‘Jesus! Didn’t you get him membership of David Lloyd Riverview for Christmas?’
‘Exactly. But any time I suggest going, he says he’s going to work late and use the Facebook gym at lunchtime.’
‘Shit one. I genuinely mean that.’
‘It’s the same with dinner. On the rare occasions he is home before ten o’clock at night, I ask if he fancies going out to grab something to eat – the other night, I suggested Mulberry Gorden.’
‘Sorcha loves Mulberry Gorden.’
‘And he says, “No, I actually ate in the Facebook canteen.”’
‘Like I said, Sorcha would bite your hand off.’
‘I know I’m storting to sound incredibly needy, but it’s like that place has become his life. As in, it’s all he ever talks about now. We were having sex the other night –’
‘Whoa! Too Much Information, Dude! And I hope that’s not me being homophobic.’
‘We were having sex and right in the middle of it, he said something about Google.’
‘Google?’
‘Something about how they were supposed to have a great softball team this year.’
‘Jesus, that would put anyone off their stroke – again, not homophobic?’
‘Google are, like, their nemesis. Everyone in Facebook hates Google and everyone in Google hates Facebook. They both hate LinkedIn, but LinkedIn pretend to be above it – except they’re not above it, they’re just too busy hating eBay. And everyone, by the way, hates PayPal.’
‘So it’s sort of like the schools rivalry thing – except obviously it doesn’t matter a fock?’
‘Nail on head, Ross. Nail on head.’
All of a sudden, Christian shows up. He’s like, ‘Hey, goys,’ and I make a big show of looking at my wrist, even though I’m not actually wearing a watch, just to let him know how late he is? He goes, ‘We need to turn on the TV. Mary, can you turn on the TV?’
Me and Oisinn are like, ‘Dude, what’s wrong?’ because he seems upset about something.
He goes, ‘JP is going to be on the Late Late Show. Mary, will you turn on the TV?’
Mary turns on the TV and we all look up at the screen. And sitting there, on the famous couch, is the man of the moment.
‘Okay,’ Oisinn goes, ‘that explains why he was a no-show tonight.’
I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, I met him yesterday in Dún Laoghaire, coming out of – quite literally – a builder’s providers. He said was going to be on the Late Late, but I didn’t think he meant, like, this week?’
Tubs is going, ‘Now this bed – you are going to demonstrate for us, in just a moment, how it works – but, first of all, tell us the story behind it. Where did the idea come from?’
JP doesn’t seem nervous at all.
‘Well,’ he goes, ‘I’ve spent most of my working life, I suppose, in the property business. My father had his own estate agency – Hook, Lyon and Sinker. I believe he sold you your current house, Ryan.’
‘He did,’ Tubs goes. And from the big, empty smile that he gives him, you can tell instantly that he must have stung the dude in a big-time way. I just hope he’s professional enough not to take it out on JP.
‘And I suppose in the last few years,’ JP goes, ‘I was becoming a little bit restless. I was staring down the barrel of my forties, thinking, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? And it was becoming more and more of an urgent issue for me because my father was planning to retire and I had to decide if I wanted to take over the business or not.’
Okay, that’s a lie?
Tubs goes, ‘And then your father died – very suddenly, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right, Ryan,’ JP goes. ‘He had a heart attack – doing what he loved, but that was just a small consolation. He was an amazing character –’
‘He was certainly that. From my own dealings with him.’
‘I remember the day of the funeral, sitting in the church, listening to speaker after speaker pay tribute to my father. For instance, he was the first estate agent ever to use the phrase “bijou” to describe a house that was simply small.’
‘He was very fond of that word alright.’
‘He was a visionary in so many ways. And, I suppose, listening to those tributes, I started to think, you know, how will I be remembered? What will my son say about me at my funeral? And that’s when I realized that I didn’t really exist in my own terms, that all I’d really done in life was – I suppose like a lot of South Dublin people – work for my old man.’
I end up shouting at the TV. I’m there, ‘You won a Leinster Schools Senior Cup medal as well!’
