Rhino What You Did Last Summer

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  I cop San – as in San Sancilio – standing just behind the camera, checking himself out in one of the monitors, like the crazy fock that he is.

  ‘Okay,’ Johnny shouts, ‘you know how this works – same as before. No lines, no script and forget about the cameras. San, you walk in. Ross, you show him the nose you picked. San, you go through the procedure with him. Ross, you talk about maybe one or two concerns you have. San, you quote him some of those statistics you told me about success and failure rates…’

  I’m like, ‘Failure rates? Whoa back!’

  ‘And… action!’

  San walks in. ‘Hello, Ross.’

  It feels like a scene from, like, Days of Our Lives?

  I’m there, ‘Er, yeah, hi…’

  ‘Haff you chosen a noss thet you would like?’

  I hum and haw for a little bit, then I hand him the one that Harvey thought looked amazing on me. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that Harvey’s delighted.

  ‘Aha!’ San goes. ‘Reese Weeterspun!’

  ‘Is it, like, actually Reese Witherspoon’s?’

  ‘Yes! Thees wheel look ferry nice on your fess.’

  ‘Well,’ I go, throwing a sly look to the camera, ‘it’s not about how it looks – it’s as long as I can breathe again. God, if I could get my hands on that Gonzaga number eight!’

  ‘Stop talking to the camera!’ Johnny shouts. ‘San, continue.’

  ‘Ferry goot,’ he goes. ‘First, I wheel giff to you a general anaesthetic, which means gutenight, yes? Sleeeepy byebyes. Then, I wheel cut you here, here and here. You feel nahthing. Then, I wheel chop away all of thees bone and cartilage…’

  I’m there, ‘Okay, I don’t know if you remember what happened last time – best if you don’t give me the details.’

  He’s there, ‘Ferry goot. But I giff to you a noss like Elle Woods, yes? Don’t stomp your leetle last seesun Prada shoes at me, honey. Excuse me, thees are not last seesun shoes. Clessic, clessic comedy, yes?’

  ‘If you’re into that kind of shit.’

  ‘It hess come to my attention thet the maintenance staff ees sweetching our toilet paypare from Charmeen to generic. All those who are opposed to chafing, please say aye.’

  He laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

  I’m there, ‘Er, just getting back to the whole operation thing? Like I said, as long as I can actually breathe properly…’

  ‘Yes,’ he goes. ‘And you wheel look ferry pretty. And do not be nerfous. I haff done thees many times. Many, many happy endings. But sometimes, I haff to say to you, if too much of the old noss is cut away, then the breedge wheel collapse and you wheel be deformed. Boo-hoo, ferry sad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Also, I say to you, if the teep of the noss is over-rotated, your nostreels wheel look like apeeg.’

  ‘Apeeg?’

  ‘Oink, oink, yes?’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘No woman in the world like a men who look like apeeg, no?’

  I’m suddenly having second thoughts again.

  ‘For the stateestics, this happen in only eight per cent of my cases.’

  I’m there, ‘Eight per cent? Er, you know what? I think I’m going take two or three days to have another think about this.’

  ‘You cannot,’ he goes. ‘Tomorrow I am – how to say? – deporteed.’

  ‘Did you say deported?’

  ‘Deporteed back to Ecuador. Say gutebye to Hollywood, say gutebye my bebby. Beely Joll. Ferry sad. Ferry sad to leave before I can fess my accusers on the Feetness to Precteese Committee.’

  I’m like, ‘Fitness to practice?’ and I automatically throw back the sheets.

  Trevion all of a sudden appears. ‘Put him out!’ he shouts. ‘Put him out!’ and two nurses appear out of nowhere, roysh, and hold me down while San grabs, like, a huge syringe, squeezes the air out of the top of it, then jabs it into my orm.

  My eyes get suddenly heavy. The last thing I hear is Harvey go, ‘Oh! My! God!’ and Trevion go, ‘Goodnight, Joycie!’

  I’m like, ‘Just don’t make me look like…’ and I’m out of the game before I can even say La Toya Jackson.

  ‘Let me tell you,’ Trevion goes, ‘you’re pretty as a fucking girl under them bandages.’

  He’s driving and I’m sitting in the passenger seat, still groggy. I’m there, ‘I can’t believe what you did.’

