The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  Then the old dear, roysh, turns around and goes, ‘Charles, you haven’t told Ross my news,’ and the old man’s like, ‘Oh, yes. Big news, with a capital B,’ and the old dear goes, ‘Ross, you remember your friend Simon?’ and it’s, like, Simon as in Simon who captained the S the first year we got to the final. I’m there, ‘What about him?’ and she goes, ‘Well, you remember his mother, Sally?’ and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, we all remember Sally,’ because in fairness, roysh, she was a total MILF, as in Mother I’d Like to Fock.

  The old dear goes, ‘Well, she’s arranging this yummy-mummy calendar,’ and I swear to God, roysh, suddenly I’m feeling weak and I can, like, hear the blood in my ears. I’m just, like, staring at her. She goes, ‘It’s for charity, Ross,’ and I’m there, ‘Let me get this straight – you’re actually proposing to take your actual clothes off and actually be photographed for a calendar?’ and she goes, ‘It’s for breast cancer awareness. Christian’s mum’s doing it, too,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah but she’s actually worth looking at,’ which of course I’m in a position to know.

  She goes, ‘It’ll all be very tastefully done, Ross. These things are all the rage in the States,’ and I’m like, ‘No! It’s not focking happening. Take a look at yourself, woman – you’re hordly yummy-mummy material,’ and she looks at the old man, roysh, for, like, reassurance and he goes, ‘Don’t listen to him, Fionnuala. You could give that Liz Hurley a run for her money and anyone who likes can quote me on that.’

  I’m there, ‘He’s focking lying. You are bet-down. And you are SO not making a holy show of me,’ and she goes, ‘I’ve given Sally my word now,’ and I’m there, ‘Well you can basically ungive it,’ and she goes, ‘And I have final approval of what shot they use,’ and I’m like, ‘Are you focking deaf as well as ugly?’

  I am in no mood to talk to Leilani when she rings. I just, like, answer the phone going, ‘What?’ and she’s there ‘Oh. Ross, it’s… it’s Leilani,’ and I’m like, ‘I know who it is. I’ve got caller ID,’ and she goes, ‘Oh, em… I just wondered had you seen it yet? As in the website? It’s, like, fionnsblog.ie,’ and I’m like, ‘You’ve finished it, then?’ and she’s there, ‘oh my God, it was just like studying for exams. I stayed up, like, all Monday night and most of Tuesday night to type it in,’ and I’m there, ‘You’re a bigger focking fool than I thought then,’ and she obviously thinks she’s misheard me, roysh, because she just ignores it and goes, ‘So what are you doing tonight?’ as in, like, Thursday night. I’m there, ‘I’m taking a beautiful lady out to dinner,’ and she’s like, ‘Oh?’ and I can hear the excitement in her voice. I go, ‘You know Peploe’s, don’t you?’ and she’s like, ‘Yeah, the foie gras is supposed to be like, Oh my God!’

  She goes, ‘What time will I meet you there?’ and I’m there, ‘Meet me?’ and she’s like, Yeah, as in for dinner?’ and I go, ‘What a focking hilarious misunderstanding. I said I was bringing a beautiful lady out to dinner and you thought that meant you,’ and she goes, ‘No, seriously, Ross,’ thinking I’m ripping the basic piss, but I go, ‘Look, I was only using you to get that work done. Get over it. I’m not into kippers. Never was, never will be,’ and I hang up, roysh, and tip straight down to the old business centre.

  I get online I suppose you’d have to call it, lash in the old www dot, then fionnsblog and then the old dot ie and after a couple of seconds, roysh – focking hilarious – up comes that picture I took of Fionn in the Parrot Park in Playa del Ingles a couple of years ago, looking like the dude out of the focking Mister Muscle ad, with his focking weedy little body and his glasses and a basic focking cockatoo on his shoulder. I look down in the corner, we’re talking bottom left, roysh, and the site’s already had, like, 2,767 hits in like – what? – one day.

  I love the homepage, if that’s the actual word for it. I basically wrote it myself, roysh, and it’s like, I’m a poet – and you didn’t know it,’ which I have to say I’m pretty proud of – well at least it, like, rhymes. Then it’s like, ‘Hey there, fellow geeks! My name is Fionn and the things I’m into are basically reading, knowing loads of shit… and poetry. I have the big-time hots for a girl called Sorcha, but she’s totally in love with this really, really, really good-looking, kick-orse rugby player, which means that all I have are my fantasies. Why not click on the little pair of glasses below and read about some of the sick shit that goes on in my head in my online diary…’

  I click and Leilani, fair focks to her, she has it all laid out, roysh, month-by-month, year-by-year, and she’s added a few little touches of her own, roysh, like pictures of this Rimbaud steamer he seems to be into and, like, Tom Waits with his big stupid focking head. She’s done herself proud here.

