‘All my gear’s in the bag,’ she goes, meaning her Millie hobo, which I know because Sorcha has the exact same one. I like her use of the word gear – conjures up all sorts of images in my head.
‘You can’t exactly walk into The Strip’s hotels in thigh-boots and a thong,’ she goes.
Which is also why I had to go down to the lobby to pick her up, crack on we’re, like, boyfriend-girlfriend?
On the way up in the elevator, I tell her I wouldn’t imagine she gets many 11.00 a.m. call-outs. She says I’d be surprised.
We go into the room. She’s straight down to business because she heads immediately for the bathroom with her bag. I’m there, ‘Hey, let’s just chill out for a second.’
She goes, ‘Hey, this isn’t Pretty Woman, friend. Believe me, you can’t afford to keep the meter running.’
I’m there, ‘You don’t recognize me, do you?’
She looks at my face. But she doesn’t really look? She goes, ‘Sure I do,’ but she obviously presumes I’m just, like, a regular client?
She throws me a Zeppelin. ‘You remember I’m a safety girl?’
She unbuttons her coat and drops it on the floor, then takes her top off over her head, so she’s standing there in her bra.
I smile.
‘The last time I saw those puppies,’ I go, ‘I was jumping out of a second-storey aportment on La Cienega Boulevard.’
She reacts, roysh, like she’s just seen a ghost. I’m there, ‘Hello, Sahara. Er, it’s Ross, by the way?’
She nods, roysh, but for ages it’s like she can’t actually speak? ‘You look… different,’ she finally goes.
I’m there, ‘Yeah, I had, like, a nose job – among other things.’
She stares hord at it, then checks it out from, like, various angles. ‘It suits you,’ she goes.
I’m there, ‘Yeah, I’m getting used to it – although I’m still getting the odd nosebleed.’
That sort of, like, shocks her? ‘You could have a septal perforation,’ she goes, suddenly sitting down on the bed. ‘That can happen if the surgeon doesn’t know what he’s doing. You remember Trevion?’
She obviously hasn’t seen the show. I expect she works most nights.
‘Well,’ she goes, ‘he had this friend from, like, Ecuador?’
Something tells me I’d be happier not hearing the rest of this story. I sit down beside her and rub my hand up and down her bare orm.
‘I take it the Ayaan Hirsi Ali musical didn’t happen,’ I go. ‘Broadway, blah blah blah?’
She shakes her head. ‘The guy was just… stringing me along,’ she goes.
I tell her it’s great to see her again. The tension – and we’re talking sexual tension? – is electric and I’ve a feeling that no amount of yoga or talk of septal perforations is going to hold back the tide.
She suddenly throws the lips on me. Which is worth repeating – she throws the lips on me? – and, well, if anything I’m a gentleman, so I’m not going to give you the gory details, other than to say that I ended up giving her the magic and in a major way.
She literally gasped when she saw the new bod, by the way.
Anyway, roysh, where all this is going is, we’re lying there, post-match, her trying to get her breath back, me sweating like a man on ten penalty points, when she turns around to me – her face all flushed – and goes, ‘I’m sorry, by the way – about that night?’
I tell her to forget about it. ‘In fact,’ I go, ‘and this is one of those definite small-world stories – Trevion and my old dear are getting married.’
She’s there, ‘What?’ except the way she says it, it’s more like, ‘What!’
I tell her that was my exact reaction. ‘And you haven’t even met her,’ I go. ‘I can tell you this, the poor focker doesn’t know torture yet.’
At first, roysh, she laughs.
Then she’s suddenly looking at me, propped up on her elbow. She’s there, ‘You don’t believe those stories, do you?’
I look at her. She’s being actually serious. I’m there, ‘Are you saying they’re, like, exaggerated?’
She laughs. ‘I’m saying they’re invented. Trevion was never in Korea. I shouldn’t tell you this…’
Now I’m propped up on my elbow. I’m like, ‘What? ’
‘I don’t know…’
‘Come on, Sahara – you can’t, like, half tell somebody something like this. He’s going to be my stepfather, remember?’
‘Okay, you’ve got to promise that it goes no further.’
I’m there, ‘I give you my word of honour,’ which obviously means fock-all.
‘Trevion never went to Korea,’ she goes. ‘He deserted.’
