The Oh My God Delusion

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  He’s unbelievable. And I don’t even mean that in a good way? All he can talk about is what he’s going to do with all this suddenly free time on his hands since the Office of Public Works put the kibosh on his hotel and casino plan.

  ‘Perhaps you can relax,’ Helen goes, snatching a lump of Cœur de Neufchâtel out of his hand before he gets to take a second bite of it. ‘Let’s take that trip to France we’ve been talking about.’ He’s there, ‘A holiday?’ horrified by the idea. ‘I’ll take a holiday when this recession takes one. Yes, Helen, I’ve had a setback and no mistake. But this current economic climate that everyone’s so excited about, it’s not going to defeat me. No, I’m going to master it – like our friend Santiago and his famous marlin.’ I’m just, like, staring at him across the counter. ‘Er,’ I go, ‘the Feds have just added reckless endangerment using a motor vehicle to the already shoplifting and criminal damage chorges against my wife – and all you can do is bullshit on about nothing?’ He smiles – actually smiles at me? ‘Don’t you worry your head,’ he tries to go. ‘I’ve always said it about you, Ross – you’re too much of a deep thinker. Hennessy’s going to sort everything out …’ ‘And what if she ends up in prison? What am I going to tell our daughter?’ ‘It won’t come to that, Ross. She’s from a good background.’ ‘What the fock’s that got to do with the price of radicchio?’ He laughs, like I’m the naive one? ‘Everything, of course. And she’s pleading guilty. It’ll be dealt with summarily. She’ll be in and out of there tomorrow in the blink of an eye. Probation Act, how are you!’ Helen asks me how Sorcha is – like I keep saying, the woman is, like, way too good for him. I tell her I haven’t a bog. I haven’t actually spoken to her since it happened. She’s staying with her old pair in Killiney and she’s not, like, answering her phone. ‘Erika said Brown Thomas have agreed to cover the cost of the damages themselves,’ she goes, ‘and to write a letter to the court, asking for leniency …’ I’m there, ‘Least they could do – the amount of bread she’s dropped in that place over the years. And the fish, in the end, were fine. Mao on Chatham Street have agreed to, I don’t know, foster them until BTs get the new tank in. I’m just hoping the judge will be swayed by that. It’s her birthday tomorrow as well, you know – her actual thirtieth.’ ‘Well, whatever happens,’ Helen goes, smiling at me, ‘she’s very lucky to have you, Ross,’ and I have to say, roysh, it’s amazing to suddenly get that recognition. I decide to try Sorcha’s phone again. I step outside the old cheesemonger’s and dial the number. I’m walking past Nutley Newsagents when it’s suddenly answered. Except it’s not Sorcha who does the answering – it’s her old man. So I end up putting on this, like, German accent, roysh, trying to pass myself off as one of her mates from the summer she spent au pairing in Mannheim. ‘Gute eefening,’ I go. ‘I vould like to shpeak vit Sorcha Lalor …’ He’s there, ‘Your photograph comes up on her screen when you ring, you little shithead …’ He does not sound a happy carrot-cruncher. If he was embarrassed by the idea of her trying to flog her threads on Grafton Street, imagine how her crashing through the doors of Ireland’s leading deportment store in the Astra he bought her is going down. Er, not well? ‘I just wanted to make sure she’s okay,’ I go. He’s there, ‘Sorcha hasn’t been okay since the day you blundered into her life. And she won’t be until the day you’re banished from it – which will hopefully be soon …’ ‘Can I speak to her?’ ‘Hennessy’s prepping her for tomorrow. Then she’s going to get an early night and hope to God that she’s going to be sleeping in her own bed again tomorrow.’ ‘Okay, would you maybe just give her a message – good luck, I’m thinking about her, blah blah blah …’ ‘No,’ he just goes. I’m like, ‘Well, would you even just tell her that I’ll see her outside the court in the morning?’ He’s there, ‘No, no more messages. You just stay away from my daughter …’ In the background, roysh, I can hear Sorcha ask who he’s talking to. ‘It’s no one,’ he goes. No one. Then he just hangs up. She looks amazing. Then she always does? Plus I’m sure Hennessy told her to undo those two extra buttons on her shirt. I guess judges are no different from the rest of us. I hold her hand and ask her if she’s okay. She says she’s actually fine and that when this is all over she’s going to go on a verbal fast retreat with her mum. I give her hand a little squeeze and I go, ‘Come on, Sorcha, how long have we known each other?’ and that’s when the tears suddenly come, standing there in the hallway of – believe it or not – the Bridewell District Court. It’s obviously not how she envisaged spending her thirtieth. She’s like, ‘What if I do end up sharing a cell with the Scissor Sisters?’ I tell her that’s not going to happen. And it’s so not. ‘I only said that to you,’ I go, ‘that day in Superquinn to try to scare you straight. Even if the worst does come to the worst, they’d obviously keep people like you away from people like them …’ She’s there, ‘Do you think?’ and I’m like, ‘They’d have to! Think about it. Even if the world is turning to shit under our feet. And anyway, it’s not going to come to that. Hennessy’s pretty sure you’re going to walk – especially because you’re pleading guilty.’ She wipes away her tears with her open hand. ‘If you’re wrong,’ she goes, ‘you’ll bring up Honor, won’t you?’ I shake my head and go, ‘Let’s not think like that,’ but she puts her finger to my lips, roysh, and goes, ‘Promise me, Ross! You’re the best father that she could ever hope for …’ I look away. I notice her old pair, her granny and her sister suddenly tipping up the steps of the court. The sister – whose name I can never remember – looks amazing, although now is obviously not the time to point that out to her. Too much history there. Instead, I go, ‘Okay, I promise,’ and then I tell her she’d better go and talk to her family. As she’s walking away I go, ‘Happy birthday, by the way,’ and she just stops for a second. She seemed to have forgotten it was today. I grab a seat in what they call the public gallery. The court’s not yet in session. It’s amazing the shit you pick up watching Judge Judy practically every day of your adult life. Hennessy cops me and he tips on over. ‘Charlie tell you the hotel and casino plan fell through?’ I don’t actually believe this? I’m there, ‘You want to talk about my old man’s hairbrain focking schemes while my wife’s about to go to possibly prison?’ ‘Hey, you little pissbag,’ he goes, practically jabbing his finger in my face. ‘You think I’ve nothing better to do with my time than clean up you and your sister’s bullshit?’ That’s an obvious reference to the whole, I don’t know, Toddy Rathfriland thing? I’m there, ‘Er, I’d hordly call this my bullshit?’ ‘I’m doing this as a favour for Charlie,’ he goes. ‘And let me tell you something else. You wait till your loving wife and that old man of hers get you in the divorce court. You’re going to wish she’d got life today …’ ‘I possibly will,’ I go. ‘Just make sure she doesn’t.’ Hers ends up being the first case called and I can’t tell you how much it upsets me to see her – this beautiful girl who played the flute in the Emmanuel Liturgical Music Project at school, remember – standing in a courtroom as the actual accused. Sister Zechariah would have puppies if she was alive today. Sorcha’s family and friends suddenly swarm into the – again – public gallery. Her old man gives me an unbelievable filthy and calls me a waste of skin. I tell him he’s entitled to his opinion, then he ends up having to be held back by Sorcha’s old dear and her granny, who prevent him from basically throttling me with his bare hands. They eventually sit down. ‘Hi, Ross,’ the sister goes, like she’s about to eat me with a focking spoon. I’m pretty sure it’s Oonagh or Edina or some shit like that. Needless to say, I’ve got an instant one on me. The girls also arrive. First Chloe, still on the crutches, followed by Sophie and Amie with an ie, who I hear mention that she’s now finished all of Californication and is up to season three of Weeds. Garret and Claire are next. She obviously has him totally para at this stage because he can’t actually take his eyes off me. Then in walks Erika, roysh, and sits down
