by Paul Howard
JP dies.
Been seeing this girl for about three weeks, roysh, Georgia’s her name, you probably know her to see, she was one of the weather girls on, like, Network Two, a little bit like Laetitia Casta, but thick as a focking brick, and we’re talking TOTALLY here. We’re in Annabel’s one night, roysh, and we’re sitting with Wally and Walshy, these two goys I know from Castlerock, doing anthropology or some shit, total focking brainboxes, not really into rugby, but, like, sound anyway. So we’re there and the Nice Treaty comes up in conversation, roysh, and I have to say I know fock-all about Northern Ireland, but I do know to keep my mouth shut in case I, like, embarrass myself. Georgia, of course, doesn’t. She goes, ‘OH MY GOD, I am SO sick of all these, like, referendums and stuff. I don’t know why they can’t just rip up the Constitution and just have one article that says, like, you know, Whatever.’ And the goys, roysh, fair play to them, they just stort, like, nodding their heads as though she’s made an amazing point, but I can tell, roysh, they were looking at her going, ‘What the fock is Ross going out with?’
I’d already storted to ask myself the same question – Oisinn and Fionn, roysh, they call her Clueless – and I’m seriously thinking about giving her the flick this particular night in Annabel’s, having done the dirt on her three days ago with Heidi, this sixth-year Mountie who’s so like Yasmine Bleeth they could be twins. Anyway, roysh, being the nice goy that I am, I don’t actually have the heart to give Georgia the flick tonight because, as it turns out, RTÉ have done exactly that that same day. Why, I don’t know, I was pretty shit-faced when she explained it to me and I really couldn’t have been orsed listening, even though she was, like, bawling her eyes out.
Of course, coming up to the end of the night, roysh, when it’s clear I’m not going to get my rock and roll elsewhere, I’m pretending to be all concerned, giving her hugs and kisses and shit and giving it, ‘They must be mad, letting you go,’ – she probably stuck a focking rain cloud on the map upside down or something – ‘they’ll regret that one day. You’ll be the star they let slip through their fingers.’ And she goes, ‘Hello? I have a degree in communications from ATIM, Ross,’ – Any Thick Idiot with Money, we call it – ‘I’m hordly likely to walk into another job.’ I’m like, ‘With your looks?’ Of course this does nothing to cheer her up. She gives me this total filthy and goes, ‘You think I’m an airhead, don’t you? Good-looking with nothing between my ears.’ And the tears stort again.
I stort going, ‘Of course I don’t,’ but I’m struggling to keep a straight face, roysh, because I can hear all the goys – we’re talking Christian and JP – and they’re totally ripping the piss, giving it, ‘Tomorrow will be a clidey day,’ and ‘There’ll be scashered shars throughout the country,’ basically taking off her accent, roysh, and I’m caught between wanting to look all, like, sympathetic to make sure I get my bit later on, while at the same time playing Jack the Lad in front of the goys, letting them know I’m actually ripping the piss out of her myself. It’s a focking tightrope, but I manage not to burst out laughing in her face and all of a sudden, roysh, a couple of her mates arrive over – birds she knows from Loreto on the Green, JP was with one of them once – and they take her off to the toilets.
Oisinn comes over and high-fives me, roysh, and asks whether I heard about Fionn, and I say no, and he tells me he’s copped off with Georgio Sensi, which could be a bird’s name, though I doubt it, and I reckon he’s talking about Olwyn Richards, who Fionn was chatting up at the bor at the stort of the night, the jammy, four-eyed focker.
Oisinn’s off his tits. He’s there, ‘Where’s the weather girl?’ I’m like, ‘Toilets,’ and he goes, ‘What was all that crying about? Did she find out about …’ I’m like, ‘No, no, RTÉ gave her the old heave-ho.’ He nods sort of, like, thoughtfully, roysh, even though he hasn’t really got a clue what I said, the music’s so loud, and he goes, ‘Bummer,’ and I’m there, ‘Total.’
