by Paul Howard
I turn around to her and I’m like, ‘You must be looking forward to going skiing. I’m actually looking forward to seeing you again. I’m glad you’re coming to my twenty-first.’ Pretty smooth, I have to admit. She goes, ‘Ross, I’ve told you before. You’re too much of a bastard for my liking.’ I’m there, ‘I’m not anymore. I’ve changed … Orlaith.’ I nearly said Erika. She goes, ‘Sure you have.’ I turn around to Fionn, who’s sitting beside me, roysh, and I’m like, ‘Fionn, haven’t I changed?’ And the next thing, roysh, I hear all these people going, ‘Ssshhh,’ and I turn around, ready to, like, deck someone. I’m like, ‘WHAT is your focking problem?’ Someone goes, ‘We’re trying to watch the film. You shouldn’t even have that on in here.’ It was Lord of the focking Rings. I’m like, ‘Can you blame me? This is shit.’ Then I go, ‘Orlaith, I’m going to have to call you back.’
The next thing, roysh, this bird is suddenly shining a torch in my face and telling me and Fionn to get out. I’m like, ‘With pleasure,’ but Fionn, who was actually enjoying the film, believe it or not, is really pissed off with me, the specky focker. I’m glad to see one of us understood what the fock was going on in it. It was something like six hours long. I was growing a focking beard sitting there. As we’re heading out, roysh, I think of something really funny to shout and basically I can’t resist it, roysh, so I leg it back in, open the door and I’m there, ‘We’re closing up for the night out here. Turn off the lights on your way out. When it’s finally over, that is.’ Which you have to admit, roysh, is pretty funny. Fionn didn’t think so, though. No sense of humour basically.
Dickhead gets me tickets for the Ireland versus Italy match. He’s like, ‘They’re on the mantelpiece, Ross, behind your mother’s John Rocha signature carafe.’ I’m like, ‘Am I supposed to be focking grateful or something?’ Which I probably should be, roysh, but you give my old man the least bit of encouragement and suddenly he’s trying to be all palsy-walsy with you, which basically I don’t need at this stage in my life.
I meet Oisinn and a few of the birds before the game, roysh, just for a bit of lunch, but Erika’s in one of her usual moods, just sitting there constantly sighing and, like, throwing her eyes up to heaven and she hasn’t even touched her moyashi soba. Eventually, roysh, completely out of the blue, she goes, ‘Is it just a coincidence that all the worst words in a woman’s life contain the word ‘men’? We’re talking menstruation, we’re talking meno-pause, we’re talking–’ Oisinn’s like, ‘Ménage à trois?’ And Erika, roysh, she gives him the finger and goes, ‘In your dreams,’ and me and Oisinn high-five each other, even though I don’t speak German.
The waitress bird, roysh, who Erika’s been giving filthies to all day, she brings the bill, roysh, drops it on the table and I’m straight out with the wallet, basically offering to pay for everything. I’m pretty much quids-in at the moment, and Aoife goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! you are such a life-saver. My cord is, like, SO maxed out after Christmas. I mean, Hello?’ But Erika, roysh, she goes, ‘What do you think you’re doing, Ross?’ and I’m there, ‘Treating you to lunch,’ and she, like, throws my money back across the table at me, roysh, and goes, ‘We don’t need you paying for our lunch. What is it about men?’ She gets up, roysh, and goes to the jacks, followed quickly by Aoife and Jayne with a y, and Oisinn goes, ‘Shit the bed, her difficulty with taking money from men obviously doesn’t extend to her daddy,’ and I’m like, ‘She’s just a bit hormonal, I’d say.’ I reach across the table and grab her Discman and I look inside and it’s, like, Destiny’s Child, which explains a thing or two.
Oisinn eats everybody’s leftovers, roysh, including the end of my yasai itameru, which I was planning to eat myself, but I say nothing, and we decide to head off before the chicks come back, hit Kiely’s and throw seven or eight pints into ourselves before the game. The two of us sit up at the bor and Oisinn storts telling me that Break for the Border is a great place to go if you want to score ugly birds, and we’re talking TOTALLY ugly here, and that before Christmas he was with this bird in there who looked like Colin Montgomerie, and I tell him thanks for the information.
In terms of, like, tipping us over the edge, roysh, it was the next four pints that did the damage. We were basically pretty much off our tits after about two hours and we didn’t know whether we were playing Italy or … I don’t know, some other country beginning with I, Iceland or Ithiopia. Getting focked out of Kiely’s for singing meant we got to Lansdowne Road half an hour early, roysh, and we killed the time by going from one hospitality tent to the next, heckling all these dickheads who were making, like, speeches and shit.