next to me and what’s nice is that she’s the only one so far to ask me how I am? I tell her I’m shitting mashed potatoes here and she just holds my hand. Then it’s suddenly game time. This Gorda dude stands up first and gives an outline of what basically happened. The accused stole a bottle of body-wash and scrub – Garret was right – from Molton Brown in Dundrum Town Centre. After being chorged, she left the station and proceeded to drive in a reckless and dangerous manner in the direction of Dublin City Centre. Once there, she drove down Grafton Street at one of the busiest times of the day and crashed her cor through the main doors of the Brown Thomas deportment store, causing five thousand euros’ worth of damage to two doors, a make-up display and a fish tank. You can see the judge, roysh, looking at Sorcha over the top of his glasses, obviously thinking, this girl? Did all of that? Er … He’s clearly struggling with the idea – and it’s not just because she’s flashing her ta-tas at him. ‘Am I hearing the correct case here?’ he goes. Hennessy spots his chance, roysh, and he’s straight to his feet. He’s like, ‘Yes, Your Honour – this is, as you’ve already no doubt gathered, a very unusual case, in which my client – a strikingly attractive young woman, as you can see – the mother of a young daughter, a professional woman with a business beset from all sides by the tumultuous currents of the current economic climate, under extreme duress, acted in a way that was most out of character for her …’ I turn to Erika and I go, ‘He’s good – there’s no doubt about that.’ She says she knows. He’s managed to persuade Regina Rathfriland, she says, to drop her name from the divorce proceedings, which is news to me. ‘Can I also say,’ Hennessy goes, ‘that nobody was hurt in the incident …’ The judge is like, ‘Fortunately!’ and I’m suddenly sensing that this might not be the formality I thought it was going to be? ‘Yes, Your Honor, it was very fortunate. My client accepts that. We are not contesting the facts of the case as they’ve been presented to the court today. I would, however, ask that, in determining a punishment, you take into account the untold pressure brought to bear on her in the months preceding the incident by her failing business. Your Honour might also consider this letter from Brown Thomas Group Limited, to the court, describing my client as a long-time friend of the department store …’ I turn to Erika. ‘She’s spent a focking fortune in there over the years – it’s the least they could do.’ Sorcha’s old man actually shushes me. ‘I also have letters here, Your Honour, from an array of organizations – from the Burmese National League for Democracy to the Campaign to Save the Loggerhead Sea Turtle – thanking her for her support. In view of these ringing testimonials as to her caring nature, I would ask you to consider some alternative sanction to that of imprisonment, which would after all serve no purpose other than to deny a little girl her, I think you’d agree, very, very, very attractive mother. I would also submit that the signage indicating that Grafton Street is a pedestrianized thoroughfare is clearly insufficient …’ ‘Enough,’ the judge just goes. He doesn’t seem like the kind of dude who’d let himself be shitted. ‘Let me see those letters …’ Hennessy hands them to him and he goes through them, reading every single one, which takes about twenty focking minutes. Every so often, he’ll look up and cop another look at Sorcha over the top of his glasses. I’ve never heard silence like it. It actually beats Cordiff and Edinburgh combined for tension. Eventually, roysh, he puts the letters down and actually addresses Sorcha. He’s like, ‘What do you know about the loggerhead sea turtle?’ Sorcha looks confused, like it’s the last thing she expected to come up today. ‘Just that they’re – oh my God – among the most beautiful creatures in the sea,’ she goes, ‘and that we’ve hunted them to the point of, like, extinction? And that I actually swam with one when I spent a summer working in South Carolina …’ The judge just smiles. ‘My wife swam with one too,’ he goes and this, like, wave of relief just sweeps over me. I turn to Erika. ‘And to think I laughed in her face when she originally told me that story.’ ‘She’s also a member of that campaign,’ the judge goes, then he hands the letters back to Hennessy and clears his throat. ‘I have no doubt whatsoever as to the good character of this woman who finds herself in front of me this morning. I have no doubt, too, that the pressure brought to bear on her by these unprecedented economic times was the sole determinant in these events that unfortunately occurred. However, in view of the danger that was presented to the public, I feel it incumbent on me to impose some form of sentence …’ Shit! Sorcha looks around, not at her family, or at her friends, but at me. I give her a little smile as if to say, hey, we’ll face it together, Babes – whatever it might actually be. The judge takes his time to focking say it. ‘That sentence is … that you perform four hundred hours of community service …’ ‘Yeeesss!!!’ I hear myself suddenly go. I punch the air. ‘And that you keep up the good work in support of all these very worthwhile organizations …’ ‘Hennessy!’ I shout. ‘You little focking rooster!’ ‘And that the fellow there, wearing the baseball cap, be immediately removed from this court.’ My phone rings. I check caller ID and it’s, like, Oisinn’s old dear. I’d usually answer it straight away, roysh, to find out if he’s obviously been in touch, except this time I consider not answering it? See, I know what day it is today. But then, being a parent myself, I’ve got, like, some idea of what she must be going through. So I do answer. I go, ‘Hey, Mrs Wallace.’ I can tell she’s been crying before she even opens her mouth. She’s like, ‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance …’ ‘You’re anything but a nuisance,’ I go, just so as not to hurt her feelings? She’s like, ‘Do you know what day it is today?’ I’m there, ‘Yeah, it’s Oisinn’s birthday,’ because it was always two days after Sorcha’s. ‘His thirtieth birthday, Ross.’ ‘I know …’ He’s, like, the first of the old SCT to get out of his twenties. ‘Actually,’ I go, ‘me and the goys met up last night, had a fair few scoops – don’t you worry about that – and told our favourite Oisinn stories,’ and then I immediately regret saying it because I realize I’ve made him sound dead. And the thing that nobody – especially me – wants to admit is that he actually could be? ‘I keep expecting him to walk through the door, like nothing ever happened. Where could he be, Ross?’ The answer, of course, is anywhere in the actual world. Sorcha says she meant to ring me to say, well, you know … I tell her, hey, it was a verbal fast retreat. I wouldn’t have expected her to? I tell her I’m just happy she’s okay – and, well, still at lorge. She laughs. She looks incredible, even in just overalls. She says she’s been rereading The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam and it’s given her – oh my God – a totally new perspective on life. I tell her that sounds amazing. She’s quiet for a little while. Then she goes, ‘I really thought I was going to jail, Ross.’ I laugh. I’m there, ‘Er, that was never going to happen?’ She goes, ‘But what was I like? I could have – oh my God – killed someone …’ ‘Hey,’ I go, ‘you’re being too hord on yourself. You were focking bananas, don’t forget.’ ‘I suppose.’ ‘No suppose about it. It’s like I tried to tell you that day in Superquinn – the stress you’ve been under. It’s the exact same shit as happened to Winona Ryder, remember?’ She nods. She knows that I’m talking sense. Then she, like, returns to her work, scraping the fly posters off the walls around the back of the George’s Street Orcade. I tell her I still think they could have found something for her to do that better suited her, I don’t know, talents? I tell her to give me the scraper and I’ll finish it for her – her focking orms must be hanging. She says no, this is something she has to do herself? Otherwise she won’t feel that she’s been adequately punished. Someone told me once that they don’t even have to supervise the detention in Mount Anville. ‘Do you know what’s funny?’ she goes then. ‘I feel like a geologist here, chipping my way through layers and layers of history. You can even see, like, the faultlines in our recent past. I took off a poster for a Turkish property expo and there, underneath, was an ad for Ireland’s first
