Schmidt Happens

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  ‘Honor’s flight has landed,’ I go.

  But Sorcha’s not listening to me. Like everyone else, she’s just glued to her phone. ‘They’re saying that Ireland leaving the European Union would require a change in the Constitution,’ she goes. ‘That’s what my dad said this morning. So there’s still a chance to stop it from happening.’

  I’m there, ‘Did you hear what I said? Honor’s plane landed ten minutes ago.’

  She puts away her phone. She goes, ‘I’m sorry. I’m just nervous about seeing her again.’

  Yeah, not half as nervous as I am? I literally haven’t spoken to the girl since I let it slip that she was basically sent to Australia – and for a crime we now know she didn’t commit.

  Leo goes, ‘Mommy, when is Honor coming?’ and Sorcha smiles sweetly, leans down and kisses him on the top of the head.

  ‘She’ll be coming through those doors any minute now,’ she goes.

  The boys are holding the little signs they made that say ‘Welcome home, Honor!’ and they’re genuinely giddy with excitement.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Sorcha looking at me with a big smile on her face. Yeah, no, things are getting back to nearly normal between us. A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed we’d ever be this loved up again.

  She stood next to me this morning when I made the phone call – a supportive hand on my shoulder. I said I’d heard rumours they were looking for a coach. They said they’d heard good things about me. I asked how good? They say really good. So I arranged to swing out there next week for a chat and a look at their set-up.

  And when I say ‘out there’, I’m talking about – believe it or not – Bray. Of all places.

  That’s right. I’ve got an interview on Monday morning for the position of senior rugby coach in Presentation College Bray. I know a lot of people – my critics, mostly – will get a great kick out of that. I’ve said a lot of bad things about Bray over the years. And, while I stand over every focking word of it, the old romantic in me loves the idea of taking this school from – let’s not dodge this – Wicklow and opening my Rugby Tactics Book to them.

  Father Fehily, who spent a lot of his life doing missionary work in Botswana, used to say, ‘You go where the need is greatest,’ and I can’t think of anywhere more in need than Bray.

  I’m also conscious of the fact that twenty-something years ago, Joe Schmidt storted his coaching career in Ireland by leading Wilson’s Hospital in Mullingor to victory in the Leinster Schools Senior Cup Section ‘A’ final, and there’s a little bit of me that likes the idea of following in the great man’s footsteps.

  You never know, I might even give Phinneas a bell to ask him if he fancies being my assistant?

  Yeah, no, things are finally coming together. Sorcha’s old pair are moving out tomorrow. And aport from my old man threatening to lead the country into ruin and my old dear giving me six brothers and/or sisters that I don’t want, it feels like things are returning to normal again. My only real worry now is …

  ‘Honor!’

  Brian, Johnny and Leo all shout it at exactly the same time. I look and I see my daughter pushing her trolley, loaded with baggage, through the Arrivals gate. The boys can’t contain themselves. They run towards her, then they throw their orms around her waist and she laughs, then sort of, like, hunkers down to their level and gives them each a hug and tells them that she missed them.

  She’s definitely changed. She looks, I don’t know, taller. Or maybe not taller. Just not a child any more.

  Our eyes meet. I still don’t know whether she’s pissed off with me or not. Then suddenly she breaks into a run and she throws her orms around me and it’s like the last few months never happened. It’s like we were never even aport. She goes, ‘Hey, Dad!’ and she’s crying.

  And I’m crying, too.

  I’m like, ‘Hey, Honor! God, I missed you so much! Hey, I’m possibly going to be coaching Pres Bray in the Leinster Schools Senior Cup next year and it’s all down to you. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.’

  And then the most random thing happens. She spots Sorcha standing behind me and she breaks away from me. Sorcha doesn’t move. She just goes, ‘Hi, Honor,’ and her voice sounds, I don’t know, cautious and uncertain. For ten seconds, I swear to fock, Honor doesn’t say shit. She just stares at her old dear, then she walks towards her and I’m still half expecting her to slap her across the face. She doesn’t, though. She does the same to Sorcha as she did to me – throws her orms around her waist and hugs her tightly.

