Rhino What You Did Last Summer

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  But everyone, roysh, we’re talking inside and outside the booth, we’re talking Ronnie and the engineering people, we’re talking Trevion, we’re talking Johnny and the MTV crew, they’re all clapping and, like, nodding at each other, as if to say, a star is focking born.

  She’s in there suddenly going, ‘Who do I need to sleep with to get a glass of water around here?’ having the balls to actually play the diva. ‘It must be a hundred and ten degrees in this room! My head feels like it’s about to split!’ obviously not a happy bunny.

  Ronnie’s there, ‘I’m so fah-ing sorry, Finnhooler,’ and she goes, ‘Don’t be fah-ing sorry – just fah-ing do something about it.’

  ‘For the last time,’ Ronnie shouts at no one in particular, ‘it’s a simple request – can we get a fah-ing glass of woater in there?’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I suddenly go, because I’ve had an idea – and as usual it’s an absolute cracker. I pick up an empty glass, roysh, but instead of filling it from the jugs of water they’ve got lying around with, like, slices of lemon and orange in them, I have a quick look around and, when I’m sure no one’s looking, I dip it into the terrapin tank, then pull it out, full to the top with dirty water.

  This’ll sort your focking voice out, I’m thinking.

  I hand it to one of Ronnie’s assistants and she immediately pulls a face. ‘What the hell is this?’ she goes because it’s actually cloudy, to the point of being almost milky – probably all the shit and piss and whatever else is floating around in the top of the tank.

  Of course, one of the things I was famous for on the rugby field was my quick decision-making. And that’s something you don’t just lose. ‘I stuck two Alka-Seltzer in it,’ I end up going. ‘She said she’d a headache, didn’t she?’

  This seems to, like, satisfy the assistant bird. She goes into the recording booth and I watch her through the window explain it to the old dear, who doesn’t look like she gives a fock one way or the other? She ends up just knocking the whole thing back in, like, two goes, then – and I know this is disgusting – she sort of, like, licks her teeth.

  Johnny asks Ronnie if it’s okay to send me in now and Ronnie says sure, but make it quick because they want to try to get, like, three tracks down today. Johnny turns around to me, roysh, and gives me my motivation for the scene – not that I need it. ‘You’ve discovered you’ve got, like, a sister you never knew about,’ he goes. ‘And you’re, like, mad at your mother? Now, the viewer will have already met you, remember, in the pilot. They’ve seen you get that done to your nose and they’ve seen you come face to face with Erika. But this is the first time, as far as they know, that you’ve confronted your mother. So make out like you’re really angry with her.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I go, ‘I was born for this role.’

  Johnny shouts action, roysh, and I push the door of the booth. The old dear obviously doesn’t know that we’ve storted shooting, roysh, because she’s standing there telling Ronnie through the mic that she thinks her voice would be much better suited to dueting with someone like Eva Cassidy and can he find out if she left any tapes in her attic.

  I automatically let rip.

  I stort off, roysh, with a few old favourites – you might even call them timeless classics: ‘You’re so ugly, you could scare flies off a shit wagon. You’ve a face that would stop a sundial. You wouldn’t get laid in a prison with a handful of pordons…’

  She’s just stands there with her Von Trapp open, which is hilarious.

  ‘The last time I saw a mouth like that,’ I go, ‘it was trying to eat Jeff Goldblum.’

  ‘Ross,’ she eventually goes, ‘I’m trying to make a record – I really don’t have time for your obnoxiousness,’ which is a pretty poor comeback, you’d have to say, given that she knew this was happening today.

  I’m there, ‘Who told you that dress fitted you anyway? You’re coming out of it like a burst sofa. And eye make-up? At your age? Amy Winehouse? Amy focking Wino more like.’

  ‘Ross!’ she goes but I’m on, like, a roll now?

  ‘And what the rest of them here are too scared to tell you is that you’ve a voice like a focked boiler…’

  She’s well used to me at this stage. What I haven’t bargained for, of course, is that the abuse I’m giving her might prove too much for Trevion to take.

  The next thing, roysh, the door flies open behind me and I turn around just in time to see him launching himself at me across the room. I don’t have time to get out of the way, either. I have to just brace myself for the tackle.