I’m there, ‘What?’
‘Yeah, he deserted – soon as they told him he was going. He went AWOL. Disappeared for years. His name isn’t even Trevion Warwick – it’s Trevor Warwick.’
I actually laugh. ‘That’s some deep cover,’ I go. I’m suddenly racking my brains for, like, movies I’ve seen? ‘Isn’t that, like, illegal – in other words, deserting?’
‘Oh, yeah! He could still be court-martialled. But you won’t say anything, Ross, will you?’
‘What do you take me for? So, like, what’s the Jack with all the scors on his face?’
‘It’s psoriasis.’
‘Psoriasis?’ I go. ‘Oh my God, that’s focking hilarious.’
We get up then and fix ourselves. I tell her it was great to see her again and of course then there’s that whole dilemma – if a hooker ends up making the first move on you and then obviously enjoys herself, do you still have to pay?
In the end she only chorges me half.
I kiss her goodbye at the door, then I go back into the room and, like, punch the air. Not only have I got the goods on the man my old dear’s supposedly marrying, but I realize that my mind is back to normal again. I try to think in French, then Irish, and it hits me all of a sudden that I know absolutely fock-all of what I accidentally learned at school.
And I can’t tell you how good it feels to be free of that curse.
I run into Oisinn in the corridor outside the room. He looks like absolute crap. He’s, like, still in the clothes he arrived in two days ago. He’s white in the face and his eyes are, like, sunk into his head.
I ask him where he’s been, but he just stares through me. It’s like he can’t even see me?
I grab him by the shoulders. ‘Oisinn!’ I go, literally shaking him.
He’s suddenly with me. He’s like, ‘Oh, Ross,’ and I’m there, ‘Forget oh Ross – Dude, what’s going on?’
He stares at a point on the wall, over my right shoulder. ‘I’ve got to… not be here,’ he goes. ‘It was a mistake coming.’
‘So it’s true,’ I go, ‘what JP said – as in, you’ve got, like, a gambling problem?’
He looks down at his clothes, as if that should be an answer in itself.
I’m there, ‘Is it a stupid question to ask whether you’re up or down money-wise?’
It is, roysh, because he laughs, then he just brushes past me on the way to his room. I follow him, going, ‘Dude, talk to me,’ but he just keeps walking.
He slips the key cord in the door and goes into his room. I follow him in and watch while he opens his bag and storts shoving clothes into it. ‘How much?’ I go. Except he doesn’t answer? I’m there, ‘Dude, how much?’
He stops what he’s doing, looks me dead in the eye and goes, ‘One point three million dollars.’
It honestly takes my breath away. I’m like, ‘One point…’
‘One point three million.’
‘Fock,’ I go. ‘I thought you were going to say three or four Ks. I was going to give it to you out of my own sky-rocket.’
‘Well,’ he goes. ‘Now you know.’
I still can’t get my head around it? ‘One point three million? You could nearly buy a decent house in Dublin for that.’
He finishes packing – if you could call it that
– zips up his bag and swings it over his shoulder.
I’m there, ‘Where are you going?’
He’s like, ‘I think Vegas is the worst place in the world for someone like me to be.’
‘You’re going to miss Christian’s grand opening,’ I go.
He nods like he’s already thought of it. ‘Tell him sorry for me, will you?’
I’ve never seen the focker this down about anything.
I’m there, ‘You are alright for dosh, though, aren’t you? As in, generally?’
He shrugs. ‘Might need to sell a property or two.’
I’m thinking, fock, that doesn’t sound good.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he goes. ‘It’s a bit embarrassing. Can I borrow twenty dollars? For my taxi fare.’
I’m straight out with the wad. I’m like, ‘Dude, take fifty.’
He shakes his head. He goes, ‘Please, Ross – don’t give me any more than I need.’
‘Oh, hello there,’ he goes, not a focking clue who I am – his own son. He actually asks me for a brandy and perhaps some of these nut things.
It’s Sorcha who ends up having to go, ‘Charles, it’s Ross.’
I’m there, ‘Yeah – as in your only son? Oh, unless there’s others – which we can’t rule out, of course?’
‘Oh,’ he goes, sort of, I don’t know, scrutinizing my face. ‘This is the famous nose. Look at that, Helen! Oh, I wouldn’t have known you, Kicker.’
