Rhino What You Did Last Summer

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  Of course, I end up nearly falling off the chair when she turns around and goes, ‘What daughter?’

  I look beside me. My coffee has gone and, more importantly, so has Honor and I pretty much crap my board shorts. It’s like, No! No! No!

  The next thing, roysh, I’m literally running around the shop, calling her name at, like, the top of my voice, while at the same time kacking it – and who can blame me? I check, like, Crafts and Hobbies, Architecture, even Humanities and she’s, like, nowhere to be seen.

  On the outside, I’m trying to stay calm. I tell Sahara that she couldn’t have gone far – she isn’t walking that long. And she’s in, like, high heels. But then I remember that she’s had a coffee – the guts of a triple espresso – and I realize that she could be anywhere.

  Then of course the guilt storts to kick in. I’m thinking about all the people down through the years who told me that this pretty face would eventually be my undoing and how they’d love to see me now, frantically running around Recommended, Judaism and Judaica and – this’ll give you a laugh – Parenting, looking for my actual daughter, who wandered off while I was busy playing Mr Lover Lover.

  Sahara, in fairness to her, keeps her head. She asks me for, like, a description, then says she’ll tell security to lock down the store. ‘If she’s in here,’ she goes, ‘we’ll find her – you go check outside.’

  Outside? I hadn’t even thought! I literally burst through the doors, out onto Third Street, and stort pegging it up the promenade like an actual lunatic. Every baby I see, I run, like, straight up to them, going, ‘Honor!’ and of course when it’s not her, the parents are looking at me as if to say, ‘Er, weirdo?’

  It must be, like, half-a-mile up the promenade that I decide to give up, thinking, there’s no way she could have got this actual far. That’s when I notice this, like, ruck of people gathered around this crowd of buskers playing, like, salsa music. It’s actually out of the corner of my eye that I think I spot a mop of blonde curls somewhere in the middle and I’m literally throwing people out of the way to get in there.

  It’s her! She’s standing in front of the band, in her little red shoes, dancing away. And everyone’s laughing and clapping, like they think she’s part of the act?

  ‘That’s my daughter!’ I go. ‘That’s my actual daughter!’ and I sweep her up in my orms.

  ‘Hey, Man, I was enjoying that,’ someone shouts and then someone else goes, ‘Asshole,’ but I don’t give a fock now that I’ve got her back, unhormed as well, although her body is sort of, like, twitching in my orms and she keeps, I don’t know, clenching and unclenching her teeth.

  ‘Is she okay?’ this bird asks me. She’s not that unlike Trista Rehn. ‘Her eyes look kind of spacey.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s had a coffee,’ I go, then she looks at me like I’m some kind of, I don’t know, monster.

  I carry her back up the street, promising to buy her all sorts of shit and grateful, I suppose, that she doesn’t have the words yet to tell Sorcha what happened – certainly not in any language that her mother could understand.

  Sahara – Sarah, whatever – is waiting for me at the door of Bornes and Noble. ‘You found her!’ she goes and then, ‘Oh my God, she’s so beautiful!’

  I’m shaking my head going, ‘If anything ever happened to her, I’d… well, I don’t know what I’d do.’

  She smiles, then leans forward and gives me the most unbelievable kiss on the lips, to the point where I’m suddenly feeling a bit spacey myself. ‘You are such a sweet guy,’ she goes. Then she hands me, like, a bag. ‘I hope you don’t mind – I bought that book for you?’

  Sorcha asks me how Honor was yesterday and I tell her fine.

  That’s one of the good things about being a lady’s man my entire life – I can lie without even thinking about it?

  ‘It’s just that it took me – oh my God – hours to get her to sleep last night,’ she goes.

  I pull a face like I’m trying to come up with, I don’t know, the answer to a really hord crossword question? Then I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what that could have been.’

  I’m just there, bouncing Honor up and down on my knee, going, ‘I think it was just the excitement of seeing your Daddy again, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Xing qi yi…’

  ‘Can you say, “Daddy”?’