  He’s going, ‘Why, you little…’

  I swear to fock, it’s like getting hit by the focking Luas. I can’t believe the dude’s in his seventies. I feel all my organs sort of, like, jolt inside and I immediately hit the deck, my abs and pecs in absolute agony again. I’ll be focking shocked if my stitches are still holding me together.

  He’s there, ‘If I ever hear you speak…’ and he’s actually shaping up to hit me, roysh, on my brand new nose, when all of a sudden, out of the corner of his eye, he notices the old dear’s hand suddenly go up to her mouth, like she’s about to be Moby Dick. I notice, roysh, that her face is all of a sudden green and Trevion quickly forgets about me and asks her if she’s alright.

  She sits down, roysh, her face all worried, trying to catch her breath. It comes, roysh, like a focking tsunami. I even roll for cover.

  ‘Eeeuuurrggghhh!’ she all of a sudden goes, sending a wave of spew into the air – a big roller of organic tofu, water-cress juice and whatever else she had for breakfast.

  And riding on it, like some little crazy surfer dude, is little Syd.

  Even Trevion, roysh, who as you know has seen quite a bit of shit in his day, is shocked. He looks like he might even puke his own ring up.

  I crack my hole laughing, get up off the floor and then – as they say – take my leave of them all.

  Outside, roysh, Ronnie and the others at the console are looking at the terrapin tank, then back at me, as if to say, surely you didn’t…

  Johnny is just, like, shaking his head. Ronnie says he’s worked with the Stones, Zeppelin, the lot and he’s never seen anyfing fah-ing like it.

  ‘Welcome to my world,’ I go.

  Then I take a bow and fock off.

  I can’t remember if Sorcha said to try the red velvet or the vanilla cream, so what I end up doing is getting, like, two of each?

  We’re sitting outside Sprinkles in Beverly Hills, as in me and Erika – we’re talking no cameras, we’re talking just me and her, getting to know each other on our first brother-sister date. And it’s actually really nice.

  ‘I hated you,’ she goes, applying gloss to her lips with a paintbrush in the mirror of her compact.

  ‘Yeah,’ I go, ‘but you hated pretty much everyone.’

  She sort of, like, smacks her lips together, then snaps the compact shut. ‘That’s true. But it was different with you. I despised you with a passion that frightened me.’

  I actually laugh. ‘Do you mind me commenting? A lot of birds have said that to me down through the years – the flip-side was that they were deeply in love with me.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Believe me, Ross, I wasn’t in love with you.’

  She’s wearing the sky-blue Abaeté dress that Sorcha lent her with, like, XOXO flats and Jill Jacobson floral cuffs.

  Okay, this is a weird thing to say about your sister, but she’s always tanned well.

  I’m there, ‘Probably one of my favourite quotes that anyone ever said about me was that I’m like an electric fence. They know the dangers – but there’s still a lot of silly cows who can’t stay away. Jamie Heaslip said that, in fairness to him.’

  She says that’s why she always hated me. ‘All those clever girls – beautiful, smart, independent girls. All you had to do was smile at them and they lost any modicum of respect they had for themselves. You set the women’s movement back a century…’

  I actually like the ring
of that? It’s the kind of shit I want on my gravestone.

  I’m there, ‘You’re obviously including Sorcha in that.’

  She breaks up a red velvet cupcake with the side of her fork, even though she looks like she’s no intention of eating it. ‘Sorcha most of all,’ she goes. ‘I mean, look at her. She’s beautiful. She got enough points to study medicine if that’s what she’d wanted. And her roles models are all these strong women…’

  ‘Ayaan Hirsi blahdy-blah,’ I go, pretty pleased with myself for actually remembering.

  ‘But then I’d look at the way she acted around you and I’d think, where’s your pride?’

  If I’m being honest, I think that’s the reason I always had a thing for Erika, aport from the obvious. She actually valued herself, which is, like, a major challenge for a goy.

  Out of the blue, she tells me I have to taste her white chocolate mocha and she holds out the cup to me. I take it from her, roysh, just to be nice, but, just as I’m lifting it to my mouth, I notice that I’m about to drink from the exact spot where her lips have been and I know it’s the exact spot because of the lip gloss on the rim.

