The Oh My God Delusion

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  I get a letter in the post – it’s only, like, a couple of lines long. I’ve been called to, like, a hearing on Friday, 30 October 2009, in the Gresham Hotel of all places – to answer chorges that I used a prohibited substance, contrary to the rules of the Leinster Schools Senior Cup, and that I brought the game of rugby into, like, disrepute.

  I punch the air. ‘Yes!’ I just go. ‘Can’t come quick enough.’ I celebrate the news by hitting the town – we’re talking Thursday night, on the old Tobler. Fionn and JP got the exact same letter but they were both doing other shit. Fionn was hitting the flicks with my sister, while JP and Danuta – or Dani, as JP’s taken to calling her – are repossessing a Ford Territory Ghia somewhere in focking Lucan. Still, when it comes to the hunt, I’ve always been a lone wolf. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I end up pulling this bird called Alaia, who works in, like, Renords. If you can imagine this, roysh, she’s sort of, like, a cross between Karina Smirnoff and Gretchen Rossi? In other words, bathe her and bring her to me! I was on fire, by the way. I gave her one or two lines while she was collecting glasses off the bor in front of me. ‘Well, you’re very cute,’ I went, ‘there’s certainly no getting away from that,’ and I could see her, like, looking at me, thinking, that’s at least different from the usual lines I hear in this place. Anyway, roysh, her shift finished at one and I took her back to Rosa Parks, where I proceeded to give her what I call the all-inclusive package – a little bit of listening, a little bit of kissing, a little bit of foreplay, then the full treatment. And far be it from me to write my own reviews but there’ll be no heaven for her if God really is that sensitive about having his name taken in vain. Anyway, we both wake up the following morning after an, I don’t know, contented sleep? That’s when there’s an all of a sudden ring at the door. This is, like, ten o’clock on a Friday morning we’re talking? At first, roysh, I presume it’s just the old man, wondering why I never made it in to work today. ‘Are you not going to answer that?’ Alaia goes. I stort kissing her neck and her shoulders, going, ‘I’d prefer to talk you through the breakfast specials …’ She loves it like pudding, of course, while I’ve got a dick on me like a focking cistern handle. Except the ringing just continues. ‘You’d better answer it,’ she goes. ‘Whoever it is, they seem pretty insistent.’ I throw back the sheets in a bit of a snot, then I go out to the hall in just my boxer shorts. I pick up the phone and then, without even looking at the little screen, I go, ‘I’m pulling a focking sicky – get over it, will you?’ Except, roysh, it ends up not being the old man at all, but these three dudes in, like, fluorescent-yellow jackets. ‘Howiya,’ one of them goes. ‘We’re from, er, Earcom?’ I’m like, ‘Eircom?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah. Believe you’re having one or two problems with your, er, your line?’ He’s, like, winking into the little camera. I’m there going, ‘No, the phone’s working fine.’ ‘You were, er, talking to one of our engineers,’ he goes. ‘Breege?’ Of course, I’m focking slower than … well, focking Eircom. It’s, like, the Feds. I buzz them in, then about, like, a minute later they come out of the lift – three of them. ‘Come in,’ I suddenly go. ‘Sorry, you even had me totally fooled there. Howiya! That’s good undercover work, it’d have to be said.’ In they come, Cavan’s finest. The main dude introduces himself, although the name goes in one ear and out the other. He says, though, that it’s a state-of-the-ort eavesdropping device – as used by the Feds in the actual States? – and that they’re going to disguise it to make it look like a standard telephone connection point. They’ll even plug, like, a phone into it, though it obviously won’t work. It’ll be, like, a decoy? You can tell, roysh, that I’m suddenly getting into it here. The other two boys are straight down to work. They find a point in, like, the adjoining wall that they’re happy with, then they stort drilling. I’m there going, ‘It is actually just like The Wire, isn’t it?’ The dude’s like, ‘Well, we’re just engineers …’ I’m there, ‘I don’t give a fock, as long as you get rid of them. Focking gangland knackers …’ ‘Ross?’ a voice behind me suddenly goes. I turn around and it’s Alaia – fully dressed as well. I’m thinking, fock, I forgot about her. You can see the three dudes looking at her, roysh, thinking, this boy’s obviously a serious player. I’m there, ‘Are you not staying? Not even for …’ and of course I don’t want to say it in front of them, so I go, ‘Ham and eggs?’ which is, like, a secret code I have for it. ‘No,’ she goes, putting clips in her hair. ‘I have a job interview at lunchtime.’ I follow her out to the front door. I’m there, ‘A job interview? Er, why would anyone want to leave Renords?’ No amount of shit that I’ve been through since this whole recession storted can prepare me for the shock of what she says next. ‘Did you not hear?’ she goes. ‘Renords is closing down.’ He answers his phone like I’m suddenly interrupting something. I’m there, ‘Hey, Ro, what are you up to?’ ‘I’m studying the multiplication of matrices using complex numbers,’ he goes. I’m like, ‘Jesus, it was just a figure of speech, Ro – I didn’t ask for your focking life story.’ Of course then I feel instantly bad. But it is, like, Sunday night, and he’s sat at home with his nose in his focking books, which can’t be right. ‘So you’re, like, well into the swing of things with school,’ I go. ‘Er, yeah.’ I sort of, like, chuckle to myself then. ‘Sunday night was always my time for doing house calls. Usually, I’d been a bad boy all weekend – been with one bird on Friday, another on Saturday, maybe even another on Sunday afternoon. Then Sunday night, I’d have to call out to Sorcha or whoever I happened to be going out with at the time and try to, like, sweet-talk them around. Have they told you what musical you’re doing yet?’ ‘Carousel.’ ‘With what school?’ ‘Eader Rathdowin or Alex.’ ‘Okay, pray that it’s Alex. We used to always say that Rathdown was like the Irish summer – you get one decent year out of every ten. What about games, have you learned any yet? Do they still play Loreto bingo?’ ‘What?’ ‘Every player gets a cord with all the different Loretos on it. Foxrock. Green. Dalkey. Beaufort. Bray. Then Swords and Balbriggan, just to make it interesting. The – and you can tell me if this is a word or not – objective is to end up being with a bird from each. And obviously the quickest wins.’ ‘Haffn’t heerd of it.’ ‘Plenty of time.’ ‘In anyhow,’ he suddenly goes, ‘I’ve a gut bit to get troo here, Rosser,’ obviously trying to get rid of me. They say the teenage years are the most difficult for a parent – it’s all ahead of me. I’m there, ‘Okay, just before you go, I need to ask you for a favour.’ ‘A favour?’ ‘Yeah, I know I’ve said it to you before, but I want you to stay out of Terry and Larry’s gaff for the next couple of weeks.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Don’t ask me why. I just have a funny feeling that they’re about to be, I suppose, busted?’ ‘Boosted?’ he goes, sounding suddenly concerned. ‘You’re not fooken snitchin on them, are you, Rosser?’ I’m like, ‘No!’ possibly a bit too eager? ‘Yeah, no, like I said, it’s just a feeling I have – you’d be probably well advised to stay away from them over the next while.’ Eimhear Huet was one of those, I suppose, colourful characters who helped make Renords what it basically was. She was known to have a thing for, like, Good On Paper goys. You could have a face like a bag of water and it wouldn’t matter a fock to her – it was your career prospects that she was only ever interested in. JP’s telling the famous joke about the time she supposedly walked in here and shouted, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ When some focker’s hand went up – the story goes – she sat down beside him and went, ‘Buy me a Bellini?’ We’ve heard it, like, a hundred times before but we still all crack our holes laughing. We’re going to miss these walls. We all practically grew up in Renords – or at least we spent the years of our lives when we should have been growing up in here. I give Robbie Fox a nod, just to thank him for the bottle of Moët he sent over. Who would have ever seen Renords going tits-up? This is where I scored the likes of Glenda and Roseanna and Caroline Morohan