  Sorcha looks at me and mouths the words, ‘Oh! My! God!’ and she holds her daughter like I haven’t seen her hold her in years.

  Honor goes, ‘I’m sorry, Mom! I’m so sorry!’

  And that ends up setting Sorcha off. She goes, ‘No, Honor, I’m the one who’s sorry!’ and she’s suddenly bawling her eyes out.

  I’m thinking, Oh, holy shit, she’s not going to tell her, is she? But she does end up telling her? Yeah, no, it all comes out – there in the middle of the Arrivals hall.

  ‘I accused you of trying to poison Hillary,’ she goes, ‘and I know that it wasn’t true. Even worse, Honor, I found out weeks ago that it wasn’t true and I never said anything.’

  Er, try months ago?

  But Honor’s there, ‘I don’t blame you for not believing me, Mom. I did so many bad things.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ Sorcha goes. ‘I let you think that going to Australia was your idea, but the truth was I wanted to send you away.’

  Again, Honor takes this better than she did when I told her on the phone last week, having had time to, like, process it?

  She goes, ‘Mom, I don’t blame you. I’m horrible.’

  Sorcha’s like, ‘You’re not horrible, Honor. You’re my little girl. And I love you so much.’

  Someone’s changed their tune. But now is not the time to pull her up on what she said a few weeks ago. Because mother and daughter are having a definite moment.

  ‘Spending time with Erika was the best thing that ever happened to me,’ Honor goes. ‘She taught me to appreciate all the good things I have in my life and that includes you, Mom.’

  Sorcha’s like, ‘Oh, Honor!’

  ‘She just, like, talked to me all the time about how lucky I was to have a mother like you and I’m so sorry that I treated you so badly.’

  ‘Hey,’ Sorcha goes, ‘we can stort again, Honor. You’re going to be storting in actual Mount Anville in two weeks and it can be a whole new beginning for us. You’ll be doing all the things I did, Honor. The St Madeleine Sophie Barat Prayer Circle. The Model United Nations. We can be, like, best, best friends.’

  Honor’s like, ‘I really want that, Mom. I really do.’

  ‘Come on,’ Sorcha goes, ‘let’s go home.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see Hillary.’

  ‘On my God, he’s gotten so big, Honor!’

  The two of them stort walking in the direction of the cor pork and I think to myself, Fock my old pair. Whether it’s having kids or destroying the country, I don’t care what they do any more. Because these people here are my priority – one, two, three, four, five, six of us, plus Ronan, whatever the fock he decides to do.

  And plus – I’m going to say it – Hillary. Okay, he’s not mine, but he’s theirs? He’s Sorcha’s son and a brother to Honor, Brian, Johnny and Leo. And that makes him family. End of.

  I grab Honor’s trolley and I tell the boys that we’re going. And, as I stort pushing it, I notice that Sorcha and Honor are holding hands and I think to myself, Okay, what kind of miracle is that? And then something else pretty miraculous happens. I’m aware of Brian and Leo sort of, like, bickering with each other – not effing and blinding and threatening each other with extreme violence like before. Yeah, no, they’re just having a little orgument, the way normal brothers do. I turn back and I go, ‘What’s wrong, goys?’

  And that’s when Leo says the most incredible thing to me. He goes, ‘Dad, who’s the best – John
ny Sexton or Owen Farrell?’

  And you get days like that in your life, where all your problems seem to just fall away of their own accord and you can suddenly see the future, bright and happy, stretching out in front of you.

  ‘That’s a stupid focking question,’ I go. ‘But I can’t tell you how happy I am that you asked it.’

  Epilogue: Don’t Forget to Hit the Subscribe Button!

  So he’s done it. I hoped he wouldn’t – and I didn’t think he would – but the evidence is there, right in front of my eyes. And this is how I find out. A photograph on WhatsApp. Ronan and Shadden and little Rihanna-Brogan, all in their finest, standing outside the Happy Ever After Chapel in Hooters Casino in Vegas.

  I just shake my head. I’m like, ‘You must be focking mad, Ro.’