one hundred and ten percent mortgage. Then I scraped that off and there was a poster for Il Divo at the Point …’ I laugh and shake my head. ‘Il Divo,’ I go. ‘We really did lose the run of ourselves, didn’t we? At least that’s what everyone seems to be saying …’ She finishes another ten feet of wall, then asks me how I am, which is nice to hear. Of course I end up unloading all of my shit on her. Eight more aportments in my block have now fallen to social welfarites. I’m there, ‘I know we all did go a bit mental, but now things are going too much the other way? I’m just glad Rosa Parks isn’t alive to see the focking tip they’ve made of the place.’ She smiles at me – you’d have to say sympathetically? ‘Then, on top of everything else, Ronan’s besotted with the two focking grunts next door …’ She suddenly stops scraping. She’s like, ‘Oh my God!’ And I’m there, ‘You can say that again. He was supposed to call in to me yesterday. Thursday’s always been our night in Dr Quirkey’s – you know that. Didn’t show. I was ringing him for, like, an hour. He eventually answered. Turned out he’d been in next door the whole time. I was like, “Er, are we not hitting O’Connell Street?” And he was like, “We’re in the mittle of watchen sometin, Rosser – I’ll catch you anutter toyum.”’ ‘That must have been, like, so hurtful for you, Ross – as, like, a father?’ ‘It’s not so much that. Look, I hated being around my own old man at that age? It’s just, these two aren’t anything like his other friends, dudes like Whacker, Nudger and Buckets of Blood. These two are real bad boys. We’re actually talking guns and drugs. I actually saw them. They have these, like, wild porties where they listen to – believe it or not – Leo Sayer and focking snort the old devil’s dandruff …’ ‘Ross, you have to keep Ronan away from them.’ ‘I know but it’s, like, how? You tell a kid that something’s off limits and they immediately want to go there.’ She smiles sort of, like, inwardly? I’m sure she’s thinking about all the times her old man warned her off me. ‘Maybe it’s just him rebelling. I think he feels really bad about the way he treated Blathin. Maybe hanging about with these, well, hord characters is his way of pretending that it’s not affecting him.’ ‘That’s actually not a bad analysis. What did you say that book was called?’ She laughs. ‘The Wasted Vigil.’ ‘Well,’ I go, ‘it’s obviously done you some good? Either way, though, I’m going to have to have the chat with him about drugs …’ She kisses me on the cheek, tells me I’m an amazing father, then goes back to her scraping. I mention that it was Oisinn’s birthday last week. She goes, ‘Oh my God, the 31st of July! Has anyone even heard from him?’ ‘Not a word,’ I go. ‘His old dear rang me and she’s … I don’t know, how could he do that to her? It’s, like, I focking hate my old dear? But I’d still never put her through that – as in, not knowing? Jesus …’ ‘How are you getting on with, like, trying to find him?’ I shrug. ‘Ah, I’ve kind of let it slide the last few months. I suppose I’ve had my own shit to deal with. I was mostly just ringing all his favourite hotels – which was, like, brain dead, given that the focker’s skint …’ She says at least I’m trying and that’s a great thing to hear for my confidence. Then she suddenly remembers something and stops scraping again. ‘Oh my God,’ she goes, ‘I was supposed to pick up the photocopying from Reads.’ I’m like, ‘What photocopying are we talking about here?’ ‘The Mass leaflets for, like, Claire and Garret’s wedding?’ I crack my hole laughing. ‘They’re giving out photocopies?’ ‘They’re on good-quality paper, Ross.’ I’m still laughing. ‘This wedding just gets more and more focking hilarious.’ ‘Don’t be nasty – they don’t have a lot of money …’ ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I go, ‘I’ll go and pick them up for you.’ She’s there, ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ I’m like, ‘Hey, you’ve said some good stuff about me here today – it’s the least I can do.’ ‘Ronan,’ I go, ‘nice of you to grace me with your presence.’ He doesn’t even feel bad? ‘As in, you didn’t bother your orse calling in to see me last week. What were you doing in there anyway – or am I allowed to even ask?’ He just shrugs. ‘We were watchin Paul Widdiams – Doorty Money – on tee-fee-tee.’ I’m all of a sudden hurt. Me and Sinead Desmond spent, like, four hours in the TV3 orchive putting that thing together for him. ‘I actually thought you and me were going to watch it together.’ ‘Well, in anyhow,’ he goes, ‘Tetty and Laddy luffed it. There’s no Criminal Assets Bureau ever gonna be findin deer assets, but.’ ‘You reckon?’ ‘Too smeert, thee are. Hidden all over the shop, so it is. Ah, the boys are the business, Rosser.’ I pull a face, like I, personally, could take or leave them. ‘Look, do you mind me saying something to you?’ I go. He rolls his actual eyes. I’m there, ‘Just hear me out, Ro. I know, deep down, you possibly feel bad about the way you treated Bla – breaking it off with her just because she’s in a wheelchair, doing the dirt with her mate, blah blah blah – but you don’t have to pretend to be hord. It’s all right to be sad about it …’ ‘Ine over it.’ ‘Well, I hope that’s true. Another thing I wanted to say is, you know, dudes like Terry and Larry, they’re young and they’ve got all this moo, all this power. A kid like you, born in that focking council Lego estate your mother brought you up in, I can see how your head could be turned by the likes of them. But don’t forget, Ro, you are still a kid. What I’m saying is, you know, enjoy your childhood …’ I’m building up to mention the whole drugs thing, except his eyes are suddenly drawn to the muted television. The old dear’s show is just storting. It has to be said, roysh, she’s stuck it out a lot longer than I thought she would? ‘FO’CK on a Budget?’ Ronan goes. ‘When did thee change the nayum?’ I’m like, ‘A few weeks back. They told her to stort cooking food that’s more – I think the word is – reflective of the times in which we’re living?’ He grabs the remote off the coffee table and highers up the sound. ‘In these enviromentally conscious times,’ the old dear’s going, looking into the wrong focking camera as per usual, ‘we are forever being urged to consider the amount of waste that each of us generates. And now, with unemployment, emigration and plummeting share prices once again features of life in Ireland, there has never been a better time for us to stop and think about the perfectly good food that we throw away – all of us – each and every day …’ The camera pans backwards, roysh, and there, plonked on top of the worktop beside her, is – get this – an actual dustbin. I’m thinking, no – no focking way. I’m pretty sure Ronan is too. ‘One of the arts that’s being, if you like, rediscovered in these changed economic times is that of thrift. For a large number of people, cooking leftovers is once again a way of life. Today, I’m going to set aside the rights and wrongs of that, and show you how to make a delicious family casserole using ingredients that a great many of us would typically discard as waste …’ ‘Moy fooken Jaysus,’ Ronan even goes – and he was raised on the Northside. I can’t imagine how hord it must be for a kid of that age to have to watch his grandmother do shit like this on live TV. She puts her hand into the bin, roysh, and she storts whipping out – I’m being serious here – fistfuls of basically vegetable peelings. You can tell from her boat that she’s not happy – she looks like she’s got an entire ball of Mozarella in her mouth. ‘Now, this is something I’ve been guilty of in the past,’ she goes, practically gagging. ‘Peeling potatoes, carrots, courgettes, squash, then putting the skins straight into the bin – or, in my case, the electric garbage disposal. Anyone who lived through the Emergency, or the worst of the 1980s, will know that vegetable and fruit skins are simply loaded with vitamins, minerals, potassium and foliates …’ I watch her drop them into, like, a pot of water. ‘I’m going to boil these up,’ she goes, ‘and these will form the base of our casserole …’ I tell him to turn it off. I mean, it’s difficult for even me to watch? And anyway, we were midway through one of our famous father–son chats. I’m there, ‘Ro, I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you for ages now about drugs.’ ‘Alreet,’ he goes, ‘what do you wanna know, Ross?
