The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  I’m thinking, he could have added, ‘And available’.

  Sorcha rings me – no mention of me steering possibly the worst Castlerock team in probably twenty years into the final of the Leinster Schools Senior Cup – and instead, roysh, she storts giving it the whole Pretending To Be Getting On With The Rest Of My Life vibe. She says the new shop, as in the one in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, is doing SO well at the moment and – Oh my God! – she’s actually storted seeing someone, some total tosspot by the sound of it, who goes to Trinity and who’s taking her to see the Suleyman Erguner Ensemble and the Whirling Dervishes perform the Sema at the National Concert Hall.

  No, how are you Ross. No, good luck for the final against Blackrock. And what the fock is a Whirling Dervish anyway?

  A word of warning, roysh – do NOT go to see The Passion. Two hours I sat through it and despite the title, there’s fock-all riding in it. This was basically the joke I cracked in JP’s cor the other night, roysh, but Emily and Medb – these two birds we took to the flicks – didn’t find it funny. Emily is just like, ‘HELLO? The Passion is actually the suffering of Jesus Christ from the Last Supper to the point of his crucifixion,’ me totally forgetting that Emily’s in the folk group in Foxrock church, and JP turns around to me and goes, ‘Know your audience, Ross,’ and gives me a wink.

  Two God-botherers, just our luck. Probably no chance of bailing in now either, and they’re both pretty babelicious, which makes it worse. Emily is JP’s one. She’s doing, like, a TEFL course in Mountjoy Square, roysh, and he chatted her up in The Bailey a couple of Saturday afternoons ago. They storted talking about, of all things, Jesus and God and all that basic stuff. JP owns a CD of Elvis Presley gospel songs – that’s where his knowledge of this shit storts and ends. So this Emily bird mentions that she is SO going to go to see the new Mel Gibson movie when it comes out, and JP says he’s dying to see it as well and suddenly, roysh, before they know it, they’ve talked themselves into a date.

  So Thursday night, roysh, we’re talking two hours before they’ve arranged to meet, Emily springs the news on JP that one of her friends is tagging along, as in Medb, who’s her best friend and who’s also in the folk group. Of course, the last thing JP wants is some Klingon putting the damp-eners on the night, so he asks me to tag along – give it the whole double–date vibe? – and, because he’s a mate, roysh, I agree to take a bullet for him. Anyway, it’s not a bullet at all, roysh, because Medb turns out to be a lasher, basically a dead ringer for Tara Reid – as in Tara Reid from, like, ‘Scrubs’ – and suddenly it’s, like, ‘Late Late’ country: there’s something for everyone in the audience.

  Fifteen minutes into the film, of course, my hand goes for a bit of a wander, up the old kilt basically, but it’s only gotten as far as her knee when Medb grabs it, roysh, and bends three of my fingers back to the point where I practically scream and I know straight away, roysh, that tonight’s a dead loss, that you’d have to basically marry this bird before she’d let you even feed the toothless gibbon. JP’s not getting on much better either, because I can hear Emily giving him an earful, roysh, and though I can’t hear what she’s saying, once or twice I catch the word, ‘Respect’.

  So two hours later, roysh, we’re on the way home and it’s, like, roasting in the cor and there’s a very good reason for that. Emily, according to JP anyway, has the best rack this side of Lola Ferrari, but she’s wearing a jacket that looks like she stole it from a hot-water tank – we’re talking a bubble jacket that’s, like, five sizes too big for her – and she hasn’t taken it off all night, roysh, which is why JP is, like, turning up the heat, bit by bit, to try to get her to, like, unzip it at least, so I can cop an eyeful in the rear-view. Yes, it’s childish, but then so is taking a bird to the flicks and ending up going home with all your bullets still in the chamber.

  So there’s me and JP up the front, roysh, and the two birds are in the back and it’s like a focking sauna in there and Emily’s giving it, ‘Is it just me, or is it, like, hot in here?’ and JP’s there, ‘Don’t feel it myself. What about you, Ross?’ and I’m like, ‘No, I’m just perfect,’ and JP goes, ‘I’ll lash on the old AC,’ which is, like, Estate Agent for Air Conditioning, but instead of turning on the cold air, he turns the heat up another notch or two.