  I’m in agony – and we’re talking total agony.

  ‘You’re a total orsehole,’ I go, because he got San to do the focking lot – the lipo, the abdominal resculpt, the pectoral implants, the new calves and the rhinoplasty, obviously.

  ‘Yeah, you betcha,’ he goes. ‘Pretty as a fucking girl.’

  I check myself out in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. I’ve got two humungous black eyes and I’ve been told I’m going to have to breathe through my mouth for the next week. I’m a family allowance book away from being an actual skobie.

  ‘And, let me tell you,’ he goes, ‘poor San was crying at the airport this morning? Yeah, crying like a fucking baby. And it wasn’t because the Feds escorted him onto the plane neither. No, no, no. They were tears of fucking happiness, my friend. That’s right. Kept saying how pretty your nose was. I says to him, “What a way to go, San! What a way to go!”’

  I shake my head, which even hurts. ‘Giving someone plastic surgery against their will,’ I go. ‘I’m not surprised they deported him.’

  ‘Well, it was more extradited,’ he goes. ‘Tomato, tomayto. But, hey, he wants pictures, the works. I got a hotmail address for his attorney.’

  My nose, by the way, like my whole body, is totally bandaged up. ‘So how long do I have to leave these on for?’ I go, still majorly pissed off here.

  ‘Three, four weeks minimum,’ he goes. ‘The nose, the longer the better. Less chance of collapse.’

  ‘You’re saying now there’s a chance it’s going to collapse?’

  ‘Hey, there’s always a chance. It’s not a biggie. San says all we got to do is harvest some cartilage from your septum. Failing that, your fucking ear.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry, he wrote it all out for me. There’s a napkin there in the glove compartment.’

  I whip out the napkin and just, like, stare at it. It’s all, like, lines and squiggles. ‘It’s like focking cave drawings,’ I go.

  He laughs. ‘Doctors and their writing, huh? And he was in handcuffs, remember.’

  ‘You have got to be focking shitting me!’

  ‘Hey, pipe down, McDreamy. Chances are we won’t need it. I got other news. That sister of yours arrived yesterday morning…’

  ‘Erika?’

  He gives a sort of, like, long wolf-whistle.

  I shake my head.

  ‘She’s a fucking beauty, ain’t she?’

  I’m there, ‘Don’t remind me.’

  ‘A real beauty. And let me tell you, Johnny and the MTV boys are very happy. She got a great work ethic…’

  Which is hilarious – she’s hordly worked a day since she left school. Like the rest of us.

  ‘She comes in, catches two, three hours sleep, then she and Sorcha, they go get a fucking hair soak together. They have lunch in the Spanish Kitchen, then they hit Barneys, shopping for shoes.’

  ‘I’ve seen them two run up a down-escalator to get at focking shoes.’

  ‘Well,’ he goes, ‘MTV got three fucking hours of footage – usable. Let me tell you, Johnny did some work on Laguna and the first season of The Hills. He says they’re gonna be the new Heidi and LC.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear that.’

  ‘The kids are gonna love them. And that’s to say nothing of your mother…’

  I actually turn and look at him. I don’t believe it, but I’m pretty sure I see that scar-laden, mangled face of his blush.

  ‘Good idea,’ I go. ‘Say nothing.’

  He shakes his head, roysh, like he’s in awe of he
r, which of course he is. ‘She got a record deal,’ he goes.

  I’m there, ‘A record deal?’

  ‘You fucking bet, a record deal.’

  I actually laugh. ‘Have you ever heard her sing?’

  ‘She’s got a beautiful voice. Anyways, they clean all that shit up in the studio. You think Beyoncé can sing?’

  ‘I would have presumed she could, yeah.’

  ‘Beyoncé sounds like two stevedores arguing over a prostitute.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s all studio trickery. Anyway, what it is, is Columbia got their hands on some old Jeff Buckley recordings – they were in some schmo’s attic. Or that’s the story. Personally, I think they had them all along but they was never good enough to put out. Good tunes, though. “Je N’en Connais Pas La Fin “. “Grapefruit Moon”. “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”. All that shit. So what they want to do is clean them up and get your mother to sing every second verse…’

  ‘You’ve got! To be pulling! My stick!’

  ‘Fyon Hoola O’Carroll-Kelly sings a collection of heart-warming duets with the late but very great Jeff Buckley.’