  ‘Xing qi er, xing qi san…’

  Sorcha suddenly gets a text. She says that – oh my God – actress Julia Roberts and husband filmmaker Danny Moder are going to have a little brother or sister for Hazel and Phin. I just shrug. Then she goes, ‘Oh my God, there’s one about your mum, too,’ and I have to admit, roysh, she suddenly has my attention. ‘Oprah was spotted reading a copy of her book in The Rosebud in Chicago. Oh! My God! That is such a huge deal, Ross.’

  I crack on not to be impressed. ‘It’s, like, who even is Oprah – I’m talking in the big scheme of things?’

  She laughs and says that an endorsement from Oprah can turn a book into a million-seller overnight.

  I shrug my shoulders. I’m like, ‘The thing I don’t understand is when did she even write it? She’s only been in the States, like, a fortnight.’

  ‘She wrote it when she was in, like, her twenties.’

  ‘It’s more of her usual porn.’

  ‘It’s so not, Ross. In fact, I was the one who told her to send it to an American publisher.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘About two years ago. I was the first one she ever let read it.’

  She always was a crawler when it came to my old dear.

  ‘She has this amazing line about Florida. He exploded inside her like a first-phase rocket…’

  I suddenly cover Honor’s ears. I’m there, ‘Too much information, Sorcha! Too much information!’

  She laughs, then takes Honor from me. She says that Cillian’s late, meaning late home from work. I’m thinking that maybe now is the time to tell her about Erika. We’re relaxing beside the pool with a couple of appletinis and I feel like I could say anything to her at this moment.

  But I don’t.

  Instead, I end up talking about him. ‘I think he feels threatened by me,’ I go.

  She’s there, ‘Cillian? Cillian has no reason to feel threatened by you,’ except she says it a little bit too defensively?

  I’m like, ‘Some would disagree. What was all that shit the other night about his shoes? John focking Lobb.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she goes, ‘there’s nothing wrong with wanting to look your best, Ross.’

  ‘But he’s an accountant.’

  ‘Don’t give me that – he happens to be a senior adviser in international risk assessment.’

  ‘Whatever! It’s not just the shoes anyway. It’s the gaff – he thought he was Puffy showing me around his crib. All he was short of saying was, “This is where the magic happens!” which, I reckon, would have been bullshit anyway.’

  She looks at me, suddenly embarrassed, and I immediately know it’s a touchy subject. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she goes.

  I’m there, ‘Well, I couldn’t help but notice Prison Break, Season One, on the bedside locker. Boxsets in the bedroom are a definite sign of somebody who’s not getting any.’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ she goes, pointing at me, which she only ever does when I’ve hit the nail on the head. ‘You’ve no right to even talk to me about that side of my life. We’re both free agents, can I just remind you? We’ve both moved on.’

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. I think she’s just made it obvious that she still misses me in at least one deportment. ‘All I’m saying,’ I go, ‘is that Cillian shouldn’t feel under pressure with me here. He shouldn’t feel like he has to compete with me.’

  ‘Oh, believe me,’ she goes, ‘he doesn’t.’

  The next thing we hear, roysh, is a cor pulling up outside, except it’s obviously not the focking Prius Nerdster that Cillian drove to work this morning – you can tell from the sound of the engine. We walk
around to the front of the gaff and I end up actually laughing out loud when I see him – this dude who’s supposedly not threatened by me? – getting out of a brand new, red Murciélago.

  He’s still wearing his Magee suit, bear in mind – focking D’Arcy’s crowd.

  Sorcha’s jaw is practically on the ground and not in a good way. She’s like, ‘Cillian, where did you get this?’

  He’s there, ‘I bought it.’

  It’s an unbelievable cor, in fairness – totally focking wasted on him. We’re talking six-point-two litre engine, we’re talking four-wheel drive, we’re talking six-speed sequential automatic transmission. We’re also talking three hundred Ks and possibly more. She goes, ‘How much did you pay for this?’

  He immediately looks at me. I pull a face that says, basically, rather you than me, mate, listening to that.

  ‘Does it matter?’ he goes. ‘I got a loan.’

  ‘A loan?’

  He’s there, ‘Yeah. I’m earning unbelievable money, remember,’ which is an attempted dig at me – except I’ve never been interested in earning money, only spending it.

  ‘More to the point,’ Sorcha goes, ‘how fuel-efficient is it?’