‘Shackles’ comes on, roysh, and JP’s giving it loads out on the dancefloor and he gives me the old thumbs-up, roysh, and I do it back – focker still hasn’t given me my five hundred bills back – and Christian’s chatting up some bird I know to see from the M1 and he’s telling her that he senses a strange disturbance in the Force, which is his usual chat-up line, roysh, and she’s sort of, like, leaning away from him, as though he’s completely off his rocker, which he actually is. I’m worried about the goy, though, the way he’s been tanning the beer lately.
The next thing I know, Georgia’s back from the toilets and she’s, like, tied her cardigan around her waist, roysh, and she’s wearing this halterneck top, which is pretty revealing and it’s only when she goes, ‘Do you want to stay in Amy’s house with me? Her parents are in Bologna,’ that I realise she’s a lot more pissed than I actually thought and I tell her I’ll basically go and get my jacket. Probably a bit of a shitty thing to do actually, giving her an old rattle tonight, then the Spanish archer tomorrow, but as the goys always say, you don’t put three weeks of spadework into a job and then give up when the treasure’s in sight.
I knock back the rest of my pint, roysh, and I look up and – FOCK! am I cursed, or something? – you will not believe who’s suddenly standing there in front of me. We’re talking Heidi, the bird I was with three nights ago, the Yasmine Bleeth ringer, who may have got the impression, from some of the things I said, that me and her were an item now. I’m just there going, How the fock do I get out of this one?
Heidi looks at me and goes, ‘Hi, Ross,’ and Georgia, roysh, sensing another bird moving in on her patch, she sits beside me on the couch, or sort of, like, flops down, she’s that off her tits, and she links my orm and Heidi – who I have to say is actually looking really well – she goes, ‘Oh, I see you’ve moved on, Ross.’
I’m fairly well-on myself at this stage and I can hordly string a sentence together, it has to be said. I go, ‘That’s roysh, Heidi. Onwards and upwards,’ which I’m kicking myself for saying because it’s her I’d rather be with tonight. Heidi, roysh, she looks Georgia up and down and she goes, ‘I’d hordly call that upwards.’ And Georgia, roysh, she’s having none of it, she turns around to me and she goes, ‘Sorry, who is this … girl?’ Heidi, roysh, who’s, like, well able for her, fair focks to her, she goes, ‘I’m Heidi. And I know who you are.’ Georgia goes, ‘Oh, I recognise you now. What school was it you went to, Mount Anything?’ And Heidi’s like, ‘Better than Collars-Up, Knickers-Down.’
I have to say, roysh, it’s fascinating to watch. One says something really bitchy and just as you’re thinking there’s no coming back from that, the other says something even better. Georgia goes, ‘You’re in Emma’s class, my little sister,’ trying to, like, put her down, making out she’s only a kid or something, but Heidi’s there, ‘Your sister is a knob, just like you.’ Georgia stands up, roysh, and she goes, ‘My sister is not a focking knob,’ and Heidi laughs, roysh, shakes her head and goes, ‘Oh my God, she does supervised study, like, every night.’
At this stage, roysh, it looks like it might get ugly, so just, like, to defuse the tension, if that’s the roysh word, I decide to go and get another pint in, maybe find the lads, but Heidi all of a sudden goes, ‘Ross obviously hasn’t told you about us, has he?’ Oh fock. Georgia’s like, ‘I’m not interested in whatever mistakes Ross might have made in the distant past.’ And Heidi goes, ‘Distant past? Try Wednesday night.’
So Georgia’s just sitting there, roysh, with her mouth open, like a fish, and she’s storting to, like, hyperventilate, she can’t get any words out, so she just picks up a bottle of Coors Light and, like, dumps the whole lot over my focking head, then runs out of the place bawling her eyes out. Heidi tells me I’m pathetic and focks off as well.
One of Georgia’s mates, roysh – not the one JP was with, the other one, I think she’s doing Tourism Management and Morkeshing in LSB – she comes over and tells me I’m an orsehole and, in my defence, I’m there, ‘I wasn’t going out with Georgia,
you know. We were only seeing each other.’
I sit there for a few minutes, completely focking soaked, just knowing that my new light blue Ralph is going to reek of beer now, and I’m sort of thinking about maybe heading to the jacks to stick it under the drier and then going off to look for Heidi, but I’m so off my face at this stage I really couldn’t be orsed.
