The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

  I’m like, ‘You invited him to the United States, Sir?’ He goes, ‘No, I didn’t invite him as such… I know how this probably looks to you,’ and I’m there, ‘Well, this is how it looks to me – you’re in a whole bunch of trouble. Go and stand in front of your building. We’re going to send a cor around for you,’ and he goes, ‘A car?’ and I’m like, ‘Unless you want a scene…’ and he’s like, ‘I don’t want a scene. Look, I’ve just made partner here,’ and I’m there, ‘Well, go and stand out front, then. And before you go…’

  I nearly laugh out loud when Oisinn gives me the next line. I’m there, ‘Are you concealing anything under that shirt?’ and he’s like, ‘My shirt? You mean you can see me? You’ve got men in the building opposite? The Continental building? Are there guns pointed at me?’ and he’s having a focking canary, roysh, and I’m just there going, ‘REMOVE YOUR SHIRT, SIR!’ and he’s like, ‘I’m removing it! I’m removing it!’ and then I’m like, ‘Now go and stand out front. A cor will come for you,’ and I hang up, roysh, and I swear to God, me and Oisinn laughed so much I had to go back to my room and change my boxers.

  I’m there, ‘Why is it called the Dead Sea?’ and I should have known better than to ask. Fionn goes, ‘Because nothing can live in it. Every litre of water contains about 30 per cent salt and minerals. Water like that can’t sustain aquatic life,’ and Debra’s like, ‘It’s also the lowest point on Earth,’ and Fionn pushes his glasses up on his nose and goes, ‘Three-hundred-and-ninety-four metres below sea level, to be precise,’ and I’m looking at them, thinking they’re like that Richard and focking Judy – one storts a sentence and the other finishes it. They’re also, like, holding hands, which makes me want to spew.

  I’m there, ‘All I want to know is, will I definitely float?’ and Fionn goes, ‘You’re Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, surely you can walk on the surface?’ and he’s all smug, roysh, just because he’s the one who ended up scoring Debra, though as far as I’m concerned he’s welcome to her. I go, ‘All I’m saying is that you know I can’t swim. JP, you remember Playa del Ingles, don’t you?’ but he just, like, ignores me. We’re walking from the cor pork down to the beach at Ein Gedi and JP’s, like, ten yords ahead of the rest of us, in a total strop.

  Oisinn goes, ‘I can’t believe you focked his Bible out the hotel window, Ross,’ and I’m like, ‘It was for his own good. All that focking Joseph and his Coat of Many Colours. It’s not roysh. When was the last time he actually said anything?’ and Oisinn goes, ‘He said something this morning. At breakfast. I asked him what was going on with the whole silent buzz and he said, “There’s a time for talking and a time for listening?” I told him we’d all be relieved when it was talking time again and he said, “I’ll talk when I have something to say”,’ and I’m just there, ‘Mad as a focking toothbrush.’

  It sounds a bit gay, roysh, but it’s unbelievably, like, peaceful down by the water. I whip off my threads and of course the two birds have to cop a sly look – it’s difficult for them, I know, but they both made their choices – and I get into the water, roysh, up to my waist and suddenly it just, like, takes the legs from under me, roysh, and it’s amazing but I’m just, like, floating on top of the water. The goys and the three birds all pile in then. At one point, Shifra turns around and goes, ‘That’s Jordan over there,’ and I nearly have a focking hort attack, roysh, looking around going, ‘WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?’ and Fionn laughs and goes, ‘She’s talking about the country, Ross,’ and of course everyone cracks up laughing, roysh, and the joke’s on me again.

  I sort of, like, work my way over toJP. I feel bad about focking his book out of the window of the hotel, but it’s just my way of saying, basically, get with the programme. I go, ‘Some night out you missed last night, JP. I ended up scoring this French bird. She could have been Angelina Jolie’s sister. Did you see the scratches on my back?’ and he just looks at me, roysh, and goes, ‘The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God,’ and just as I’m about to tell him he’s a freak he goes, ‘Galatians, 5:19.’