’ He’s good value – I’ll give him that. ‘It’s not what I want to know. It’s what you need to know – what every kid needs to know.’ ‘Go on …’ ‘Er, I don’t know – that they’re bad, I suppose. It’s not cool to actually take them …’ He sits there, roysh, just nodding at me, lapping up every word. ‘If you’re ever offered anything – I’m not just saying by those two yahoos either – remember, just say no.’ ‘Just say no?’ ‘Just … say … no.’ He’s there, ‘Er, reet.’ I didn’t get the call-up for Garret’s stag night. Not that I’m pissed off, even slightly. Er, go-korting, followed by pints in Break for the Border? Un-focking-believable. Then – and this is a total no-no as far as I’m concerned – they’re meeting up with Claire’s hen porty in Buck Whaleys, presumably to stop the lads from going to a lappy and making a decent night of it. ‘Let me guess,’ I said to Sorcha when she dropped Honor around to me at lunchtime, ‘once you’ve been to a titty bor in Thailand, you could never go to one here …’ She laughed as well, in fairness to her. I was, like, happy to see her heading out – couldn’t remember the last time I saw her get all done up for a night on the old tort fuel. ‘Except I might not drink that much,’ she went. ‘I’m – oh my God – so wrecked after my community service this week and I want to take Honor into town tomorrow to get her a dress for the wedding. Don’t want to be hungover …’ I was like, ‘A dress?’ ‘Yeah, Claire asked me could she be a flower girl. Ross, I told you that.’ ‘I don’t remember. Wait a minute – so who’s actually paying for the dress?’ ‘Well, I am …’ I just break my balls laughing. ‘Claire offered to,’ she went, ‘but she wanted to put a fifty-euro limit on it.’ I stopped laughing then and just shook my head sadly. That’s the thing about people from Bray. It’s one thing to be poor, but they make no effort to drag themselves out of the gutter? ‘Are you sure you’re okay taking Honor for the night?’ she went. I was like, ‘Sorcha, I’ve been looking forward to this all week. I dare say Honor has as well. You just go and enjoy yourself.’ So it ends up, roysh, that I’m sitting in the gaff – this is, like, six o’clock on a Saturday evening, remember – looking after my daughter instead of getting ready for a night on the rip, that whole sensitive side to my personality that very few people get to see suddenly coming out again. That’s when JP suddenly rings and asks if I fancy a nosebag – he was on to Fionn and they’re thinking of hitting Mao. ‘No can do,’ I go. ‘I’m doing the whole Daddy Daycare routine while Sorcha’s on the hen,’ except he’s there, ‘Bring Honor with you – they have a children’s menu,’ and then I suddenly remember that Saturday night is porty night next door anyway. In an hour’s time, the poor kid won’t be able to hear Dora the Explorer over the sound of ‘Thunder in My Hort’, so I think, what the fock. I strap her into the baby seat, then hit Dún Laoghaire. Fionn and JP are already there, with a cracking table and a bottle of Sapporo in front of them. ‘Check out some of the looks I’m getting,’ I go, trying to negotiate Honor into the little kiddies chair. ‘Birds love goys who are good with kids …’ It’s true. It’s, like, eyes out on stalks everywhere. I give Honor a thick black morker that I happened to have in my pocket and also a menu and leave her scribbling away merrily, like a knacker on the Nightlink. It turns out the goys have been talking about Oisinn. ‘I had a call from his mum,’ Fionn goes, ‘on his birthday …’ I’m there, ‘I did as well.’ ‘Did she seem drunk to you?’ ‘Drunk? No, it was the morning when she rang me.’ ‘It was the morning when she rang me as well. She sounded hammered, Ross.’ ‘Fock,’ I go, ‘I didn’t cop that.’ ‘Well, JP and I were just discussing what we might do.’ ‘Or not do,’ JP goes. ‘I mean, you know how I feel – wherever he is, he’s better off there than here.’ Fionn shakes his head. ‘Well, let him stay where he is – as long as we can let Mrs Wallace know he’s all right.’ The waitress comes over and takes our order. It’s as I’m sitting there, staring at her Walter Mitties, that inspiration suddenly strikes me and it’s another one of those occasions when it feels like Father Fehily is up there pulling the levers. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I go, ‘isn’t there supposed to be, like, a humanitarian fund to help Castlerock old boys who’ve fallen on basically hord times?’ JP nods. ‘The Castlerock College Benevolent Fund for Rock Boys Who’ve Had, Like, a Bad Bounce of the Ball?’ I just laugh, then sit back and spread my orms wide. ‘Why didn’t we think of this before?’ ‘Think of what?’ Fionn goes. I’m there, ‘Er, are you even listening to me? There’s, like, a fund and it’s there to help former players like Oisinn who, through no fault of their own, have got themselves into this kind of situation …’ JP throws his opinion in then. ‘Oisinn is seventy-five million euros in debt, Ross.’ ‘Well, what kind of moo do you think is in this fund?’ ‘I’d be reasonably sure it’s nothing like that. Ross, if they sold the school building and the grounds, they still couldn’t bail Oisinn out of the trouble he’s in.’ Fionn nods. ‘And I doubt they would anyway – not with Tom in charge.’ McGahy, of course, is the one who pulled the school out of the Leinster Schools Senior Cup last year, claiming that – let me see if I can remember this – the presentation of adolescent athletes as God figures to their peers has succeeded only in turning our students into monsters. If you can believe that. I’m there, ‘I might go and see him, all the same.’ Fionn pulls a face, like he doesn’t think it’s a good idea? ‘Hey,’ I go, ‘all he can do is say no. Best-case scenario, he comes up with enough of the folding green – even just thirty or forty mills – to get the banks off his back. Unless either of you has a better idea?’ They exchange looks that say, er, I haven’t, just as our storters arrive. ‘That’s it decided, then,’ I go. ‘When does school stort back?’ ‘Not for another three weeks,’ he goes. ‘But Tom’s like me, he always goes back the second week in August, just to prepare for the new term.’ There’s two men, then, who need their Cheryl Cole. ‘The second week in August? That’s, like, next week.’ ‘Exactly.’ I shake my head then. ‘I bet that focker thought he’d already seen the last of me …’ I look down at Honor’s menu – she’s made shit of it. ‘Very good,’ I go, because they need encouragement at that age, talent or no talent. I tell the two goys I know where she gets it from – as in, the ortistic streak? – because Sorcha finished seventh in the Texaco ort competition in school, with this amazing picture of a baby seal being basically clubbed to death, then out of his mouth, roysh, he had, like, a speech bubble and he was just going, ‘Why?’ Neither of them says shit. JP, I notice, is suddenly – I don’t know – engrossed in his iPhone. ‘Danuta’s just getting off the Dart,’ he goes. I look at Fionn as if to say, what the fock is he talking about? JP picks up on it. ‘Should have mentioned, she’s coming in. Said she’d have dessert with us, then the two of us are going to walk the pier. It’s going unbelievably well, by the way.’ ‘She’s coming here?’ I go, genuine fear in my voice. I’m about to tell him, roysh, that he’s bang out of order, inviting a bird to crash our night like this, when I notice that he’s suddenly staring at Honor with a look of what could only be described as total horror on his face. ‘Oh! My! God!’ he goes. I turn around and look at her, roysh, and it ends up that she’s got, like, a tiny smudge of black morker on her face, just above her top lip? I don’t get his over-the-top reaction. ‘Er, what’s the issue?’ I end up going. He just throws up his hands. ‘Ross,’ he goes, ‘it looks like a Hitler moustache,’ and I end up laughing out loud then, because it actually does? JP’s not laughing, though. He looks as shocked as he did the time that me and Oisinn set fire to the bush outside the window of his dorm in Maynooth and he was convinced he was receiving messages from, I suppose, Our Lord? I end up having to be all, ‘Sorry, JP – what is your actual point here?’ ‘Danuta’s grandfather died in the Second Battle of Kharkov, Ross. If she walks in and sees Honor sporting a Hitler moustache …’ I suspect she’s not the type to see the funny side of it. ‘Dude,’ I go, ‘chillax – I’l
