The Oh My God Delusion

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  The old dear – finally – caved on the whole paycut thing. I hear it on the lunchtime news as I’m waking up with a hangover that knows my name and a slightly chunky bird from Glenageary who, happily, doesn’t.

  She’s like a fuller version of Leah Remini, this bird, and she rides like she actually invented it. Now, though, we’re going to have to say goodbye, because I’ve got shit to do. See, it’s not every day I get to look my old dear in the face and laugh. I give the girl a glass of water and a few porting words of wisdom – ‘neither of us should be ashamed of what happened last night, far from it, in fact, casual sex and blahdy blahdy blah blah’ – then drop her to the Luas Station in Sandyford. I think she ends up dazed at the slickness of the manoeuvre as I leave her there, in the pissings of rain, still clutching the tenner I pressed into her hand. I don’t know why I do that? Oisinn always said it was a bit, I suppose, sleazy. Anyway, ten minutes later, I’m pulling into RTÉ. I throw the beast into Ryle Nugent’s porking space – fock him – then tip over to TV reception. The bird behind the desk – the one who’s a ringer for Shanna Moakler – knows me only too well and she immediately picks up the Wolfe when she sees me coming and dials the old dear’s extension. Literally five seconds later, while she’s still waiting for an answer, the old dear comes bursting through the double doors, with her make-up all over the shop and her BlackBerry slapped to her ear, giving out yords to someone in this, like, loud, screechy voice. I honestly haven’t seen her this upset since Jackie Lavin stuck her XC90 in her porking space at Foxrock Golf Club while she was still lady captain. It turns out, roysh, that this has got fock-all to do with the paycut she’s agreed to. Listening to her side of the conversation, it soon becomes obvious that RTÉ have asked her to stort cooking dishes on her show that better reflect what they’re calling the new economic realities. ‘You think you can just change the name of my programme from FO’CK Cooking to FO’CK on a Budget without any consultation whatsoever?’ she’s giving it at the top of her voice. ‘A piece of advice for you – do not be anywhere near me the next time I’ve got my Stellar Sabatier in my hand,’ and then she just, like, hangs up. I actually laugh, then ask her what’s the Johnny McRory. She’s, like, too upset to nearly speak. She just hands me this big, I suppose, whack of paper, we’re talking all A4 sheets, which she tells me, when she finally gets her shit together, is a list of all the ingredients she’s no longer allowed to use on the show. I leaf through it and read some of the things. We’re talking bulghar wheat. We’re talking colocasia. We’re talking black cohosh. We’re talking even Mascarpone? ‘Six months ago,’ she goes, not unreasonably in my humble op, ‘everyone in Ireland was eating those things. It’s back to the bloody caves we’re headed.’ Bee balm. Pandanus. Even lemon verbena. ‘Do you know what they’re suggesting I cook with tomorrow? Swede, Ross!’ There’s real anger in her eyes. I’ve seen the same crazy look in police mugshots of Catherine Nevin. ‘What’s swede?’ I obviously go. ‘It’s like a rutabaga,’ she goes, ‘except for poor people. And they’re asking me to go on national television and encourage people to …’ Her voice trails off. It’s like she’s suddenly had an idea. ‘Maybe if I chopped it up,’ she suddenly goes, ‘I could do one of my famous lanttulaatikkos … Ross, just tell me, is daikon on the proscribed list?’ I give it the old left to right. Luckily it’s in, like, alphabetical order? I’m there, ‘Er, yeah, it is.’ ‘You’re joking!’ she goes. ‘Well, what about canola oil?’ I laugh. I’m there, ‘Yeah, that too.’ ‘Okay,’ she goes, still trying to hold it together. ‘Maybe I could do my faux proletarian hotpot, with pumpkin, sausage and root vegetables. I’m presuming they’ve not gone completely insane and banned me from using savoury kielbasa …’ I flick through the pages and then I’m like, ‘Er, would you believe it if I told you …’ ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ she just goes – this, remember, in the middle of TV reception. ‘You can get kielbasa in Aldi. A friend of Delma’s went once – she saw it with her own eyes …’ I’m in a jocker laughing at this stage. ‘Sorry to disappoint you – it’s on the banned list.’ ‘Okay,’ she goes, still trying to control her breathing, ‘don’t panic, Fionnuala. Just think … Okay, no one – and I mean no one – who has tasted my rutabaga and apple casserole has anything other than loved it. If I put enough cinnamon in, no one need ever know it’s – ugh, I can barely bring myself to say the word – swede!’ ‘Well,’ I go, running my finger down the c’s, ‘you’re all right with cinnamon.’ ‘Sense!’ she goes. ‘At last! What about all-purpose flour?’ I’m there, ‘Good to go – that’s not on the list.’ ‘What about light-brown sugar?’ ‘Again,’ I go, ‘well within the rules.’ She’s like, ‘What about seakale and haricots verts?’ She cops my expression, roysh, and she immediately knows and that’s when she suddenly can’t hold it together any longer. She lets, like, a scream out of her, and Rachel Allen, who’s arriving for work, does a full three-sixty in the swing door and goes back out into the corpork again. ‘Famine food,’ the old dear’s suddenly screaming at her through, like, an inch of plate glass. ‘That’s what they’re asking me to cook, Rachel! Focking famine food!’ Then she storms through the double doors again, demanding a meeting with – don’t ask me – but Cathal Goan. I give Rachel a little wink to tell her it’s safe to come in now, while hoping to fock that someone had the cop to hide that Stellar Sabatier. I’m totally gay, I’m telling Fionn, for these new Black Forest lattes that they’re doing in Buckys. They taste like a cake but they’re an actual drink? Close your eyes and you could forget that there’s even a recession on. We’re in the one in Blackrock, by the way. I take another sip, then ask Fionn why he wanted to meet up. ‘Here, is it about JP’s new bird?’ I go. ‘Because what you’re not hearing from him is that she’s mental and colder than a witch’s tit.’ ‘No,’ he goes, ‘it’s about, er – actually, let’s just wait till Erika arrives.’ I’m there, ‘Erika?’ ‘Ah, here she comes.’ I turn around. She’s walking past the sign for the blade grinder recall and she looks – I make no apologies for saying it – really, really, really, really well. ‘Have you said anything?’ she goes to Fionn before she even sits down. Fionn’s like, ‘Not yet.’ Then she just fixes me with a look and goes, ‘Ross, you need to talk to Sorcha.’ There’s a real, I don’t know, intervention vibe to it – like back at school? I’m there, ‘Sorcha? What are you shitting on about?’ ‘She’s been under a huge amount of mental strain,’ Erika goes, ‘with the shop …’ ‘The shop’s been closed, what, nearly two weeks now?’ Fionn chips in then. ‘We know, Ross. But the struggle she went through, trying to keep it afloat, it must have put enormous pressure on her.’ ‘Well, thank fock it’s over is what I say.’ Fionn and Erika exchange a look, like they can’t believe how actually stupid I am? ‘Fionn’s mum saw her yesterday,’ Erika goes, just blurting it out, ‘in Fallon & Byrne – in the food court …’ ‘And?’ Fionn takes, like, a deep breath. ‘Ross, she saw Sorcha put some items into her bag … And then leave the shop without paying for them.’ ‘What?’ I’m in, like, total shock. ‘What kind of items are we even talking?’ ‘My mum thought okra, lingots blancs …’ ‘You’re actually taking the piss here.’ ‘And some purple salad potatoes.’ ‘Jesus Christ!’ I’m in actual shock. I can’t believe this is, like, Sorcha we’re talking about? As in, the most honest person I know. The girl who was head of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation group at school, who was even a Minister for the Eucharist in Killiney Church until Mass storted clashing with 90210 on a Sunday morning. I literally can’t take it in. I’m there, ‘How much even is okra?’ still in shock, I suppose. Erika looks at Fionn, then back at me. ‘Ross, why is that important?’ I’m there, ‘I don’t know. I suppose it isn’t. What I mean is, you know, maybe she just forgot to pay for it …’ Erika shakes her head. ‘When Fionn rang me and told me, it tallied with one or two things I saw over the past few weeks.’ ‘Weeks? Are you
saying this has been going on for weeks?’ ‘She’s been under a huge amount of strain, Ross. And, yes, there was one day in D4 Stores …’ ‘Stealing from Gayle Killilea and Seán Dunne?’ I go. ‘Jesus, how low can anyone stoop …’ ‘Ross,’ she goes, ‘you really need to watch her. We all do.’ I sit back in my ormchair and look up at the ceiling, as if to say, what more can this recession possibly throw at me? If Terry and Larry had left me alone since the whole Nationwide mix-up, it was only because they’d been away on their summer holidays. And I only knew that because their old dear had been dropping by twice a day to feed Rooney – fock knows what but my guess, knowing what her boys do for a living, would be human body ports. I saw her just the once, half nine in the morning, getting into the lift in front of me, with this blonde bird – a focking spare rib in a Juicy tracksuit, who I immediately took to be Terry and Larry’s older sister. I hung back, of course, remembering that she’d had the neighbours in to watch the interview and half suspecting that my comments about her sons knocking a lot of Ks off the value of my aportment might not have gone down well with her. My gut instinct proved to be right, because that night, when they arrived to give the dog his dinner, I could hear the mother in the hallway going, ‘He’s in dare, de doorty pox. Ife a good moyunt to knock …’ Then the daughter, who turned out to be called Tanya – they so often are – went, ‘Why doatunt ye? Say it to he’s face, Ma – snoppy fooken bastoord.’ Happily, roysh, they didn’t knock. Instead, they sought to even up the score by throwing Rooney’s shit over the glass partition separating our two balconies – Tanya constantly in her mother’s ear, telling her that what they should be doing is force-feeding it to me. Because courteous living … is a civil right. It was – if you can believe this – an actual relief to have Terry and Larry back. I saw them through the spyhole arriving home at, like, nine o’clock in the morning, suntanned and freshly tattooed, with their Duty Free bottles clinking away at their sides. I felt this unbelievable urge to go out and hug them, though I wisely managed to resist it. They were, like, quiet for the rest of the day, obviously sleeping off the effects of the overnight flight from Tallamolinos or wherever the fock they were. That afternoon, roysh, I hit Dundrum, just to get a few things – not important. It was while I was on my way back, still on the actual M50, that I saw the banner – WELCOME HOME TERRY AND LARRY – hanging between two balconies on the floor below mine. That’s when I realized that the Deportment of Social Welfare had moved more of them in and that Rosa Parks was fast becoming a kind of Wheatfield without the hope of eventual release. Still, I decided to mind my own beeswax as best I could. That night, I – let’s just say – entertained a young lady called Erin Boylan – or Erin Go Braless, as we used to call her, for reasons I won’t explain out of, like, respect for the girl? She was on her back, with her legs in the air, blaspheming at the ceiling while I did my thing, managing to maintain my stroke despite the noise from the obvious porty that was in full swing next door. ‘Is that Leo Sayer?’ Erin went at some point in our, I’m going to call it love-making, referring of course to the music. ‘It is – that’s “More than I Can Say”. Oh my God, my mum loves Leo Sayer. How random!’ After this brief, I don’t know, interlude, we went back to doing the bould thing, except we were interrupted from our exertions again a short time later by the sound of someone banging on the aportment door. I was up on my elbows, going, ‘Ignore it,’ except the longer we did, the more – I don’t know – persistent the banging grew? Eventually, roysh, I had to hop off her, throw on the old Cantos and the Leinster training jersey and answer it. It turned out to be some fat dude, who introduced himself to me as Daso from number 475, which I took to mean 475 Rosa Parks. ‘Mon,’ he went, ‘de boys want a woord,’ and from the confident way he turned, it was obvious he hadn’t even considered the possibility of me refusing the invitation. I followed him out into the hallway, then in next door, where – I was right – a porty was in full flow. And it was Leo Sayer, by the way. I saw his Greatest Hits on the coffee table. Someone had obviously been using the case from the CD to chop up lines of coke. ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’ just happened to come on as I walked into the living room, where ten, maybe fifteen teenage skobes were suddenly staring at me in what would have to be described as a seriously hostile way. It reminded me of the time Sorcha persuaded me to take her to Iffey Valley Shopping Centre. I was as much in fear of my life that day as I was now. Someone mentioned Nationwide, then someone else called me a wankoar, as my eyes searched the room for a friendly face. Even Rooney’s would have been a welcome alternative to this. ‘Mon out here, Ross,’ someone – it turned out to be Terry – shouted from the kitchen. It felt weirdly good to see him, sitting at the table. And Larry, who was pouring shots of what he pronounced as Sudderden Comfort for five or six other heads who were just standing around. Terry refused my offer of a high-five, though I was keen to give him the benefit of the doubt, presuming he’d never come across one before. ‘Sithowin dare,’ he went, signalling the chair opposite him. I pulled it out, docked my orse on it. ‘How was the hollier?’ I went, still shitting the old trackie daks, but finding some focked-up consolation in the idea that, even if I die here, at least the last face I’m going to see will be a familiar one. He didn’t answer. ‘We goth off on de wrong footh,’ he just went. I was like, ‘Agreed,’ because it sounded like they wanted to put the whole Mary Kennedy experience behind them. He looked at the others, then nodded at my jersey – the horp on it. He was like, ‘Ross hee-er’s a rubby man.’ Of course, from the looks I ended up getting, he might as well have said I focked chickens. It was all, ‘Rubby? Rubby? I doatunt agree with dat.’ One of them – the, honestly, hordest-looking man I’ve ever seen in my life – went, ‘Couple of feddas I knew insoyit – dee were from Limerick – dey were mad into der rubby.’ ‘That’s the beauty of the game,’ I ended up going, ever keen to spread the gospel, ‘especially in Limerick – you’ve got both ends of society who follow it.’ ‘Boat ends?’ it was Larry who went. ‘Yeah. I don’t know if you know this but “The Fields of Athenry” is actually about a criminal from that side of the country. That’s why they love it down there.’ They all nodded like they found it suddenly interesting. That’s the key to teaching, Fionn always said – you’ve got to find something to engage them. ‘See me?’ Terry went. ‘I caddent make head nor fooken tayul of dat gayum …’ I laughed. It was, like, I had to? I was there, ‘It is a pretty complicated game, in fairness to you.’ Terry went, ‘But how’s it woork? Explain it to us.’ Which, like a focking idiot, I attempted to do. ‘Okay,’ I went, ‘have you got something I could use to represent each of the positions?’ From nowhere, roysh, Larry produced a fistful of what turned out to be pill bottles – full, of course. There were exactly seven of them. Of course I didn’t even think about what was in them because I was suddenly in my element. A lot of people are of the view that I was, like, born to coach? I used the bottles to set up the backline – scrum-half, out-half, inside-centre, outside-centre, right-wing, left-wing, fullback – and then I explained to them a little bit about how the entire thing should, in theory, function. I also managed to slip in the fact that the backs are basically the glamour boys of the game and made sure to mention that I was one myself back in my playing days. There they were, roysh, all nodding and it almost felt like I was back in Andorra again, passing on the gospel to people who’ve never been privileged enough to hear it before. ‘Now,’ I went, really warming to it, ‘the forwards are generally much bigger …’ ‘Hee-er,’ it was Larry who went, then he produced a cordboard box from under the sink, which he turned over on to the table. My hort nearly stopped – actually, I’m pretty sure it did stop for two or three seconds. Because what came tumbling out of that box, into the middle of the exact same Sandra Kragnert-designed Fusion table that Sorcha got from Ikea, were eight semi-automatic pistols. I recognized them immediately from a Public Enemy video that’s on my
YouTube favourites. I was like, ‘Errr …’ ‘Deer not loated,’ Larry went. ‘Keep goin …’ I was literally shitting myself, roysh, but I had no option but to keep going with the, I suppose, lesson? I took the eight guns and I laid them out in lines of three, two and three – front row, second row, back row – then, with my hands actually trembling, I tried to talk them through how the scrum and lineout worked. ‘Of course,’ I went, my voice shaking, ‘the other job the forwards do is softening up the opposition, so the pretty boys like myself, Pivot and Johnny Sex can do our thing …’ Terry was just staring at me, across this highly illegal team formation, loving the sudden fear that he could sense in me. ‘Eer ma was veddy upseth,’ he went. ‘De tings ya said …’ His poor mother. My balcony looked like a focking dirty protest in a dogs’ home. I was like, ‘Yeah, so I believe …’ He just nodded. ‘We doatunt want any mower of you toordenin your nose up arrus in de lift, bangin on de wall, tellin us we’re not in Fuerteventura now, stickin notes unther the doh-er, givin our abourrus hangin eer washin on de balcony …’ ‘Dude,’ I went, ‘that was all before I found out who you actually were?’ He nodded at the stash in front of us. ‘Well,’ he went, ‘now you know. An anutter ting, Mr High and fooken Moythee, your fingerprints is now all over dem guns and thrugs …’ It’s her. Definitely, roysh, because that’s the Betsey Johnson pleated coat I bought her for, like, her birthday last year? I’m standing, like, a good twenty yords behind her, watching her push the trolley up the Soups and Sauces aisle. She suddenly stops and reaches for something. One thing she’s always loved about Superquinn is their own-brand mulligatawny soup. Honor is sitting in the little seat in the front of the trolley. Even from this distance, she cops me. ‘Daddy!’ she suddenly goes. ‘Mummy, I can see Daddy!’ and I have to quickly step behind a board advertising their Euro Saver Switch and Save Scheme. I’m thinking, twenty-twenty vision – just like her old man. ‘No,’ I hear Sorcha go, ‘Daddy’s not here today, Dorling.’ Except I am. Unfortunately for her, I’m very much here. I peek out, just as Sorcha’s disappearing around the end of the aisle and into Pastas and Cooking Oils. I tip after her, hide behind a pallet piled high with kitchen roll, then have a quick peek out. She’s stopped again. Except this time, roysh, I watch her take a jor from the shelf and look over both shoulders. Then – and it sends me cold, roysh, even though I know it’s coming? – she slips the jor inside her coat. See, I’d wanted Fionn and Erika to be wrong. My next-door neighbours are gangland criminals and now my still-wife is a common shoplifter. Talk about the good times being well and truly over. I walk straight up behind her. I put my hand on her shoulder and she ends up nearly bombing her knickers. She whips around as if she’s just been stung. ‘Ross!’ she goes. ‘You frightened me!’ I’m in no mood for pleasantries, though. I’m like, ‘Er, are you going to pay for those carciofini di Cupello in oli extra vergine di oliva?’ Of course she tries to act the innocent. She’s there, ‘What?’ except I’m not going to let it go. ‘Er, what port of carciofini di Cupello in oli extra vergine di oliva do you not understand, Sorcha?’ She looks away. She’s busted and she knows it. I hold my hand out and she suddenly looks at me, madder than madness itself. She reaches into her coat – it is the one I bought her? – and plonks the jor into my hand. I put it back on the shelf. ‘And the wild lavender honey with walnuts,’ I go, ‘that I’m pretty sure I saw you take earlier?’ She’s there, ‘So, what, you’re following me around now?’ She reaches into the other side of her coat and hands me that as well. She’s actually furious? I decide I still need to give her some tough love, though. ‘Do you want to end up sharing a cell with the focking Scissor Sisters?’ That draws a few looks, I can tell you. It’s not the kind of thing you’d expect to hear shouted in Superquinn a year ago. Lidl maybe, but not Superquinn. Sorcha just turns away from me. She’s like, ‘What do you care?’ and she goes to push her trolley away. ‘Oh, I care,’ I go, chasing after her. ‘If I didn’t care, then why would I have gone on the internet last night and Googled loads of shit about basically shoplifting?’ I whip out a couple of sheets of paper – just shit I printed out. She rounds the corner into Cereals and Flour but I’m, like, determined to say my piece. ‘It says in this particular orticle that an estimated forty percent of shoplifting cases aren’t acquisitive crimes … And I even looked that up – this dude who supposedly doesn’t care – and it means doing it for, like, gain?’ She keeps walking but I keep following her. ‘Sorcha, you’ve been under unbelievable stress …’ ‘I’m fine!’ ‘I think you’re far from it. I think you should maybe see someone – a doctor, for example?’ ‘I said I’m fine.’ Except I don’t give a fock what she said. I’m going to give her a few home truths whether she likes it or not. I’m there, ‘Psychologists believe that up to twenty-two percent of all shoplifting is compulsive in nature and most likely a function of stress and/or depression. And/or, Sorcha! And/or!’ She stops, picks a jor of wheat germ off the shelf and drops it into the trolley, still blanking me. ‘Hey,’ I go, ‘this is not some random horseshit I picked up just anywhere – this was on the internet, Sorcha.’ But she just pushes her trolley on, not wanting to know a thing about the research I’ve done. Two things are immediately clear to me. The first is that she’s almost certainly going to keep doing this shit, regardless of what I say? The second is that it’s not going to end well. The thing about these high-definition plasma TVs is, you buy them because, in the shop, you’ve seen some amazing scene off National Geographic – a killer whale horsing a sealion or some dude heliskiing down the side of a focking glacier. But of course you get the thing home and you end up just watching Coronation Street on it, staring into the abyss of Blanche’s nostrils while you’re trying to eat your dinner. Or, worse, the old dear’s nostrils. I’m looking at her up there on the screen, thinking, if you swung on those focking nose-hairs, you’d expect to hear the Christchurch bells. I’m in the sack, roysh, watching the latest episode of her show since it was renamed FO’CK on a Budget and it’s possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. She’s showing the camera, like, an ordinary corn on the cob? ‘Now,’ she’s going, ‘when I want to eat sweetcorn – like most people – it simply has to be Fallon & Byrne, with their wonderful, wonderful vegetable range, all fresh, all organic and all locally produced. However, if you’ve been made redundant –or you’ve been shamed by the media into accepting an arbitary cut in your standard of living – a cheaper alternative is now available …’ The next thing, roysh, she puts down the corn on the cob and picks up what looks very much to me like a tin of sweetcorn, except from the way she’s holding it, it might as well be white dog shit. ‘Now, this is what’s known as processed food – and, if certain people in this very building are to be believed, it’s going to be all in for the next few years. Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be staring at this rather odd-looking, ribbed-aluminium can, thinking, “But how do I get the food – and I use that word advisedly – out of there?” Well, don’t panic – you do it using one of these …’ I don’t actually believe it. She’s about to show the nation how to use a focking tin opener. ‘As recently as the 1980s,’ she goes, and you can tell she’s struggling to even say the words, ‘you would have found one of these items in most household kitchen drawers, although they became obsolete with the advent of farmers markets and the drive towards fresh, agrichemical-free produce with fewer food miles …’ The camera pans in for a close-up. ‘This particular – if you like – tin opener is a classic, no-fuss butterfly model. It features a set of jaws – right here – which hold the can in place, while this little serrated rotating wheel here – are we getting it there on camera two? – punctures the can. ‘Then – this is the difficult bit, though George Lee told me in the canteen an hour ago that we’re all going to get plenty of practice at this – you twist this butterfly-shaped wingnut here and the serrated rotating wheel, as you can see, literally cuts through the metal …’ H
