by Paul Howard
The old dear goes, ‘Put away the paper, Darling. Come on, it’s salmon-en-croute,’ and she kisses him on the forehead and I go, ‘You two stort that lovey-dovey shit again and I’m getting my own gaff. You make me want to vom, you know that?’ She totally ignores this, goes, ‘Come on, Charles. Don’t let that man upset you,’ then turns to me and she’s like, ‘and Ross, why don’t you go upstairs and change into a T-shirt. I’ve ironed your Ralph-what-do-you-call-it. Much more appropriate for a day like today. Get some colour into you,’ and I’m just there, ‘Will you just shut the fock up going on about it. You are SUCH a knob, do you know that?’
I get up from the table and, like, storm out of the house and I get into the cor and check out my neck in the rear-view. There’s only two types of people who wear polo-necks – one, total knobs, and two, anyone unlucky enough to have a big dirty Denis on their neck.
This Monday-night-in-Peg’s thing basically has to stop. I should have seen it coming, of course, but I was completely off my face, bank-holiday weekend, roysh, why not? Originally went out for a few scoops, ended up, like, knocking back beers until, whatever, maybe two in the morning, and what with one thing and another I ended up being with Auveen, this total babe who’s, like, second year Orts, roysh, and a little bit like Piper Perabo, except with, like, braces on her teeth.
Anyway, roysh, the goys – well, Fionn mostly – he calls her The Hound of the Baskervilles because when she’s, like, shit-faced, roysh, she basically storts, like, sucking the neck off you. Of course, Monday night, I’m too off my face to fight her off, so I wake up this morning, roysh, in Christian’s gaff – Ailesbury Road, focking amazing pad – and I am absolutely reeking of, like, toothpaste. Christian comes into the room, roysh, and I’m like, ‘What the fock is that smell?’ Of course, he goes, ‘You must rest. You’ve had a busy day,’ and I’m like, ‘Will you quit it with that Star Wars bullshit. Why am I smelling of toothpaste?’ and he’s, like, all offended.
He goes, ‘I put it on your neck last night. To try to get rid of the …’ and the whole night suddenly comes rushing back to me. Of course, it had to happen on the one weekend of the year when the sun is, like, splitting the trees, and I am focking burning up in the cor as I head for Kiely’s and, by the sounds of it, roysh, the weather’s going to hold for, like, half the focking summer. Some knob on the radio says there’s a heatwave on the way because, I don’t know, Fungie the Dolphin is wearing shades and a focking sombrero.
All I can say is that I’m glad I’m heading to the States in June, by which time the thing will probably be yellow, or some focking colour. I pork the cor around the corner, roysh, take fifty notes out of the old Drinklink and hit the battle-cruiser, feeling really, like, self-conscious and wondering whether the focking thing is visible. I get a pint in and head over to the goys. Zoey and Aoife are sitting with them and they’re, like, locked in conversation, which is sort of, like, unusual because those two usually hate each other’s guts.
Aoife asks Zoey why she didn’t go out last night and Zoey says she did, roysh, and Aoife goes, ‘Oh my God, how come you’re looking so well then?’ and Zoey says it’s Radiant Touch and Aoife goes, ‘Oh my God, YSL,’ and Zoey nods and says, OH MY GOD, it is such a life-saver.
Judging from his body language, JP is going to try to be with her, roysh, while Oisinn is definitely going to chance his orm with Aoife. JP asks Zoey whether she was in Reynards last night and she says no, she was in Lillies, and Aoife asks whether Bono and Matt Damon really were in there and she says no, that was only a rumour, and that the only famous people in there were two newsreaders off TV3 and the Carter Twins. Then she says she’s going to the toilet, roysh, and when she’s gone Aoife says, ‘OH! MY! GOD! Not meaning to be, like, a bitch or anything, but Zoey looks like shit.’
When Zoey comes back from the toilet, roysh, she looks at me and goes, ‘Oh my God, Ross, what the fock are you wearing?’ and everyone looks at me, roysh – we’re talking Fionn, JP, Simon, everyone – and I’m wondering whether they know what happened, whether Christian has, like, told them. I presume he hasn’t and I just go, ‘It’s a polo-neck. What’s the big deal?’ and Aoife goes, ‘You do look a bit of a knob in it, Ross.’ I tell her that polo-necks are in and Zoey thinks for a minute, roysh, and goes, ‘Oh my God, they are. I read that in Marie Claire. They’re the new, em, shirts, I think.’