  And Brian pipes up then. He’s like, ‘Must be focking mad, Ro. Focking prickfock.’

  And I go, ‘Remember, Brian, we don’t use bad language, okay? And your daddy’s going to try his best to stop as well, even though your big brother has decided to piss his focking life away.’

  We’re sitting in the living room, watching a DVD of – I can barely believe it myself – the 2011 Heineken Cup final between Leinster and the Northampton Saints. The famous Miracle Match that I dreamt of one day watching with my kids. And they’re loving every minute of it. We’re into, like, the final seconds and Leo is shouting, ‘Johnny Sexton!’ at the screen just like I do when I watch it.

  I go, ‘Johnny Sexton!’

  And then Brian and Johnny get in on the act as well. They’re like, ‘Johnny Sexton!’

  It’s a lovely, lovely moment.

  The match ends and Leo shouts, ‘Again! Again!’

  But I’m like, ‘No, Leo. You can’t keep watching the same match over and over again. It’s important for you to get a broad education. I want to show you them beating Ulster the following year.’

  God, they’re going to love me out in Bray.

  I press Stop on the disc and the TV comes on. The old man is on the RTÉ lunchtime news, saying that the Irish people have spoken and they have said loudly and clearly that they wish to take back control of their country.

  ‘Granddad!’ Johnny shouts.

  And I’m like, ‘It’s not your granddad, Johnny, it’s just someone who looks and sounds a little bit like him.’

  The old man goes, ‘What we have seen this week is a rejection of the same old careerist politicians who have served this country badly since Independence! I intend to make good on my promise to renege on our – inverted commas – debt obligations and follow Britain out of the European Union and towards a bright tomorrow!’

  I mute the TV while I look for the DVD of the 2012 final.

  There’s a pretty much gale blowing outside. I look out the window. Sorcha is helping her old pair move all of their shit out of the Shomera and into the removal van that her old man rented for the day.

  I bang on the window and her old man – who’s carrying a morble-based arc lamp that he got in IKEA – looks at me through the glass.

  I’m like, ‘Did you get my goodbye-and-good-riddance gift?’

  He did. The Vampire Bed arrived this morning. I saw it being delivered. He wouldn’t give me the pleasure of acknowledging it, of course. I doubt if they’ll even bring it with them. I don’t mind either way. It served my purpose of giving me a good focking laugh as I watched him sign for it, only to then realize what it actually was.

  He’s absolutely fuming with me. He looks at me – he’s practically being blown away in the wind – and he goes, ‘I have better things to do than engage with the likes of you!’

  Which is poor from him. I give him the wanker sign and he walks around the side of the house with the lamp. I feel like calling Honor. She should be here to witness this, except she’s upstairs, preparing a video for her YouTube channel called Five Items in Your Wardrobe that You Think You Need But Don’t.

  I’m kind of hoping that she asks me to appear in it.

  I find the DVD I’m looking for, except it’s the wrong disc in the case. Instead of the Leinster versus Ulster match, it’s the Davina McCall Extreme Abs Boxercise DVD that I used to watch practically five times a week when Sorcha was pregnant with the boys and had lost her sexual appetite. I stort looking through all the other cases for the right disc when all of a sudden I hear the most unbelievable crash outside. I’m not exaggerating – the entire house shakes – and the boys all scream with the fright.

  And so do I when I look up and see what caused the actual noise. A humungous branch – we’re talking thirty feet long – has snapped off a tree in the high wind and come crashing down on the roof of the Shomera, flattening the focking thing.

  It says a lot that my first reaction is that it’s a pity Sorcha’s old pair weren’t in there, because I just watched her old dear walk past the window carrying a Brabantia pedal bin.

  But then all of a sudden I hear all this screaming and shouting and Sorcha’s old pair come chorging around the side of the house into the back gorden, going, ‘Sorcha! Sorcha!’ and that’s when I realize that my wife must have been inside the Shomera when the – practically – tree fell on top of it.

  I race out into the hall, then outside, screaming her name. I’m going, ‘Sorcha! Sorcha!’ except there ends up being no answer.