  I’m still making the effort with the two birds, of course, but I’m pissing into the wind basically. I ask them what they think of this, like, smoking ban that’s coming in and Medb’s like, ‘I’m in favour of it,’ and I’m there, ‘They’re saying The George is going to be the most popular pub in Dublin next weekend,’ and it’s basically a joke about the smoking ban. Medb goes, ‘The George, as in the gay bor?’ and I’m there, ‘Yeah, it’s the only pub in Ireland where you can still have a pint and a fag,’ but neither of the birds even smiles. I lean forward and flick the temperature up another ten degrees.

  Out of nowhere, roysh – and I’m not making this up – JP turns around and goes, ‘Is it true that Mel Gibson took all the goriest bits out of the four Gospels and put them in the film?’ and Emily goes, ‘Well, I know that only one of the books of the New Testament mentions Jesus being scourged,’ and Medb’s like, ‘But then only Luke tells us about the robber repenting on the cross beside him. Matthew, John and Mark make no mention of it and yet it’s taken as, pardon the pun, gospel,’ and JP goes, ‘I must sit down one day and actually read the thing from cover to cover,’ and I’m looking at him, roysh, unable to decide whether he’s actually serious or he’s trying to get in at them from another angle.

  Emily goes, ‘I’m sorry, it is ab-so-lute-ly roasting in here. Can you even, like, open a window?’ and JP goes, ‘I can’t. It’d mess up the, er… the refraction,’ and even though JP did, like, physics for the Leaving Cert, roysh, I happen to know he made that word up. I know what Emily’s talking about, though. I’m sweating like Dot Cotton after a twelve-hour shift in the laundrette, but me and JP are cracking on not to notice, roysh, and we’re sitting there, copping sly looks at Emily, wondering basically how much longer she can hold out. I could suggest she takes off her coat, but I don’t want her to think I’m a perv.

  JP turns around to me and goes, ‘So, two days to go to the big game. How’s the team looking?’ and I’m there, ‘Weak in some areas, strong in others. I don’t think Black-rock are all they’re cracked up to be, though,’ and JP nods and the two birds must have no interest in rugby, roysh, because neither of them asks, like, a single question.

  JP turns the heat up again. It must be, like, a hundred degrees in the jammer at this stage and I’m going to have a focking Peter Pan when I get out. Emily’s, like, fanning herself with her hand and blowing her face. Medb’s got her head back and her mouth open, trying to find some air to breathe in, but she looks like she’s losing the will to live. JP goes, ‘Hey, how’s that kid of yours doing?’ and I’m there, ‘Pretty good, actually. He’s making his, like, Communion in a few weeks,’ and all of a sudden, roysh, Medb sits forward in her seat and goes, ‘Excuse me? You’ve got, like, a child?’ and I’m there, ‘Yeah?’ as in, so focking what?

  She goes, ‘So, you’re married?’ and I’m there, Yeah,’ and she’s like, ‘I went on a date with you and you didn’t mention that you were, like, married, with a child?’ and I go, ‘No, I’m not married. Well, I am technically, but not to Ronan’s mother. I just had a kid with her, but I’m actually married to another bird, though we’re supposed to be getting a divorce or, I don’t know, an annulment or some shit…’ and she goes, ‘STOP! STOP JP! Let me out of this car. NOW!’

  I end up just losing the rag, roysh. I go, ‘I’d hordly call it a date, anyway. I got fock-all out of it. Maybe I should have told you I had a wife and a kid. But you should have told me you were a frigid Holy Mary,’ and while we’re arguing, roysh, JP’s given us another ten degrees and I’m turned around, roysh, looking at Medb, but my vision’s getting all, like, blurred and my speech is all, like, slurred and my eyelids suddenly feel like heavy weights
.