  I just, like, snigger, kiss Honor goodbye, then leave them to it.

  ‘This particular table,’ he goes, ‘has been meticulously engineered and crafted. Solid oak construction. One-inch diamond-honed slate. These pockets – genuine leather, hand-tooled.’

  I run my hand across the felt.

  ‘Heirloom quality, Man. You play?’

  I shrug. ‘It was pretty much all I did in college,’ I go. ‘But it’s actually a present for my son?’

  ‘Well,’ he goes, ‘not only will your son enjoy it, so will his son, and his son after that. Don’t let anybody tell you any different – pool tables are a very sophisticated piece of equipment. There’s no MDF in this thing. You hear what I’m saying? Solid! Oak! That’s why you got to pay that little bit more…’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I go. ‘It’s not even me paying.’

  My phone suddenly rings. It’s like, speak of the devil. ‘What do you want?’ I go.

  He’s like, ‘Where are you, Kicker?’

  I’m there, ‘Los Angeles – what’s it to you?’

  ‘Oh,’ he goes. ‘Well, I’m still in Andorra. It’s just that, well, you left in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘Is there any chance you could stop babbling for five seconds?’ I go. ‘Is your credit cord still good – the one with the 1982 Triple Crown-winning team on it?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ he goes. ‘I’ve just this minute discovered it’s been stolen.’

  I’m there, ‘Well, actually it hasn’t? I took it. So don’t cancel it. You’re about to become the proud owner of a state-of-the-ort pool table,’ and I tip the nod to the shop dude, who immediately storts filling in the shipping documents, happy in his pants.

  At the top of my voice, I’m like, ‘I’m going to take the jukebox as well – the big Wurlitzer jobby,’ and, then into the phone, I go, ‘Seven focking grand – I presume you’re good for it.’

  Of course, he doesn’t even give a shit. ‘I hope it’s vinyl,’ he goes. ‘Oh, even the mention of the word Wurlitzer brings me back, Ross, back to the old days. The Rainbow what’s-it on O’Connell Street. “There’s No Other Like My Baby”. That was our song – Helen and I…’

  Helen as in Erika’s old dear.

  I’m there, ‘I don’t actually give a fock? I bought, like, a jacuzzi an hour ago – are you not even curious as to why?’

  ‘Well, I expect you felt your old dad owed you a present after the heroics at the Camp d’Esports del M.I. Consell General…’

  ‘No, that’s not it. Do you remember when I was kid, the bomb shelter we found at the bottom of the gorden?’

  ‘Oh, yes – chap we bought the house from was absolutely convinced that Truman was going to drop the big one on China, unleashing hell and what-not.’

  ‘Whatever. Do you remember saying to me we were going to turn it into a boys’ room and then never actually doing it?’

  ‘Well,’ he goes, ‘if I said it, I’m sure it would have been in the context of – wouldn’t it be wonderful if…’

  ‘Oh, but you were too busy with work, weren’t you? Doing all the dodgy shit they eventually put you away for. So now I’m turning it into a boys’ room – for me and my son.’

  ‘What a wonderful idea,’ he goes.

  It’s, like, impossible to hurt this focker. I try to come in from a different angle. ‘By the way, when are you going to do something about that scabrous animal?’

  ‘Your mother?’ he goes. Isn’t it funny how he immediately knows? ‘Yes, I hear she’s making something of a splash, inverted commas, stateside.’

  ‘She was on TV yesterday, making a holy focking show of me.’

  ‘Well, this is the book she wrote during her famous Paris years. She was only in her twenties, Ross. They say it’s her magnum opus – pardon the French.’

  I’m there, ‘Why are you defending her? You’re supposed to be getting divorced. Why can’t you, like, hate each other?’

  ‘Hate each other?’

  ‘Yeah, like normal parents?’

  ‘We were married for thirty years,’ he goes, like that’s any kind of excuse. ‘Your mother and I will always be friends. We care about each other very much.’

  ‘Well, I just think that’s focked up, that’s all.’

  He doesn’t even respond to that, just goes, ‘Erika’s gone back to Ireland…’

  I’m there, ‘Er, did I ask you about Erika?’