and where I got a slap across the face from Pippa O’Connor. In other words, it was the place. If you thought about it, it’d actually get you down. Fionn tries to keep it cheerful by remembering all the times that Oisinn was borred over the years – supposedly for life. The funniest, I have to admit, was the night he ended up on a really shit date with Jade Slyne, who was a friend of, like, Fionn’s from the Institute? Fionn had, like, a major thing for her – thinking about it now, I don’t think she was that unlike Jenna Dewan – although he was never going to close the deal, so Oisinn ended up getting in there like swimwear. Anyway, she made it clear to the old Ois Monster beforehand that there was going to be none of the old nasty-nasty at the end of the night – wasn’t that kind of girl and blah blah blah. Which was the reason he cancelled the table he’d booked at La Mère Zou and took her instead to a place up the road where they give you a glass of crayons and let you draw on the focking tablecloth. She was not a happy hippo, by all accounts, although it didn’t stop her eating her chicken enchilada, then insisting on following Oisinn to Renords, where he’d decided to come to meet up with the rest of us, having already written the night off as, like, a dead loss. After being stung for two glasses of Sancerre, he came up with what even I thought was a focking genius idea to basically burn her off. He went to the jacks, whipped off his boxers, ran them under the tap, then wrung them out. Then he went back to the table – commando, remember – hung them over the back of her chair and went, ‘Better let them air out for a while.’ The bouncers ran him through the doors like a focking battering ram. I’m, like, cracking my hole laughing at the memory of it. We all are, roysh, and it’s amazing to be sitting here like this, just us – no girlfriends – like old times. But then the laughter suddenly stops and we’re all just sat there, you could possibly say deep in thought. ‘I quit my job,’ Fionn suddenly goes. You can imagine me, roysh, I’m in total shock. I’m like, ‘What?’ ‘I told Tom I wouldn’t be coming back after mid-term.’ I look at JP, then back at Fionn, and I feel instantly guilty. I’m there, ‘You loved that job …’ He’s like, ‘No, I love teaching, Ross. Like you said, there are other schools.’ ‘But, I don’t know, it is only a medal, isn’t it?’ ‘No, you were right, Ross. It represents something – a very special part of the past, for each and every one of us. And Tom wants to take that away from us. And I don’t want to work for a man like that.’ ‘Are you sure this isn’t just the bubbly talking?’ ‘It’s not.’ JP pipes up then. ‘I’d like to, well, second everything that Fionn has just said. I’m sorry, Ross, for not being more supportive.’ ‘This is actually getting a bit gay.’ ‘It’s not gay, Ross. I’m just saying, I should have been more appreciative of your efforts to get us to hang on to our medals.’ ‘What’s brought this on?’ The funny thing is, roysh, I know the answer before he even says it. ‘Christian rang.’ ‘Christian?’ Fionn looks at JP. ‘Told us both a few home truths. Things we needed to hear.’ Good old Christian. I’m there, ‘But, Fionn, even so – your focking job. There’s supposedly loads of unemployment out there all of a sudden.’ He’s like, ‘Forget about it. I’ll ring the Institute in the morning.’ They’re both gee-eyed but I can’t tell you what an unbelievable feeling it is to have them fully on my side again. That might even be the reason I end up having one of the most inspirational ideas I’ve ever had in my life. I’m up at the bor, roysh, handing over my credit cord for the next round, when it all of a sudden hits me. I go back to the table actually laughing, because I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before. ‘I know how to find Oisinn,’ I suddenly go. Hammered or not, I have their immediate attention. I’m there, ‘Er, the Gords?’ They just look at each other then, as if to say, do you know what he’s banging on about? I’m there, ‘The Gords find people, don’t they? It’s, like, port of their job?’ Fionn pushes his glasses up on his nose – he goes, ‘I suppose it is.’ I’m there, ‘Well, I happen to know one – a woman as well – who owes me a favour.’ JP’s there, ‘What kind of favour?’ ‘Okay, being honest, I told her she could put, like, a listening device in my wall cavity so they can keep tabs on focking Skobie O’Gill and the Lidl people.’ They both look at me, roysh, like I’ve just whipped out a mangina and changed my name to Rosalyn. ‘Ross,’ Fionn goes, ‘tell me you’re joking.’ I’m there, ‘Hey, I didn’t know you cared so much, Fionn,’ but JP doesn’t laugh along with me like I expected him to. He just goes, ‘Fionn’s right, Ross. These people don’t fock around when it comes to snitches.’ I’m there, ‘Snitches? Fock, you’re worse than Ronan, the pair of you. I’m hordly snitching. The Feds have an actual warrant. I’m just allowing them to use my wall space to basically eavesdrop on them. Er, big difference?’ JP just shakes his head and says he hopes I know what I’m doing. I tell him of course I focking know. Then I just raise my glass. ‘Hey,’ I go. ‘To Renords!’ They both smile and return the toast. Fionn says porting is such sweet sorrow. No, I haven’t a focking clue either. She answers on, like, the third ring. ‘Hey,’ I go, ‘it’s Ross.’ She’s there, ‘I know who it is,’ sort of, like, losing the actual rag with me? ‘You can’t keep ringing me up every two days, Ross, asking me why they’re not gone. I keep telling you, they’re trying to build a case against them, which takes time.’ I’m there, ‘Hey, chillax, Breege, that’s not why I’m even ringing.’ ‘Well, why are you ringing?’ I give her a few seconds of silence, then I hit her with it. ‘It’s just I’ve been, er, thinking about our little arrangement …’ ‘And?’ ‘Yeah, no, it just strikes me that I’m putting my pretty face on the line here and there’s nothing actually in it for me …’ ‘Apart from your apartment going back up in value.’ I laugh. ‘Sure, who the fock’s going to buy it? According to a mate of mine – in other words, JP – there’s, like, three hundred and fifty thousand vacant gaffs in Ireland. Who’s going to pay good money to live in a shithole like this?’ She’s like, ‘So what are you asking me for, Ross?’ See, she’s no fool. They don’t just let any old fuckwit with two passes in the Leaving into the Gords ‘Good question,’ I go, loving the sudden power, maybe even a little bit too much? ‘What could I possibly want from you?’ ‘Well, if it’s that,’ she goes, ‘you can forget about it. I’ve already told you, I’m back with Malachy now and we’re talking about getting engaged.’ I laugh. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not that – even though I’d definitely take it if you put it in front of me. Yeah, no, what it is, roysh, is this – you’ve got people in your place who investigate, like, credit cord fraud, don’t you?’ ‘Oh, for the love of God,’ she goes and she says it with a tone that suggests it’s a ridiculous question. I’m there, ‘Okay, I’ll take that as a yes. So if I gave you, like, a credit cord number – as in, any number? – you could find out if that cord has been used recently.’ ‘Well, I couldn’t. It’s not my department. But Malachy has a brother in Fraud.’ Fock, they certainly stick to their own kind, don’t they? ‘Okay,’ I go, ‘my question stands. If I gave you, like, a friend of mine’s credit cord number, you could tell me if he’s using it …’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘And more importantly where.’ ‘In theory.’ ‘Cool,’ I go. ‘I’m going to ring you back in two minutes. Have, like, a pen ready,’ and then I hang up and scroll through my contacts, looking for Oisinn’s old dear’s number. My old dear is back in the country. I only know because she’s on the front page of pretty much all of this morning’s newspapers, breezing through the arrivals gate at Dublin Airport in a pair of glasses that make her look like a sort of vagrant Gok Wan. It has to be said, roysh, the headline in the Indo is the best of the lot. It’s like, PURRR-FECT STORM! and then, underneath, it’s like, STUNNING AUTHOR AND TV CHEF RETURNS TO FACE ANIMAL CRUELTY RAP. I’m sitting in the front of the van with it laid across my lap. ‘I don’t know if I mentioned,’ I suddenly go, ‘but I actually feel sorry for her. I mean, you know how I feel about her in general – hate her focking guts, same as I hate yours – but I st