  Fehily takes ages to answer, but he’s, like, delighted to hear from me. He goes, ‘Hearing your voice is like a gift from God…’ and I’m like, ‘There’s no time for that shit. We’ve got a major problem, and we are talking major here.’ He’s like, ‘Well, you know the ethos of this school, my child. We have no past pupils. When you’re part of a family, you’re always part of that family. I told you you all on your last day at Castlerock that wherever you are in the world, and whatever trouble you’re in, we will help you.’

  I’m there, ‘Well, me and in the goys are in basically Israel,’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, the Land of the Risen Lord,’ and I’m there, ‘JP’s freaked out. Keeps spouting on about debauchery and the kingdom of God and, like, quoting the Bible and shit?’ and Fehily laughs, roysh, he actually laughs, and he goes, ‘Young JP has found God?’

  I’m there, calm as you like, ‘Okay, what’s the cure?’ and he laughs again and goes, ‘There is no cure, my child, except to take the medicine of God’s will. I’ve seen this happen before. It can happen at any time. I was in my early twenties when I had my calling.’

  I’m there, ‘But he’s not coming out on the lash with us. He’s, like, hordly saying anything,’ and Fehily goes, ‘Now is the time for thought and reflection. He will talk when he has something to say,’ and I’m thinking, That’s exactly what he said.

  *

  We’re on the road to the airport, roysh, and though I was a bit, I don’t know, sceptical about coming here in the first place, I have to say, roysh, I had an amazing time, even just, like, learning about other cultures and shit? Last night – we’re talking Easter Sunday – I ended up being with a Spanish bird. There’s a big world out there and it’s full of birds who want to be with Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.

  Fionn and Oisinn are saying their last goodbyes to the birds in the cor. Debra’s saying she wishes we’d had more time. She’s like, ‘I would have liked to take you to see the Mount of Olives,’ and Fionn goes, ‘Ross thought that was one of the EU food surpluses,’ and everyone cracks up laughing, roysh, but quick as a flash I go, ‘Fock you, Glasses Head,’ to which he has no answer and in fact it shuts everyone up.

  Fionn’s got his video camera on his lap and I’m thinking he never focking stops, that goy, probably hoping to film a couple more, I don’t know, temples before we get to the airport. He tells Debra he’s coming back as soon as he finishes his PhD and he probably will, roysh, because, looking like that, he has to travel halfway around the world to get his rock and roll. Shifra, though, is getting her last look at Oisinn and she basically knows it.

  So we’re pegging it along, roysh, and Shifra all of a sudden looks in her rear-view and goes, ‘Uh-oh! Police,’ and Debra’s like, ‘What speed were you doing?’ and Shifra’s there, ‘Well, I was well under. He flashed me, though. I should pull in,’ and she does, roysh, and I’m looking out the back wondering how she knew it was the cops, roysh, because it’s, like, an unmorked cor.

  The next thing, roysh, these two goys get out and one of them’s got a serious-looking piece, which he points into the back of the people-carrier after reefing open the door. I swear to God, roysh, every basic drop of blood in my body goes cold when he turns around and goes, ‘Which one of you is Ross O’Carroll-Kelly?’ and before I get a chance to think of something, the rest of them land me roysh in it by, like, pointing at me.

  The goy’s like, ‘Can you get out of the car, please?’ and I am seriously bricking it, roysh, because I just remembered fecking a towel and a pair of slippers from the hotel room – they’re not even for me, they’re a present for Sorcha – and I’m thinking it must have been a pretty expensive towel if the Feds are chasing us to the airport, and then suddenly I’m wondering, roysh, whether this is one of those countries where they, like, cut your fock
ing Christian Andersens off for basically robbing shit.

  I get out of the cor and put my hands above my head. He goes, ‘Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, did you place a call to a gentleman in Boulder, Colorado, purporting to be an FBI agent?’ and I swear to God, roysh, my focking bowels move. I’m there, ‘An FBI agent… em…’ trying to bluff him, roysh, but he turns around and goes, ‘We have a recording of the conversation, Sir. It won’t be difficult to match your voice pattern with the voice on the tape,’ and I’m letting off focking trouser gas here like nobody’s business.

  He goes, ‘Can we take a look in your luggage, Sir?’ and he sort of, like, motions me around to the back of the van, where I open the door and hand him my bag, with the big Castlerock logo on the side, and he hands it to the other dude, who unzips it and has a look inside. He goes, ‘My God! Come and look at this,’ and I’m thinking, Okay, get your story straight. Tell them the towel is very similar to one you have at home and you took it without thinking, when all of a sudden, roysh, he reaches into my bag and pulls out a bomb.