I can’t actually remember how long I’m sitting there when all of a sudden JP comes over, roysh, and sits down next to me and he goes, ‘What the fock happened?’ I’m like, ‘Georgia found out about Heidi. You owe me five hundred bills, by the way.’
He goes, ‘It’s coming, my man. You were going to give Georgia the flick anyway, weren’t you?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, totally,’ and he smiles and goes, ‘Well then, every clide has a silver lining,’ and I have to laugh.
I skip my three o’clock, head out to Oisinn’s gaff and I find him sitting at the kitchen table with a scissors, a Pritt Stick and a stack of newspapers. I’m there, ‘I didn’t know we’d homework,’ and he goes, ‘Not homework. I’ve come up with a plan for the statue. Look at this.’
I go, ‘Like it, Oisinn,’ and he winks at me. I’m like, ‘Is it gonna work?’ He goes, ‘You are looking at a criminal mastermind.’ I’m there, ‘Glad to hear it. I could do with the shekels. The debs cleaned me out.’
I get this text from Georgia, roysh, and it’s like:
WE REGRET TO INFORM CUSTOMERS THAT THE EIRCELL NETWORK HAS GONE DOWN. HOWEVER THIS WILL NOT AFFECT YOU AS NOT EVEN A NETWORK WOULD GO DOWN ON YOU!
What a total bunny-boiler. I’m just, like, you know, ‘Get over it, girl.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘Ross is, like, SUCH an orsehole to women.’
Discuss.
When Christian asked me to go with him to the premiere of that focking Bridget Jones’ Diary, roysh, he never told me it was in the Savoy, we’re talking on the focking northside here. Pork the cor in my usual spot in Stephen’s Green, and as we’re, like, walking down Grafton Street, I’m suddenly thinking, Hang on, what cinemas are on the southside?
Of course my worst fears are confirmed, roysh, when we cross over onto Westmoreland Street – that sort of, like, no man’s land between us and them – and I realise the crazy bastard is actually thinking of bringing me the other side of the Liffey.
I stop, roysh, just before we cross over the bridge, we’re talking O’Connell Bridge, and I go, ‘You are not focking serious, I hope.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t centre on your anxieties,’ and I’m there, ‘Quit it with that Obi Wan bullshit, will you? Do you know what they do to people like us over there? These people aren’t walking uproysh that long.’ He just laughs and carries on walking and, well, the goy’s my best friend, roysh, can’t let him do this on his own, so I follow him across the bridge and I go, ‘This is suicide.’
There’s a goy selling newspapers who shouts something in Northside, which I don’t understand, though I think I caught the word ‘Hedild’ in there somewhere. The whole focking street is just, like, burger bors, with all these peasants in them getting their dinner. We cross over onto this traffic island, and this goy – twenty-quid jeans and hundred-quid runners, the usual skobie uniform, and a big red inbreeder’s face to go with it – he bumps me with his shoulder as he’s passing me, we’re talking on purpose here. I mean, there’s two of us, roysh, and one of him, but he doesn’t give a fock. I turn around, roysh, and he’s come back towards me, going, ‘Have you got a bleedin’ problem?’ I’m there, ‘You just bumped into me. Did your old dear not teach you how to say sorry, or was she too busy on the game?’ He looks totally, like, stunned by this, doesn’t know what to say, roysh, he’s obviously so used to people going, ‘Oooh, no, I haven’t got a problem,’ and he just manages to get out the words, ‘Are ye wantin’ yisser go?’ when all of a sudden, roysh, Christian hits him a box that comes from, I don’t know, the next focking postal code – BANG! – and the goy’s laid out flat on his back. I stand over him and go, ‘See what you get when you fock with the Rock, you piece of vermin. You’ll be selling your cigarette lighters tomorrow in a neck-brace.’
We head on, roysh, manage to get to the Savoy without any further incidents. Christian hands me my ticket outside and we head in and meet a few of his friends from his film course in the lobby, roysh – two blokes who are both complete dickheads and four birds, three of them are bet-down, the other I’d file under ‘Ugly But Rideable’. Anyway, roysh, they’re wanking on about how Hugh Grant has been typecast as the slightly repressed, upper-class, English fop and how this new role has opened up a whole new anti-hero persona that will allow him to explore his range as an actor. I just go, ‘Yeah, roysh,’ and head off for a wander, see if there’s any scenario about the place.