ill don’t think she deserves the shit that’s been thrown at her.’ The old man just smiles. ‘What a lovely thing to say,’ he goes. ‘You’re a humanist, Ross. I’ve always said it.’ ‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I’d probably just sum it up by saying, they’ve been on her case for, like, months now – er, enough already?’ He nods like I’ve made a good point. ‘I think the mistake too many people are making,’ he goes, ‘is to take this recession personally. It’s nothing personal. It’s simply the way of things. People thought the good times were going to last for ever. But nothing is permanent, Ross. Not even us. We’re loath to admit it but we’re really no different to any of nature’s creatures. We build our little kingdoms, then the winds and the rains and the tides come and they wash them away. From Babel to Ballsbridge, it was ever thus!’ My phone suddenly rings. I notice straight away that it’s, like, Breege, so I answer it – actually excited. I’m there, ‘Hey.’ ‘It’s bad news,’ she instantly goes, bursting my balloon. ‘Bad news?’ ‘Yeah, that credit card number you gave me, it hasn’t been used since the 14th of November last year …’ The 14th of November was the day Oisinn pegged it. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she goes, ‘it’s been cancelled.’ ‘Fock!’ ‘Are you happy now?’ I’m suddenly staring again at that shot of the old dear, emerging through the automatic doors, in her focking Lainey Keogh cordigan-coat, with this – I don’t know – hunted expression in her eyes. ‘Ross?’ Breege is going. ‘Are you still there?’ I’ve suddenly had another idea. I’m there, ‘Yeah, I’m still here. I need you to run just one more number for me …’ She holds up a petit fours between her thumb and forefinger and says aren’t they unctuous little things? Focking unctuous! Your guess is as good as mine. This is us in the Terrace Lounge in the Westbury, by the way. She looks actually all right – certainly not the screaming mess she looked in the papers the other day. I ask her about Budapest – as in, how was it? She sweeps cake crumbs off the cover of the Smythson brown leather-bound notebook on the table in front of her and says wonderful, at the same time, roysh, smiling, sort of, like, inwardly, like she’s enjoying some private joke or trade secret. I don’t even want to know? I only focking asked because it’s nice to be nice. I end up just blurting out the reason I asked her here. ‘I’ve found Trevion,’ I go. I don’t get the reaction I’m expecting? She basically ignores what I said. ‘What a dainty little strainer,’ she just goes, then pours herself another cup of Darjeeling. I’m there, ‘Are you even listening to me? I said I found Trevion.’ This time it seems to, like, register. She just sits back, staring into space, saying fock-all, although obviously doing a lot of thinking. ‘He’s staying in a Comfort Inn,’ I go, ‘in a place called Minnesota. I know it sounds like I’ve made that name up? But it exists, believe you me.’ I hand her the piece of paper with, like, the number of the hotel on it? Except she doesn’t even look at it. ‘How did you find him?’ is all she can go. It’s obvious I’ve impressed her. ‘It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that he gave me his credit cord one night when he sent me out on a date with one of his actress clients …’ I laugh. ‘Jesus Christ, she was like a focking basketball with eyes. Anyway, I wrote the number down, with the intention – and this is going to sound bad? – of robbing the focker blind by putting all sorts of shit on it, concert tickets, blah blah blah.’ ‘But how did you locate him?’ ‘Er, I’m getting to that bit? Okay, so there’s this bird who I had a one-night thing with. She’s, like, a lady Gorda, but actually good-looking if you can believe that? I won’t go into the ins and outs of it but she owed me a favour – a big-time one. Turns out she knows someone who works in, like, Credit Cord Fraud. He agreed to run the number. And that hotel is where it was used last. I rang, like, an hour ago. He’s still there. Asleep, actually. The receptionist said it was, like, five o’clock in the morning or some shit.’ She thinks about this for, like, twenty or thirty seconds. From her face, it’s impossible to tell what’s going through her mind. And I’m not talking about the Botox. Then, without even looking at it, she rips the piece of paper in half, then in half again, then in half again – then just throws it there, next to the napkin she used to mop up the coffee that I spilled earlier. ‘Er, what are you doing?’ I go. ‘I don’t have a copy of that, just to let you know.’ ‘That part of my life is over,’ she just goes. ‘Over? Er, you were going to, like, marry that dude?’ ‘That all seems like such a long time ago now.’ ‘Yeah. And you could end up being with him again – as in with with. You could get out of this country. It’s a tip. Like you said, we’re going to be eating our own shit soon enough.’ ‘I can’t leave – not now.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘I have too many people relying on me.’ ‘As in who?’ ‘Well, my readers for one …’ I just laugh. ‘Readers? I thought you’d, like, dried up.’ ‘Well, that’s why Budapest was so wonderful,’ she goes, grinning from ear to ear, like she’s about to pass a focking gallstone. ‘I’ve rediscovered my mojo.’ She sort of, like, indicates the Smythson notebook with her eyes. I pick it up, obviously fearing the worst. ‘It returned, just like that, Ross, while I was enjoying a Kaffee mit Schlag by the infinity pool one morning. A moment of pure inspiration. I was thinking, okay, what kind of fiction is commercially successful these days? I thought, of course! Misery memoirs!’ ‘Er, misery memoirs?’ ‘Yes, absolutely. Look at all the ones already out there. Ma, This is After Happening to Me and Ma, That’s After Happening to Me and Ma, You’ll Never Guess What’s After Happening to Me Now. I thought, look how miserable I’ve been these past six months – why not make this unhappiness my new métier?’ I open the cover. On the first page, in big letters, it’s, Mommy, They Said They’d Never Heard of Sundried Tomatoes. ‘That the title?’ I go. She nods, smiling. She seems especially pleased with herself. ‘The story is told in the voice of a little girl – I’ve based her on Honor, I hope Sorcha won’t mind – growing up in an Ireland where a baked potato with an EasiSingle stuffed inside it suddenly constitutes a meal.’ I just nod. It is a pretty good title, in fairness to her. ‘Read!’ she goes. ‘Read!’ Which I do. It’s like: My mommy looked at the clock and she gasped with the fright: ‘Look at the time! Where does the day go?’ My daddy would be home from work in four hours and she still hadn’t started work on dinner. ‘Better make it something simple today,’ she said. ‘Perhaps my minted sprouts and chestnut roast, gratin potatoes with pancetta and pousses d’épinards, and a scarlet runner, tomato and orzo salad. No point in overcomplicating matters this late in the day.’ My mommy was very, very pretty and there was nothing in the world that made her happier than cooking. My daddy would eat the delicious meals she prepared, rub his tummy and say, ‘Who needs to go out to restaurants with Michelin stars when this keeps coming up at you, night after night?’ It always made my mommy very happy to hear that. I was lying on the floor, reading my Diego Márquez adventure, when she asked if I would like to help her today. ‘Yes, please!’ I said, because I wanted to grow up to be a wonderful cook too. She took out all the pots and dishes, all the plates and bowls, all the chopping knives and salad forks she would need. Then she took out the ingredients – the feta and the pinenuts and the balsamic vinegar and the oregano lemon vinaigrette. ‘Oh, no!’ she suddenly exclaimed. I asked her what was wrong and she said we had somehow run out of heirloom beans and pousses d’épinards! ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Pop next door – there’s a darling – and ask the neighbours for some, just until I get to Superquinn tomorrow.’ I was very scared because I had never met the neighbours before. They were only new but I had seen them once through the window and they looked to me to be very poor. My mommy said I mustn’t look down on them because the man had lost his job in a motor dealership in the recession and the family had been forced to trade down. I knocked on the door but I was still very scared. A woman answered. She wasn’t as pretty as my mommy. She talked like she was always angry, even though she wasn’t angry. I said, ‘
