think that way,’ I go, ‘but it’d probably just be a waste of hospital resources. I act the way I do, I can tell you for a fact, because that’s just the way I am. I’m a dick. Love me or hate me …’ She looks me up and down and I feel her attitude towards me suddenly soften. ‘Ross, I know you did what you did because my dad threatened you …’ She suddenly opens the door wide enough to let me in. It’s, like, so random seeing the shop like this? It’s weird the way our voices echo off the walls, with everything but the corpet stripped out of it. I tell her I thought she might have had, like, a closing-down sale but she says she couldn’t have faced it. ‘Sell those new Rupert Sandersons, for instance, for, like, fifty percent off? I was the first shop in Ireland to get them after BTs, Ross – I literally couldn’t do it …’ She sits back down on the floor and I plonk myself down beside her. She asks me if I saw the photograph of Sean Fitzpatrick in the paper this morning. ‘With a suntan,’ she goes, before I get a chance to even answer, ‘as if nothing even happened …’ That poor focker’s getting blamed for everything. Him and my old dear. It’s like the old man always says – people love a lynching. ‘God, if I could get my hands on him …’ I go, agreeing with her – you’d have to with the form she’s in? We’re both quiet then. ‘Holly Willoughby said this was one of her favourite places to shop when she was in Dublin,’ she suddenly goes, looking sad and distant. I tell her I know. I remember. ‘And Michelle Heaton.’ I tell her I know that too. She produces a bottle of champagne. It’s, like, good shit as well. She says Pia Bang dropped it in to her last night, when she was clearing the stock out. You’d have to say fair focks. She’s there, ‘I asked her – what am I supposedly celebrating, Pia? It felt weird because I still think I’ve, oh my God, failed? She said I should be celebrating the fact that I ran one of the best clothes shops this city has ever seen …’ I ask her if she wants me to open that bottle, then she, like, hands it to me. I peel away the foil, twist off the metal cap and pop the cork. It’s a sound that I haven’t heard in too focking long. It’s only then that I realize we’ve no glasses. I take a sip straight from the neck. Fizz ends up coming out of my nose. I hand the bottle to Sorcha and she does the same. ‘You don’t need Pia Bang to tell you how good this place actually was,’ I go. ‘How many times did the Irish Times Magazine put it in the “What’s Hot” section?’ ‘Once. But Image had it in too, and so did, like, Irish Tatler?’ ‘I rest my case.’ She hands me the bottle and I take a
nother mouthful. My eyes do a quick sweep of the place, which only two days ago was wall to wall with Madison Marcus and Lauren Moffatt and Jodi Arnold and Helmut Lang. It was KLS. It was BCBG and CC Skye. It was Mulberry, Blueberry, Strawberry and Blackberry. Orange, Banana and Shabby Apple. Mike & Chris, Paul & Joe, Sass & Bide. Westwood Red and Graeme Black. It was Citizens of Humanity. Daughters of the Revolution. Spoiled Little Mamas. And how easily it all tripped off her tongue. You can prevent heavy prints dictating your shape by adding a waist-cinching belt … And don’t discount hot pinks and reds. They’re going to be providing a bold contrast to pastel shades everywhere this year … How long will it be before everyone’s forgotten what that shit even means? Before they’ve forgotten that Sorcha’s was the first shop in Ireland to do jeans by Gold Sign, Earnest Sewn and Kitson Own. Miu Mius, Jimmy Choos and Jason Wus. 291 Venice, 3.1 Phillip Lim and 7s For All Mankind. Balmain, Bertin, Cardin. Susana Monaco. Shoshanna and on it goes – Moschino, Malandrino, Valentino. Yamamoto, Takemoto, Kishimoto. Jellycat. Baby Phat. No Added Sugar. Rich and Skinny … It’s no wonder her actual hort is broken. I hand her the bottle. She’s throwing it into her as well. I ask her what’s going to happen to the unit and she says it’ll probably end up being another Carroll’s Irish Gifts. She’s upset. I tell her not to think like that. That won’t be allowed to happen. The Powerscourt Townhouse Centre is still the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, even if the world around it is going to shit. She shakes her head, like she’s no longer certain of even that. She says she doesn’t want to come across as, like, a snob or anything? But no one ever went into liquidation by overestimating the public’s desire for Guinness fridge magnets, jester hats in county colours and songs about dead IRA men. And there’s real bitterness in her voice when she says it and the worst thing is that, deep down, I know it’s probably true. ‘This country,’ she goes, ‘is totally focked, Ross. And I mean – oh my God – totally!’ It’s definitely the angriest I’ve seen her since a few months back, when those – again, racist – Muslim dudes were up in court for plotting to blow up airplanes. I just happened to call into the gaff and found her in the living room, staring madly at their photographs on Sky News, saying they were the reason she wasn’t allowed to bring her Sisley Confort Extrême Day Cream in her hand luggage when she was coming back from the States last year. That’s how badly things can affect her? So I try to keep things jollying along. I take another swig from the bottle and tell her I remember the weekend the shop actually opened. She smiles then. ‘We had champagne then as well,’ she goes. ‘And we drank it this exact same way …’ No glasses then either – that’s right. ‘I remember when the stock was delivered,’ she goes. ‘Oh my God, there must have been, like, fifty or sixty boxes? It was, like, Friday lunchtime and I was supposed to be opening the following day. So you and my mum came in …’ ‘And we helped you.’ ‘The three of us worked right through the night …’ ‘I remember us getting a Chinese.’ ‘Nine o’clock in the morning we finished setting it up. Then we opened the champagne – do you remember that?’ ‘Yeah, the people were already queuing up outside. We didn’t open the doors until we’d finished the bottle.’ She smiles. She’s there, ‘See, you could actually do things like that in those days? People had money. They had to spend it somewhere. You knew they’d come back.’ ‘We worked something ridiculous,’ I go, ‘like thirty-six hours straight.’ She’s there, ‘We must have been, like, high on adrenalin or something?’ I nod. I’m there, ‘That was the Celtic Tiger, of course. We all did a lot of crazy shit.’ I offer her the bottle but she waves it away. ‘Oh my God,’ she goes, suddenly remembering something, ‘Claire said your mum was really rude to her.’ ‘Rude to her?’ ‘Yeah, see, she wants to publish her travelogue as, like, a book? And she rang your mum for some advice.’ ‘I told her not to.’ ‘Did you?’ ‘Yeah, she’s getting hammered on the whole pay thing? She’s the last one holding out. I told her the old dear was spitting feathers, might need to leave her a week or two. They can’t be told – people from Bray.’ We both go suddenly quiet again. I think the champagne is going to both our heads? I ask her what she’s going to do now, expecting her to say something like, I don’t know, become an ambassador for the Rainforest Alliance, which has always been an ambition of hers, liaising with the likes of Storbucks and Nespresso on their sustainability programmes. But she doesn’t mention it. In a weird way, I think even that dream has died? ‘I’m going to take some time out,’ she goes, ‘to make sure I connect with my grief. I’m not having a thirtieth birthday porty, by the way.’ ‘What?’ ‘I’ve cancelled it.’ ‘Whoa! I wouldn’t say Il Segreto were happy with you,’ because she had the upstairs room booked. ‘Well,’ she goes, ‘I just figured – oh my God, what’s there to even celebrate?’ I tell her that sounds heavy but she doesn’t answer. We sit there for another five minutes. I finish the champagne. We’re probably both quite pissed. She goes, ‘Ross, what kind of a world have we brought our daughter into?’ I tell her I don’t know. I’ve been trying not to let this whole current economic thing get me down but every day I recognize this town less and less. I’m there, ‘I had a dream the other night that me and Honor were sitting on this mountain, looking out across nothing but fields. And I said to her, “I remember when this was all apartments.”’ Then I turn my head to find Sorcha sleeping soundly on my shoulder. 6. Crème de la total Mare