So there I am, roysh, scoping this bird who looks a bit like Winona Ryder – or I Wanna Ryder, as I call her – when all of a sudden, roysh, there’s all these flashbulbs going off outside and who walks in? We’re talking Renée focking Zellwegger, and she looks incredible. I decide there and then, roysh, that I’m going to try to be with her, so I join this queue of all these film-industry tossers waiting to talk to her. About ten minutes later, roysh, I’m in front of her and I’m giving it, ‘Hey,’ and she’s there, ‘Hello,’ and I’m like, ‘You having a good night?’ and just as she’s about to answer, roysh – and I’m really pleased with this – I go, ‘Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at Hello,’ and she cracks her shite laughing, and I’m in, I am SO in.
She goes, ‘It’s great to see you again. How was Paris? Did you go to that restaurant I told you about?’ and it’s pretty obvious, roysh, that she thinks I’m someone else, and that’s alroysh by me because she’s focking quality and I’m there telling the old pant python to behave himself. I’m like, ‘The restaurant? Yeah, it was Kool and the Gang,’ and suddenly, roysh, everyone’s going in to watch the film and Renée Zellwegger links my orm – links MY focking orm – and we’re heading into the VIP area when this bouncer, the biggest creamer you’ve ever seen, stops me and asks me where my pass is. He goes, ‘Where’s yisser pass?’ I’m there, ‘It’s alroysh, I’m with Renée Zellwegger,’ and he’s just like, ‘No one gets in wirourra pass.’ Stick a skobie in a monkey suit and give him a walkie-talkie and he thinks he’s the focking Terminator.
Probably took the wrong tack with him, roysh, when I went, ‘It’ll be back to the dole queue and stealing fireplaces from building sites for you when Renée Zellwegger’s people find out you’ve dissed her date for the night.’ He goes, ‘Couldn’t give a bollicks,’ and, of course, Renée Zellwegger’s off talking to some other bloke now, this tit with a ponytail and, seeing the headlines ‘Renée Zellwegger’s New Mystery Man’ slipping away, I make the mistake of going to step over the rope into the VIP section, roysh.
Next thing I feel this orm around my neck and my feet are, like, off the ground, and I can see Christian and his orsehole film mates staring in, like, horror as the skobie in the tux carries me out of the cinema and basically throws me out onto the street, in the middle of Knackeragua. He’s there, ‘You were warned,’ and I just, like, dust the old chinos down and go, ‘Your orse is SO fired.’
To whom it may concern,
Many thanks for your recent ransom note. Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying. My secretary is away on maternity leave at the moment and I’m not very well organised. Your letter got mixed up in a stack of essays I was correcting and I’ve only this minute laid my hands on it again.
As to your request for £1,000, unfortunately the department doesn’t have sufficient finance to undertake this kind of project at this time. We will keep your letter on file and, in the event of a budget being set aside for meeting extortion and blackmail demands, we will endeavour to contact you.
Can you please pass on the best wishes of everyone in the Classics Department to Eros. We all miss him.
Best wishes,
Francis Hird,
Classics Department, UCD
Emer’s parents
’ house is worth over a million, roysh, or so she tells us, but Sophie says that that’s nothing because there’s council houses, actual council houses, in Sallynoggin, we’re talking Sally-focking-noggin here, which are going for two hundred grand. All of the girls go, ‘OH! MY! GOD!’ and all of the goys go, ‘Crazy shit,’ except me because I’m only sort of, like, half-listening. Erika is sitting opposite me, roysh, and she’s looking pretty amazing I have to say, with that, like, permanent scowl on her face, that’s what Fionn calls it – a permanent scowl.
Sent her a text message the other night and it was like, U R my fantaC. C U l8r, but she didn’t answer it, don’t know if she even got it, and now I’m trying to, like, catch her eye, roysh, maybe wink at her across the table, or blow her a kiss, something stupid just to say, you know, ‘Me and you. Our little secret,’ whatever, but she’s totally ignoring the fact that I’m there.