My mommy wants to know can we please borrow some heirloom beans and some pousses d’épinards?’ She just stared at me with her mouth open. So I repeated what I said. ‘My mommy wants to know can we please borrow some heirloom beans and some pousses d’épinards?’ ‘Wait there!’ the woman said, then she went back into the house. She returned a few seconds later, not with heirloom beans or pousses d’épinards, but with her husband. ‘See can you work out what language she’s speaking,’ she said to him. He looked at me. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘give it another go.’ So I said it again. ‘My mommy wants to know can we please borrow some heirloom beans and some pousses d’épinards?’ He shook his head. ‘Could be French for all I know.’ Then he shut the door in my face. I went home and told my mommy. I was very, very scared. ‘Well?’ the old dear goes – big, I don’t know, expectant face on her. She’s looking for my actual opinion. The thing is, roysh, I still feel sorry for her, so I decide to say something actually supportive? ‘People bought your other shit,’ I go. ‘I suppose there’s no reason why they won’t also buy this.’ ‘Stop!’ I suddenly shout. For a few seconds the old man hasn’t a clue what I’m even talking about. I’m there going, ‘Pull over! Pull over!’ the reason being that I’ve just copped JP’s old man’s flatbed truck porked on Shrewsbury Road. So he pulls in, roysh, immediately behind it, then he suddenly realizes what I’m talking about. He’s there, ‘This is Oisinn’s place, isn’t it?’ And I’m like, ‘Was. Is. I don’t know – but yeah.’ We both get out, then approach the truck – the old man on the driver’s side, me on the passenger’s. They’re, like, sat in the front, the three of them – we’re talking JP, Danuta, then, behind the wheel, JP’s old man. They’ve obviously seen us coming, roysh, because JP already has the window down and, without even looking at me, he goes, ‘I didn’t know, Ross. The order just had the house number on it. It didn’t mention Perineum Manor.’ Oisinn named it that because he’d a dick on one side of him and an arsehole the other. I’m there, ‘So what are you actually here for?’ He gives the paperwork the old left to right – not that he even needs to? ‘All electrical,’ he goes. ‘His music system. TVs. The home cinema.’ Meaning the home cinema where we used to watch the DVD of the 1999 Leinster Schools Senior Cup final – we’re talking pretty much every Paddy’s Day without fail. I don’t even need to remind him? I can tell he’s thinking the exact same shit. ‘Is just anusser job,’ Danuta tries to go. ‘Forget he ees your friend. Is just anusser man who cannot pay for his lifestyle, yes?’ I can tell from the expression on his face whose side JP’s old man is immediately on. Still, he decides to give his son a moment to get his shit together. He just, like, turns to the old man, at the other window. ‘A flatbed truck and a Hiace van on Shrewsbury Road,’ he goes. ‘One with Last Resort Asset Reclaim written on it, the other with Shred Focking Everything!. Ever think you’d see the day, Charles?’ The old man sort of, like, laughs to himself? ‘Maybe not on this road, no. Still, it’s the way of things, is it not?’ I look at JP and try to find some words of, I suppose, comfort for the dude? I’m like, ‘Oisinn’s gone, Dude. Even if he’s still alive …’ ‘Don’t say that, Ross.’ ‘Even if he’s still alive, we’re possibly never going to see him again. He’s already said goodbye to this port of his life.’ JP’s there, ‘Still doesn’t feel right.’ I must have actually learned a fair few things since this whole recession storted, roysh, because suddenly I’m having deeper thoughts that I’ve possibly ever had? ‘Look,’ I go, ‘it’s like the whole, I don’t know, Michael Jackson being dead thing? As in, look at all the stuff he had. All sorts of shit – a lot of it really cool, in fairness to him. But what happened when he died? It all still went into a focking skip, didn’t it? It’s going to be the same for all of us, Dude.’ He looks at me, roysh, like he’s surprised by my sudden wisdom. I suppose I even am? ‘Your eediot friend is right,’ Danuta goes. ‘And eef we do not do thees theeng, lot of others wheel do instead.’ JP takes, like, a deep breath, then just nods. He suddenly unclips his seatbelt, then Danuta does the same, while his old man smiles at me, as if to say thanks. I take an instant step backwards, then JP opens the door and walks around the back of the truck to, I suppose, retrieve the sledgehammer? Danuta hops out, as does JP’s old man. ‘Come on, Ross,’ my old man goes, but, before I go, I tell JP not to sweat it. We both know how cool Oisinn is – there’s, like, no way he’d even blame him. He high-fives me, roysh, as if to say, ‘You’re actually a really, really incredible friend,’ then I just leave them to it. For some reason, roysh, as we’re walking back to the van, I happen to look over my shoulder, in time to see JP’s old man give Danuta – get this – three shorp little pats on the orse. It’s the kind of thing I’ve seen him do to female employees maybe a thousand times over the years. Habit, as much as anything, and he wouldn’t have meant anything by it, except just, ‘Trip along now!’ and possibly even, ‘By the way, nice hoop!’ Because it’s Danuta, though, I’m immediately thinking, ohhh – fock! It’s honestly like the world has suddenly stopped, when actually it’s only Danuta who’s stopped. She’s stood there, roysh, frozen still. At first I presume she’s in, like, shock, trying to make up her mind what to do. Except she knows exactly what she’s going to do. Her movement is so quick that it happens in an actual flash. With one hand, she grabs his wrist; with the other she snaps his fingers four focking ways – north, then east, then south, then west. We can hear the cracks from where we’re standing. Bones basically breaking. The dude lets a roar out of him that has the Venetians twitching up and down the road. He’s, like, seriously howling and holding his wrist. His hand suddenly looks like those focking cheese strings that Sorcha buys for Honor as a so-called treat. The poor focker’s got four fingers and a thumb all pointing in different directions. JP’s in as much shock as the rest of us. ‘Get back een the truck,’ Danuta tells his old man calmly, like this kind of shit happens to her twenty times a day. ‘JP and I wheel get the equipment. Then we wheel tek you to the hospeetal to get feengers reset, yes?’ Sophie says she’s thinking of giving up Facebook. Which I already know from her post yesterday on, funnily enough, Facebook. She says she was in, like, Empty Pockets the other night and she had the chicken tenders for the first time in – oh my God – years? Anyway, she’d only eaten, like, two of them when she found herself suddenly whipping out her iPhone and writing about how she’d forgotten how actually good they were? Anyway, by the time she’d updated her status, replied to three messages, added yoga and 30 Rock to her list of interests, joined the groups ‘I Love My Bed!’, ‘RIP Jade Goody!’ and ‘My Sister Said If I Get One Million Fans She Will Name Her Baby Megatron!’, sent a sad face – then a cocktail – to Alesta Mannion for changing her relationship status from engaged to single, put a block on some goy who’s been – oh my God! – stalking her, then approved seven new friend requests, well, her tenders had gone actually cold. ‘Oh my God,’ she goes, ‘it, like, so takes over your life?’ Actually, she said that on Facebook as well? Chloe says there are, like, way too many ads on TV these days. ‘Although,’ she goes, ‘this really, really good friend of mine from when I was in college – she’s got loads of problems, she’s had, like, two nervous breakdowns and I actually think she might be an alcoholic? – she was telling me that you can burn, like, ninety calories by actually exercising during the seventeen minutes of ads during the average hour-long TV show?’ Sophie goes, ‘That’s, like, Oh! My God!’ ‘I know!’ Chloe goes. ‘She’s also the one who told me about this whole recession sex thing?’ ‘Oh, her? Oh my God, I am so going to try that!’ I don’t know what the two of them are even doing here, other than horsing through my Pringles and talking all the way through the final episode in the fourth series of, like, Prison Break. ‘Oh my God!’ Sophie suddenly goes. ‘You know who I saw on, like, Grafton Street the other day? Claire and Garret. Oh my God, Ross, they still haven’t forgiven you for ruining their day!’ I’m abou