  I whip out the old Wolfe and bell Sorcha. I’m there, ‘Don’t hang up on me, Babes. I was just, like, surfing away on the internet there, checking out a few websites on endangered animals, basically seeing how they’re all doing, when all of a sudden I came across–’ and she goes, ‘I already know. Claire rang me,’ and I’m there, ‘Well, it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to know that one of my friends is a focking psychopath. I’m not trying to, like, put the shits up you or anything, but I think he’s actually capable of killing,’ preparing the ground before I offer to come over and keep her company.

  She goes, ‘Fionn wouldn’t hurt a fly, Ross,’ and I’m like, ‘Let’s not take that chance,’ but then totally out of the blue, roysh, she goes, ‘I actually think it’s quite sweet.’ I’m there, ‘Sweet? After all the things he was writing about you? He’s a focking sicko, Sorcha. Listen to this shit,’ and I read the entry for Friday, 1 August 2003, and it’s like:

  Could it really be that I have lost

  You to some undeserving fool

  Who sees none of the beauty in you?

  If so I will bear my loss like a man.

  But in my dreams

  We’ll walk through bullion fields

  And on a bed of wheat,

  Skin on skin,

  We’ll consummate

  That which we are afraid to feel

  I’m like, ‘What fields? What wheat?’ and she goes, ‘Look, Ross, I know in some ways it’s like, OH MY GOD! But it’s actually quite, I don’t know, flattering,’ and I’m there, ‘Flattering? You know, the day he wrote that was the day we announced our engagement. He was like, “I’m SO pleased for both of you,” to our faces, then he goes home and writes this shit? I’m telling you, Babes, a goy who writes so-called poems like that is well capable of going over there and killing you. I know things aren’t great between us at the moment, but I have to say I’d be pretty upset if the Feds ended up finding your body rolled up in a corpet and, like, dumped in a lay-by somewhere.’

  She goes, ‘oh! My! God! You’re the one who’s actually freaking me out, Ross. Okay, I have to say, I was surprised by what I read – I was like, OH! MY! GOD! – but I blame myself. I should have seen that he liked me. I, like, SO should have. Now I feel like I led him on.’ I go, ‘Just make sure your bedroom window is locked tonight,’ and she’s like, ‘Well, at least I can say that there’s someone out there who cares enough about me to write actual poems for me,’ and I go, ‘Cool, we’ll read a couple of them out at the funeral.’

  She gives me the silent treatment for ages, roysh, then eventually she goes, ‘You know, Ross, you haven’t got, like, a romantic bone in your body. I can’t remember the last time you did something to actually impress me.’

  3. ’Twixt Love and Duty

  Stitching up the Boy Poet puts me in cracking form for the day. I head back to the hotel, order a club sandwich to my room, watch a porno, kip for a few hours, then ring Christian, who’s in work but who, as it happens, is meeting Oisinn for a pint in the M1 later.

  So I go to meet the goys, roysh, and I have to say they’re in, like, top form as well. Christian is telling me about the time that all the Hutts were evicted from the Komonor system by the ruling warlord and Jabba the Hutt hired Dyyz Nataz to hunt him down and kill him and
I’m there going, ‘Cool,’ while Oisinn is saying he can definitely smell 212 by Carolina Herrera and he keeps asking me am I absolutely positive that Hazel, as in third year Orts UCD, wasn’t in, and I just tell him to shut the fock up and get the Britneys in, which he does.

  When he’s at the bor, roysh, he turns around to me and goes, ‘Have you heard from Fionn?’ and I’m like, ‘I presume he’s too scared to show his face,’ and he’s there, ‘You’ve seen it then? Pretty heavy stuff, wasn’t it? Whatever about thinking that shit, you don’t put it on a focking website. You seem cool about it,’ and I’m like, ‘He’s obviously a sicko, he’s more to be pitied than anything,’ and then Oisinn turns around and hands me and Christian our pints and goes, ‘The old 212, huh. Pure focking alchemy. Modern, innovative and radically feminine,’ and I’m like, ‘That certainly sounds like Hazel,’ and I’m, like, grinning from ear to ear, roysh, because I’ve been there loads of times.