For a second or two, I’m sure that Tubs is going to remind him of that, but in the end he doesn’t, of course, because he’s Blackrock College through and through.
It’s no wonder they’re considered the PayPal of rugby schools.
‘So you decided to pursue your own dream,’ Tubs goes. ‘And you had an idea for an invention called –’
JP’s like, ‘The Vampire Bed.’
I turn around to Oisinn and Christian and I’m like, ‘It wasn’t his invention at all! You heard him laugh when his old man mentioned it in the Aviva that day.’
Tubs stands up and JP stands up at the same time. ‘So,’ Tubs goes, ‘let’s take a look at it and you can explain how it works.’
They walk across the floor of the studio. JP’s supposed invention is standing there just in front of Paddy Cullivan and the Camembert Quartet, covered with a white sheet.
JP’s there, ‘Well, I suppose, being an estate agent for such a long time, I was especially interested in the concept of space – especially how to maximize it.’
‘Yes,’ Tubs goes, ‘I seem to remember your father’s measurements included the cavity wall spaces.’
I’m thinking, Get over yourself, Tubs. Everything doesn’t have to be about you.
Thankfully, though, JP doesn’t take the bait. He’s there, ‘As an estate agent, you spend a lot of time thinking about wasted space. And it always struck me that the biggest waste of space in any house or aportment is the amount of room given over to beds.’
‘Beds,’ Tubridy goes. ‘Right.’
‘A standard single bed is three feet wide and six feet and three inches in length. A double bed is four feet and six inches wide and – again – six feet and three inches in length.’
‘And you’ve come up with a bed that takes up half the space. Do you want to remove the cover there?’
‘Yeah,’ JP goes, ‘this is a prototype that I put together last night, just to show your viewers what it’ll look like.’
JP grabs a hold of the sheet and he whips it off. Underneath is, well, as you’d expect, a bed that’s standing up at an angle of whatever it is.
The audience bursts out laughing.
JP doesn’t get flustered, in fairness to him. ‘It’s fine,’ he goes, ‘I can fully understand that reaction.’
Tubs is there, ‘You can, can you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Because you’re suggesting – are you not? – that people can sleep just as comfortably standing up as they can lying down?’
The audience cracks up laughing again. I’ve got a hell of a lot of time for Ryan Tubridy, but I have never wanted to give another human being a wedgy as much as I do right now.
JP’s there, ‘Well, actually, Ryan, would you believe me if I told you that humans are evolutionarily hordwired to sleep upright?’
‘Er, no,’ Tubs goes – and he pulls a face, much to the audience’s amusement. ‘I have to admit, I’m struggling with that idea.’
People who go to Blackrock College believe fock-all unless they hear it from a teacher in the Institute, where most of them end up eventually repeating.
‘Well, it’s true,’ JP goes. ‘It dates back to the time when man was a flight rather than fight animal. As a matter of fact, sleeping horizontally is a relatively recent phenomenon.’
‘Right,’ Tubs goes, nodding along du
biously. ‘I’m going to have to take your word for it.’
JP doesn’t let him throw him off his game. Back in the day, he was probably the best full-back in the country under a high ball.
‘As you can see,’ he goes, climbing onto the bed, ‘it’s got a footboard at the end here, which, along with the angle of the bed, supports your weight while you sleep. The mattress is made of memory foam and it’s got this pillow here, which is attached by Velcro to stop it falling off. And, of course, what I haven’t mentioned yet, but should, are the health benefits that come from sleeping vertically, including improved vascular function, metabolic action and mental health.’
He puts his head on the pillow. The audience laughs again. Christian’s there, ‘He’s dying on his feet – literally!’
‘So what happens next?’ Tubs goes. ‘You’re about to go into production, is that right?’
JP’s there, ‘That’s right, Ryan. I’m planning to open a factory within a matter of weeks and hopefully produce the first one thousand Vampire Beds this summer.’
There’s, like, more laughter.
‘You can hear the reaction,’ Tubs goes. ‘They all think you’re mad, as I’m sure a lot of people watching at home do, too.’
