Game of Throw-ins Read online

  Byrom’s like, ‘Guv hum a broyk, Bucky.’

  The dude – Bucky, he’s obviously called – goes, ‘Look, as the captain of this team, I think I’m entitled to ask who the fock he is and why the fock he’s training with us?’

  Byrom goes, ‘We noyd someone to full un for Rowellsoy. He’s got a broyken toy.’

  ‘Whoa, you’re talking about putting this dude between me and Maho in the front row?’

  ‘Thut’s royt.’

  ‘For fock’s sake – he must be, like, forty.’

  I’m there, ‘I’m actually thirty-five.’

  He laughs and he turns to the rest of the dressing room. ‘Correction,’ he goes, ‘he’s thirty-five!’ like there’s no real difference.

  He’s being a real dick.

  He goes, ‘Look, no offence, whatever your name is, but we can’t afford to carry middle-aged men who are trying to rediscover the glory of their youth. This is Division 2B of the All Ireland League.’

  ‘Correction,’ I go, ‘it’s the bottom of Division 2B of the All Ireland League.’

  Whoa! That’s softened his focking cough. There’s suddenly, like, deathly silence in the dressing room.

  He goes, ‘Repeat that.’

  ‘I said it’s the bottom of Division 2B of the All Ireland League,’ I go. ‘I’ve seen the table – ten matches, zero points.’

  He goes, ‘You’ve got a focking nerve,’ and he makes a move towards me.

  Some other humungous dude steps in between us, going, ‘He’s not worth it, Bucky. Save it for out there. Let’s see how good he is.’

  Bucky just glowers at me. I’ve pissed him off – there’s no doubt about that.

  So we all trot out onto the pitch. It’s a dork, freezing cold night in January and it straightaway brings me back to my school days.

  No one talks to me during the warm-up. I try to strike up a conversation with one or two of the younger players while we’re doing our Dynamic Stretches, except they all just, like, blank me. I’m just some old fort to them. Then I just think, Fock it, I’m not here to make friends anyway and I get on with my lunges and my squats and my various other bits and pieces.

  We do some ball-handling work – which I love – then Byrom splits us up into backs and forwards and, purely out of habit, I end up wandering over to where the backs are standing.

  ‘Yeah,’ this Bucky dude shouts at me, ‘maybe ten focking years ago!’ and I suddenly realize my mistake.

  I walk over to where I’m supposed to be.

  We do some work with the scrum machine. It turns out that Bucky is the tighthead and the dude who stopped us going at it in the dressing room – Maho – is the loosehead. As the three of us are doing the whole binding thing, Bucky squeezes my shoulder and goes, ‘Jesus Christ, you’ve no muscle there. It’s just focking fat.’

  It’s just, like, mind games. I ignore it.

  ‘Crouch!’ Byrom shouts and we all get into formation. ‘Pause! Engage!’

  Badoom!

  We put our shoulders to the pads and we stort shunting the thing forwards.

  The entire time, Bucky is in my ear, going, ‘Are you not going to put any meat into it? You might as well sit on the focking thing and let us push you around!’

  This goes on the entire time that we’re scrummaging.

  Twenty minutes, maybe half an hour later, Byrom says he wants us to switch to lineouts, which is what we do.

  This is where I end up winning over possibly one or two of the doubters, because I’ve got an unbelievable throw and I always did. Even back in the day, my lineout throws were better than Oisinn’s and he was our first-choice hooker.

  I’m not good enough for Bucky, of course. Every time he goes up for the ball, he deliberately drops it. He goes, ‘He’s putting a wobble on it.’

  I’m like, ‘There’s no wobble on these balls I’m throwing.’

  He goes, ‘What, you’re saying I can’t catch a ball cleanly in an uncontested lineout?’ and he says it like his next line is going to be a punch.

  I’m there, ‘I don’t know what you can and can’t do, Bucky. All I do know is that, the way things stand, you’re going to be doing it in Division 3B of the All Ireland League next season.’

  He just, like, stares me out of it.

  Byrom claps his hands together and goes, ‘Alroyt, Oy think we’ve done enough work for tonoyt.’

  I don’t mind telling you that by the end of the session I’m focked. The old man was right. The game has moved on. These goys are just kids, but they tackle twice as hord as we did and they run for twice as long.