  ‘And you think actual people will buy that?’

  ‘Hey,’ he goes, ‘people will eat shit if you put enough Splenda on it.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ I go. ‘I seriously doubt that.’

  He’s quiet for minute and I know he’s, like, building up to something – something I almost definitely don’t want to hear?

  ‘I think I’ve fallen in love with her,’ he eventually goes.

  I’m like, ‘Spare me.’

  ‘Sure,’ he goes, ‘go ahead and laugh. Let me tell you something, Chico, I ain’t never felt nothing like this before. I thought I was done with all that, see. You spend six months in a prisoner-of-war camp, in the care of men with nothing to do all day except dream up new ways of torturing you, a certain light goes out in your fucking soul, you know what I’m saying?’

  I’m there, ‘Come back to me after you’ve known her a month.’ Which he ignores.

  ‘Seventy-five,’ he goes, ‘and I feel like I’m seventeen again…’

  I think about the old man and Helen. I’m there, ‘There’s a lot of it about, believe me.’

  So we pull into the driveway. Johnny Sarno’s waiting outside for us. He opens the door for me, all smiles as usual. Various other people come running, including a make-up bird, who happens to be a ringer for Kim Raver. She’s, like, poised with the powder brush.

  ‘Do something to emphasize the bandaging,’ Johnny goes.

  I’m like, ‘Emphasize? Do you not mean…’ but she storts slapping me with the brush, roysh, before I can even think of the word unemphasize.

  ‘Okay, your motivation for this scene,’ Johnny goes, ‘is that your sister has come over from Ireland. You haven’t seen her since the night you found out she was your sister. So you’re going to have all sorts of emotions – confusion, probably affection…’

  He grabs me by the orm of my T-shirt and literally drags me into the gaff, still smiling, through the hall and down to the door of the kitchen, which is closed. ‘Now,’ he goes, ‘we’ve got cameras everywhere in there to make sure we capture the magical moment when you two finally come face to face. And don’t worry if you fluff it first time – we can always go back and do it again.’

  He opens the door, roysh, just wide enough to stick his head through. ‘Yes, he’s here,’ I hear him go. ‘Are we all set?’

  Then he goes, ‘You girls act like you’re having just one of your everyday conversations,’ and then he closes over the door again.

  ‘And… action!’ he shouts, then he sort of, like, indicates the door handle to me.

  I’m actually kacking it. I don’t know what her reaction’s going to be. But I take, like, a deep breath, then I go in.

  ‘Did you see the butler-inspired Zac Posen that Naomi Watts wore to the LA premiere of The Painted Veil?’ Sorcha’s going, and it has to be said she’s a natural. I suppose she’s wanted to be famous all her life.

  They’re both standing with their backs to me, at the Nespresso. ‘It’s like, when bad clothes happen to good people!’

  ‘Hey,’ I go.

  They suddenly both turn around.

  It’s like, fock! Erika looks incredible – whatever a hair soak is. We both just stare at each other for what seems like forever? Then all of a sudden she comes chorging across the kitchen towards me, throws her orms around me and bursts into, basically, tears. The number of times I’ve seen her cry you could count twice on the fingers of one hand.

  ‘Oh, Ross!’ she keeps giving it. ‘Oh, Ross!’ and I realize then, roysh, that I’m actually crying, too.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I end up going. ‘I needed space. I just didn’t know how to handle the whole situation.’

  She smells of buttermilk and Agent Provocateur.

  ‘We’re both still in shock,’ she goes. ‘But you’re my brother, Ross. And I’m your sister…’

  I can feel the soft skin of her cheek against mine.

  ‘I know,’ I go, realizing at that exact moment…

  … with total horror, I hope I don’t need to add…

  … that I’ve an oar on me that could row the whole focking lot of us to Hawaii.

  ‘Half-sister,’ I think about going, but in the end I don’t, knowing that I have to act fast here. It’s not only her who might notice – there’s seven focking cameras in the room waiting to put this out to a worldwide audience of, like, hundreds of billions of people.

  So I end up just looking her in the eye and going, ‘I think what we probably both need is to sit down,’ and I sort of, like, turn my body away from her – like I’m evading a tackle in rugby – and I plonk my orse down on one of Sorcha’s high stools, thinking, no one ever notices you’ve a stiffy when you’re sitting down.

