He goes, ‘Tomorrow is the first of June. He starts in Maynooth the first week in October. You’ve got four months to stop this madness once and for all,’ and just as he says it, roysh, this Giselle bird arrives over to us and I can see Oisinn, like, shaking her hand and just as he’s turning around to introduce her to us, JP’s old man looks at her and goes, ‘You’ve got eyes like spanners,’ and she’s sharp this bird, she cops straight away that the goy’s leering at her, and she’s like, ‘I beg your pardon,’ because, like Oisinn said, roysh, she’s an actual septic.
There’s, like, total silence, roysh, and you could actually cut the tension with a knife and JP’s old man goes, ‘I said you’ve got eyes like spanners… every time I look at them, my nuts tighten.’
*
I’m in Café en Seine with Sorcha, roysh, having a bit of nosebag, sick to death as I am with the old room service in the Berkeley Court, when all of a sudden she jumps up, roysh, and says she’s going to ask the borman to stick the old Savalas on, what with the old man being on the ‘Six-One News’, some shite they’re doing about the independents running in the local election. I tell Sorcha we really should be hitting the road, but the next thing I know it’s on, roysh, and up comes his ugly focking mug on the screen.
She goes,‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s your dad. You must be, like, SO proud,’ and I’m looking at him, roysh, and he’s standing outside the Dorsh station in Dalkey, handing out leaflets, but only to people who look like they earn more than 50K a year. Then his stupid voice fills the place. He’s going, ‘Yes, I am an independent, but only because my policies are too broad and too… multifarious, quote-unquote, to cram into a short party title. If I did have to come up with a party name it would probably be something like, The Everyone Just Stop Dragging Up The Past With All These Tribunals And So Forth And Enough Of This Smoking Ban Nonsense And Fifteen Cents For A Plastic Bag Come On Get Real… Party. And that doesn’t stand for anything before you try to work it out, Mr Charlie Bird, investigative reporter at large.’
It’s, like, five minutes before the interviewer gets a question in. She’s like, ‘One of the central planks of your campaign is that we should draw a line under the various political and financial scandals of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s…’ and the old man goes, ‘Yes and wind up these so-called tribunals. I think people are tired of answers and questions and questions and answers, who did this, who did that – who cares? Do you remember the seventies and eighties? Ireland was a miserable place to be, what with your recessions and what-not. People did what they had to do to stop from going under. Some of them salted a little bit of money away for a rainy day… in the Seychelles. Some of them forgot to tell my good friends in the Revenue Commissioners about the odd cheque. But we all survived, didn’t we?’
And that’s it. That’s his focking message. Sorcha goes, ‘Well, I can’t say I agree with everything he said and I’m disappointed that the environment didn’t figure as an issue, but he’s certainly given me a few things to think about,’ but the bloke behind me hits the nail bang on the head when he goes, ‘Wanker.’
Me and Fionn are in the bor in the Berkeley Court going through a stack of old Mount Anville, Loreto Foxrock, Holy Child Killiney, Alexandra College and Loreto on the Green yearbooks, racking our brains, trying to come up with someone who JP has been basically dying to score all his life. I’m there, ‘What about Emma Harms?’ and Fionn’s like, ‘Now there’s a name from the past,’ and I go, ‘Remember he started playing focking badminton on Tuesday and Thursday nights just to see her?’ and Fionn’s there, ‘One small problem. I’m pretty sure the family moved to Canada,’ and I’m there, ‘Shame.’
I go, ‘What about the girl two rows behind her. He had a thing for her as well,’ and Fionn’s there, ‘Maria Twigger,’ and I’m there, ‘Twigger! Played hockey. Made the Leinster team. Didn’t JP ask her to the debs?’ and Fionn goes, ‘Yeah and she’d no interest. Anyway, from what I hear she’s all loved-up these days.’ Maria was a total honey, like a young Nicola Roberts. I’m there, ‘All loved-up, huh? Lucky goy,’ and Fionn goes, ‘Girl,’ and suddenly, roysh, a lot of shit falls into place. Me and Fionn just look at each other and at the same time go, ‘Hockey!’
I throw down Loreto Foxrock and pick up a book of Mounties. Fionn says we’re like two cattle farmers looking through the herd register and I crack my hole laughing. It has to be said, roysh, me and Fionn have put the past behind us and we’re getting on like a house on fire, which is how it should be with mates. Underneath it all, roysh, I think he respects me for being an unbelievable rugby player and for pulling the birds like Enrique Iglesias and I respect him for being into, I don’t know, reading and writing and shit.