We go into one tent, roysh, and there’s this total knob in a suit, roysh, bullshitting on about how, as logistics and planning manager of whatever focking company he works for, he felt that in the current economic climate his business had much in common with the Irish rugby team. He’s there, ‘Maintaining consistency is vital if you don’t want to continue existing off the glories of the past. And like the Irish goys, we’re now under new management … and there are great times ahead.’ I’m about to shout, ‘Bullshit,’ roysh, but Oisinn gets in before me with something even cleverer. He goes, ‘If they’re as focking boring as you, I’m asking for my money back,’ which – surprise, surprise – only me and Oisinn find funny and one of the security guards focks us out.
We move on to the next tent, roysh, and there’s a face I vaguely recognise up on the stage and he’s there going, ‘This Paddy Teahon business could be just the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to tell the Government what they can bloody well do with Knacker Park once and for all.’ And everyone claps, roysh, and I squint my eyes to try to stop myself, like, seeing double, and Oisinn goes, ‘Ross, isn’t that your old man?’ and I’m like, ‘Let’s go and find our seats, man.’
The match is a good laugh, what I can remember of it. Oisinn suggested doing a streak, and even though I knew deep down that it was a bad idea, roysh, I just kept thinking about it for, like, the whole game, that’s how pissed I was, and I have to say I was pretty thankful for the fact that I couldn’t stand up. That was the only reason I still had my shirt and, like, chinos on at the final whistle.
We stayed in our seats for, like, half an hour after the game, roysh, until we felt we could trust our legs again, then we staggered down the steps and down the back of the West Stand and, like, all of the players had storted coming out and were wandering back to the bus. And I remembered, roysh, that I still had this disposable camera in my pocket, the one that was left on our table at Philipa’s twenty-first, so I pull it out, roysh, and I turn around to Oisinn and I’m like, ‘Let’s have some craic.’ So we walk up to, like, Gary Longwell, roysh, and I hold up the camera and I go, ‘Gary, any chance of a photograph?’ and he goes, ‘Sure.’ So I hand him the camera, roysh, and me and Oisinn stand there in front of him with an arm around each other’s shoulder and pose for a picture. It’s focking hilarious. We do the same thing to Girvan Dempsey, Ronan O’Gara and Simon Easterby, but not to Peter Clohessy. Best not to push our luck there.
So there we are, roysh, bursting our shites laughing over this, when all of a sudden this bloke comes over, I think I know the face, and he goes, ‘The jealousy must be just eating you up, boy.’ I’m like, ‘Excuse me?’ He goes, ‘You’re jealous. That’s what all this is about.’ I’m suddenly all defensive, roysh. I’m like, ‘Meaning?’ He goes, ‘Meaning that could have been you. You could have been wearing one of those green jerseys today and you know it.’
And I just walk off, roysh. Oisinn catches up with me and he asks whether I fancy going for a few more scoops, maybe back to Kiely’s if they’ll have us, but I tell him I’m, like, not in the mood anymore. And on the Dorsh, roysh, neither of us says anything, except at one point, between Sydney Parade and Booterstown, Oisinn turns around to me and goes, ‘That was Eddie O’Sullivan, wasn’t it?’ and I’m just like, ‘Cop on to yourself, Oisinn.’
CHAPTER TWO
The One Where Ross I
s 21
‘You won’t ring me,’ Muireann goes. ‘I know you won’t.’ At least, I think her name is Muireann. She’s there, ‘Oh my God, that SO always happens when a goy gets it on the first night.’ I give her a hug, roysh, and I’m there, ‘Listen to me, I’ve got as much respect for you this morning as I did last night,’ and I’m making a big zero behind her back, roysh, which is sort of, like, childish, I know, but it’s something to tell the goys later. She pulls away from me, roysh, so she can look into my eyes – as if she’s going to find something in them – and she goes, ‘Giselle was, like, SO wrong about you.’ I’m there, ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ playing it totally Kool and the Gang, hoping to get another quickie in before she heads off to work. But she’s big into hugs this bird, roysh, and she’s there giving me another, like she’s never going to see me again. And although I haven’t broken the news to her yet, she isn’t. And I’m just standing there, roysh, praying that she doesn’t move her hand down to my orse because I’ve got one of her CDs in my back pocket. It’s a long story.