l wash it off,’ then I pour some water on to my napkin, roysh, and stort scrubbing Honor’s upper lip. Then I’m the one suddenly not chillaxing because it won’t actually come off. Fionn’s sort of, like, examining the morker. ‘Ross,’ he all of a sudden goes, ‘it says here semi-permanent.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, shit!’ ‘You’re just going to have to turn it into a full moustache,’ JP goes, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to say. I’m like, ‘Whoa, are you asking me to draw on my daughter’s face?’ ‘Ross, there’s already a moustache there. I’m asking you to just, I don’t know, thicken it out a bit …’ Fionn sort of, like, tuts, obviously against the idea? ‘Ross, I really don’t think …’ But then he’s never seen Danuta in action, so his opinion doesn’t really carry as much weight. ‘Seriously,’ JP goes, ‘if you heard her talk about the Nazis and the way Oleg died – oh my God, she gets so angry …’ I just grab the morker and snap the top off. He’s there, ‘Quick, Ross – she’s going to be here any minute.’ I hold Honor’s head steady, then I use the morker to – as JP suggested – fill it out a bit. I do two or three strokes either side. Then I sort of, like, pull back and look at her. It seems a bit, I don’t know, uneven to me, so I add a bit more to the left. But then that side looks a bit, I don’t know, fuller, so I do a bit more on the right. Anyway, what happens is that Honor ends up with this huge moustache covering nearly half her face – and thick as a DBS first-year repeat. Now before I stort hearing accusations of child abuse and whatever else, I should point out that Honor is actually laughing the whole time I’m doing it, thinking it’s great crack. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with her analysis. ‘What are you doing?’ some focking do-gooder at the next table goes, just as I’m finishing up. She turns to her, I’m presuming, husband and goes, ‘He’s drawing a moustache on that little girl’s face!’ and suddenly all I can hear is, like, appalled voices shouting at me as the news, like, ripples through the restaurant. ‘You’re an animal,’ another bird shouts. I use one or two of the visualization techniques I learned back in my days as a kicker to block out the sudden hostility coming my way. In fact, roysh, I’m sitting there actually admiring the finished orticle when JP storts having another knicker fit. ‘No, no, no!’ he’s suddenly going, with his head in his hands, giving it the full drama queen treatment. I’m like, ‘What now?’ He goes, ‘Now she looks like Josef Stalin.’ Of course I ask the obvious question. ‘Who the fock is Josef Stalin?’ Even Fionn looks at me, genuinely shocked. ‘You’ve never heard of Josef Stalin?’ I’m like, ‘What the fock is this – Blackboard Jungle?’ JP’s looking over his shoulder in a total panic, expecting Danuta to arrive at any second. ‘Ross,’ he goes, ‘I don’t have time to explain to you who he was or any of the horrors that the Russian people suffered under him. But you need to do something about that moustache – and quickly …’ One of the qualities that made me the rugby player I was, of course, was my ability to think on my feet. ‘Maybe I’ll tack on a beard,’ I go, ‘and glasses.’ Except the husband dude at the next table suddenly gets involved again. ‘If you draw a beard on that child’s face,’ he goes, ‘I’m calling the Guards.’ Fionn’s sitting there with his head in his actual hands. I’m there, ‘Er, it’s not illegal, you know. Loads of kids get their faces painted.’ ‘Yeah, as lions and tigers,’ Fionn goes. ‘Not as Sébastien Chabal.’ But I snap the top off the morker again. That’s when I hear the sound of chair legs scraping across the wooden floor. Another man has suddenly stood up and is staring at me in what could only be described as a threatening way. ‘If you do it,’ he goes, ‘I will beat you senseless – and that’s a fucking promise.’ I hesitate, roysh – and, it has to be said, fatally. I’m actually staring at the dude, wondering could I deck him if it did come to blows, when all of a sudden I become aware of a long shadow hanging over me – the shadow of JP’s six-foot-something, psychotic Russian squeeze. She’s just, like, staring at Honor. It’s the exact same look I saw on Sorcha’s face when I made the mistake of showing her that dancing bear on YouTube. ‘She, er, drew it herself,’ is all I can think to say. Of course she cops the morker still in my hand. ‘You seenk zis is funny?’ she goes. ‘What Stalin deed to ze people of my country?’ The waitress arrives at that exact moment with our main courses. I’m there, ‘I’m going to level with you, Danuta, I’d never heard of this dude until about five minutes ago …’ She doesn’t bat a focking eyelid – like that day in Shankill. She picks up my bowl of Five Spice Chicken and – honest to fock – just tips it upside down on to my lap. ‘Aaarrrggghhh!!!’ I actually scream, as the soy sauce marinade soaks through my trousers and boxers and scalds my actual nut-sack. I’m, like, tearing at the crotch of my chinos, going, ‘Aaarrrggghhh!!! Fffoooccckkk!!!’ Of course, Danuta is suddenly the hero of the hour. Everyone in the restaurant storts cheering and applauding her. ‘Oh, yeah,’ I’m going, between howls of agony, ‘drawing a moustache on a kid with a semi-permanent morker is wrong, yet a dude getting his towns fricasseed is hilarious, is that it?’ That makes them only cheer louder. A waiter tips over and tells me – me! – that he thinks I should leave, although deep down I realize that he’s possibly talking sense. This audience is way beyond tired of my act. So I pick Honor out of her high chair, and then, with twenty or thirty, I suppose, fellow diners abusing me – and with my knackers throbbing like they’ve been pressed in a focking waffle toaster – I make my way, very slowly, to the door. Behind me, I hear JP say that he wonders whether there’s a fund for Rock boys who’ve had a bad bounce of both balls? Which isn’t funny. Which isn’t even nearly funny? ‘I’ve been stung by a wasp, the lady golfer screamed. I’ve been stung by a wasp …’ This is Hennessy, in case you didn’t already guess, making a speech at the surprise porty my old man threw for him to celebrate his fortieth year in the legal profession. ‘Where did it sting you? the golf pro asked. The lady golfer replied, It was between the first and second holes. Quick as a flash, the golf pro said, Well, it sounds to me like your feet are too far apart on your down-swing …’ The old man practically coughs up an organ, he laughs that hord. ‘Enjoy your evening,’ Hennessy just goes, then the entire room bursts into a spontaneous round of applause, by the end of which the old man is still laughing and shaking his head. ‘Golf!’ he just goes. ‘Dear, oh dear!’ I’m there, ‘You didn’t even get that joke, did you?’ and the thing is, roysh, he doesn’t even try to deny it? ‘Way over my head,’ he goes. ‘Though I suspect it’s one of his world-famous blue ones – quote-unquote, and whatever you’re having yourself.’ He looks around him and asks me what I think of the Arnold Palmer Room, like he owns the focking K Club? I tell him to cop on. I took Sorcha to see Rebecca Storm here and that was, like, years ago. I call him a dickhead but of course it just washes over him. Because he suddenly spots Erika across the room, chatting to Helen and some friends of hers. ‘Let’s get your sister over here, shall we? I have a bit of news you might be interested in hearing,’ and then he storts going, ‘Erika! Erika!’ at, like, the top of his voice. Over she comes. She looks – I’m going to say it – amazing. ‘Sorcha’s looking for you,’ is her opening line to me. ‘She told me to tell you to ring her. Immediately, Ross.’ I’m there, ‘Is it about Honor’s moustache?’ She just shakes her head then, like she can’t believe what an actual idiot I am, even after all these years. The old man rubs his hands together then, like he’s got something actually worthwhile to say to us. ‘A lot of people wondered, when my plans for the Mountjoy Hotel and Casino had to be regrettably put in mothballs, what, if anything, old Charles O’Carroll-Kelly was going to do next. I think it’s fair to say a good percentage expected the chap to just settle back into some form of semi-retirement, selling his slices of Montenebro and Lincolnshire Poacher – to all intents and purposes a spent force …’ I’m there, ‘Is there any chance you might get to the point before I die of focking boredom?’ ‘Ross!’ Erika goes, instantly taking his side.