t to go, whatever, when all of a sudden Chloe leaps to my defence. ‘I think it was actually cool what you did. Someone had to show that girl up for what she was.’ She’s being unusually nice for Chloe. I could be wrong but I think she’s actually flirting with me. What happens next, you’d nearly want to see it in slow motion, it happens that quickly. First, roysh, she yawns, then she asks Sophie if she’s still going to Ashtanga in the morning. Sophie immediately takes this as a hint that they should be, like, hitting the road – as in both of them? – and she stands up. But Chloe actually stays sitting. ‘I think I’ll stay,’ she goes. ‘I don’t think I’ve got enough suppleness back after my operation to go back to yoga yet,’ except of course Sophie’s already storted to make a move. ‘I’ll text you tomorrow.’ Sophie suddenly stops and turns around, fixing Chloe with a look, then me. She knows what’s going down here – of course she’s suddenly spitting like a focking rotisserie chicken. ‘Oh, you’re going to let me walk down to the corpork by myself?’ she goes, although we all know the real reason she’s bulling is that her mate’s about to get some and she’s not. ‘Oh, thanks very much …’ Chloe rolls her eyes at me, then we both wait for the sound of the door slamming. She stands up then and storts whipping off her threads. I watch her first kick off her ballet flats, then pull off her cordigan, then unzip her dress and pull it over her head until she’s basically standing there in her Biggie Smalls – and this, by the way, without a single word passing between us. I’m suddenly remembering her mentioning, like, recession sex? It must be sex where the actual pleasantries are cut back to the bare minimum. Anyway, you know me, I’d get up on a barbershop floor if it had enough hair on it. ‘Here or in there?’ she goes, flicking her thumb in the direction of the bedroom. ‘Er, let’s do it here,’ I end up going, portly because bringing her to bed means she’ll want to stay the night and portly because I really want to find out what happens to Michael and Lincoln in the end of this. Luckily, another ad break comes on. I get undressed without even getting up off the sofa and she comes over and sits – I think the word is, like, astride me? I’m suddenly horder than a bailiff’s knock. After maybe thirty seconds of preliminaries, we move all of our – let’s just say – bits and pieces into position and she throws out a few oh my Gods, just to get the ball rolling. I’m thinking how I’d better be quick here. There are a lot of ad breaks but they’re actually quite short? She puts her hands on my shoulders and – I swear to God – storts bouncing up and down on me like this is for the focking Aga Khan Trophy. Chloe has been an occasional mount of mine over the years, but I’ve never known her to be this, I don’t know, vigorous? That’s when the shouting all of a sudden storts. ‘Friday!’ she goes. ‘I swear!’ I’m there, ‘What?’ She’s there, ‘I’ll have it for you Friday. That’s not an excuse.’ I’m like, ‘Chloe, what the fock are you talking about?’ obviously totally clueless but at the same time struggling to keep my stroke. ‘It’s been a slow month. Just a few more days, that’s all I’m asking …’ It’s suddenly obvious that the girl is, like, role-playing without actually telling me? I’m there, ‘Chloe, what the fock is going on here?’ Now, I’ve been in some situations over the years. I’ve bedded a lot of women and I’ve heard all sorts of shit shouted in the heat of battle. I thought there were, like, no surprises left for me in that deportment. I was obviously wrong, because Chloe all of a sudden goes, ‘Shut up! Just fock me like I owe you money!’ I’m actually mid thrust, roysh, when she shouts it and – to be honest – it ends up giving me a bit of a jolt. Whatever way I move, roysh, Chloe ends up letting a sudden scream out of her – the kind that’d strip the focking enamel off your teeth. I’m there going, ‘What? What?’ She’s like, ‘Aaarrrggghhh!!!’ ‘Chloe, what?’ ‘Stop focking moving!’ ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘My focking hip has popped out.’ Like I said, I thought I’d seen it all before. Her nails suddenly dig into my shoulders, pretty much tearing the muscles from my bones. ‘Chloe,’ I manage to go, even though the pain is actually blinding, ‘please let go! My trapezius muscles are pretty much focked from my rugby days and my levator scapulae aren’t the best either.’ ‘Stop focking moving, then!’ ‘I’m only moving because you’re digging into my … aaarrrggghhh!’ ‘Aaarrrggghhh!’ ‘Aaarrrggghhh!’ ‘Aaarrrggghhh!’ I’m there, ‘Jesus Christ – that’s actual torture! What do you mean, your hip has popped out anyway?’ ‘Exactly what I focking said, Ross. The doctor told me to avoid anything too … aaarrrggghhh!!!’ I’m like, ‘Hey, just bear with me, Chloe. I’m going to reach down and try to pop it back in. I’ve seen it done before on the rugby field … aaarrrggghhh!!!’ ‘Don’t focking move another inch!’ she goes. ‘Or I will tear a chunk out of you, I swear to fock!’ I’m there, ‘Chloe, we’re going to have to do something here – we can’t stay like this for ever!’ She’s like, ‘Ring for an ambulance!’ ‘With what? My mobile’s in the bedroom, basically chorging.’ ‘Then we’re going to have to shout through the wall to the neighbours.’ ‘Do not!’ I go. ‘You haven’t met them, remember. I’d prefer to be found like this by focking archaeologists than have them see us. I’d never hear the focking end of it.’ ‘You have exactly ten seconds, Ross, to think of something else …’ Of course the irony is that I wasn’t even that much in the mood for it tonight. I’d a quick Anglo Irish during the Afternoon Show earlier and would have considered myself wankrupt until she storted coming on to me. ‘Ten seconds are up,’ she suddenly goes, then she storts screaming the actual wall down. ‘Aaarrrggghhh!!! Aaarrrggghhh!!! Aaarrrggghhh!!!’ Of course sixty seconds later, roysh, Larry and Terry are at the door, going, ‘Hee-er, what’s goin odden in dayer?’ I’m like, ‘Don’t sweat it, goys – go back to whatever you’re doing?’ But Chloe’s going, ‘Kick the door down!’ You can hear the two of them going, ‘Is she arthur sayin kick the doe-ur dowin?’ ‘I tink tats what she said.’ ‘Kick the focking door down!’ she goes again. Which is what they end up doing. From my position on the sofa, I can see, basically, just an explosion of splinters, then in they chorge, the dynamic focking duo. Of course at first, roysh, all they can do is just stare. It takes, like, a while for it to register with them. I’m there, ‘Come on, let’s get the jokes out of the way first, even though they’re all going to be obvious.’ They’re just like, ‘Doorty … fooken … adimal …’ ‘I’ve popped my hip out,’ Chloe goes – no focking embarrassment by the way, just, I suppose, agonizing pain. Larry’s there, ‘Your hip?’ ‘Yeah, I had it replaced earlier this year.’ ‘Alreet,’ it’s Terry who goes, ‘foorst tings foorst. Laddy, you pho-in for an ambiddance,’ and then he’s like, ‘What’s your nayum, luff?’ She’s like, ‘Chloe.’ ‘Alreet, Callowie, I’m goin to go get you a doressedin-gowun – cuffer yerself up and dat.’ He disappears out of the room. Larry, I notice with a sudden focking terror, has picked up the fake phone, the one that’s plugged into the socket with, like, the listening device behind it? He’s holding it to his ear, hammering away on the little button, trying to get a line. ‘Er, that phone’s actually focked?’ I go. Chloe’s there, ‘Ross, if you move again, I swear to God, I’m taking flesh off.’ ‘It’s probley only yisser wirin,’ Larry goes. Then – oh fock! – he suddenly gets down on his hands and knees and storts checking out the little connection box that the Feds attached to the wall. My hort’s suddenly thumping like a focking Opel Corsa with the bass on full. ‘Who de fook put this in for ya?’ he goes. I’m there trying to keep my cool, going, ‘Er, Eircom?’ ‘It waddent fooken Earcom, I can tell ya dat for a fact. Electrics is one of de tings I know a birra bout …’ I’m a focking dead man here. ‘Have ya a screwderiver?’ A sudden pain shoots through my body. ‘Aaarrrggghhh!’ I go. I heard a definite tear that time. Chloe’s like, ‘I’ll do it focking horder if you move again!’ ‘Larry,’ I go, ‘just use my focking mobile – it’s on the table there.’ Which, to my temporary relief, is what he de