JP’s like, ‘People laughed at the idea of telephones, airplanes – even television.’
‘Well,’ Tubs goes, ‘we’ve had zombie banks and ghost estates! We might as well have Vampire Beds!’
You can tell he’s been dying to say that all night. Of course, the Late Late audience lap up jokes like that, just like they do free shit.
JP tries to go, ‘We’re living through a time of record homelessness, Ryan. We have to face the facts. We just don’t have enough houses or apartments for all of the people who are looking for somewhere to live.’
‘And you think we will if we can persuade people to sleep standing up?’
‘I’m absolutely convinced that this bed is the solution to the homelessness crisis. And even beyond that, it could be used to ease overcrowding in our hospitals. Patients will no longer have to sleep in corridors if we can sort of, like, stack them in the ward. I genuinely think that one day we’ll look back at the time when we slept on our backs and we’ll say, “My God, what a waste of space! What were we thinking?”’
‘And you’re absolutely committed to this idea!’
‘One hundred percent, Ryan. As a sign of how much I actually believe in this idea, I made a big decision this morning – to put Hook, Lyon and Sinker on the morket.’
Me, Christian and Oisinn all just stare at each other, our mouths open in just shock.
Tubs is like, ‘You’re selling your father’s estate agency?’
‘That’s right,’ JP goes. ‘I’m putting Hook, Lyon and Sinker on the morket first thing on Monday morning and I’m going to invest all of the proceeds from the sale in my new business venture. That’s how confident I am in it.’
‘Well, good luck with it – I have a feeling you’re going to need it! But thank you for showing us your Vampire Bed. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for JP Conroy!’
The audience claps, except you can tell it’s just out of, like, politeness?
‘He’s totally lost it,’ Christian goes. ‘Goys, we have to stop him making the biggest mistake of his life.’
So it’s, like, the following Wednesday afternoon and Sorcha rings to ask me where I am? I tell her I’m in the Country Bake in Dalkey, enjoying a bit of Me Time, drinking coffee, flirting with the waitresses clearing the tables and scribbling down thoughts in my famous Rugby Tactics Book.
Although I don’t actually mention the flirting bit – for obvious reasons.
She goes, ‘Can you come home, please – as in, like, right now?’ and she sounds upset about something.
I’m there, ‘What’s up?’
‘Just come home, Ross. And come straight around to the back of the house to the Shomera. And don’t tell Honor you’re home. I need to talk to you about something.’
I’m straight away wondering, Okay, what fresh hell is this? And, as it turns out, there’s no preparing me for what I’m about to be told, even after all my years of being a father.
I arrive home, then around the side of the house I trot, thinking to myself – yeah, no – whatever this ends up being, I’ll somehow spin it. I’m good at that.
There turns out to be four of them sitting around the table in the little wooden grief hole that Sorcha’s old pair call a home. We’re talking Sorcha, her old pair and Fionn – and they’ve all got, like, big, serious faces on them?
It actually feels like I’ve walked in on a wake. Yeah, no, it’s like someone died. Sorcha, I can’t help but notice, is as white as a sheet.
You know the way sometimes you sort of know what’s coming even before you actually know? But I still go on the straight away defensive.
I’m like, ‘Okay, what has she allegably done now?’ and I make the little quotation morks with my fingers.
Sorcha’s old dear goes, ‘Blind loyalty to the end. Didn’t expect anything less from him, of course.’
I look at Fionn and I notice that he’s got Honor’s MacBook in front of him. I’m like, ‘What the fock are you doing with my daughter’s laptop?’
He goes, ‘I took it from her room to look through her Google search history. I’m entitled to know what’s going on, Ross.’
I end up totally flipping. I’m there, ‘And my daughter is entitled to her privacy. This is a breach of her, I don’t know, civil rights?’
Which is weak, I fully realize. As my old man says, civil rights aren’t something that people in this port of the world need to concern themselves with?