I can see Simon sort of, like, sniggering, roysh, and also JP, who I think was actually in Peg’s last night, can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure now he knows the story, and basically all of a sudden, roysh, he tells me that I look like the goy off the Milk Tray ad and everyone storts breaking their shites laughing.
And then Fionn, roysh, he goes, ‘And all because the lady loves … Ross’s neck.’ And Fionn high-fives JP, and JP high-fives Christian, and Simon high-fives … Let’s just say that everyone high-fived everyone else.
Focking dickheads.
Amanda, roysh, this bird who, I have to say, has the total hots for me – a friend of Eanna’s sister – I saw her this morning at the bus stop in, like, Stillorgan, waiting for the 46A, so I pull over, roysh, ask her does she want a lift into college and she’s like, ‘Oh my God, you are SUCH a dorling,’ and I’m there, ‘Hey, it’s a pleasure to have such a beautiful girl in my car,’ playing it totally cool like Huggy Bear.
We’re getting on really well, roysh. She tells me all about this huge row she’s just had with her old pair because her old man – a complete tosser apparently – is refusing to pay her cor insurance, and then about some friend of hers who’s on the permanent guest list in Reynards. Anyway, to cut a long story short, roysh, we get to UCD and she says she so has to, like, buy me lunch later to say thank you for the lift and for listening to her problems, basically giving it loads, TOTALLY gagging for me, so I arrange to meet her in the Orts block, roysh, at, like, half-twelve.
She’s in first year, we’re talking Philosophy and, like, Linguistics, which is what she had that morning. I know because I basically just hung around waiting for her, roysh, but then I got bored so I ended up going into her lecture. She’s sitting in the back row, roysh, with a couple of her mates, one of them I recognise from Knackery Doo, the old Club d’Amour, and she sort of, like, mouths the word ‘Hi!’ to me and I scooch up beside her.
The lecturer, roysh, he is SO boring it’s unbelievable. He’s like, ‘In English, a double negative is a positive. In some languages, including Russian, the inverse is also the case, but there is no incidence in the English language where a double positive forms a negative.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, roysh!’ And everyone breaks their shites laughing, and I didn’t even realise I’d, like, said it so loud, and I look at Amanda and her head is turned the other way and I can hear her going, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I am SO embarrassed.’
I’m in my room, roysh, listening to a few sounds, bit of Eminem, bit of the Snoopster, when I’m suddenly, like, thirsty and I hit the kitchen for glass of Coke. When I get there, roysh, I’m just like, What are these two focking weirdoes up to now? The old man’s standing outside the laundry room, roysh, holding the door shut and the old dear’s standing behind him with the wok and she’s holding it up in the air, roysh, as if she’s getting ready to, like, whack someone over the head with it. I just ignore the two of them and open the fridge. The old man’s shouting through the door, giving it, ‘The guards are on their way. They’ll put a stop to your fun and games, with a capital S, you mark my words.’ The old dear goes, ‘We’re taxpayers,’ and the old man looks at her over his shoulder and he’s like, ‘That’s not technically true, Darling.’ The old dear goes, ‘And don’t you touch my underwear in there. Unless you want another ten years on your sentence, you monster.’
Of course, the curiosity is storting to, like, get to me at this stage, roysh, so I go, ‘What the fock are you two on?’ The old man’s like, ‘Ross, you are home. Didn’t you hear your mother screaming?’ I’m there, ‘Considering I was listening to music in my focking room, n
o, I didn’t. What were you screaming about, you stupid wagon? Another halting site planned for Foxrock?’ The old man goes, ‘Would it were that simple, Ross. No, we’ve got an intruder. Your mother caught him in the laundry. In the laundry, if you please.’