  So then, all of a sudden, roysh, I feel this, like, tap on my shoulder and I turn around and who’s standing behind me, only Jessica, as in Andrew Pike’s piece. I’m playing it cool as an Eskimo’s piss, of course, going, ‘Hey, Babes. Pull up a stool,’ and she’s like, ‘I’m not staying. I just want to make, I suppose, an eleventh-hour appeal for clemency,’ and I haven’t a focking bog what she’s on about, though I suspect she’s asking me to put Pikey back on the team. The thing is, roysh, he was never actually dropped in the first place, though I’m enjoying her squirming too much to tell her that.

  I’m there, ‘I don’t think he’s the man for us,’ and then I, like, put my hand on her orm and I go, ‘I don’t think he’s the man for you either,’ and she goes totally ballistic then, giving it, ‘How dare you! You don’t know anything about me, or him,’ and I’m there, ‘I know his type,’ and she goes, ‘HELLO? I think I know him better than you, seeing as we’ve been together, like, two years?’ and I just, like, turn back to the goys and throw my eyes up to Heaven as if to say, you know, she must have a starring role in a period costume drama, roysh, but Jessica just, like, grabs me by the shoulder and spins me around and goes, ‘You think you’re SO cool, don’t you? Playing God with people’s lives,’ which are the exact same words that Andrew’s old man used, so I think it’s pretty fair to say there’s been some kind of family conference about me.

  I just, like, shrug, take a whack out of my pint and go, ‘Answer me this: has he ever done the dirt on you?’ and she doesn’t answer. I’m there, ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ and she’s like, ‘That was Becky’s fault. She came on to him when he was drunk. And she SO did it to piss me off,’ and I nod really slowly, roysh, cracking on that I understand where she’s coming from, but it’s, like, mission accomplished, roysh, because I’ve planted that seed of doubt in her mind. I go, ‘Where is he tonight?’ and she’s there, ‘Having an early night. He’s getting up early tomorrow to practise his kicking. See? He’s still practising, Ross, even though you cut him from the team.’

  I’m there, ‘That’s what he told you,’ and she goes, ‘No, that’d be the truth, Ross. We trust each other,’ but I can tell from her boat, roysh, that she’s not exactly convinced. She storms off then, roysh, but I know she’ll be back.

  Oisinn turns around to me and goes, ‘You’ve two hopes there, Ross,’ and I’m like, ‘Meaning?’ and he’s there, ‘Meaning Bob and No. I know a goy who’s in her class in UCD. Every goy in Commerce has chanced his orm with her and ended up crashing and burning. She’s been going out with that Pikey goy for years,’ and I’m like, ‘I love a challenge, Oisinn, you know that,’ and Oisinn goes, ‘She actually looks a bit like that Beth Ostrosky.’

  Half-an-hour later, roysh she’s back – surprise, sur-focking-prise – her Volume Effet Faut Cils all over her boat from where she’s been crying. She goes, ‘His mobile’s switched off. And the home phone’s been engaged for, like, thirty minutes.’ The poor focker’s probably on the internet or some shit. I’m there, ‘He’s strayed before, Jessica. What’s to say he wouldn’t do it again?’ and I just, like, slip my orm around her waist and when she lets me leave it there I know she’s, like, putty in the hand.

  I give her an hour of you-deserve-so-much-better horseshit and a bit of the old you-need-a-man-not-a-boy, and an hour later, roysh, she’s kicking off her Dubes back in Room 404 of the Berkeley Court and I’m pleasuring her like she’s never been pleasured before. She knows a few tricks herself, if the truth be told, and I’d actually give her a good eight out of ten.

  Of course, while we’re doing the bould thing, I’m thinking, You’re not so shit-hot now, are you Pikey? Stor of the school team you might be… and then I accidentally go – out loud – ‘… but they all still want The Master,’ and Jessica stops and goes, ‘What did you say?’ and I’m there, ‘Oh, I… em… asked you did you want me to go faster,’ and she buys it.

  Of course, then the inevitable happens. Four o’clock in the morning, she gets the kind of attack of conscience that a man of my vast experience has come to expect. She actually wakes me up with her Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmy God!s. She’s like, ‘I cannot believe I did that,’ and I’m lying there going, ‘Do you mind? I’m actually trying to sleep here. Do your focking soul-searching somewhere else,’ and she gets out of the Margaret and storts throwing her threads back on and, like, sobbing to herself about how she promised Andrew that the pre-debs was a one-off and it wouldn’t, like, happen again, but now it has, which makes her a – OH! MY! GOD! – total slapper.

  As she’s leaving, roysh, I turn around and go, ‘And put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door,’ and she actually does it, the sap.