He nods at the borman and orders two more pints of Ken. I go, ‘Fionn, can I say something to you?’ and he’s like, ‘If it’s about my diary, forget it. You don’t have to apologize,’ and I’m there, ‘Of all the shitty things I’ve done in my life, I think that has to be the worst,’ and he goes, ‘It’s all worked out for the best. Sorcha’s fine about it now. And I’d never have had the confidence to put my poetry out there myself – now there’s three different publishers interested in publishing my work. And before you ask, Ross, no, that doesn’t entitle you to half my advance,’ and it’s like the goy’s a focking mind-reader.
I go, ‘But I’m glad we’re, you know… I’m trying not to sound like a steamer here,’ and he’s there, ‘Ross, we’re not so dissimilar, you and I. For storters, we both love the same girl. We both see the same qualities in her. I think that makes us alroysh, don’t you?’ and I go, ‘Yeah… okay, what about Medb Allen-Clark?’ and he’s like, ‘As in the Mountie? Hmmm. JP was mad about her, but as I remember it, she was in love with you,’ and I hold up my hand and go, ‘Guilty as charged,’ hoping that didn’t make me sound like a total Allied Irish Banker.
He goes, ‘I’ve got Sarah Glenny. Holy Child,’ and I’m there, ‘Clarinet Sarah?’ and he goes, ‘Oboe. He was with her the night of the Junior Cert results.’ I look at the picture. Doesn’t ring any bells, but that night’s a blur. I’m there, ‘She looks a bit like Sienna Miller,’ and Fionn goes, ‘He was with her again a couple of years ago in Annabel’s, but she had a boyfriend at the time. A Michael’s boy,’ and I’m there, ‘Wanker,’ and he goes, ‘Agreed. I think our JP still carries a torch for her, though. I think Sarah’s our girl.’
But there’s, like, something not quite roysh about this. Getting involved in this kind of shit isn’t Fionn’s style, roysh, he’s usually, like, the sensible one. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ I go, ‘but why are you doing this?’ He stops flicking through the Alex yearbook for 1999 and goes, ‘Because I’ve a cousin who thought she’d been called. Eighteen years of age and she decided she wanted to be a nun. A year later she walked out of the convent. Went out with her old friends one night and realized the life she’d been missing.’
I actually know the cousin he’s talking about – her name’s Alison – and though I’ve never told him this, roysh, and not wanting to sound bigheaded or anything, I was the one who actually turned her around. She was one of those edge-of-the-bed plastic surgeons, roysh, who sat there for half-an-hour, roysh, agonizing, if that’s the word, over what she was about to do, kept blabbering on about ‘sins of the flesh’ and I was like, ‘Make your mind up, Babes. It’s me, or God,’ and, well, it was basically a walkover after that.
Fionn’s there, ‘I just want to know that JP’s sure about what he’s about to do. Alison thought she was sure. Then she gave it all up, apparently after one night with some idiot who didn’t want to know her afterwards,’ and I’m there thinking, No comment. He goes, ‘JP’s always been a bit spiritual, certainly more spiritual than the rest of us, which I suppose wouldn’t be hard. Like all those gospel songs he knows. I’ve no doubt he thinks that something happened to him in Israel. I think it would be remiss of us, as his friends, not to make sure he knows what he’s doing.’
Then he goes, �
��So why are you doing it?’ and I’m like, ‘The money.’
I really don’t know why I’m so nice to my old pair sometimes, what with them being orseholes and everything, but you have to make the effort, because they are my parents, which means they’re basically, like, family. And it was in that basic spirit, roysh, that I pointed the old Golf GTI in the direction of Foxrock to check if the fockers were still alive, or was I going to have my inheritance – ker-ching! – coming to me sooner than I thought.
They were still alive, worst luck, although they might as well not have been for all the attention they gave me. The two of them were in the study – we’re talking major borfarama here – sitting together, working on their stupid focking campaigns.
The old man goes, ‘You’ll have to forgive me if we seem a bit distracted tonight, Kicker. The local elections are only ten days away and I’ve decided to make these new bin charges a central plank of my campaign. I expect you’ve heard they’re now proposing to charge for refuse collection by the weight rather than the bag. Now you can wipe that worried look off your face right now, Ross, because I’m going to get myself elected and then I’m going to make sure it never happens.’