About six months ago, roysh, I storted this new craze called Petty Pilfering. Basically, every time you knob a bird you have to steal a CD from her bedroom. Anyway, without wanting to sound like a total dickhead, roysh, I’ve got nearly a whole shelf of them at this stage. Some of them are pretty decent as well, I have to say. We’re talking Pulp’s A Different Class, The Verve’s Urban Hymns and the soundtrack from Trainspotting. Of course, Fionn has to, like, hijack the whole thing. He says that stealing CDs that you actually want means it’s not a game at all, it’s just thieving, which basically makes me a knacker. This all came out a couple of weeks ago in The Bailey, when I pulled out the new Oasis album, which I had snaffled from Elaine, as in Glenageary Elaine with the black curly teeth.
Fionn goes, ‘Philosophically, Ross, you’d have to ask yourself whether you’re doing this for fun, or if you’re succumbing to some primordial instinct that’s in you to take things that don’t belong to you. Who knows, in a previous life you might have lived in Bray.’ I was, like, so tempted to deck the focker, break every pane of glass in his face. Instead, roysh, I did what I do best. The next time he saw me, I laid OTT’s This One’s For You, Hootie and the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View and The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber down on the table and went, ‘Alisa from LSB, Katy from the tennis club and Simon’s cousin with the huge baps who used to work in Benetton. Read ’em and weep.’ Of course, he doesn’t know what to say. He’s there pushing his glasses up on his nose going, ‘Ross, I didn’t mean to impugn …’ I’m just like, ‘Notches on the bedpost, Fionn. Notches on the bedpost.’ I know for a fact, roysh, that the second I left the boozer he was telling everyone that I bought them myself, which is total bullshit. He knows I did the business, roysh, with a bit of help from Hugo Boss, who makes jeans with a back pocket that fits a CD, like, perfectly.
So anyway, roysh, back to Muireann. I’m there going, don’t let those hands go too low. Of course, the girl can’t help herself. She, like, grabs my orse, roysh, and she’s like, ‘What’s that?’ I’m like, ‘What?’ She goes, ‘In your pocket. What is it?’ Quick as a flash, roysh, I’m like, ‘It’s, em, a present. It’s a present for you. A CD.’ She’s like, ‘Which one?’ I can’t even remember which one I robbed. I was going to take Madonna’s Something to Remember, but couldn’t decide whether it could be classed as cool or not. Anyway, roysh, I whip the CD out and straight away she’s like, ‘Gary Barlow. Oh my God!’ Gary focking Barlow, that was it. I’m still there playing it cool as a fish’s fart. I’m like, ‘I hope you haven’t got it already.’ I know what’s coming next. ‘Em, no,’ she lies. She’s like, ‘I’ve always wanted it though. OH! MY! GOD! You are such a mind-reader. You know me SO well.’ Then she’s like, ‘This is probably such an uncool thing, but I prefer Gary Barlow to Robbie Williams. Oh my God, you SO better not tell Jenny and Esme that.’ I would except I haven’t a focking clue who she’s talking about. I’m there, ‘Yeah, well, I’m actually a Gary Barlow man myself.’ If the goys find out I said that …
She takes the CD out of the box and, like, turns around to put it on and she goes, ‘What’s your favourite song?’ and I scan down through the track list, picking songs at random. I’m like, “No Commitment’, ‘Are you Ready Now?’ ‘I Fall So Deep’, ‘Forever Love’.’ She goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! ‘Forever Love’. That’s my favourite as well. Oh my God, we are SO well suited.’ So suddenly it comes on, roysh – ‘My love it has so many empty spaces’ – and I’m there thinking, Like your head, Muireann. Just like your head. I don’t actually say it, though. She gives me another hug and we stort, like, slow-dancing in her kitchen. What a sap. Wetter than a bank holiday weekend in Dingle. But I think there’s a reasonable chance I’m going to get that quickie now.
Might take the Madonna CD after all.
Aoife says that to burn off the calories from a Snickers bar would basically take forty-five minutes on an exercise bike, and Sophie goes, ‘Oh my God! That’s, like, OH! MY! GOD!’ And Keera, roysh, she asks how long a Caramel bar would take and Aoife looks at her as though it’s, like, the stupidest question she’s ever heard in her life and she goes, ‘How the fock would I know? What am I, an expert on dieting or something?’ and Keera, like, shakes her head and goes, ‘Sorr-ee!’ and Aoife tells Keera she has such an attitude problem. Sophie says she went to the gym last night with Amy and Faye for a jacuzzi and one of those high-protein shakes.