I go, ‘If there is an intruder, and the Feds are on their way, why isn’t he trying to get out of there?’ The old pair look at each other, roysh, and the old man’s like, ‘There’s a point, Darling. How hard did you hit him with that thing?’ She goes, ‘Pretty hard. He was naked, Charles. Kept waving his … thing at me. Oh the thoughts of it.’ The old man goes, ‘It’ll be a bloody nuisance if he’s dead. The police’ll probably try to blame us. You saw that chap in England. Killed those four yobbos who were trying to steal his lawnmower and suddenly he’s the one in the wrong.’ She’s like, ‘What are you saying, Charles?’ and he goes, ‘There’s all kinds of loopholes in the law to protect these people, Fionnuala. We’re going to have to dispose of the body.’ The old dear storts crying, roysh – the stupid focking sap – and the old man goes, ‘Hennessy knows people who can take care of it.’
I’m bored listening to this crap, roysh, so I just push the old man out of the way and shoulder-charge the door and it, like, flings open, roysh, and what do I see – I should have focking guessed – Eros lying facedown on the floor with a big focking chunk, about the size of a wok, taken out of the back of his head. I break my balls laughing, roysh, while the old man leans up against the wall and goes, ‘Thank heavens. Thank heavens for that.’
I stand the statue up again and ask Dick-features if he has any Pollyfilla, but he goes, ‘What’s that blasted thing doing here, Ross?’ I’m there, ‘If you must know, I stole it from the Classics Museum. Me and Oisinn are trying to extort a grand out of UCD.’ The old man goes, ‘I say, what fun.’ The next thing, roysh, the doorbell rings and, of course, it’s the Feds, so I have to, like, stick the thing in the cupboard under the stairs.
The old pair go to the door and I can hear the old man giving it, ‘Sorry, chaps. False alarm,’ and the Feds saying something about wasting Garda time and the old man going, ‘Well, I presume that’s what they want me to pay my taxes for,’ and he slams the door. And the old dear, roysh, she goes, ‘Gosh, Charles, you sounded just like Spencer Tracy then.’ The old man’s like, ‘I did?’ and she’s there, ‘Yes. In Bad Day at Black Rock. Let’s go upstairs, Darling.’ I’m there, ‘Hey, cut that shit out. You two doing it? The focking thought of it makes me wanna borf.’
The statue has got to go. I phone the goys and tell them.
Still no word from, like, Sorcha.
The old man’s solicitor recommended that he reach a settlement with the Revenue Commissioners, roysh, so he’s heading out to Portmarnock to discuss it with him over an early-morning round of golf. Anyway, roysh, he asks me to drive him, obviously planning to have a few scoops, and I tell him it’s no problem at all, even though it sticks in my throat to be nice to the focker, but I’m heading off to the States in a few weeks and I’m gonna need seven or eight hundred notes to bring with me.
So there we are, driving along, roysh, and the old man’s boring the ears off me, giving it, ‘Hennessy wants me to settle for a hundred thousand pounds, Ross. Or a Rezoning, as he calls it. You know how he likes to joke about this tribunal nonsense,’ and I’m seriously fighting the urge to call him a wanker and tell him to shut the fock up. Being up at, like, seven o’clock on a Saturday morning is bad enough without having to listen to his bullshit.
So anyway, roysh, basically what happens is that I end up breaking a red light at the bottom of, like, Stradbrook Road and suddenly, roysh, this old dear in a red Subaru Signet comes around the corner and, like, ploughs into the side of me. It’s a good job I’m driving the old man’s Volvo and not my Golf GTI because this thing has side-impact bors, it’s like a focking tank, and even after the crash there’s fock-all wrong with it. Which is more than can be said for the other cor, which is, like, pretty badly damaged and shit. The second it happens, roysh, the old man goes, ‘Leave the talking to me, Ross. The first line here is all-important.’
The two of us get out and walk up to the driver’s side of the other cor, roysh, and the bird winds down the window and straight away the old man goes, ‘Is your neck alright?’ and the woman, roysh, she’s a total AJH, she goes, ‘Me neck’s grand.’ The old man turns around to me and goes, ‘You heard that, Ross. Nothing wrong with her neck. Little trick Hennessy taught me. Cuts off any possible spurious claim for whiplash at source,’ and then he, like, whispers, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against working-class people. Quote unquote. Hit one of them in your car, though, and one visit to their solicitor later, they’re wearing a surgical collar and trying to sting you for fifty grand.’