I go, ‘Sorry, this affects me how?’ but he just goes, ‘Sleep easy in your bed and tell young Sorcha the same. I’m going to make a speech at this protest meeting tonight that’ll send shivers through the body politic. Remember that book of Churchill’s greatest speeches that Hennessy bought me when I decided to run for public office?’ and I just look at him, roysh, as if to say, you are some knob. He goes, ‘Well, it’s been an inspiration. Hitler charged for refuse collection by the weight as well, did you know that?’ The old dear looks at him over the top of her glasses and then he goes, ‘Well, I’m not entirely sure if that’s true, but it’s the kind of thing he would have done.’
The old dear – the stupid wagon – goes, ‘Charles, will you pass me a sheet of your good writing paper, darling?’ and I go, ‘Oh, it speaks,’ which she ignores, roysh, and goes, ‘How’s Sorcha?’ and I’m like, ‘How’s Sorcha? Not, how am I? I could have been dead in that hotel for the last week for all you two would have known,’ and without looking up, roysh, she goes, ‘I’m sure Sorcha would have mentioned it to us if you were dead, Ross…’ and her voice sort of, like, trails off.
There’s no mention of that calendar, roysh, so I presume they took one look at her with her kit off, saw what a hound she was and went, ‘We can’t put that out – people will think we’re ripping the piss.’
I go, ‘What are you working on anyway, you stupid cow?’ and she goes, ‘Something for Angela,’ who’s her friend from, like, Sandymount. I’m there, ‘Funderland? I hope they bring ten focking big wheels with them this year. Bring even more scum to the area.’
The old man goes, ‘It’s not Funderland that’s occupying your mother’s astute political mind right now, Ross. It’s this new campaign of hers to have Ringsend designated Dublin 4E,’ and she’s like, ‘Not that your father’s been any help,’ and he’s there, ‘Afraid it’s outside my remit, darling. I’m as anti-Ringsend as the next man, but it comes under the auspices of the City Council. I’m running for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, remember?’
She goes, ‘But you can’t agree with what’s happening, Charles. These are some of the most desperately poor people in our society. The fallen. Many of them won’t work. They claim multiple social welfare benefits under various… aliases, I believe they’re called by the criminal classes. And yet they’re entitled to say that these little Lego houses they bought for nothing are in Dublin 4. Is it any wonder Angela’s upset?’ and the old man goes, ‘It’s an injustice, there’s no doubt about that. Dublin 4 – the very idea of it! Of course, when the floods come, it’s béal bocht time: “Help us out, Bertie. We didn’t have any home insurance because we spent all our money on stone-cladding and these fearful Lucky Streak lottery tickets,” quote-unquote.’
The old dear’s like, ‘And yet when they sell these little… hovels, they call them D4. Charles, they have to be stopped,’ and the old man’s there, ‘I’m all for redesignation, darling. Dublin 4E sounds good to me. I’m no friend of Ringsend. You mentioned the floods, I think you’ll recall that I went on the record at the time describing them as not an act of God but rather the wrath of God. A couple of thousand years ago, Our Friend would have sent locusts and what-not to deal with these people. The exact words I used in the letter which, if you’ll remember correctly, The Irish Times declined to publish.’
She’s there, ‘I still think there’s something you could be doing, as part of your campaign,’ and the old man turns to me and he goes, ‘Wonderful tension, eh Ross? Like all the great political marriages. Teddy and Eleanor Roosevelt. Bill and Hillary Clinton… not that you’d compare me to that… moral eunuch. Oral sex and what-not. I said it to Hennessy this morning, it might happen in the Oval Office, I said, but I’m happy to report that the hallowed halls of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council shall be free from such moral depravity if I’m elected. And I don’t think I’d be far wrong in saying that Clinton charged for refuse collection by the weight, too.’
The old dear goes, ‘Oh, Ross, I forgot to say, Anita Roddick has agreed to write the foreword. I phoned Sorcha this morning and she’s thrilled,’ and I’m there, ‘What foreword? What are you bullshitting on about?’ and she’s like, ‘For the calendar, of course. I doubt she knows much about these Ringsend people.’
I’m there, ‘Get this through your thick skull – you will NOT be appearing in any focking calendar. Unless it’s one for the dogs’ and cats’ home,’ and she goes, ‘Oh, I’m so excited about seeing the pictures. Sally rubbed this oil into my body so it made it look–’ and I’m like, ‘That’s it, I am SO focking out of here.’