They’re all sitting around the cocktail lounge like it’s happy focking families all of a sudden. We’re talking the old dear and Trevion, the fraud, then Fock Features and Helen, then Erika, Sorcha, Honor and Ro.
Erika and her old dear are holding hands, I can’t help but notice. ‘Hello, Ross,’ she goes.
I’m there, ‘Hey, Mrs Joseph – how are you?’
She smiles. Other people’s old dears have, like, always had a thing for me? ‘Ross, it’s Helen,’ she goes. ‘I’ve been telling you that for years.’
I nod at their two hands. ‘That’s nice to see,’ I go, ‘as in genuinely,’ and they turn to each other and just, like, smile.
Of course, the old man has to blunder in then with his big hobnail boots and ruin the actual moment. ‘Trevion here’s just been telling me some of his war stories,’ he goes. ‘Where was it, old chap – South of Suwon?’
Of course he doesn’t need any encouragement. ‘We was outnumbered,’ he goes, ‘four to one. We was getting pounded. But our order was to delay their advance while more troops was flown in. We had no anti-tank guns. We’re using divisional artillery against T34s – can you believe that?’
The old dear’s all pleased with herself, listening to him.
Of course, I’m just staring at him, going, ‘That must have been shit for you, Trevion. Like, really shit. As in, absolute shit.’
‘A boy of eighteen!’ the old man goes.
‘The day they crossed the Kum river, I’m sat in a slit trench – the bastids – cleaning my weapon. The next thing I look up – twenty feet away, there’s a tank. And its turret… is slowly turning on my position…’
‘Unbelievable,’ I go. ‘Literally.’
The old man’s, like, shaking his head, looking at him in, like, total awe. ‘Well, Fionnuala,’ he goes, ‘you’ve always had a thing for war heroes. What about that chap you went out with when you lived in Paris? Fought in Algeria!’
‘Oh, yes,’ she goes, cracking on to remember, except she probably doesn’t because it’s almost certainly horseshit as well.
He turns to Helen. ‘Tortured by the ALN, if you don’t mind. To the point where he lost the use of both arms.’
‘Which is why he couldn’t push her away,’ I go.
Nobody laughs, although I’m sure one or two are dying to.
I sit down next to Trevion. I have to – it’s, like, the only free seat? I cop the old man’s iPod on the table. I pick it up and laugh, then I turn the clickwheel, expecting to find, I don’t know, Andrea Bocelli and all sorts of shit on it. Instead, it’s all Keane, Killers and the Kings of focking Leon.
‘When have you been into this kind of music?’ I go.
He’s there, ‘Oh, Helen lent me one or two of Erika’s CDs. Hope you don’t mind, Erika. We, em, what’s this they say – imported them. Quote-unquote. Lot simpler than it sounds.’
It’s pathetic – he ignores his daughter for, like, twenty-seven years, then he’s suddenly desperate to get all in with her?
‘It’s “Sex on Fire”,’ I go, throwing it back across the table at him. ‘Not “Your Sex is on Fire”.’
‘Are you sure?’ he has the actual cheek to go.
I’m there, ‘Er, I think I’d know, don’t you?’
The next thing, roysh, who arrives on the scene only Lauren. On her Tobler. Christian’s looking after the little lad. They make such a focking fuss over her, of course. It’s all congratulations and blahdy-blah and the old man says that Hennessy sends his love and he hopes to get over in a week or two to meet his little grandson.
Lauren goes, ‘Hi, Ross,’ and if I didn’t know her better, roysh, I’d say she was actually being nice. I’m just there, ‘Hey, Lauren,’ thinking there’s no way I’m going to suddenly stort feeling guilty about this scam we’re pulling.
‘Hey, Ro,’ I go, ‘tell you, soon as we’re finished here, let’s head down to the MGM to see the lions,’ and he’s there, ‘Fair enough, Rosser, if that’s what you’re into,’ and I turn to Sorcha and ask her can I bring Honor as well and she says – oh my God – of course, even though, she makes sure to add, she doesn’t exactly approve of animals being kept in captivity and Stella would probably kill her if she found out that she went to see the dolphins earlier.