  ‘Go on,’ she goes, ‘you’ll love it,’ and of course I can’t, like, turn the cup around because that’d be like saying she’s got some, I don’t know, disease. And I obviously can’t wipe it because that’d be unbelievably rude, especially when we’re getting on so well.

  So what I end up doing is putting it straight up to my lips, roysh, and taking a sip and it tastes of not only coffee and white chocolate but strawberry as well.

  She’s there, ‘Do you like it?’ and I’m like, ‘Fock, yeah,’ and without having an actual sexual thought in my head, I suddenly realize that I’m, like, primed again.

  ‘Go and get one,’ she goes.

  I’m like, ‘What?’

  She’s there, ‘A white chocolate mocha. Go in and get one.’

  Of course, I’m in no position to stand up, especially in these board shorts. I crack on to look in the window of the shop. ‘Nah,’ I go, ‘it’s rammers in there.’

  She turns fully around and looks in the window herself. ‘Ross, there’s only, like, two people in the queue. And I think they’re together.’

  ‘Yeah, no,’ I go, ‘I’ll, er, stick with the Americano.’

  She looks into my cup. ‘But it’s empty.’

  I subtly change the subject. ‘So what do you think of the whole Cillian thing?’ I go. ‘He wants to be port of the programme now. I know you’re not a fan.’

  ‘It’s nothing personal,’ she goes. ‘I just don’t think he makes her happy.’

  I laugh. ‘It’s nice to see you sticking up for your brother,’ and I actually emphasize the word brother, hoping the word reaches the south.

  She’s like, ‘No, you didn’t make her happy either, Ross.’

  It’s weird, roysh, but I’ve never known Erika to be this nice. It’s like finding out that I’m her brother has changed her. She’s chilled out to the point that you can actually talk to her.

  ‘I hate to point out the obvious,’ I go, ‘but you weren’t exactly a dream yourself.’

  She shrugs her shoulders as if to say, you’re right, in fairness to you.

  I’m there, ‘You had, like, a major chip on your shoulder. I thought it all had to do with the fact that your old man – or the man you thought was your old man – walked out on your old dear and that made you think all men were dicks. And especially me – being a major player and shit?’

  ‘I don’t hate Tim,’ she goes. ‘I mean, I did when I was sixteen. But now… Ross, he agreed to take on a child that his wife had fathered with another man. How could I hate him?’

  I don’t know the answer. I don’t know that there is one? I always presumed he was an orsewipe.

  ‘But I always felt different growing up,’ she goes. ‘And that wasn’t Tim’s fault. I mean, outwardly, we had the normal father-daughter relationship. But deep down, I always knew I was different.’

  I’m there, ‘Different as in?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s like something I understood on, like, an unconscious level? Even when he was being happy for me, I always detected a certain…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A certain strain. Like the more he tried to be a father to me, the more his heart broke inside.’

  ‘Is he still in, like, Canada?’ I go.

  She nods. ‘I was thinking of maybe phoning him. To say thank you, which I never got a chance to do.’

  She’s quiet for a little while, then she goes, ‘I called my mum a whore.’

  I end up nearly choking on a piece of vanilla cream. ‘Even I’ve never done that.’

  Sitting there, she sort of, like, arches her back, then sweeps her hair back with her hands and uses her Dior Christal shades to hold it back. My eyes are sort of, like, tracing her shape through the fabric of her dress and at the same time I’m thinking, Jesus Christ! I belong in prison.

  All of a sudden, I realize that she’s staring straight at me. ‘Oh my God,’ she goes, her voice pretty much dripping with disgust, ‘what way are you looking at me, Ross?’

  I’m there, ‘Errr…’

  She’s like, ‘You’re looking at me… the way you used to.’

  ‘I know,’ I end up having to go. ‘It’s hord to get used to not doing it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not for me,’ she goes. ‘Not for me.’

  I get, like, a text from Shelby, who’s obviously John B on a second date. This ever happen to you? I’ve no interest obviously and I’m trying to kill the conversation dead with, like, short answers.

  Wot r u up2 @ d wknd?

  Chillin.

  Interestin – want2 hang out 2gethr?

  Wrecked.

  Me2. ; -) Are u watchin tv?

  Yeah.