  Pikey’s like a dog with two mickeys when he hears the news. I’m there, ‘You’re back on the team,’ and for a minute, roysh, I actually think he’s going to hug me. He’s like, ‘And I’m still captain?’ and I go, ‘Yeah, but I want to see maximum commitment from you. No more nights out. No more distractions, of a romantic or otherwise nature,’ and – get this, roysh – he goes, ‘I’m actually going to talk to Jessica tonight, tell her I want to cool it for a while, at least until after March seventeenth.’ I’m there, ‘March seventeenth? You’re thinking in terms of the final – I like that,’ and he goes, ‘Why not? We’re better than anything else in the competition,’ and I’m like, ‘For now, let’s just concentrate on beating Clongowes tomorrow,’ and he goes, ‘You are not going to regret this, Mr O’Carroll-Kelly,’ and he focks off, roysh, feeling like I’m doing him a favour rather than the other way around.

  My phone rings and I can see from my caller ID that it’s, like, Ronan and it’s weird, roysh, but I get this, like, feeling of excitement in my stomach, butterflies, I suppose you’d have to say. I answer and he goes, ‘Alreeet, Rosser?’ and I’m there, ‘Hey, Ronan. What’s the scéal?’ and he’s like, ‘You know yourself, don’t want to say anything to incriminate myself,’ and I laugh. He goes, ‘You’ve got that match tomorrow, right?’ and I’m there, ‘Clongowes, yeah. It’s in Donnybrook. Why don’t you come along? I can talk to your mother,’ and he goes, ‘Don’t take this up the wrong way, Rosser, but rugby’s a faggot’s game. If that’s what you’re into, it’s what you’re into. But don’t forget, I’ve a rep in this town,’ and I’m there, cracking up again, going, ‘Sorry, I forgot about your rep,’ and he’s there, ‘If some of me contacts found out I was into that kind of thing, well, you know… but I just wanted to say good luck.’

  Two days after we beat Clongowes, I’m still buzzing off what Wardy wrote, and I know it basically off by hort at this stage. It was like, With former star flyhalf Ross O’Carroll-Kelly at the helm, MAKE NO MISTAKE, Castlerock College have gone from being rank outsiders in the Leinster Schools Senior Cup to THE team to beat after yesterday’s seismic events in Donnybrook.

  We ended up lashing Clongowes out of it, we’re talking 57–13, and we’re talking seven tries as well, four of them from Pikey, who had the game of his life. He kicked focking everything. He was unbelievable, roysh, and so was Lorcan, who got a try
himself, and as we’re running circles around them, I’m looking over at Gerry Thornley, who actually tipped this shower to win it this year, and I’m, like, wondering what he’s thinking now.

  The next day I find out. His report is like, Not only were Clongowes beaten yesterday, they were annihilated. It rained tries at Donnybrook. But that was only part of the story. Castlerock lit up a miserable afternoon with their fast-running game that put this writer in mind of – dare I say it – their young coach Ross O’Carroll-Kelly in his prime, and I’m just reading it, going, ‘Yes, you dare say it. All is forgiven, Gerry.’

  Then he’s like, Andrew Pike was outstanding – but then, isn’t he always? It would be selling him short to describe his performance as mesmerising and, though only a couple of thousand souls braved the elements to watch yesterday’s match, many thousands more will, in years to come, claim to have been there to watch his five-star performance yesterday.

  Then it’s like, Yet the most impressive aspect of the performance, from this observer’s point of view, was Castlerock’s dominance up front, with young hooker Francis Stadiem proving himself the immovable object of popular cliché, while in the lineout Aodán Hannafy jumped like his legs were spring-loaded.

  I’m actually glad he, like, singled other goys out, roysh, because I didn’t want to take all the credit for the result, although I have to say, my pre-match talk was pretty amazing, we’re talking real, like, stirring stuff, if that’s the word. All the goys were there in the dressing-room with their heads down and their game-faces on, basically psyching themselves up, and I was just, like, pacing back and forth in front of them going, ‘Look at me! LOOK AT ME!’ and they all, like, looked up and I went, ‘What do those jerseys mean to you? Because they mean EVERYTHING to me. EVERYTHING Let me tell you something, I don’t actually care if we lose out there today. Clongowes, okay, they’re wankers, but they’re a bloody good team. It won’t bother me if they beat us – just as long as every one of you can still look me in the eye when you walk off that pitch in a little under two hours’ time,’ and at that point, roysh, Francis Stadiem jumped up, pointed at me and went, ‘I WILL FOCKING DIE FOR THIS MAN!’ and out they went. Clongowes didn’t know what hit them.