I’m like, ‘Ro, how much water have you drunk today?’ and he shrugs and goes, ‘Ah, a glass or two,’ and I’m there, ‘Well, you better drink some more. It’s a hundred and ten out there and it’s, like, desert heat? You shouldn’t even go out without at least a litre inside you.’
‘Reet enough,’ he goes.
I’m there, ‘And Sorcha, you might put a bit more suntan lotion on Honor’s face and legs, would you?’ and she goes, ‘Oh my God, I would have totally forgot!’
I look over at Lauren and she’s just, like, staring at me. Again, there’s no way I’m going to stort feeling bad about shit?
Johnny Sarno finally arrives. I’m thinking, okay, let’s get this over and done with. He goes – major fanfare, of course – ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m happy to tell you – we’ve found a venue for the wedding!’
I’m just there, ‘Except it isn’t an actual wedding.’
‘Where?’ the old dear goes.
He’s like, ‘The Chapel in the Clouds. It’s at the top of the Stratosphere…’
Everyone’s giving it, ‘Whoa!’ and ‘Oh my God!’ and all the rest.
‘Eight hundred feet above the ground. It’s the highest wedding chapel in the United States and we’ll be able to get some wonderful footage of all of you against the backdrop of the city lights.’
I stand up, thinking, cool – now I know where not to be tomorrow afternoon?
I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ and I take Honor out of Sorcha’s orms and I go, ‘Come on, Ro, let’s go,’ and Honor claps her hands together and goes, ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’.
It’s just as we’re reaching the front doors of the casino that I hear a voice call me. I whip around, roysh, and it’s, like, Sorcha. She turns to Ro and she goes, ‘Ronan, do you mind if I have just a quick word with your father?’ and he goes, ‘Not a problem,’ and he takes Honor out of my orms and brings her over to meet an Ewok.
Sorcha goes, ‘Why don’t you and the guys take Trevion out tonight for a bachelor party?’
I’m there, ‘A bachelor porty? You’re pulling my wire!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the whole thing’s a farce, Sorcha. I mean, what was all that about back there?’
‘What?’
‘We
ll, him and her for storters. You’ve always had a thing for war heroes, Fionnuala. Then her with her Chapel in the focking Clouds…’
She looks at me, I suppose, sympathetically? ‘Look, everyone’s had a lot to deal with, Ross. New relationships. New configurations. But we’re all making the effort to adjust. It’s like your mum says, Ross, there isn’t a person around that table who can say they’ve lived a perfect life. We’ve all made mistakes. But you have to let them go if you want to go on living.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Ross, you said it yourself – look at us. You let me go – and look at us now. It’s different, but who’s to say that what we have now isn’t better than what we had?’
I turn away from her.
She’s there, ‘Why not your mother, Ross? Why can’t you let Fionnuala go?’
And what I can’t bring myself to say is that I never had her. I never had her and I never had him.
Fionn wants to know if it’s true. I knew I couldn’t trust JP to keep his trap shut. I don’t bother my hole answering him and he takes what he wants from that. ‘Your best friend,’ he goes, ‘you’re going to screw him over on his big night?’
I’m there, ‘I’m sick to the teeth saying this – it’s not his money. It’s George Lucas’s. And the amount of Star Wars shit I’ve bought for Christian over the years – birthdays, Christmases, blahdy blahdy blah – I reckon the focker owes me. And anyway, the way Christian’s been running around after him, it’s about time he remembered where his priorities lie.’
He tells me there’s a bad streak in me, which of course is news to no one.
Of course, there’s shit I could throw at him – as in, what’s he doing out on the stag of the dude who’s marrying my old dear? Not just him either – JP as well. It’s, like, where’s their loyalty? We’re supposed to have played rugby together?
‘There he is!’ is the next thing I hear. ‘The greatest outhalf never to play for Ireland!’
I don’t focking believe it. He’s out as well.
I’m there, ‘I’d hordly have thought this was your scene,’ meaning The Rum Jungle in the Mandalay Bay. It’s, like, a young people’s bor?
He suddenly slaps Trevion on the back. ‘Well, in normal circumstances, I’d be tucked up with a bloody good Tom Clancy. Except, well, just after you left this evening, Trevion here asked me if I would do him the signal honour of being his best man.’
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