cides to do. Terry arrives back with my dressing-gown, the one I got the time me and Sorcha stayed in, like, Ashford Castle. I catch him checking out the embroidered logo on it, then having a little smirk to himself before he drapes it over Chloe’s shoulders – gently, in all fairness to him – and she pulls it around her, then ties the belt. Chloe says thanks and Terry says no botter luff. The wait for the ambulance seems to go on for ever, mainly because Larry won’t let the phone thing go. He’s suddenly down on his knees again, back fiddling with the connection. He’s there, ‘Did it effer woork?’ I’m there, ‘Er, believe it or not, I don’t actually remember?’ Terry’s like, ‘Hee-er, ders anutter pho-in oafer hee-er, so der is,’ and he holds up the Philips cordless that JP bought me as, like, a moving-in present? He checks it then. ‘This one woorks foyin, Laddy.’ Chloe has to get in on the act then. She’s like, ‘Why have you got two phone points in one room, Ross?’ still straddling me, remember. I’m there, ‘Chloe, honestly, stay the fock out of it.’ ‘Veddy odd,’ Larry’s going, with his ear to the wall, tapping it with two fingers. ‘Der shuttent even be a point on dis wall. Dats de mayin junction box oafer dare. But der is somethin behoyunt hee-er – ya can heerd it, listen …’ I’m actually about to just blurt it out – as in just tell them the truth and beg for forgiveness – when all of a sudden the ambulance crew arrives. The first thing I go is, ‘You took your focking time, didn’t you?’ more out of relief than anything else. You can tell from the smiles on their faces that this is going to become one of those stories they’re going to tell every focker – like the stories that every nurse who’s ever worked in A&E has, involving broom handles and ketchup bottles and blahdy blahdy blah blah. To cut a long story short, they basically winch Chloe off me, while supporting her hip, of course. I wouldn’t say it’s entirely painless if the noises coming from her are anything to go by, though she does stop howling long enough to tell them to take her to Blackrock Clinic, just as they’re strapping her on to the trolley, and also what Vhi plan she’s on. The next thing, roysh, she’s suddenly gone and I’m left sitting there, stork-bollock-in-the-raw, my shoulders feeling like two wrung-out dish towels, with two of Ireland’s most dangerous criminals just staring at me. I’m suddenly very aware of my, I suppose, vulnerability? I grab the Sunday Independent magazine off the coffee table and use it to protect my, I don’t know, dignity, genitals, whatever you want to say. ‘Hee-er, Larry,’ Terry goes, a sudden smile on his face, ‘go and get Rooney.’ Now it’s me who’s suddenly screaming. ‘Goys,’ I go, ‘I know we’ve had, like, our differences and shit? But please – in the name of all that is focking holy – do not let that dog in here! Please! Please!’ I’ve got, like, my eyes clamped shut while I’m saying this and the next thing I hear is the two of them cracking their holes laughing. I open my eyes. ‘We’re only fooken wit ye,’ Terry goes, then he throws me my clothes. ‘You’re some tulip, ya know dat?’ I laugh – again, it’s just relief. ‘That’s what Ro always says about me – it’d be one of his lines.’ ‘He definitely needs a thrink,’ Larry goes. ‘Look at de fooken colour of um. Haff yeddy whiskey, Ross – spidits, athin like dat?’ I’m there, ‘No, I’d be, er, mainly a Heineken man,’ a bit weirded out, to be honest, by the way they’re being suddenly nice to me. ‘Ders a bottle of Patty in eer press,’ Terry goes, ‘Go and grab it, Laddy. I tink we all neeth one.’ I apologize for the whole Mary Kennedy mix-up. Terry tells me I’m mustard but I still feel like I owe them, like, an explanation? ‘I was possibly only showing off,’ I go. ‘I’ve got a major thing for her. Always have. I make no apologies for saying it.’ Larry pours me another two fingers. ‘Ah,’ he goes, ‘we were de ones winethin you up …’ I actually laugh, happy to let it go if they are. I’m there, ‘Do you mind me asking, do you even like Leo Sayer?’ They laugh then. ‘We do,’ Larry goes. ‘See, eer fadder was a fan, Lort have meercy on um.’ I did wonder about their old man. But I somehow know not to ask what happened to him. I knock back another gutful and Larry tops me up again. This is us sitting at my breakfast bor, by the way. I notice, roysh, that Terry is suddenly smiling at me – why, I don’t know. ‘Do you moyunt me aston ya,’ he goes, ‘who in Jaysus’s nayum soalt dis place to ya?’ I laugh. It’s a fair enough question. ‘A bird called Ailish,’ I go. ‘She stitched me up in a major way.’ ‘A boord did?’ I sort of, like, nod. ‘It’s generally always a bird with me. That shit with Chloe tonight, that’d be pretty much por for the course. Since I hit puberty I’ve just been following my dick around from crisis to crisis …’ The two boys crack their holes laughing. I can be very, very funny, even I have to admit. I’m there, ‘I’ll never change of course …’ ‘Ine tellin ya sometin elts yill never do,’ Larry goes, ‘and dats sell dis place – not wirrus liffin next doh-er! Who’d want da like of us as neighbours? I ceertainly wootunt!’ We all crack out laughing at that one. Funny because it’s true. More whiskey, more calling it like it bascially is. Hours must pass. The weirdest thing is, roysh, I actually like them. I suddenly don’t care what they do for a living? ‘Dat young fedda of yours,’ Terry goes at some point in the early hours. ‘Smeertest kid I ever fooken meth …’ I nod. ‘You know he’s only, like, two or three IQ points away from being considered officially gifted. That’d be, like, a major thing over this side of the city.’ ‘Me, I left skewill at torteen. Laddy’d be de sayum.’ Larry’s there, ‘Torteen as well, yeah.’ Thirteen is the next age that Ronan’s going to be. ‘I worry about him,’ I all of a sudden hear myself go. ‘He’s, like, totally besotted with – no offence – but your whole world? I mean, I’ve probably encouraged it – buying him the Sunday Wurdled, helping him make that replica pipe bomb for ort class …’ ‘Ah, he’s a clever one, but,’ it’s Larry who goes. ‘Too smeert to get mixed up in athin …’ ‘I don’t know about that. He’s talking about becoming a solicitor.’ ‘What koyunt?’ ‘I think basically your personal solicitor.’ They both laugh. ‘We’ll be fooken gone,’ Terry goes, ‘long befower he ever sees coddidge …’ At first, roysh, I presume he means retired. ‘Are you talking about buying a pub in Alicante – or is that just, like, a stereotype?’ ‘No,’ he goes, ‘we’ll be dead,’ and he says it, roysh, so matter-of-factly that I’m pretty much stunned into silence. ‘It’s a showurt career, Rosser – and no one ever retires ourrof it.’ There’s just, like, silence then. I listen to the kitchen clock ticking for a minute or two. I don’t know why but I get the impression they’re both thinking about their old man. ‘So why do you do it?’ I go. It seems like an obvious question. Larry goes, ‘What elts are we gonna do? It’s like aston Leo Sayer why he sings …’ He suddenly bursts into song then – one I immediately recognize as ‘Living in a Fantasy’. Terry joins in. And – being honest? – so do I. ‘What’s this?’ the old man goes, spotting the envelope sticking out of my jacket pocket. It’s got, like, the world-famous horp on the front of it and he cops it immediately. ‘Is it from the Leinster Branch?’ he goes. I just, like, hand it to him and tell him it arrived last week. So he opens the envelope, whips out the letter and gives it the old left to right. ‘The Gresham!’ the old man tries to go, shaking his head in absolute disgust. ‘Why in hell are they making you cross over to O’Connell Street? Part of the overall scheme, no doubt, to try to bring rugby to the, quote-unquote, common man.’ ‘Hey,’ I go, ‘you don’t have to say that,’ because I know he’s only doing it, roysh, to try to make me feel better. ‘It’s honestly cool.’ He storts nervously picking random sheets of A4 paper off the floor of the van then and feeding them into the mouth of the machine. I’m there, ‘Look, I know how hord this must be for you – given that you think it’s your actual fault? But it’s something I still feel I have to do – even for future generations who go into Wikipedia and say, “Hey, I wonder who won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup in 1999.”’ He sort of, like, smiles to himself then. ‘We’re all so obsessed with our legacies,’ he goe
s. ‘I know I was. Lot of other big names I could mention too. What will future generations say about me?’ He laughs. ‘Hubris,’ he goes. ‘Purblind bloody hubris. To think that history will remember any of us. You know who will remember us? Our wives, our children, our friends. And our grandchildren, Ross, if we’re lucky. But to their children, we’ll just be an old photograph. And to theirs, not even that. Maybe one day, out of curiosity, one of them will go to the National Library and find your birth date, and the date you died, but know nothing of all the wonderful glories, all the desperate reverses, that came in between …’ He laughs, then apologizes. ‘Ross, all I’m saying is, by all means, get your medal back – if it’s what you want. Just don’t think that some little piece of metal defines you. Because it’s not who you are.’ ‘That was what Sorcha said.’ ‘Well, Sorcha’s right. Who you are, Ross, is the chap who parked his own happiness for a moment to try to keep a roof over the heads of his wife and daughter. Who you are is the chap who’s been worrying himself sick over his son becoming a teenager. Who you are is the chap who I watched try to change his mother’s life the other day with a single act of kindness …’ ‘Who I am,’ I go, ‘is also this – as in, me and you? And that’s not an invitation, by the way, for us to suddenly have a focking moment here. I’m just saying it. Surprisingly, I’ve enjoyed it – as in, us working together? End of.’ ‘I’ve enjoyed it too.’ ‘That’s the focking mushy bit over, then. See, that’s the weirdest thing about this whole recession – I’ve been learning an awful lot.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘I’m talking, like, actual lessons. You know, I think I was wrong about those two next door.’ ‘Were you, indeed?’ ‘Ah, something happened the other night – I’ll spare you the sweaty details of it. They surprised me, is all, with how decent they actually are. I suppose I was just too focused on the kilos of heroin and the semi-automatic weapons to see it.’ ‘We’re all only people,’ he goes. That was one of Father Fehily’s sayings – actually, it’s always been one of my favourites and the old man knows it. He tells me then that our four o’clock has cancelled – turns out the Criminal Assets crowd got there before us. ‘You may as well take the rest of the day,’ he goes, and it’s like, job’s a good ’un, because I am pretty shattered. He’s there, ‘By the way, do you think you could manage by yourself next week?’ I’m like, ‘Er, yeah – why, what’s the Jack?’ He seems a bit – if you can believe this of him – embarrassed. ‘Actually,’ he goes, ‘it’s an, em, anniversary of sorts for Helen and me. Forty-seven years since our first date, Ross! Escape from Zahrain in the Deluxe on Camden Street. Yul Brynner, if you don’t mind!’ ‘I’m going to say fair focks …’ ‘Well, Helen’s been at me for some considerable time to visit the South of France with her – so that’s where we’re bound!’ ‘I’ll manage.’ ‘Don’t worry, I shall be back for your hearing. Good old Michael O’Leary can have me in and out in a day, you know …’ ‘No,’ I automatically go, ‘stay there with Helen. You goys need a break. And if this whole current economic blahdy blah has proved anything, it’s that I might have to stort fighting some of my own battles.’ He smiles at me. I don’t think he’s ever looked prouder – even on that famous day. I head for the hills, happy to get out of town before the traffic gets mental. I throw the beast into the corpork, then call the lift, except I realize, roysh, after five minutes of waiting that it must be, like, out of order, so I end up having to take the stairs. Eight flights later, I’m back cursing that focking Ailish again, thinking she’ll hopefully get her reward in hell. I’m practically out on my focking feet when I take the last flight. I push the door that leads from the stairwell to the landing, then I all of a sudden stop. Because I can hear Ronan’s voice. I let it close again to just a crack, which I can just about see through. He’s at, like, Terry and Larry’s door. I notice, by the way, that the reason the lift’s not working is that Ro has jammed the door using his schoolbag, presumably so he won’t have to wait for it when he’s going back down. Which is unbelievably clever. See, that’s what it means to be very nearly gifted. I listen. I hear Larry go, ‘De ting is, we’re veddy busy at de moment, Ro – dis, dat and deutter.’ They’re obviously not letting him in. ‘Er, fair nuff,’ Ronan goes, even though he sounds majorly disappointed. ‘I’m only aston did you want to hang out. What about tomorrow?’ ‘Look, de ting is,’ it’s Terry who goes this time, ‘we don’t want ya calden rowint hee-er addy mower.’ Ro sounds literally crushed. He’s like, ‘Why? Why not?’ ‘Ro,’ Terry goes, ‘ya know who we eer and ya know what we’re about. Dis is no place for a young fedda to be hangin arowint …’ Larry’s like, ‘Especially one like you, wit brayins to burden. Why doatunt yast yer oul fella if he wants to hang out?’ ‘Because I want to hang out with the both of yous.’ ‘Lookit,’ Terry goes, ‘we’re serdious, Ro. Doatunt call hee-er again. Because we woatunt be ansorden de doh-er …’ Then I hear it suddenly slam. Of course all I want to do at that moment, roysh, is rush out there and give him a hug, because I know how badly his hort will be broken. But at the same time I know he has his pride and he won’t want me to have heard the two boys red-cord him like that? So I don’t move. I just stay watching him. He just, like, trudges back to the lift, gives his schoolbag a kick, then disappears inside. The first thing I do, roysh, when I get back into the aportment is grab, like, a paring knife – because I don’t actually own a screwdriver? – and I undo the four screws on the fake phone point. Then I grab the box, give it a hord yank and it comes off in my hand, broken wires spilling out of it everywhere. An hour later, I’m watching actually Malcolm in the Middle when my mobile suddenly rings. I don’t even need to check to know who it is. It’s Breege. ‘My sister just rang me …’ she goes. I don’t give her a chance to ask what happened. I’m just there, ‘Yeah, I pulled it out of the focking wall. The deal is off.’ ‘Do you mind me asking why?’ She is entitled to ask, I suppose. ‘It’s a long story – and I don’t have the time to go into it.’ ‘I did you a favour …’ ‘I know. And I am grateful? But I’m afraid you’re going to have to find yourself another Bubbs.’ Why does he have to be here? JP tells me to keep the head. ‘I’m going to keep the head,’ I go. ‘It’s just, why is he here?’ McGahy hears me – not that I give a fock? ‘I’m here,’ he tries to go, this is in front of the entire foyer of the Gresham, bear in mind, ‘to offer my testimony.’ I’m like, ‘Your testimony? Er, as in?’ He’s wearing his best tweed sports coat with the leather patches on the sleeves. Are they, like, compulsory for teachers or some shit? I must ask Fionn. ‘We found quite a lot of supporting evidence among Father Fehily’s things,’ he goes, loving the sound of his own voice. ‘For instance a schedule of the drugs you were given – with your name on it and the dosages on different days. Just in case your earlier admission that you took banned performance-enhancing drugs isn’t considered sufficient evidence …’ I’m there, ‘Don’t get me wrong – I’m actually glad you’re here?’ which totally throws him. ‘See you inside, Dude.’ He nods at Fionn then. He’s like, ‘Hello,’ obviously bulling that the dude’s going to be storting in the Institute when the schools go back next week. Then he disappears into the room to take his seat. A crowd suddenly storts appearing through the revolving doors. It’s the entire Newbridge team. I could make a sheep or a cow noise but I don’t, though JP does laugh. ‘Look at them,’ he goes. ‘Who’d even believe they were ever a rugby team?’ Even the staff are looking them up and down – and this is the Gresham, remember, which is far from the focking Merrion. ‘There you are, you devil,’ Mocky goes, when he cops me sort of, like, sneering at him across the foyer. ‘Oh, you’re some kind of plucky and no mistake!’ He walks over to where we’re standing, then looks the three of us up and down. ‘This is it, is it?’ he goes, grinning like a cat eating shit out of a hairbrush. ‘Just the three of ye?’ I just shrug. He’s there, ‘As I love God, it’s a fine clutch ye make. The scrapings of the skillet! Well
, I’d put a lie on my soul if I said I haven’t longed to see this day!’ I smile back at him. ‘You know, you might get an actual surprise in there.’ ‘Ah, would you forget it for a story! Your wits are scattered to God and the world!’ Three or four other players wander over to where we’re standing then. One of them is Something Óg. ‘In the presence of my maker,’ he goes, ‘I’ll knock smoke out of this fella,’ meaning me? ‘I’m only waiting on the wind of the word!’ ‘Warm his shins!’ one of the others goes. But Mocky’s there, ‘Let him be. His main stock-in-trade is soft talk with very little to beck it up.’ Suddenly, JP, out of the blue, goes, ‘I didn’t know Lois were still making jeans,’ which immediately prompts a bit of pushing and shoving and I end up having to drag JP away before he decks Something Óg. I’m going, ‘No! Not like that, my friend! Not like that!’ ‘Yerrah,’ Mocky shouts after us, ‘we’ll not listen to another bar of your tongue. ’Tis all about to come beck at you, like shit on a trampoline. The cup will be ours by the end of this very night – and you may die a death for the want of it.’ We go into the room – me, Fionn and JP – yeah, just the three of us from the original fifteen, but that’s all we need. Fionn suddenly whips out his phone. I ask him who he’s ringing. He’s there, ‘Christian. Even if he can’t be here, he said he wants to hear every word of what’s said.’ I smile. I want him to hear it as well. There’s, like, a long table with five suits sitting at it – obviously the men who are sitting in, like, judgement of me. McGahy’s sitting on his own in the crowd, ready for his big moment. I spot One F as well. And Gerry Thornley. They were there ten years ago at the stort of this crazy journey – it’s only right that they should be here today. I’m told to suddenly stand up. I instantly think about Sorcha, standing in the box in that courtroom during the summer, on her focking Tobler – and that’s where I suddenly get my strength from. ‘The charge,’ the suit in the middle goes, ‘is that you knowingly and wilfully used a substance that was prohibited under the rules of the competition in order to gain an advantage …’ I’m just there, ‘Can I just say something here?’ ‘In due course,’ he goes. ‘We have procedures that have to be …’ ‘Believe me,’ I go, ‘we’ll all be out of here a lot quicker …’ The five of them all turn to each other. I look at McGahy and it’s obvious he’s bulling, suddenly worried he’s going to be denied his big moment in the limelight. ‘Okay,’ the dude in the middle goes. ‘What do you have, some kind of personal statement you want to make?’ I just stand up and, like, clear my throat. ‘Well,’ I stort by going, ‘I had this plan in my head of all the shit I was going to say here today. Oh, I can make pretty speeches, don’t you worry about that. Just ask those two goys over there – they’d have walked through walls after one of my world-famous pep-talks …’ Fionn and JP both laugh. ‘I was going to give you all the full, I don’t know, Something Obama treatment. All this we can do, all this we will do and blahdy blahdy blah blah … But I’m not going to. Oh, no. Not today.’ The atmosphere is electric and I’m not just saying that because it’s me who’s doing the talking here. ‘I used to think my Leinster Schools Senior Cup medal was the most important thing in the world. There was something, I don’t know, reassuring about the feel of it under my shirt. For ten years, I actually never took it off. I showered with it. I slept with it. I even made love with it. Oh, it got many a spit and polish, don’t you worry about that …’ There’s, like, roars of laughter from One F and one or two others. See, with speeches, you have to throw in a little something for everyone. ‘The last few months, we’ve all been waking up to reality – that’s what everyone keeps saying, isn’t it? Well, without actually knowing it, I’ve done a fair bit of waking up myself. And what I’ve realized is this …’ I look at Fionn and JP. They have no actual idea what’s coming. I take the medal in my hand. ‘This is only focking metal.’ There’s one or two, honestly, gasps from the Newbridge players. It’s all, ‘Man dear!’ and, ‘God save the hearer!’ I’m there, ‘Oh, you heard me right. The medal itself, it’s basically worthless. Which is why I’ve decided to plead guilty to the chorge and to tell you, here and now, that I don’t want it any more …’ I take it off, like I said, for the first time since 1999. Then I just drop it on the floor. I look at Fionn and JP. They’re, like, smiling – almost as if they’re proud of me. And maybe they are. ‘Oh, sure,’ I go, ‘a lot of people are going to be disappointed. A lot of people who grew up worshipping me are going to be very sad tonight, asking is this the end of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly? But my message to them is, hey, just pick a favourite moment from my career and remember me that way …’ I walk the length of the top table, looking each of the five, I suppose, judges dead in the eye. ‘What I say to you five is – you can expunge the record books. Reverse the result of the match. Write us out of history for ever. You can take away our medals. But you can’t take away the memories of what we actually shared together …’ ‘Well said!’ JP just shouts. Then I turn and, I suppose, address the Newbridge players. ‘As for you lot, I bear you no grudges – certainly no more than the usual. Tonight, you can take your medals back to your villages, your townlands, your homesteads. They might even light a bonfire for you in whatever inbred backwater you’re unfortunate enough to call home. Enjoy every minute of it. Because I know I did.’ Then I look at Fionn and JP again. ‘To you goys, I want to apologize, for basically letting you down …’ ‘Nothing to apologize for,’ it’s Fionn who actually shouts and for a split second, roysh, I don’t care if he does end up being my brother-in-law. JP goes, ‘You didn’t let anyone down, Ross. Far from it.’ I’m there, ‘That’s actually nice to hear … I already feel, I don’t know, naked without that thing hanging around my neck. I know that every so often I’m going to keep reaching for my chest, expecting to feel it there. When I take off my top at night, I’ll expect to see the glint of it in the bathroom mirror. But I won’t miss it, because I’ll remember the wise words on it … Crede quod habes, et habes …’ That gets everyone’s immediate attention. One F and Gerry Thornley are suddenly scribbling like lunatics. It’s like, er, Ross talking Latin? I know it’s going to make all the papers tomorrow. ‘You know,’ I go, ‘I looked at those words every day for ten years but I never knew what they actually meant. Never even stopped to think about it. But I actually Googled them last night, when I made up my mind to give back my medal. They could be, like, a motto for our times …’ I look around at the crowd – they’re all dying to know what it means. I’m there, ‘Believe that you have it …’ and then I pause, roysh, just for dramatic effect. ‘… and you have it!’ JP is the first one to stort clapping, then obviously Fionn. Then a few others join in – One F, GT and a couple of other journos at first, then it sort of, like, spreads throughout the room, like a ripple effect, until suddenly even the Newbridge College players are on their feet, clapping, Mocky included. ‘Legend!’ JP just shouts at me. ‘Legend!’ as I turn around and walk out of there, with possibly the last applause I’ll ever hear just ringing in my ears. I hand him the Saturday-night edition of the Sunday Wurdled – another hero of his, found face down in the Royal Canal – but he doesn’t even take it, just says he’ll look at it later. He’s on the PlayStation. ‘What one is this?’ I go and he honestly can’t take his eyes off the screen. He’s there, ‘Er, the new Grand Theft Auto,’ he goes, ‘Chinatown Wars …’ I’m there, ‘Wow!’ taking an actual interest, see. ‘How many cop cors have you disabled so far?’ ‘Eighteen.’ ‘Eighteen?’ I just laugh. ‘Fair focks, Ro. It has to be said … Whoa, shoot that CCTV camera!’ Which he straight away does. Actually, he throws a petrol bomb at it and I’m suddenly getting into it as much as him. ‘Er, why are you stealing that cor? Would you not get something more, I don’t know, high performance and shit?’ ‘Nah, the high-performance ones you have to hack the fooken immobilizer. I prefer to hotwire them. I’m old school, see …’ He suddenly pauses the game. ‘Do you want to play?’ I
’m a bit, I don’t know, taken aback. ‘Er, yeah …’ He throws me the other controller. It’s then that I notice it on the side of his neck – a dirty big hickey. I actually laugh? ‘Who gave you that?’ I go. He immediately puts his hand on it, like he thinks he can suddenly hide it from me. ‘Don’t make a big deal of it, Rosser.’ ‘I’m asking out of genuine interest – who gave it you?’ ‘Shadden Tuite.’ ‘Who the fock is Sharon Tuite?’ ‘A boord off me road, is all.’ I’m looking at him, roysh, so unbelievably proud. It’s like when Honor got her first tooth. These are the moments. And, dare I say it, it looks like he might end up being a chip off the old block. He’s there, ‘Leave it, Rosser.’ I hear the door suddenly slam. It’s, like, Tina, home from her shift at the hospital. She comes in, flops down on the couch, wrecked. ‘Athin in the peeper?’ she goes, picking up the Wurdled. I don’t mention the dude in the canal? ‘Unemployment’s supposedly worse than the dorkest days of the eighties,’ I go. ‘Half of Cork’s under water. And that swine flu’s apparently becoming, like, an epidemic. That’s famine, floods and a plague. I wonder will God give us a heads-up before he sends the focking locusts.’ Tina and Ro both crack their holes laughing. See, that’s what I mean when I say I can be very funny. ‘Are ya stayin oafer?’ she goes. Ronan’s like, ‘Say yeah, Rosser,’ without even looking at me, so I end up going, ‘Er, yeah,’ then Tina says she’ll go and make up the spare room so. It’s at that point, roysh, that my phone suddenly rings. It’s, like, my old man’s number? I’m thinking, er, midnight on a Saturday from the South of France? He’s almost certainly wankered drunk. But I answer it anyway. I’m like, ‘So, go on, how many have you had?’ ‘A bottle with dinner,’ he goes, ‘and three brandies to help it down. We’re in Monaco, Ross – in the famous Casino de Monte Carlo …’ I’m like, ‘Yeah? Thanks for that, Craig focking Doyle – how exactly does this affect me?’ And he goes, ‘Because Oisinn is here, Ross. I’m looking at him right now.’ Epilogue