  The session ends with what they call the Captain’s Run? Basically, the coach stands down and the entire team spends, like, ten or fifteen minutes running lengths of the field, passing the ball from man to man in two or three groups, just to shorpen up everyone’s handling.

  Byrom calls me to one side. He goes, ‘Are yoy alroyt, Russ? Good work, Moyte. They were prutty haahd on yoy, thoy.’

  I’m there, ‘Hey, if I was Bucky and some total randomer was suddenly parachuted into my team, I’d probably react the same way. It’s port and porcel.’

  ‘Yoy stroyk moy as being a prutty strong goy – mintally, Oy moyn.’

  I’m there, ‘Yeah, no, not a lot would faze me – at least on the rugby field. I’ve seen most things.’

  He nods. He goes, ‘Bucky’s a good bloyk. Uf he gits to loyk yoy, he’d walk throy a ployt-glass windoy for yoy.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t seem to like me.’

  ‘Oy’ll till you something, thoy – what you sid to hum before, abaaht boying bottom of the All Oyerland Loyg, it shook hum aaht of hus comfort zoyne. Shook thum all. That’s the bist they’ve troyned for a long toyme.’

  I’m there, ‘Well, I’m glad I helped, even if that ends up being my only contribution.’

  ‘What do yoy moyn?’

  ‘Look, it’s pretty clear that I’m not welcome here. And maybe I have to also accept that the game has moved on? The intensity and blah, blah, blah.’

  ‘What uf Oy told yoy I wanted yoy to ploy against Bictov at the woykend?’

  ‘Bective?’

  ‘Bictov. At hoym. Oy’d toytally understind if yoy thought it was beyond yoy. But Oy’ve soyn something here tonoyt. Yoy shook thungs up. Oy loyk that abaaht yoy. Ut’s what this toym noyds.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I just pissed a lot of people off.’

  ‘Good, Moyte. That’s what Oy want. Look, we’re gitting relegoytud – nothing surer. We’ve got, like, eight mitches luft in the soyson. We need to wun foyve of them to have any hoype of stoying up. Loyk Oy sid, what’s more likeloy to happen is that we goy throy the whoyl year without wunning a sungle mitch and we drop daahn a divusion next year and moyst of these goys will just druft away from the goym.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to see that. I was a major loss to the game myself.’

  ‘Thin doyn’t guv up naah. Moyte, Oy’ve soyn something in yoy and Oy’m a prutty good judge of a ployer. Alroyt, you’re not twinty or twinty-toy loyk the rist of the goys. But yoy’ve got the toy moyst important attribyoots we’re looking for …’

  ‘Is one of them the option I offer as a back-up kicker?’

  ‘Naah, what Oy’m talking abaaht is experience and goyle.’

  ‘What was the second word?’

  ‘Goyle.’

  ‘Oh, guile.’

  I’ve never really known what that even is. He can see I’m still in two minds.

  And that’s when he says the most unbelievable thing.

  ‘Moyte,’ he goes, ‘Oy doyn’t care uf yoy doyn’t beloyve yoy can doy thus – Oy beloyve you caahn.’

  Father Fehily used to say something similar to us: ‘Of course there’ll be times when you’ll stop believing in yourself. In those moments, I’ll just have to believe enough in you for both of us.’

  So what else am I going to say in that moment, except, ‘Okay, I’ll see you Saturday.’

  I join the Captain’s Run the
n. I join the backs, rather than Bucky’s group. So it’s just, like, me and four or five of the goys running lengths of the pitch in formation, feeding the ball to each other.

  Senny, the team’s number ten, happens to be the player inside me. I was watching him practise his kicks earlier. I turn to him and I go, ‘I was looking at you splitting the old chopsticks earlier on. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but I noticed one or two things you could improve on in terms of your technique.’

  And that’s when it happens. Someone hits me from behind. At first, I think someone has driven a van onto the pitch and knocked me focking down, because that’s literally what it feels like? All of the wind goes out of my body and I hit the deck.

  I swear to fock, for a good thirty seconds, I’m lying there on my back wondering am I actually dead.

  I can feel this, like, heavy weight bearing down on me. When I finally dare to open my eyes, I discover that Bucky is on top of me, pinning me to the deck. He’s a big dude as well. I genuinely feel like I’m trapped under rubble.