‘Tell him what you found,’ Sorcha’s old man goes, egging him on – and there’s a definite note of satisfaction in the dude’s voice. It’s like he’s been waiting for this moment for a long time.
Fionn goes, ‘I’m sorry, Ross. I had to find out who took the batteries out of the baby monitor. And, more than that, I had to find out what was making my son ill.’
I’m like, ‘This sounds like it’s going to be total bullshit. Whatever you’re about to say, I already know that it’s total bullshit.’
‘I had my suspicions that it was something other than gastroenteritis,’ he tries to go, ‘especially after it happened for the third time. And then when I discovered that the baby monitor wasn’t working, I knew that something sinister was going on. So I checked Honor’s internet search history – going back to just before Hillary got sick for the first time.’
‘Get to the point, you focking glasses fock. I think we’re all bored.’
‘Your daughter was googling poisons!’ Sorcha’s old man goes – delighted to be the one to actually tell me.
Sorcha storts – I swear to fock – sobbing uncontrollably.
I’m like, ‘No way. That’s, like, total bullshit.’
Fionn goes, ‘I can show you the sites she visited, Ross. Specifically, she was looking for poisons that act slowly and leave no trace.’
My entire body turns suddenly cold. I don’t know what to say?
I’m like, ‘There’s no way. There’s literally, literally no way that Honor would do something like that. Think about it.’
Sorcha picks up her phone and dials a number. A second or two later, still wiping her tears away with an open palm, she goes, ‘Honor, can you come down to the Shomera right now, please? There’s something your father and I wish to talk to you about.’
Honor obviously says something back to her and Sorcha ends up roaring at her. She’s like, ‘No, it can’t wait until “focking never”! Get down here right now!’ and then she hangs up on her.
I’m there, ‘Before she gets here, I just want to say on the record that I refuse to accept that she’s capable of poisoning a baby. I just refuse – point blank – to accept it.’
I know I’m clutching at straws here.
‘Ross,’ Sorcha goes, ‘will you please open your eyes to what our daughter has be
come? Because if we refuse to see it, then we can’t help her.’
All of a sudden, the door opens and in she walks, full of ’tude.
‘Let me guess,’ she goes. ‘You’ve finally seen the funny side of what happened at the Confirmation last week?’
She’s very like me in that way – she’ll go all out when she has a one-liner that she thinks is funny. I end up having to laugh – no matter what they claim she’s done. I’m like, ‘Good line, Honor! High stakes humour!’
But then she cops her laptop resting on Fionn’s knees and her expression suddenly turns. She’s like, ‘What the fock are you doing with that?’
He goes, ‘I’m protecting my son’s life.’
‘Your son’s life? Dad, what the fock are they talking about?’
Sorcha goes, ‘We know, Honor.’
Honor’s there, ‘Know what?’ and she seems to genuinely mean it. Either that or she’s a very good actor.
Actually, I know she’s a very good actor?
Sorcha’s old man goes, ‘You’ve been poisoning a helpless baby – and you’ve been found out!’
Honor’s like, ‘No, I haven’t. Dad, where the fock are they getting this from?’
‘Fionn checked your Google search history,’ Sorcha goes. ‘We know you’ve been looking up poisons on the internet – in particular, slow-acting ones that don’t leave a trace.’
Honor’s there, ‘Yes, I’ve been looking up poisons,’ like it’s the most natural thing in the world to say. ‘But I was actually looking for ways to kill your parents.’
I let out a sigh of relief.
‘Thank God for that,’ I go. ‘Thanks for clearing that up, Honor. I knew there’d be an innocent explanation.’
Sorcha’s old man goes, ‘She’s lying.’
I’m there, ‘There’s one thing my daughter is definitely not and that’s a liar. Well, she is a liar. But I definitely don’t think she’s lying about this.’
Honor stares at Sorcha’s old man like she could actually kill him right now with her bare hands.
‘Not that it’s any of your focking business,’ she goes, ‘but I was trying to find a way to poison that big oak tree out there to make it fall on the Shomera and kill you both in your focking beds.’
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