I eat the froth at the bottom of my cup, lick the spoon and check my messages. There’s, like, two. One is from Eva who wants to know whether I’ve heard about Anna, not Anna as in first year law Portobello Anna but Anna as in clarinet Anna, and the total fool she made of herself in the rugby club last Saturday night. Michelle from Ulster Bank has also rung to say she’s, like, concerned about my overdraft, roysh, and I’m tempted to ring her back and tell her I’m glad one of us is because basically I couldn’t give two focks.
Keera stands up, roysh, and makes a little announcement – she’s going to the Ladies – and she says it, roysh, as though she expects Aoife and Sophie to come with her, but they don’t move and Keera’s already up on her feet, roysh, so she’s sort of, like, past the point of no return you could say, and she has to go on her own. When she’s gone, roysh, Aoife goes, ‘Sorry, how much weight has that girl put on?’ Sophie goes, ‘I know, I know. It’s like, OH! MY! GOD! It’s like, Hello?’ Aoife goes, ‘Tell me that’s a skinny latte she’s drinking,’ and Sophie’s like, ‘It’s, like, SO not. It’s, like, full-fat milk.’ And Aoife goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD!, that girl is, like, so … duuhh!’ Sophie goes, ‘TOTALLY. It’s, like, her points have SO gone out the window since she broke up with Eoin. If she’s, like, eating out, she only counts whatever she orders herself. If she, like, takes a few fries off your plate or has, like, half your dessert, it’s like she thinks it doesn’t count.’ Aoife’s there, ‘That is SO, like … aaaggghhh!’ and Sophie goes, ‘I know. It’s, like, totally … duuuhhh!’ Aoife’s there, ‘It SO is. I’m, like, Hello?’
Keera comes back, roysh, and Sophie goes, ‘Oh my God, Keera, you have lost SO much weight,’ and Keera, like, looks at Sophie, then at Aoife, then at Sophie again, like she can’t work out whether she’s being, like, a bitch, and she eventually goes, ‘I SO haven’t. I look in the mirror and it’s, like, OH! MY! GOD! I’m just like … aaaggghhh!’ Sophie tells her she SO should wear that pink belly top she bought in Morgan for Críosa’s twenty-first. Aoife tells her she SO should, that it would look, like, SO cool.
Fionn comes in, roysh, and it’s, like, a relief to have some male company at last. Aoife and Sophie and Keera all stand up and, like, hug and air-kiss him, and Sophie tells him she has SO missed him and Fionn pushes his glasses up on his nose and goes, ‘I met you in Benetton half an hour ago.’ Aoife goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! Speaking of Benetton, Jane texted me this morning and she said Sara is SO not going out this weekend.’ Sophie goes, ‘Oh my God, that’s, like, why not?’ And Aoife goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! S
he was such a total slut last weekend. She was, like, flirting her orse off with Conor. All night. In the rugby club. We’re talking Conor as in might be playing for the Clontarf J2s next year Conor. But she ended up being with, like, his best friend. We’re talking Cian. It’s, like, OH! MY! GOD!’ Keera goes, ‘That’s, like, SO not a cool thing to do. It’s like … duuuhhh!’ Aoife goes, ‘TOTALLY. It’s, like … aggghhh.’
Sophie goes, ‘That girl has turned into such a Samantha. It’s, like … Hello?’ Aoife goes, ‘Oh my God, I am, like, a total Samantha myself. We are talking, like, OH! MY! GOD!’ And Sophie goes, ‘No, you’re not. You’re, like, Ally McBeal. You SO don’t know what you want.’ And Keera goes, ‘And you are SO Joey from ‘Dawson’s Creek’ as well,’ and Sophie’s like, ‘Oh my God, TOTALLY,’ and Aoife, roysh, she actually looks quite pleased with that.
I ask Fionn how college is going and he says fine, his course is a piece of piss. Sophie goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! What do you think of Monica’s hair?’ and me and Fionn, roysh, we look at each other, wondering who the fock Monica is, but we cop it when she storts, like, talking about Rachel and Phoebe as though she knows them. Aoife goes, ‘I would SO like my hair like Rachel’s. It’s, like, SO cool. I’m like, OH! MY! GOD! I asked my hairdresser to, like, do my hair like hers and I looked in the mirror afterwards and it was like … aaaggghhh!’ Sophie goes, ‘I know, but that girl who did your hair, she has such an attitude problem. She is, like, SO … duuuhhh!’