  The next thing I remember is waking up, roysh, lying across the bonnet of the cor with JP standing over me, cracking his hole laughing. I’m going, ‘What the fock happened?’ and he’s going, ‘You fainted, dude. Must have been the heat. You’ve been out for, like, twenty minutes,’ and I’m there, ‘Where’s the birds?’ and he’s like, ‘Home, I presume. They flagged down a Jo,’ and then he storts, like, cracking his hole laughing. He goes, ‘Got to tell you something, though, and this registers, like, a ten on the Comedy Richter Scale. When we got you out of the cor, Medb said that the first rule in first aid was to keep the patient warm. So Emily took off her coat and put it over you. She took off her coat, dude! And you were out for it all!’

  *

  I can’t believe that focking Orse Breath would ring me at a time like this. I answer it. I actually answer it. Sometimes I’m, like, too nice for my own good. I’m there, ‘What the fock do you want?’ and he goes, ‘Ringing to tell you the big news, Ross. Don’t want you reading it in your Irish Times first,’ and I’m like, ‘What are you crapping on about?’ and he goes, ‘I’ve decided to stand in the local elections. Yes indeed, you heard me right. Oh, yes, Mister. I’m doing it for Hennessy and Beverly and all the others who’ve had their names dragged through the mire by certain so-called journalists whose names I won’t give them the pleasure of mentioning,’ and I don’t bother my orse even answering him, roysh, I just flip the old Wolfe shut and turn it off.

  I’m actually at assembly in Castlerock, roysh, well actually I’m sort of, like, backstage, waiting for Fehily to introduce me because we’ve got, like, the final tomorrow and he wants me to say a few words, but first he wants to read them something from, like, the Bible basically. He’s there going, ‘A reading from the Book of Exodus. Now Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the Mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.”

  ‘When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said, “take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

  ‘The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave-drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey – the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” This the word of the Lord,’ and everyone’s like, ‘Thanks be to God.’

  Fehily goes, ‘Boys and girls, the story I’ve just told happened about twelve hundred years before the Coming of Christ. More than a thousand years before he sent his son, the Lord sent Moses to lead the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt into Sinai. More than three thousand years later, He sent us a saviour to lead us from the wilderness of schools rugby… into the Promised Land of the Leinster Senior Cup final,’ and everyone storts cheering and clapping and basically giving it loads.

  He goes, ‘Castlerock is justly proud of traditions – as an institute of learning and a nurturer of athletic excellence, particularly in the sacred game that is rugby union. We have come to see success as our right, much like the Israelites considered the land promised to Abraham in Genesis 15. In January, I made a covenant with a man who I believe was sent to us by the Lord. And now here we are, camped on the Planes of Moab, east of the River Jordan, about to enter the Promised Land of Lansdowne Road. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Ross O’Carroll-Kelly,’ and the whole place goes totally ballistic, roysh, everyone giving it, ‘ROSS! ROSS! ROSS! ROSS!’ and, ‘LE-GEND! LE-GEND! LE-GEND! LE-GEND!’

  When the noise dies down, roysh, I’m just like, ‘I never believed that five years ago, when I stood here before you as a player, I’d be back again quite so soon. But, as you heard Father Fehily say, back at the stort of the year, he came to me and he went, “Will you coach Castlerock this year?” and I’m not going to basically lie to you, I had my doubts. I doubted whether the bunch of goys I was going to inherit had the same hunger to win that we had in 1999. Fitness was a major problem. Then a few too many of them were way too interested in passing their Leaving Cert,’ and I give Lorcan in the front row a big wink and he, like, waves his fist at me, roysh, as if to say, You rock! Thank you for changing my life. I go, ‘But I was wrong. There was a hunger there. There was a desire. All it needed was someone to, like, bring it out of them.’

  Believe it or not, roysh, I haven’t got an actual note in front of me. This stuff is coming straight from the hort. I’m there, ‘Where once there was laziness, suddenly there was whatever is the opposite of laziness. I think these goys – who I’m about to ask to join me here on the stage in a moment – have learned a lot about themselves in these past eleven weeks. They’ve learned that within each of them there is talent. Within each of them, there is, like the song says, a hero. Like I said, they’ve learned a lot about themselves, but they’ve learned a lot about each other, too. They’ve learned about teamwork, about friendship, about loyalty, about trust. And that’s what Blackrock will be facing tomorrow. And God help them!’