  Omg – same! Wot r u watchin? Im watchin americas next top modl! : -)

  In ten years of using and abusing the opposite sex, it’s one of the worst cases of replyarrhoea I’ve ever seen.

  Harvey tells me there’s a twenty-four-hour internet café next door and I tell him I’m sorry. ‘Last word freak,’ I go, shaking my head, then making a big show of putting the phone in my Davy Crocket.

  ‘What’s up?’ he goes. He has to, like, shout over the music. ‘You’ve hardly touched your mint julep,’ and he’s right. We’re in the Velvet Margarita, but I might as well be somewhere else.

  ‘Come on,’ he goes and I end up following him off the dancefloor, back to where we left our drinks. ‘Well, that answers the question once and for all,’ he goes. ‘Only a straight man could dance that badly.’

  I’m there, ‘Sorry, Dude. I’m still a bit sore from the op. And the head’s not in it either.’

  ‘So what’s up?’

  I end up pretty much spilling my guts to him. ‘It’s the whole Erika thing. Exactly what I was scared of. I mean, I only have to look at her and straight away I’m…’

  I end up looking over both shoulders.

  ‘Aroused would have to be the word.’

  He says she is attractive – she looks like Denise Richards looked five years ago.

  I’m there, ‘Dude, she’s my sister! It’s, like, I met her for a coffee the other day – it was, like, half an hour before I could stand up afterwards.’

  ‘Because you were…’

  ‘Exactly. She’s even noticed.’

  In fairness, roysh, he does look suddenly sympathetic. He takes a sip of his kir royale.

  ‘I mean, I’m pretty well known as a filthbag,’ I go. ‘I always will be, I like to think. But even I know that’s beyond the beyonds.’

  He shakes his head from side to side. ‘It doesn’t make you a deviant,’ he tries to go.

  I’m there, ‘Fancying my own sister? Dude, I’m a pair of wellies and a headage grant away from being an Irish farmer.’

  ‘Look, don’t worry about it. Like I said to you before, in time your feelings for her will redefine themselves. You just have to be patient.’
>
  I’m there, ‘Dude, that’s easy for you to say. You don’t have, like, TV cameras pointing at you pretty much twenty-four hours a day.’

  He pulls a face, like he suddenly knows where I’m coming from?

  ‘Okay,’ he goes. ‘I’ve got an idea. Have you ever heard of tantric celibacy?’

  ‘Er, no.’

  ‘Well, I told you that Hugo’s, like, a yogi, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yeah. And?’

  ‘Well, he says that using meditation, it’s possible to completely turn off your sex drive. Do you want to go see him?’

  I tell him I’ll try it. At this stage, I’ll try anything.

  7. A dream is a wish your heart makes

  After the disaster of her fashion show in aid of the whole Jolie-Pitt thing, Sorcha decided to get back on the charity horse by organizing a Lunch for Life, with the intention of raising awareness of something – although she never quite got around to deciding what?

  She has been busy – shopping with Erika, lunching with Erika, confiding in Erika what a total and utter lunatic she’s currently going out with, while sitting in the sun outside various coffee shops.

  Johnny Sarno says American kids are going to love them. He says they’re Lauren and Heidi except with more intellectual depth. And a baby who’s got thirty or forty words in Chinese and Spanish – ‘key demographics’ – and none in actual English.

  Sorcha and Erika have really gotten into it as well. All birds from South Dublin want to be famous, but they did, like, media presentation skills as port of transition year in Mount Anville and I’ve heard Johnny comment more than once on their actual screen presence.

  Anyway, cause or no cause, the Lunch for Life goes ahead, except they’re calling it a First of May Barbecue. Johnny loves getting all of us together because he knows that sporks always fly.

  I take an eggplant and zucchini kebab off the barbie and listen to Analyn – who’s finally pregnant – telling Steve and Elodine that she got, oh my God, the ugliest bread box for a house-warming gift two years ago, even though it was, like, Williams-Sonoma and contemporary. But she and Mike decided to put it away with the intention of one day, like, regifting it? Anyway, her friend Judith was having her Coming Out porty, so she put the wrapping paper back on it and gave it to her, totally not realizing, of course, that it was Judith who gave it to her in the first place.