I never would have had her down as such a crawler. ‘Well,’ he just goes, ‘the veil of secrecy can finally be lifted. It’s time to tell you about my new business venture.’ I laugh. ‘What are you wasting your focking time on now?’ He comes straight out with it. ‘Shredding!’ ‘Shredding?’ Even Erika seems surprised. ‘Oh, I know what you kids are thinking – hello, what’s this? Has the old dad finally gone doolally? But think about it. The public is angry. They’ve suddenly got no money and they’re looking for others to blame for their predicament. You’ve seen that with your mother, Ross, the way they’ve all turned on her …’ ‘Sorry,’ I go, ‘is this actually going anywhere?’ ‘The media have started asking some of their famous questions,’ he goes. ‘Finally discovered the truth in what I said at my sentencing hearing – that this Celtic Tiger they were all so bloody fond of didn’t come about without certain individuals, many of them friends of mine, being up to their necks in all sorts. ‘Of course, when I said it, well, they thought it was just the rantings of a condemned man. But three years later, look – surprise, surprise – it turns out that old Charlie was right all along. It was all built on what they like to call corruption …’ ‘So where does the shredding come in?’ it’s Erika who goes. He’s there, ‘Well, now, I’m rather firm in the belief that it’s time for us, as a society, to get rid of the evidence.’ I actually laugh in his face. He’s the same shady focker he’s always been. He’s there, ‘Your godfather over there was the unwitting inspiration behind the name, Ross.’ I look over at Hennessy. He’s introducing some random Mary Steenburgen lookalike to JP’s old man, who’s airkissing her and at the same time trying to unclip her bra from the back. Another focker who’ll never learn his lesson. ‘There I was,’ the old man goes, ‘facing a difficult putt on the fifth at Elm Park, at the same time trying to come up with a name for the enterprise, something that captures the essence of this exciting new age in which we find ourselves living. Then I remembered the legal opinion that our learned friend over there gave me when the Criminal Assets Bureau arrived at the door with their so-called warrant and their bloody battering ram …’ ‘Shred focking everything?’ I go. He’s there, ‘Shred Focking Everything! I’ve even had it emblazoned across the side of the van.’ ‘Van?’ Erika goes – she’s as concerned as I am. ‘Yes, I bought a van – Old Amnesia, I’ve christened her – and I’ve already got a machine in the back of there capable of shredding three sacks of documents per minute!’ I’m like, ‘You’re so focking dodgy, you know that?’ ‘If you can build a business up big enough, it’s respectable,’ he goes. ‘I can’t remember who said that, but someone did.’ I don’t know what he’s waiting for – a standing ovation or some shit? I say fock-all, roysh, while Erika just sips her Sancerre. Then, after five or ten seconds of silence, we’re talking totally out of the blue here, he goes, ‘What do you say to being partners, Ross?’ I’m obviously there, ‘Portners?’ He’s like, ‘Why not? The old team, back together again!’ ‘Honestly?’ I go. ‘I’d rather boil in my own focking spit.’ ‘Well, there’s no rush, Ross. Take your time to decide.’ I can’t go on avoiding Sorcha’s calls. It’s been, like, eight or nine times a day for the past week, so eventually I end up just having to answer? ‘How the hell are you?’ I go. It’s like someone’s suddenly slipped me a verbal suppository. ‘I actually saw you the other day on South Anne Street, doing your community service and shit? Unfortunately, didn’t have time to stop. What was it you were doing with that sort of, like, suction thing, by the way? I’m presuming it was, like, pulling chewing-gum off the street …’ She’s in no mood for my pleasantries, though. She’s there, ‘What kind of way is that to return your daughter?’ I’m there, ‘Errr, just to be clear here, are we talking about the moustache?’ ‘I’m talking about you, Ross, leaving her on the doorstep, ringing the bell and running.’ ‘Oh, that …’ ‘Yes, that!’ ‘Well, just to make it clear, I didn’t actually run? I hid behind the front wall, just until you opened the door – had to make sure you were in, see.’ She’s, like, seriously pissed off with me. ‘Who drew that moustache on her face?’ she goes. I’m there, ‘Would you believe me if I told you she actually did it herself?’ ‘No, Ross, because she said her daddy did it.’ ‘Okay, then, since she blabbed, I’m going to be honest and tell you it was actually a joint effort …’ ‘What kind of morker is it, Ross? It won’t come off …’ ‘Er, all I know is, there was talk of it being semi-permanent.’ ‘Semi-permanent?’ She is not happy. ‘Look, don’t panic,’ I go. ‘See, I’ve been thinking a lot about that word. Do you remember that Italian bird you had working in the shop a couple of summers ago? Lazy as sin. I thought she looked like Petra Nĕmcová …’ ‘Nadia?’ ‘Nadia, exactly. Well, she was semi-permanent, wasn’t she? And you managed to get rid of her – eventually.’ My words come as pretty much no comfort to her? ‘She’s supposed to be a flower girl in, like, three days’ time, Ross! And speaking of which, where are those Mass leaflets?’ My body goes instantly cold. I’m there, ‘Mass leaflets?’ She pretty much roars it at me? ‘Oh my God, the Mass leaflets you promised to collect from Reads!’ I’m just there, ‘Hey, calm down – I collected them,’ which I actually did? ‘So where are they?’ she goes. That’s what I can’t for the focking life of me remember. I’m like, ‘Er, they’re here in front of me. I’m actually looking at them right now.’ ‘Okay, I’ll call up and collect them from you in the morning.’ Shit. ‘The morning’s actually going to be tricky, Babes. I’m going to go see McGahy – see will the school throw us a few shekels to get Oisinn out of the shit.’ Fock. I suddenly remember. I went for one or two scoops in Ron Blacks after I collected them. I must have left the focking things there. Sorcha sort of, like, sighs. ‘On second thoughts,’ she goes, ‘I don’t think I even want to see you at the moment. Just bring them to the church on the morning of the wedding – and don’t even show your face if you’ve forgotten them, Ross.’ Then she just hangs up. I sit back in my chair, thinking, okay, Rossmeister, how are you going to get out of this one with your good looks intact? I rack my brains for, like, twenty minutes, as the opening notes of ‘One Man Band’ come thumping through the wall. I grab a Ken from the fridge and think about it some more. Then it suddenly comes to me – so obvious I can’t believe that it took as long as it did. She answers on, like, the third ring. I’m like, ‘Claire, what’s the crack?’ She seems surprised that it’s me. ‘Ross,’ she goes, ‘did you collect the Mass leaflets from Reads?’ I laugh. ‘Why is everyone suddenly panicking about the Mass leaflets? Yes, I focking collected them. I told Sorcha I’d bring them to the chuch.’ ‘Okay, would you mind actually giving them out on the day?’ ‘Yeah, whatever. Look, I need to ask you something. I’ve got this, let’s just say, friend who’s also getting married and he wants to do it on the major cheap like yourselves. He rang me there five seconds ago looking for some advice. Just answer me this, where did you get that Mass leaflet – as in, the original?’ ‘We actually got it off the internet. There’s this, oh my God, amazing website, where they have, like, three hundred different wedding Masses that you can download …’ ‘Okay, so what’s the actual address?’ ‘I’ll send you the link …’ ‘Okay. And, again, just as a matter of interest, which Mass did you pick?’ ‘Well, we picked number 209, which is amazing, really, because that’s the date we actually met – as in the 2nd of September?’ ‘Er, whatever – just send me that focking link, will you?’ ‘Okay, it’s just going to you now. Oh and tell your friend not to forget to change all the names.’ ‘Names?’ ‘Yeah, they use just generic names – the Masses are all The Wedding of John and Mary, so they’ll have to go through it and change all the Johns to whatever his name is and all the Marys to whatever her name is …’ It’s a good job she told me that. I’m there, ‘Cool. Anyway, look, I’ve got to go. Shit to do.’ I hang up, then click on the link. Twenty minutes later, I’ve managed to download Mass 20