  ‘We might be bottom of Division 2B of the All Ireland League,’ he goes, ‘but if you ever call me out like that again in front of my teammates, I will focking finish you. Do you understand me?’

  I’m like, ‘Yeah, fock, whatever.’

  He gets up off me.

  He goes, ‘Okay, everyone – the Captain’s Run is over.’

  Everyone drifts off in the direction of the dressing room. I’m lying on the flat of my back in the middle of a field in, let’s be honest, Ballybrack. I’m staring up at the stors, but at the same time, I’m still buzzing on what Byrom Jones said to me.

  It takes me a good, like, thirty seconds to get back up, then I quite literally limp back to the cor. I’m beyond exhausted and in serious pain.

  I haven’t felt this happy in a long, long time.

  The old dear is home from the States. She doesn’t tell me, of course. She texts Sorcha and says she’s back in Ireland and wants us all to meet her fianthé – that focking word again – and she wants to take us all out for dinner, we’re talking me, we’re talking Sorcha, we’re talking Honor, we’re talking the old man, we’re talking Helen.

  She tells us to meet them in l’Ecrivain at eight o’clock, then she does her usual thing of swanning in an hour late, pretending that she thought she said nine? So we all end up sitting at the table for an hour, basically storving while waiting for her to show her ridiculous, rubber face.

  I’m there, ‘Why don’t we all just go ahead and eat?’

  The old man jumps straight to her defence, of course. ‘She’s invited us out to dinner,’ he goes. ‘We can’t very well start without her!’

  I’m there, ‘We could always order for her. A bottle of Grey Goose and a slice of fennel bread to line her stomach – the focking drunk.’

  Sorcha goes, ‘Ross!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sorcha, but she always does this. I said it to you before we left the gaff. She does it for attention – so we’re all just sitting here waiting for her to make her big entrance.’

  Helen gives me a little smile over the top of her menu, just to let me know that she totally agrees with me. She knows the old dear is full of shit.

  ‘Honor,’ Sorcha goes, ‘no phones at the table, please!’

  She’s been texting away for the last twenty minutes – no prizes for guessing who.

  She goes, ‘I’ll put it away when I’ve finished this conversation.’

  Sorcha goes, ‘Did Honor tell you, Chorles, that she has a boyfriend?’

  Honor’s there, ‘Oh my God, do you have to be so pathetic?’

  ‘Okay, he’s not her boyfriend. He’s a boy and he’s a friend and he’s – oh my God – so nice, isn’t he, Ross?’

  ‘Yeah, no, I’m not a fan,’ I go. ‘He has no respect for his elders and no interest in rugby.’

  I’m still the only one, by the way, who’s copped that it’s Sorcha he’s actually interested in?

  Honor goes, ‘He wants to know can he come over on Friday?’

  I’m like, ‘What, again? Jesus Christ, is he homeless or something?’

  Honor’s there, ‘Mom, he wants to know if he can see your Nelson Mandela letters?’

  Sorcha goes, ‘Oh! My God!’ grinning like an idiot. ‘You told him about my letters from Madiba?’

  Honor shrugs. She’s there, ‘They’re doing a project about heroes in school and he’s thinking of doing Nelson Mandela. I mentioned that he wrote to you a load of times.’

  The kid has a few moves, I’ll give him that.

  Sorcha goes, ‘I think he really likes you, Honor!’

  She’s like, ‘Do you think?’

  I’m there, ‘What you should do now, Honor, is tell him you’re busy. Tell him he’s been coming on a bit strong and you want to cool things.’

  Sorcha’s like, ‘Don’t you dare, Honor. He’s a nice boy. If you mess him around, he might lose interest.’

  ‘The alternative view is that you should be a bitch to him before he gets the chance to be a bastard to you. I’m giving you both sides here.’

  Sorcha’s like, ‘Ross!’

  ‘I’m giving her both sides, Babes.’

  My wife doesn’t always approve of my parenting methods. They’re different – I’ll accept that.

  And that’s when the picked chicken bone who calls herself my mother finally decides to show her blubber-filled face.

  She makes her usual grand entrance.

  ‘Oh, hello!’ she goes. ‘How long have you all been sitting here?’

  And that’s the first time I lay eyes on Ari. She’s linking his orm. He looks like he’s in his, I don’t know, nineties. He’s unbelievably small – we’re talking five foot nothing – and he’s also thin with grey hair and a look of permanent confusion on his face.