  I’m standing over this flattened mess of wood and steel and glass, screaming her name over and over again, listening out for a noise, for any sign of life and it’s like time has suddenly stopped.

  I’m going, ‘Sorcha, can you hear me? Sorcha, answer me if you can hear me?’

  And her old pair are shouting basically the same thing while running circles around what’s left of what was their home until sixty seconds ago.

  I’m like, ‘Sorcha? Sorcha, can you hear me?’

  And that’s when I hear her voice – tiny and frightened – coming from deep inside the basically rubble of the Shomera.

  She’s there, ‘Ross? Ross?’ and – I swear to fock – I have never loved my wife the way I love her at that moment in time.

  Her old man goes, ‘Dorling? Dorling, are you hurt?’ but I shoulder him out of the way like Rory Best clearing out a ruck.

  I’m there, ‘Sorcha, are you hurt?’

  And she’s like, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘No broken bones?’ I go, looking for a way to get into what’s left of the thing.

  She’s there, ‘No, I think I’m okay. Just a bit in shock. What happened?’

  Sorcha’s old dear goes, ‘A branch fell onto the Shomera, Dorling!’

  I climb up onto the wreckage and I find a big hole where the window used to be. I stick my head into it and I look inside. It’s pitch dork in there. But I whip out my phone and I switch on the torch and I can suddenly make out a hand.

  I’m like, ‘Sorcha? I’m over here! Follow the light!’

  I reach out my hand towards her. Ten seconds later, she grabs it and I pull her slowly out through the window towards safety. She was lucky and she knows it. She’s suffering from nothing worse than a few cuts and bruises and – like she said – a little bit of shock.

  Sorcha’s old pair are all over her, hugging her and telling her how much they love her and how grateful they are that she’s alive. There’s not a word of thanks for me, of course.

  Her old man goes, ‘You’ve been saved for a purpose, Dorling! Oh, I’m fully convinced of that! It’s to be a thorn in the side of Charles O’Carroll-Kelly and his efforts to take Ireland out of Europe!’

  Meanwhile, her old dear is going, ‘It was that tree! Do you remember the one I said had lost all of its leaves?’

  I’m sort of, like, doubled over, trying to regain my breath. And that’s when something all of a sudden hits me. You could call it a realization.

  I look up at Honor’s bedroom window and I see her standing there, just staring out, a blank expression on her face.

  Into the house I go, then up the stairs, along the landing and into Honor’s room. She doesn�
�t even turn around when I push the actual door.

  I’m like, ‘You killed the tree, didn’t you? That’s why you were looking up poisons on the internet.’

  She’s there, ‘Why did you have to tell them to move out? They’d probably be dead if you didn’t.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Honor, you could have killed your mother.’

  She sort of, like, laughs. She’s goes, ‘Oh my God, she’s being such a drama queen about it. Loves the attention, of course.’

  I walk over to her and I spin her around. I’m like, ‘Honor, I thought you and Sorcha had agreed to let bygones be bygones.’

  But she just smiles, then she does an impression of Sorcha. She’s like, ‘You’ll be doing all the things I did, Honor. The St Madeleine Sophie Barat Prayer Circle. The Model United Nations. We can be, like, best, best friends.’

  It’s a pretty good impression, it has to be said.

  ‘She was happy to send me away,’ she goes. ‘Her own daughter.’

  I’m there, ‘She seems to have genuinely learned her lesson, though, Honor. Why don’t we just agree that it ends there?’

  But she just laughs. She’s like, ‘I haven’t even storted on her yet. She has no idea of the shit I’ve got planned for her.’

  Acknowledgements

  Grateful thanks as always to the brilliant team behind Ross, especially my editor, Rachel Pierce; my agent, Faith O’Grady; and the artist Alan Clarke. Thank you to Michael McLoughlin, Patricia Deevy, Cliona Lewis, Patricia McVeigh, Brian Walker, Aimee Johnson, Carrie Anderson and everyone at Penguin Ireland. Thanks to my family – Dad, Mark, Vincent and Richard. And, most of all, thank you to my beautiful wife, Mary.

  THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

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