er voice is breaking with emotion. I’m there laughing but at the same time shaking my head – much as I hate her guts – unable to believe that RTÉ – or anyone – could put another human being through something like this. That’s when my phone all of a sudden rings. I answer without checking who it is. Big mistake. ‘The best laid plans of mice and men!’ he goes. That’s, like, his opening line? ‘I’m focking busy,’ I just go. He’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll bet. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree …’ I’m there, ‘Actually, if you must know, I’m in bed watching your, I know you’ve forgotten, but wife, showing this once proud nation how to use a focking tin opener …’ I can tell he’s in shock, roysh, but he tries not to let it show. ‘Well,’ he just goes, ‘I’m having my own travails with this current economic business. My plan for the Mountjoy Hotel and Casino has had to be shelved, Ross …’ I’m there, ‘Focking delighted!’ ‘Much as I hate to burden you with my woes. It seems the parlous state of the nation’s finances has forced the government to put their plans for a new prison on hold …’ I’m there, ‘They should just stick a big focking wall around Rosa Parks – save themselves a fortune.’ He goes, ‘Means old Joshua Jebb’s folly is going to stay the way it is for the forseeable …’ He sighs then. ‘All that planning,’ he has the actual balls to go. ‘All that work. I’m beginning to think maybe I erred, Ross, when I said this recession was going to pass us by. I’m feeling rather down today …’ ‘Well,’ I just go, ‘you’re also depressing me. Ring your precious daughter – she’ll listen, I’m sure.’ I hang up, just as the old dear is scraping sweetcorn out of a pot on to a plate. She eats a forkful of it and pretends to even like it, even though she has a face on her like an old-age pensioner licking anti-freeze off a hot stove. She’s got, like, tears in her eyes, going, ‘Tomorrow, we’ll be looking at textured vegetable protein and other cheaper alternatives to meat …’ In a weird, focked-up way, she has me almost feeling sorry for her? Except, roysh, just as I’m struggling to come to terms with the sensation, I hear all this sudden talking outside in the hallway. I mute Cruella and have a listen. From what I can make out, Terry and Larry are, like, thanking someone for calling in. It’s all sowint as a powint and we’ll see you arowint. Then I hear his voice and I realize that who they’re talking to is – shit! – Ronan. I suddenly don’t give a fock how many guns they’re, I don’t know, packing? I reef open the front door and go, ‘Er, Ro, can you come in here – as in now?’ ‘Ah, howiya, Rosser?’ he just goes. You’d never know the Blathin business even happened. Terry and Larry, of course, break into immediate smiles, seeing my stress, like they’ve suddenly found my Achilles’ heel. When I manage to prise Ro away from them, all he can go is, ‘Thee say never meet your heerdoes – they’re fooken wrong, Rosser …’ I decide at first not to give him the whole heavy father routine? See, I know enough kids to know that they’ll usually do the exact opposite of what you tell them. Plus, if I told him the aportment was full of guns and drugs, you’d need to focking Taser him to get him out of there. No, instead I try to, like, change the subject. Today happens to be the first day of his summer holidays. ‘Six lovely weeks stretching out ahead of you,’ I try to go, handing him a can of Cidona. ‘And you’re young, free and single. Finglas had better lock up its daughters …’ Or at least the ones who aren’t already locked up. ‘Nah,’ he just goes, picking up one of my dumbbells and performing a couple of stretches with it, ‘not havin athin to do with boords for now …’ I laugh. ‘Let me tell you something, Ro – the number of times I’ve said that over the years. No, unfortunately, they’re as addictive as those cigarettes you smoke.’ At the mention of the word, he whips one out, then pats the pockets of his school trousers looking for his lighter. ‘Tetty and Laddy,’ he goes, ‘they don’t have boords …’ ‘Are you surprised? The focking state of them …’ ‘No, thee reckon thee only holt you back. If you’re maddied to a life of crime, Laddy said, you caddent be maddied to anyone else – dudn’t woork.’ ‘I’m not sure I’d agree with his analysis there, Ro. What about your big hero?’ ‘The Genoddle?’ ‘Yeah, he was very happily married. And he was doing her sister, wasn’t he?’ He lights his cigarette. ‘Yeah,’ he goes, ‘but Tetty and Laddy say boords are a distraction. And thee send you fooken mad if you ever have to do toyim …’ I end up losing it with him then, which is what I definitely didn’t want to do? I’m there, ‘If you ever have to do time? Jesus Christ, Ro, you’re twelve …’ He seems all of a sudden hurt. ‘Laddy had he’s foorst J-Lo at torteen.’ ‘His first what?’ ‘Juvenile let-off.’ ‘Er, can I just remind you, Ro – a few months ago you were going out with a bird whose old man was an actual doctor …’ ‘So?’ ‘So … they were good people. Clon-focking-skeagh, if I have to remind you! And now this is the focking road you suddenly want to go down?’ Even he’s a bit taken aback, because I’ve hordly ever had to shout at him before. ‘I was only fooken talkin to dum,’ he tries to go, actually shouting back? I point at him – I actually point the finger – and go, ‘I don’t want you calling in there again. It’s bad enough that I have to live next door to them. That’s the recession. It’s nobody’s fault but it’s an unfortunate fact of life. But I’m saying this to you, Ro, as your actual father – stay away from Terry and Larry.’ And the look he ends up giving me is the exact same look I got from Sorcha. It’s a look of actual defiance. So I’m sitting in Mickey D’s at the bottom of Grafton Street with Honor, enjoying a spot of lunch and the company of my daughter while her old dear’s in Dundrum, enjoying a day of retail therapy with, like, Erika and Claire. Instead of a wedding cake – ‘oh my God – rip-off?’ – Claire’s decided to have, like, a massive tiramisu and they’ve gone to, like, Brambles to – here’s a word I forgot even existed – price them. This supposed wedding just gets funnier and funnier. She’s been texting me pretty much every day, by the way, still banging on about this book she thinks she’s writing, going, oh my God, I know your mum’s under so much pressure – I saw her on the show yesterday showing people how to defrost processed vegetables – but do you think she’d even look at, like, my chapter plan? Anyway, there I am, roysh, feeding Honor her chicken nuggets, when all of a sudden I’m aware of someone standing over me. I look up and – speak of the devil – it’s, like, Garret. I automatically laugh. There’s just something about this dude. Maybe I also instinctively know what’s coming. ‘Ah,’ I just go, ‘look who it isn’t!’ which is one of my famous lines. He’s there, ‘Can I have a word?’ I laugh. ‘It’s about Claire, is it?’ He doesn’t answer. I’m there, ‘Go on.’ The dick won’t even look at me. ‘The day you went to Kilcroney,’ he goes, ‘for the wedding dress, she said she caught you staring at her while she was in just her bra and knickers.’ I laugh. ‘You might find it funny,’ he goes, ‘but you made her feel uncomfortable.’ ‘That’s what she said?’ ‘Yeah, it is. And I believe her.’ ‘That’s that, then.’ He sort of, like, laughs then – again trying to patronize me. ‘I actually pity you,’ he even tries to go. I’m there, ‘Pity me? Er, why?’ ‘Look,’ he goes, ‘I know you still have feelings for her.’ Now it’s my turn to laugh? ‘Dude, I’ve never had feelings for her. Yeah, I’ve been in there a fair few times – in there like swimwear. Which she made sure to mention to you, I bet.’ ‘Well, what you’re going to have to accept is that that’s in the past now.’ ‘Oh, believe me, it’s well in the past.’ ‘So what about all these text messages, then, back and forth?’ ‘Dude, what are you shitting about?’ ‘I’m saying they have to fucking stop!’ ‘Whoa,’ I go, ‘where’s that famous calm and serenity you supposedly learned in Thailand?’ Gone obviously because he points at me in, like, an angry way. ‘Claire’s told you she’s getting married, how many times now? And you just won’t accept it.’ ‘Dude, you’re being played.’ ‘What?’ ‘You’re being played. Like Gran focking Turismo 4.’ I can’t believe that they’re allowing someone thi
s naive about women and their ways to even get married. He shakes his head. He’s like, ‘You’re still in love with her. She even says it …’ ‘Oh, well, if she says it …’ The poor focker’s whipped like Häagen-Dazs. ‘Look, she’s the one who’s been texting me? Dude, grab yourself a chai tea, pull up a pew and let me explain to you a little bit about birds and the way they operate …’ I figure I owe it to mankind to pass on the lessons I’ve learned in the course of my life as a player. ‘I can see it for myself,’ he just goes, ‘the way you look at her. She’s marrying me. And you need to get over that fact …’ The conversation doesn’t get the chance to go any further downhill from there. Because it’s at that exact moment that she rings him – as in, Claire? He straight away has to hold the phone away from his ear. I can hear the screaming myself, even from here. It’s not just her either. I recognize Erika’s scream as well – the exact same noise she made when I spilled a glass of Pinot Noir on her Derek Lam georgette tunic dress in Thornton’s last Christmas Eve. ‘Calm down!’ Dick Head is trying to go. ‘Talk to me, Claire! What’s wrong?’ ‘It’s Sorcha!’ I can even hear her go. ‘She’s going to kill us!’ I sit forward, suddenly interested. Even Honor goes, ‘Mommy!’ somehow sensing that something’s wrong. I’m there, ‘Okay, what the fock?’ Garret pulls the phone away from his ear again. ‘They’re all in the car. Sorcha’s driving and she’s had some kind of, I don’t know, freak attack,’ he goes. He lowers his voice. ‘She keeps ranting about the Crème de la Mer fish – do you know what that means?’ ‘The Crème de la Mer fish?’ ‘Think, Ross – because Claire said she’s driving through Donnybrook at, like, a hundred and twenty Ks, breaking every red light …’ Garret continues to listen while I stort, like, racking my brains? ‘The Crème de la Mer fish …’ ‘Shoplifting?’ he suddenly goes. I’m there, ‘What?’ ‘Sorcha was … arrested,’ he again whispers, not that Honor would even understand. ‘She walked out of Molton Brown with a bottle of Active Cassia Bodywash …’ Then he corrects himself. ‘Bodywash and Scrub …’ Claire is relaying all of this information in, like, a high-pitched, panicked voice. ‘They took her to Dundrum and charged her, Ross,’ he goes. ‘I focking told her that was going to eventually happen.’ ‘Claire says when they got back to the car afterwards, she started just freaking out … the Crème de la Mer fish! I can hear her saying it now. Think, Ross! Think!’ ‘I’m focking trying, yoga boy!’ I hear more screams. ‘Ross,’ Garret goes, ‘they’ve just gone over Leeson Street Bridge and all four wheels left the road!’ and I’m instantly thinking of that scene in, like, Ferris Bueller where those two dudes take Cameron’s cor for, like, a joyride. And that’s when the answer suddenly pops into my head … See, I made Sorcha watch that movie the night before she sat her finals, when she was also freaking out like this? She’d been up for, like, two days and nights, basically cramming. And any time I rang her, she kept banging on about the fish. It turned out a week or so earlier, she’d bought something from the Crème de la Mer counter in BTs – it might have even been a body scrub – but then she storted to get the sudden guilts about how much she’d spent. But she kept banging on about the tank at the front of the store, kept saying that humans aren’t entitled to keep any creature in, like, captivity like that, although I have to say, those fish have always seemed happy enough to me. I put her madness that night down to a combination of sleep deprivation and shopper’s remorse. So I called out to her gaff on the Vico with a bottle of Châteauneuf and that movie on DVD. And what happened? She chilled out and ended up getting an actual first. ‘Garret,’ I go, ‘gimme that focking phone,’ which he immediately does, even though you can tell he hates the idea of me being the man of the moment. ‘Claire,’ I go, ‘I’m going to need you and Erika calm …’ She goes, ‘Ross, she’s just taken the turn on to Stephen’s Green on two wheels …’ Two wheels? I honestly didn’t think that Opel Astra TwinTop had it in it. I’m there, ‘Okay, can you put me on speakerphone there,’ which she immediately does. ‘Sorcha,’ I go, ‘I suspect we haven’t got much time here. I know you’ve been under a lot of stress but you have to realize – like I told you the night before your finals – that’s all it is? Just try to relax …’ ‘Keep talking,’ he goes, like I need instructions from him. I’m there, ‘Do you remember what happened to Ferris Bueller’s mate when he calmed down that time? They only ended up having the best day of their actual lives. I mean, they ended up, I don’t know, going up to the top of a really tall building, then to an ort gallery, then to … em, yeah, a really nice restaurant where you have to wear a jacket …’ Shit! I mouth the words to Garret: ‘What else? What else?’ He’s like, ‘What?’ I’m there, ‘What else did they do? I mean, the movie made it seem like an unbelievable day – but Jesus Christ, if you add up all the things, it was actually shit …’ The next thing I hear is Claire screaming again. And Erika. ‘They went to a ballgame,’ some randomer at the next table goes, ‘although they didn’t stay long.’ I tell him thanks. ‘Did you hear that, Sorcha? They also went to a ballgame and they didn’t stay long!’ Claire suddenly shouts, ‘Ross, she’s turned down Grafton Street!’ I’m like, ‘You can’t drive down Grafton Street – it’s …’ Garret’s off the seat and out of McDonald’s before I’ve even thought of the word pedestrianized. I hang up, lift Honor up and follow him out on to the street, with a sense that something pretty bad is about to happen. At first, roysh, we see nothing. All we can hear are people’s screams coming from the Laura Ashley end of things? Then a few seconds later, we can see people scattering everywhere, like in Cloverfield or one of those. Then we suddenly see the Astra, tearing towards us, with the top down. Erika’s in the front-passenger seat and Claire’s in the back, both with their hands over their eyes. People everywhere are, like, diving for cover, into the doorways of Weir’s, the O2 Store, Morks and Spencer. I can suddenly make out Sorcha’s face behind the wheel, madder than a Kilkenny farmer, and that’s when I realize that she’s going to do what I think she’s going to do … I throw Honor into Garret’s orms, then I run to the main entrance of BTs and try to, like, clear it. I’m going, ‘Move! Quick! We need to evacuate this basic area!’ There’s one or two how-dare-yous, which you’d expect from BTs … It’s too late. The next thing I hear is the sudden squeal of tyres, as Sorcha pulls hord on the wheel. Then the cor suddenly comes crashing through the front doors in an absolute explosion of glass. The entire make-up deportment screams, which is some noise, I can tell you. I manage to pull this Jamie Ray Newman lookalike out from behind the counter just in time, then I hit the deck, as Sorcha’s front bumper smashes into the fish tank with a force that causes it to just burst. It’s, like, buddooossshhh! The airbags instantly inflate and a tonne of water spills out into the cor – as do the fish, not looking happy at all, it has to be said, about being suddenly free. I’m picking myself up off the floor, watching Sorcha, Erika and Claire wrestling with the airbags, when another scene from Ferris Bueller comes to me. ‘Shit!’ I end up going. ‘I should have mentioned him singing on that parade float.’ Erika’s pissed like I’ve very rarely seen her pissed. ‘No, Ross,’ she goes, managing to free herself, ‘you should have mentioned that she has a daughter to live for.’ 7. Sei parte ormai di me