  I go, ‘We’ve been sitting here since eight o’clock – the exact time you told us to be here. The focking state of your face, by the way. You look like you’ve been beaten with a bag of limes.’

  She decides to ignore this. Everyone does.

  She goes, ‘Everyone, this is Ari, my wonderful fianthé. Ari, this is my son, Ross, and his beautiful wife, Sorcha. This is their daughter, Honor. And this is my first husband, Charles – we’re still terribly, terribly close – and the second wife, Helen.’

  The second wife. The old dear really is a fockpig.

  It ends up being handshakes and air-kisses and I’ve-heard-so-much-about-yous all round.

  I go, ‘Sit the fock down, you ridiculous-looking woman. Some of us need to eat.’

  Sorcha goes, ‘Congratulations on your engagement, Fionnuala! You too, Ari!’

  My wife is such a crawler.

  The old dear’s there, ‘Thank you, Sorcha,’ and she holds up her left hand and there, on her ring finger, is a diamond so big you couldn’t lift your orm to hail a taxi without running the risk of a hernia.

  Sorcha’s like, ‘Oh! My God!’

  The old dear takes it off – with some difficulty, I might add. She’s got fingers like Hick’s sausages.

  Sorcha goes, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe the weight of it!’ as she slips it onto her own finger and twists it – I think birds do that for luck.

  ‘I’m presuming that’s a real diamond,’ I go.

  The old dear laughs. She’s there, ‘Of course it’s real!’

  Sorcha goes, ‘What kind of a question is that, Ross?’

  Helen’s there, ‘So have you set a date yet, Fionnuala?’

  The old dear goes, ‘Ari wants to do it on Saint Patrick’s Day!’

  Skanksgiving Day, as I call it.

  ‘That’s right,’ he goes. ‘We’re going to do it on my boat.’

  The old dear laughs. She goes, ‘It’s more than a boat, Ari!’ and then she turns to the rest of us. ‘Ari has a yacht. It once belonged to John D. Rockefeller.’

  I’m like, ‘Who?’

  ‘He was, like, a really famous businessman,’ Sorcha goes, ‘and philanthropist.�
�

  ‘Well, I’ve never heard of him, so I don’t know where you’re getting your information from.’

  ‘He’s going to have it brought up from Corsica,’ the old dear tries to go. ‘It’s got thirty staterooms!’

  Sorcha’s like, ‘Oh! My God! Thirty, Ross! That is, like, so romantic!’

  ‘And we want you all to be there! Including you, Honor, and the boys – em …’

  She doesn’t know their names. She can’t remember the names of her own grandsons.

  ‘Huey, Dewey and Louie,’ I go.

  And she’s like, ‘Yes, that’s it. Anyway, it’s going to be the social event of the year!’

  The waiter brings us menus. He also brings us finger bowls because we’ve been eating olives for the past hour, trying to keep the hunger at bay. I wash my fingers while the old man goes, ‘So, Ari, Fionnuala tells me you’re quite the entrepreneur.’

  ‘Well,’ the dude goes, ‘I’m not sure if that’s true, on account of the fact that I’ve never come up with an original idea in my entire life!’

  Everyone laughs. I don’t know why. It’s not that funny. It’s politeness, I suppose.

  He goes, ‘No, my talent – such as it is – is for spotting talent in others. For fifty years, people have been coming to me with their ideas for businesses and my job is to decide whether to finance them or not.’

  As he’s saying this, he picks up his spoon and – I swear to fock, I am not making this up – he storts eating the contents of my finger bowl like it’s focking soup. The hilarious thing is that nobody even comments on it. We all just sit there watching the poor old focker drinking this lemony water that I just washed my hands in – and I won’t even tell you what I was doing with my hands fifteen minutes before I left the house tonight.

  ‘I made a lot of my money in hotels,’ Ari is at the same time going. ‘Hotels and spa resorts. Golf courses. But also in health insurance, automobiles, newspapers, phone companies, aluminium, radio stations, real estate – you name it … Excuse me, Sir.’

  He collars this passing waiter. He goes, ‘This consommé is lukewarm – at best.’

  The waiter looks at the rest of us like he suspects this might be one of those, like, hidden-camera shows.