The old man goes to the creamer, ‘Well, let’s be thankful there’s no real damage done here. We’ll bid you adieu,’ and he goes to walk off. Of course the slapper’s like, ‘No damage? What about me car?’ and she gets out. Holy fock! Leggings are SO focking unattractive. Why do poor people have to wear them? She’s pointing to the front of the cor – a Subaru Signet, for fock’s sake – and she storts getting a bit smart then, roysh, going, ‘Someone’s going to have to pay for this,’ then basically accuses me of breaking a red light, which I totally deny, even though it’s true.
The old man, you have to admire him even though he’s a total knob, he goes, ‘Am I to take it from your tone that you intend to claim from my insurance company for this accident?’ and the woman’s like, ‘Course we bleedin’ do.’
I go, ‘Easier than holding us up with a syringe, I suppose,’ and she’s like, ‘What d’ye mean by dat?’
Never mentioned it before, roysh, but she’s got her daughter sitting in the cor beside her and she’s an even bigger knick-knack than her old dear, and of course she decides to get involved herself then. She, like, rips open the cor door and storts giving me loads – ice blue denim mini and black tights, very focking tasteful – saying we better hand over our inshooorice details or there’ll be moorder, fookin moorder. She says there’ll be even wooorse if she misses her floy t’Englind, so there will.
I’m just there giving it, ‘Fock off back to Knackeragua,’ but the old man turns around to me and goes, ‘Let me handle this, Kicker. I haven’t kept my insurance premium so low for so many years without knowing a trick or six.’
He turns around to the daughter, roysh – rings all over her fingers, looks like she’s focking mugged Doctor Dre – and he asks her what time her flight is at, and she says that she’s supposed to be checkin’ in at half bleedin’ seven, so she is. The old man looks at his watch and he goes, ‘It’s already a quarter past seven, you do know that, don’t you?’ and the daughter goes, ‘So bleedin’ wha’?’ The old man – he’s loving this, roysh – he’s like, ‘What I’m saying is that you’re late for your flight. And you were obviously in too much of a hurry to watch the road in front of you.’
And she just loses the plot then, telling the old man he’s this and that, then actually saying the crash happened because I was on my mobile. Basically, roysh, I wasn’t on my mobile when I crashed the light, but I was checking my messages to see if Sorcha had replied to my text, though I wasn’t going to admit that, not with the old man running circles around them.
He goes, ‘I’m not saying that you were speeding to try to make the flight. That’s just how a judge might look at it.’ She hasn’t a focking clue what to say then, the daughter. The mother, roysh, she goes, ‘A judge?’ and the old man goes, ‘But of course. If you think you’re sending my premium soaring through the roof for this bucket of bolts, you can think again.’
He goes, ‘You’re no stranger to the court system, I’d wager. Spot of shoplifting, perhaps. Handling stolen credit cards, that type of thing. Off to England then, were we?’ Mummy skanger goes, ‘She is. She’s off to see her fella,’ and daughter skanger goes, ‘Tell dem nuttin’, Ma.’
The old man goes, ‘Bit of a send-off last night then?�
� and the mother, roysh, she shrugs her shoulders and goes, ‘The local,’ real defensive, like, and she’s there, ‘Have ye a problem wit dat?’ obviously not realising that the old man’s going to blow her out of the water in a minute. He goes, ‘Had a few drinks, did we? A few pints of this lager, perchance?’ She goes, ‘I know what yer getting at. I only had tree glasses,’ but the old man’s like, ‘Did you know you could still actually be over the limit?’
The daughter, roysh, she jumps back in then, giving it, ‘Are you sayin’ me ma’s locked?’ and he goes, ‘I’m not in any position to judge that. I’m going to call the Gardaí. They can breathalyse her.’
He storts, like, punching the number into his phone, roysh, then he stops and goes, ‘There is another alternative, of course. You could get back in your little banger there and be on your way.’
Who knows what the Feds have on these two, roysh, because they only think about it for, like, ten seconds, roysh, then they fock off, calling me and the old man every name under the sun as they get back into their little shit-bucket and fock off.
The old man asks me whether I think he should still call the cops, roysh, maybe report them for leaving the scene of an accident, just so they don’t have any second thoughts about claiming. It’s tempting, roysh, but in the end I tell him not to bother.
I would SO love to know what Sorcha’s game is. She hasn’t returned any of my texts for the past, like, two weeks, roysh, then she sends me one today and it’s like, drnk 2moro queens @ 8. She is SO focking with my head at the moment.