  ‘I think after the initial euphoria, the anger’s starting to kick in. Helen called me today – seems that Erika said some hurtful things to her.’

  ‘I said, I don’t remember asking about her,’ and then I just hang up.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re actually shopping with me,’ Sorcha goes. She has to shout it over a seriously loud disco version of ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’, which means we’re obviously in Abercrombie. ‘You used to hate shopping.’

  I’m there, ‘If you must know, I was shopping all yesterday afternoon. I picked up, like, a jukebox, pool table, a few other bits and pieces for Ro.’

  She looks at me like, well, like she did the night she first took advantage of me when I’d a few beers on board in the Wez. ‘You are so a good father,’ she goes. ‘Anyone who says you’re not is, like – oh my God – so wrong…’

  Having said that, if she finds out I let Honor wander around Santa Monica on her Tobler for half an hour, she’ll redecorate this shop with my focking intestines.

  ‘I know,’ I go. ‘I think it’s very much a case of, you know, give a dog a bad name…’

  My focking eardrums are bursting in here.

  A changing room finally comes free. I automatically follow Sorcha in and the funny thing is that neither of us actually considers it weird – as in, her stripping down to basically her bra and knickers in front of me?

  The bird in charge of the changing rooms does, though – she knocks on the door and goes, ‘It’s only one person per changing room?’ and I end up just going, ‘Yeah – whatever!’ to which there’s no comeback, of course.

  Sorcha’s, like, examining her orse in the mirror. ‘Do you think these jeans make my legs look thinner than my Citizens of Humanity ones?’ she goes.

  It’s one of those questions where she already knows the answer she wants? So I make what I have to admit is a guess, ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about my Sevens?’ she goes. ‘Are they more slimming?’

  I go, ‘No,’ solely on the basis that last time I said yes. It’s like Junior Cert. foundation maths all over again.

  She considers my answers while striking, I suppose, different poses in the mirror – one hand on her hip, one foot in front of the other, then pouting, whatever the fock difference that makes – and finally decides that she doesn’t want them. So they come off again.

  ‘You don’t mind?’
I go. ‘As in, me staring at you pretty much naked?’

  She’s like, ‘I have underwear on, Ross? And anyway, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, right?’

  She looks unbelievable. A Peter Pan’s always suited her.

  I’m there, ‘I wonder would Cillian see it like that.’

  She pulls her sea blue Tart Grace dress over her head and goes, ‘Cillian would be fine with it. I’m sorry about the other night, by the way.’

  I’m there, ‘Is he keeping it? As in, the Lamborghini?’

  ‘Well, he’s bought it now. Or signed the finance papers. I think he’s just very stressed with work at the moment.’

  ‘I’m saying nothing,’ I go. ‘But I still think it’s me.’

  She laughs. ‘Oh my God, Ross, he knows that you and I are more like Best Friends Forever these days?’ and I’m thinking, yeah, you just keep telling yourself that lie, girl.

  She steps into her Uggs, fixes her hair, then puts her sunglasses back on her head, and I open the changing-room door. The bird outside is bulling. She’s a last word freak as well. ‘Only one customer per changing room?’ she goes, pointing at a sign on the wall.

  You actually should have seen her face when I pretended to do up my fly.

  On the way out of the shop, out of the corner of her mouth, Sorcha’s going, ‘I can’t actually believe you did that!’ but she’s also smiling, as if to say, I can’t actually control this dude – might as well just sit back and enjoy the show.

  Back in the cor, she checks her texts and says that Lindsay Lohan was spotted dancing with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker at a West Hollywood party two days after having her appendix out!

  ‘My kind of bird,’ I go.

  ‘And Angelina has dropped the broadest hint yet that she might like to work with Billy Bob Thornton again one day…’

  To which there’s no real answer.

  I tell her I’m storving. I’d eat the orse out of a roadkill raccoon. She says okay, we’ll collect Honor from crèche, then she’s going to bring me – her treat – to Ketchup, as in Ketchup from The Hills? As in, the place where Lauren and Heidi ran into each other for the first time after the big fight? And Spencer sent over a drink for Lauren and Jason, being – oh my God – such a wanker?