  And the whole audience just, like, explodes, roysh, that’s the only word for it. Everyone’s giving it, ‘WE ARE ROCK, WE ARE ROCK, WE ARE ROCK…’ and I’m telling the goys in the front row – the team basically – to come up on the stage and they do, roysh, and they’re hugging me and high-fiving me and clapping me on the back and telling me that I’m a legend and thanking me, basically, for helping them unlock their potential, while in the background Fehily’s going, ‘Let it be known that in triumph lies also defeat, and in defeat lies also triumph. I had to go through both to see where the end lies… the end that is not an end, death that is not death, human life that is not all of life…’

  I hit the sack early – as in eleven – what with tomorrow being one of the biggest days of my basic life. I’ve been asleep for, like, an hour when the old Theobald goes. It’s, like, Jessica and she’s basically bawling her eyes out, roysh, shouting something down the line about a yearbook. I’ve just gone, ‘I can’t hear what you’re saying. Ring me back when you’re less focking hysterical,’ but she calms down, roysh, and she’s like, ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it yet,’ and I’m there, ‘Seen what?’ and she goes, ‘There’s an interview with Andrew in the Castlerock yearbook. It must have been done before we, like, broke up. They asked him who was his biggest inspiration and he said… he said, “My girlfriend, Jessica”.’

  Then she’s like, ‘I can’t live with the guilt of having been with you anymore. I’m sorry, Ross, but Andrew and I have always told each other the truth,’ and she just, like, hangs up and I’m left there going, ‘Oh fock!’

  Pikey bells me at, like, nine o’clock on Paddy’s Day morning, roysh, and I tell him I hope he got a good night’s kip, fully rested for the final, blah blah blah, and he tells me I’m a wanker and a snake and also a dickhead and he’s basically going to deck me, roysh, and I can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s not a happy camper and it’s pretty obvious he knows that I gave Jessica an old rattle.

  I’m actually having a bit of brekky in Café Java in Black-rock with the goys when he rings, their way basically of saying well done to the Coach of the Century for steering a team of losers to the Leinster Schools Cu
p final.

  I actually didn’t think Jessica would spill the beans, but the news that he actually knows hits me like a focking Johnny Hayes tackle. JP goes, ‘What’s wrong, Ross? You look like someone’s just splashed your Dubes at the trough,’ and I’m there, ‘He knows. Pikey knows,’ and Fionn and Christian are going, ‘Knows what?’

  Only JP and Oisinn know that I boned Jessica, but it doesn’t take long for the other two to catch up on the story so far. Fionn goes, You never learn, do you?’ full of sympathy as usual. Oisinn goes, ‘I told you he was going to find out,’ and I’m there, ‘Well, I knew he would. Birds can’t hold their piss. I just thought we might have at least been able to keep it on the QT until after the match.’

  Christian shakes his head and goes, ‘You were just hours away,’ and JP goes, ‘So what’s the SP, Major? He’s not going to play for you surely?’ and I’m there, ‘He said he wants to meet me. Twelve o’clock at Lansdowne Road Dorsh station,’ and straight away, roysh, Fionn – who’s loving this – goes, ‘You’re like Gary Cooper in High Noon. Waiting for the noonday train to get your orse kicked,’ and I give him the finger, roysh, but then he storts giving it, ‘Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’,’ and the rest of the goys – even Christian – break their holes laughing.

  I’m there, ‘Will anyone come with me?’ and JP just, like, shakes his head and goes, ‘One-on-one. Sounds like a fair fight to me, dude,’ and I look at the goys and it’s pretty obvious they’re not going to offer me any back-up. I go, ‘You’re supposed to be my friends,’ and Fionn goes, ‘You slept with his girlfriend, Ross. You need to learn that sometimes there’s a price to pay for that kind of shit,’ and it’s obvious, roysh, that he’s, like, poisoned their minds against me over that diary business, the steamer.