I’ve loved a lot of birds in my time, roysh, but I’ve never met one I understood. Get this, roysh, there I am in Sorcha’s gaff the other night and we’re, like, watching a flick, we’re talking Cool Hand Luke, when all of a sudden Sorcha storts going on about what an OH! MY! GOD! total babe Paul Newman is. She’s giving it, ‘He’s the kind of goy who, if I ever got a chance to be with him, I’d expect you to understand if I couldn’t resist,’ and not being the jealous type, roysh, I’m there, you know, ‘Whatever!’
But she doesn’t leave it at that, roysh. She thinks it would be SUCH a cool idea to each write out a list of the people we’d be allowed to basically score if we found ourselves in that position. I mean, she actually gives me a pen and a piece of paper and she’s going, ‘Come on, Ross. We’ll both write out our wishlists,’ and like a fool, I go along with it, in the spirit of things, of course.
So anyway, roysh, fifteen minutes later, she hands me her piece of paper and it’s, like, the usual, we’re talking Aidan Quinn, we’re talking Brad Pitt (underlined), we’re talking Matt Damon, we’re talking Gabriel Byrne, we’re talking George Clooney. Of course, I’m like, ‘Kool and the Gang,’ and I stort looking around for the remote, roysh, thinking of lashing on ‘Big Brother’, see if that bird’s getting her top tens out again tonight. That’s when I suddenly become aware of the fact that Sorcha’s, like, staring at me, or glaring is more like it, giving me daggers basically.
She’s looking down at my list, roysh, then she looks up at me and goes, ‘These are all people we know, Ross,’ and of course I see the signs, roysh, we’re talking red alert here. I’m there, ‘You said it was a bit of fun,’ but she’s going, ‘Sophie. Emma. Antoinette. Leanne. Zoey. Ali,’ basically reading them out, roysh, trying to make me feel, I don’t know, ashamed I suppose. She’s like, ‘Erika? How could you write her down after all that happened? Aoife? Ross, she’s one of my best friends. I’ve just given her a job in the shop… Who’s Clíona?’ and I’m like, ‘Er, Aoife’s old dear?’ and she looks at me, roysh, like I’m vom on her new Jimmy Choos.
She goes, ‘I meant, like, famous people we’d no chance of ever being with. Not… hang on. You’ve got about thirty names down here,’ and of c
ourse I’m kacking myself in case she whips the page over and sees I’ve storted on the other side as well. Erika’s old dear is actually on the other side.
Either I’ve obviously misunderstood the rules of the game, roysh, or she’s got a starring role in a period costume drama at the moment, or maybe it’s a bit of both. What I do know is that there’s no talking to her when she’s like this, so I’m pretty much moonwalking out the door at that stage, telling her that I’ll give her a bell when she’s not in a position to actually legally kill me.
I’m on the Stillorgan dualler, roysh, stuck behind some tool who’s doing, like, thirty in the inside lane in this, like, Ford Primera, which has, like, a loudspeaker on top, roysh, and it’s only after driving behind him for, like, five minutes that I cop that it’s actually Knob Features and Hennessy and they’re, like, canvassing. It’s actually Hennessy who has the wheel and the old man’s, like, talking into the mouthpiece, going, Tor too long the wealth-generating classes, of which I am a proud member, have been made to feel guilt for what happened in the past. A vote for Charles O’Carroll-Kelly is a vote for an end to all that.’
He’s going, ‘Ireland in the seventies and eighties was, inverted commas, the Albania of Western Europe. No one had any money. The sun never shone. Young people emigrated by the planeload. Despite the Depression, despite crippling taxes and an infrastructure that made us the laughing-stock of the world, some of us refused to give up on this country. I’m talking about captains of industry, such as myself and my good friend Hennessy here, whose willingness to tough out the recession, to take a punt on good old Ireland, brought about the economic miracle that is the Celtic Tiger, quote-unquote.’
He’s there, ‘I make no bones about it. I played a part in the birth of this beautiful animal. I’m not saying I’m its father, but I was certainly one of those who provided the… sperm. I think that’s an analogy best not teased out, Hennessy. Suffice it to say, I played my part, as did many of you, enjoying your beautiful homes along this wonderful stretch of dual carriageway. Did we ask for anything in return? No. We asked for nothing. Although I wouldn’t turn down a doctorate if anyone from Trinity College is listening. I know Sir Anthony has one. Michael, too.’
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress Page 18