9, I’ve changed all the Marys to Claires and all the Johns to Garrets and I’ve printed the thing out. First thing tomorrow morning, before I hit the school, I’ll be stood outside Reads, waiting for the fockers to open. And I’ll have dodged a serious bullet. She’s a little breathtaker, I’ll give her that. I’m talking about McGahy’s new secretary here? A little focking breathtaker. I’m giving her the famous Come to Papa eyes, but she’s not paying me any attention, if you can believe that. She’s listening to some tosspot on the radio saying that a period of austerity might help us all rediscover our soul as a nation, that we went from being a very poor country to a very rich one in such a short space of time that somewhere along the way we lost our moral compass. I don’t think she’s even wearing a bra. She suddenly catches me having a scope, so I end up going, ‘There’s, like, no getting away from it, is there?’ She’s there, ‘Sorry?’ If I had to describe her as looking like someone, I’d probably have to say Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, except obviously white. ‘Just the whole current economic bullshit. It’s all anyone’s even talking about these days, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.’ ‘Well, it’s people’s livelihoods,’ she goes, big serious boat on her. ‘My mum and dad are really, really good friends with this couple – they look like they’re going to lose their house.’ This sort of, like, catches me on the hop, so I just nod, like she might have a point after all. Another reason I was pretty much worshipped as a rugby player was my ability to suddenly switch the direction of the play. Of course I end up proving that I’ve still got it. ‘You think that’s bad?’ I go, rattling my brains for one or two of my own horror stories. ‘Did you also know that Cooke’s is gone?’ ‘Cooke’s?’ ‘Er, as in Cooke’s Café? It was actually one of the better ones, in fairness to it.’ ‘I’ve, em, never heard of it.’ Quick as a flash, I go, ‘It’s a pity it’s gone, then – I’d have offered to take you there for, like, a meal and shit?’ It’s the kind of line that could sound sleazy if it came from anybody else. She sort of, like, smiles, then goes back to whatever it is that secretaries do, obviously telling herself, basically, get a hold of yourself – at least try to keep it businesslike? All the same, I’d bull her to exhaustion. See, McGahy cracks on to be all high and mighty but he’s a dirty dog like the rest of us. Some other tool on the radio is saying he remembers being in Dalkey at what would have been the height of the boom. He was having a coffee in Idle Wilde one Saturday morning, reading his Irish Independent, when one of these, you know, sports cars pulled up, too close to the path, and scraped its alloys right along the side of the kerb. The young man in the car – you know the type, pink T-shirt, shades on his head – he got out and, well, I don’t know if it was embarrassment or not, but he didn’t even look at the damage he’d done to his wheels. I just roll my eyes. ‘They try to blame everything on the Celtic Tiger, don’t they?’ She tries to look as if she’s concentrating on something else. ‘My own personal attitude is why can’t they just leave it the fock alone?’ My phone suddenly beeps. Sorcha says they’re talking about me on Lunchtime with Eamon Keane. I text her back and tell her that it could have been anyone. It’s Dalkey, for fock’s sake. The next thing, McGahy’s office door opens and out walk – get this – four nuns. We’re talking four actual nuns here? Of course, I can’t resist it. I stort giving it, ‘All the single ladies, all the single ladies …’ obviously trying to put a smile on the secretary’s face, whatever her name is. You can tell she loves it, even though she’s doing her best to not laugh? Of course, they’re not happy bunnies – as in the nuns – having the piss ripped out of them like that, and one of them even stops, stares hord at me, then tells me that she remembers me. She doesn’t mean it in a good way either. ‘It’s okay, Sister Eunice,’ this voice suddenly goes – McGahy, obviously. ‘I’ll handle this one.’ She carries on giving me filthies, then eventually backs down. I’m still cracking my hole laughing as I follow McGahy into his office. ‘Sister Eunice,’ I end up going, more to break the ice than anything. ‘That’s a name from my dark past. Do you know how many times she threatened to call the Feds on me?’ He doesn’t answer. He just sits himself down on the other side of the desk. See, he’s always had it in for me. Like I’m always saying – literally no interest in rugby. ‘I take it you’re back doing musicals with Loreto Foxrock,’ I go, pulling up a chair opposite him. ‘Bygones be bygones, blahdy blahdy blah. God, it’s all ahead of Ronan. You know my son’s storting here in a few weeks?’ ‘Yes, Ronan,’ he goes. ‘We’re looking forward to having him. He’s top of his class in the junior school.’ ‘Well, if I had my way, he’d be going somewhere else – somewhere that still plays rugby. But his mother thinks this place would be better for his education. It’s, like, whatever sizzles your bacon.’ He has this look of, like, total boredom on his face. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ he goes, which is such a focking teachery thing to say. So I end up getting straight to the point. I mention Oisinn’s name and he continues to look at me – I swear to fock – blankly. ‘Er, Oisinn Wallace?’ I end up having to go. ‘Hooker on the 1999 Leinster Schools Senior Cup team? Helped bring glory to this school?’ ‘Well, that’s a matter of opinion,’ he goes, the smug prick. ‘And rugby is a game that’s no longer played here at Castlerock College.’ I’m there, ‘Dude, I know you’ve always had it in for the game. But we’re talking about a goy here who mentioned the name of Castlerock in every interview he practically did over the years. We’re talking Elle. We’re talking Vogue. We’re talking actual Esquire …’ ‘Ah,’ he suddenly goes, his face brightening, ‘this is the boy who invented all these … fragrances.’ ‘That’s the dude. Eau d’Affluence and blahdy blah.’ ‘Yes, I read about him in – I think it was the Independent …’ I don’t think I’m imagining the delight in his actual voice. ‘He’s disappeared, hasn’t he?’ ‘Pegged it is more the word. But yeah, no, he had serious debts.’ ‘Did he indeed?’ ‘Yeah, he’d have lost a fair few shekels in the whole property crash? He’s supposed to have had a fair bit of bread in shares as well …’ ‘So he left his car at Dublin Airport and took off for God knows where.’ ‘Exactly. Anyway, there’s two or three of us – his old teammates, in other words? – and we’re trying to, like, track him down.’ He’s there, ‘One or two banks and financial institutions as well, I’d wager,’ grinning like the Grinny McDumbfock that he is. Then he sort of, like, shakes his head. ‘Why are you telling me this anyway?’ ‘Well,’ I go, ‘he’s a former student who’s fallen on hord times …’ ‘He’s not alone.’ ‘And it’s a well-known fact, in rugby circles anyway, that the school has, like, a fund to help people like him.’ ‘Does it indeed?’ ‘Er, yeah? Namely the Castlerock College Benevolent Fund for Rock Boys Who’ve Had, Like, a Bad Bounce of the Ball?’ He just stares blankly at me. ‘Well, does it even exist?’ I go. ‘Or was it always just talk?’ He’s there, ‘Oh, it exists. For genuine cases. Former students struck down by illness or incapacitated. It’s certainly not for those who lost vast fortunes by engaging in greedy speculation …’ Greedy speculation? I actually feel like reaching across this desk there and decking him. ‘… and who then chose to flee the jurisdiction,’ he goes, ‘rather than face up to their responsibilities.’ I just shake my head. I’m there, ‘Who are you to say the fund isn’t for those kind of people? I can tell you for a fact that Father Fehily woud have wanted …’ ‘Father Fehily wanted a lot of things,’ he just goes. ‘Access to a warm-weather port for the German navy. The pushing back of the Oder-Neisse line …’ He’s ripping the piss out of the dude’s funeral homily now. I tell him he’s out of order – and we’re talking bang. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I end up going, ‘I know why you’re being a dick here? It’s because my old man withdrew his donation towards the new science block …’ He has the balls to laugh in my actual face. He’s there, ‘I can assure you, we can – and will – build a new science block without the help of Charles O’Carroll-Kelly.’ ‘Wel
l,’ I go, ‘you could have had a flood-lit, all-weather pitch as well. Seán Dunne’s supposed to have ponied up for one for Clongowes, you know? But then you had to go and pull out of the Leinster Schools Senior Cup. No offence, but my old man takes his rugby seriously – so should everyone.’ He suddenly stands up and walks out from behind the desk. I’m thinking, where the fock is he going? ‘Rugby,’ he goes, disappearing behind me, ‘brought nothing but trouble and shame to this institute of learning. It’s rather fortunate, as it happens, that you should have come to see me today – you’ve saved us the cost of a stamp.’ Inside, roysh, I’m thinking, what the fock is he banging on about now? He opens the door and I hear him go, ‘Susan, can you give me one of those letters there – the one for Ross O’Carroll-Kelly?’ Susan. I was going to actually congratulate him on her, but he can forget about that now. Suddenly, roysh, he’s back in the room again and he’s handing me an envelope, very official-looking, typed of course, with the words ‘Castlerock College’ across the top. ‘What’s this?’ I go. He’s there, ‘Oh, just some old business we’re finally putting to bed. Do let me know if you ever catch up with your friend – there’s one for him too.’ ‘I’ll, er, look at it later,’ I go. I don’t know what the fock it is, roysh, but something tells me I shouldn’t give him the pleasure of opening it here. ‘So, just to recap,’ I go, ‘you’re saying you can’t do anything to help Oisinn?’ He’s there, ‘No, I’m saying I won’t do anything to help him. And, as you can see, I’m quite busy here, preparing for the new term. So if that’s everything …’ What a dick. I stand up. ‘You’re a disgrace to the name of this school,’ I go. He’s just there, ‘Goodbye.’ I walk out of there, making sure to really slam the door behind me. I morch past Susan’s desk and ask her, at the top of my voice, how it feels to be working for an actual dipshit. She doesn’t get a chance to answer because all of a sudden, roysh, who walks into the office only Fionn. Poor fock. He did nothing with his summer, as far I can see, except read books. And now he’s back at work – early, I might add. Still, if he’s happy to be a sucker, there’s fock-all I can say to him. ‘Hey, Ross,’ he goes, ‘they’ve just been talking about you on the radio, you know.’ I’m there, ‘There’s no proof that it’s me, Fionn – how many other goys do you reckon have done that?’ and he shrugs, like I could actually have a point. ‘How did you get on with Tom?’ he goes. I laugh like I was mad to think it’d go any other way. ‘I don’t know how you could work for someone who hates rugby as much as he does.’ He sort of, like, nods at the envelope in my hand. ‘What’s that?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t actually know?’ and then I stort, like, ripping open the envelope. It’s funny, roysh, but before I even whip out the letter, I get this sudden feeling of, I suppose you’d have to call it, dread? Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Susan copping a sly look over, to get my reaction, and I immediately know that it’s going to be bad news. I read the opening lines and I’m suddenly sweating like a fat bird writing her first love letter. ‘What’s wrong?’ Fionn goes, ‘What does it say?’ I finish reading. Except I’m too in shock to even talk? I just hand him the letter. It’s like … 17 August 2009 Dear Member of the 1999 senior rugby squad, It has been brought to the attention of the school authorities that a member of the team that represented Castlerock College in the 1999 Leinster Schools Senior Cup competition admitted, in the course of a recently published interview, that the drug methamphetamine had been administered to him prior to matches. The Leinster Branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union has written to the school to point out that this substance is banned under the rules of the competition. On 18 February 2009, Newbridge College, the beaten finalists in 1999, indicated by letter that they intended to take legal action to have Castlerock College retroactively disqualified from the competition on the basis of this admission, which was contained in the book We Need to Talk About Ross. On 2 June 2009, meeting in emergency session, the Board of Governors of Castlerock College voted unanimously not to contest any such action. Subsequently, in conjunction with the Leinster Branch and the Board of Governors of Newbridge College, it was agreed, in the interests of fair play, that the result of the final, played on 17 March 1999, would be rescinded and the match awarded to Newbridge College. Accordingly, we would ask you to return your winner’s medal to the school at your earliest convenience. Kind regards, Tom McGahy Principal Fionn finishes reading the letter and hands it back to me. We’re both so in shock, we end up having to lean against the actual wall? I feel instantly guilty. I’m the one who opened my big Von Trapp. I go, ‘This must be what Mocky meant when he said, there was never a tide flowed – whatever the fock. Dude, please tell me they can’t do this.’ He looks me dead in the eye. ‘They can,’ he goes. ‘And it looks like they already have.’ 8. From My Dead Cole Haans