  She sits down on the stool beside me. My hand is on the black morble countertop and she lays hers on top of mine and sort of, like, strokes it with her thumb.

  Which obviously doesn’t help?

  She goes, ‘I’m looking forward to us getting to know each other.’

  I look at Sorcha and notice that she’s crying as well.

  I’ve never known Erika to be anything other than a bitch. This whole scene is, like, too weird for words. ‘You’ve only ever been a wagon to me,’ I go, which must be true, roysh, because she even laughs?

  She’s there, ‘Well, you’ve always made it difficult for people to like you,’ which is possibly also true – though there’s a lot would disagree.

  ‘But this is a chance,’ she goes, ‘for us to start all over again. I always wanted a brother.’

  I’m there, ‘I suppose I always wanted a sister.’

  ‘Okay, beautiful,’ Johnny shouts. ‘Now, move on. Sorcha, ask her about her mother.’

  ‘By the way, Erika, how are things with, like, your mum?’ Sorcha goes.

  Erika shakes her head. ‘I swear to God, Sorcha – I never, ever want to see her again.’

  I’m pretty sure that Sorcha knows the full Jack by now, but she does a good job of cracking on not to? ‘Oh my God,’ she goes, with the full drama. Like an old pro. ‘Why?’

  I always forget she played Phoebe Meryll in the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society’s production of The Yeomen of the Guard when she was only, like, fifteen.

  I’m there, ‘Why do you think? Imagine, after all those years, finding out that he’s your old man. No offence, Erika, but what the fock was your mother thinking?’

  She jumps straight to his defence, of course. ‘Ross, he’s doing his best to make up for lost time,’ she goes. ‘He really wants to be a father to me.’

  ‘Well, that’s going to be weird,’ I go. ‘Especially with them being back together, which I still can’t believe, by the way. You know they were spotted coming out of the Bedroom Studio? Middle of Dalkey Main Street?’

  Sorcha turns around to Erika and goes, ‘Do you not th
ink you’re being a bit hard on her, though? Keeping it quiet required more than one person’s silence, remember.’

  ‘Look,’ Erika goes, ‘I’m entitled to be angry with her. You know how close I was to my mum, Sorcha.’

  ‘That’s why I’m saying it. You were like me and my mum? As in, Best Best Friends?’

  ‘How could she keep something like that from me, then? When I was a little girl, she always said to me, let’s not have any secrets from each other.’

  ‘There’s secrets and there’s secrets,’ I go. ‘But getting knocked up by my old man’s not something you’d be shouting from the rooftops.’

  ‘And cut!’ Johnny shouts. ‘Okay, Ross, I need you out of the kitchen. Girls, I want to reshoot the scene where you’re waiting for him to arrive…’

  I look at Erika. I’m like, ‘It’s good to see you.’

  She smiles at me and squeezes my hand. ‘It’ll be easier to talk when it’s not all… this,’ she goes and she flicks her head in the direction of the studio lights, which have us all sweating focking bricks here.

  ‘Sorcha, I loved the Naomi Watts line,’ Johnny goes, studying his clipboard, ‘but can you mention being happy with the Narciso Rodriguez black strappy sheath you bought earlier, because they’ve given us one for you to wear in a future scene…’

  I jump down off the stool, totally forgetting that I’m still in, like, battle mode.

  ‘And one of you,’ he goes, ‘I don’t care which – say that you can’t wait to check out Michael Katz on Burton Way…’

  The next thing I hear is Erika go, ‘Ross?’ then Sorcha go, ‘Oh! My God!’ and they both put their hands up to their faces and I realize, roysh, that they’re both staring at the enormous – and I mean enormous – bulge in my trousers.

  He answers on the fourth ring. He’s all, ‘Hello,’ and of course I’m not going to give him the pleasure of saying it back to him.

  I’m just there, ‘I hear you’re back with Erika’s old dear – as in with with?’

  ‘Clearly nothing wrong with the transatlantic grapevine,’ he goes, ‘quote-unquote,’ like he’s not even ashamed of it.

  I’m there, ‘What are you, a focking teenager?’

  He actually thinks it’s funny. ‘You know, I almost feel like I am. Helen here’s got me trying all sorts of crazy things. Last night she took me to Eddie Rockers…’