  We’re talking A FOCKING BOMB!

  The goy with the gun goes, ‘Okay, on the floor,’ and I just, like, totally lose it, roysh. I’m going, ‘It’s not mine. I swear. I’ve never seen it before on my life,’ and I’m bawling my eyes out, roysh, and I’m like, ‘All I took was one towel and a pair of slippers for basically Sorcha and that’s only because I didn’t have time to get anything in the gift shop,’ and I’m shaking, roysh, and I’m there, ‘Even the goys will tell you that it’s not mine. I’ve never seen it before,’ and I can feel my right leg suddenly get all hot, roysh, and wet as well, and I realize I’ve done a hit-and-miss in my trousers and it’s, like, definitely going to show, roysh, because these are, like, beige chinos I’m wearing.

  After, like, twenty seconds of this, roysh, I realize that I’ve got my eyes closed, waiting to be shot basically, and when I open them, Oisinn and Shifra and Debra and Fionn have got out of the van and they’re all, like, standing there, cracking their holes laughing, and so are the two coppers, and Fionn – focking Fionn – is pointing the video camera at me and I’m like, ‘What the fock are you doing?’ and he’s going, ‘And… cut!’

  I go, ‘What’s going on?’ and Fionn’s there, ‘Don’t worry, Ross, it’s not a bomb. It’s the inside of a radio with a couple of batteries stuck to it with brown tape,’ and I look at the two cops, roysh, and Debra just goes, ‘My brothers,’ and I point at the gun and I go, ‘I take it that’s not real either,’ and Fionn cracks up laughing and goes, ‘Real? How long did you think Fisher Price had been making machine-guns?’

  I’m there, ‘So this is it then, Fionn? This is you getting me back?’ and he goes, ‘No, I won’t have got you back, Ross, until this little film is on the internet.’

  I don’t FOCKING believe it. What are the chances? I’m sitting beside the same two old biddies on the way back. I’m miserable and I reek of piss, so you could at least say we have something in common. Mrs Holt offers me a Murray Mint. It’s got no wrapper and it’s got, like, fluff on it from being in her pocket. I tell her no. And she doesn’t even focking remember me from the way over. We’re not even off the ground when she turns around and goes, ‘Have you a devotion to Our Lady?’

  5. Staring down the Barrel

  They say that travel, like, broadens the mind, roysh, but it’s amazing how quickly you fall back into old habits. I’m already back to the old haunts, we’re talking Lillie’s, we’re talking Reynord’s, we’re talking the odd Friday night in Knackery-Doo and sometimes the odd Nurse’s Night in Club M, where it’s free in with hospital ID and the loving is easy.

  I was actually in Lillie’s this Saturday night, roysh, when I realized that Oisinn was roysh when he said that, as far as the old Dublin club scene goes, I’ve been over-fishing the waters. Not being big-headed or anything, roysh, but I counted eighteen birds in Lillie’s who I’ve either nipped or thrown a bone to in the past year.

  It was pretty much brought home to me when I went to throw the lips on this bird from Dalkey who’s, like, the image of Ali Landry and who I’d put, like, twenty minutes of spadework into, only to have her push me away. I went, ‘Hey, like Bobby Brown says, you might not ever get another try,’ and she goes, ‘HELLO? I think I can, like, live with that,’ and I’m like, ‘You’re bluffing,’ and she’s there, ‘Ross, you’ve been with pretty much every girl between the ages of eighteen and thirty in south Dublin,’ and I’m like, ‘Agreed.’ She goes, ‘Being with you used to be SUCH a status symbol for girls. But now it’s the thing to be able to say you’ve never been with Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.’

  It’s probably true. Oisinn had warned me about the dangers of, as he put it, flooding the morket, but I was just too handsome to listen. So then I just went home, feeling this big empty hole in my chest where my hort used to be.

  I’m in town, roysh, on the way into BTs, when who do I see coming out only that stupid focking wench, in other words my old dear, and thinking she hasn’t seen me, roysh, I do a quick turnaround and stort cracking on to be really interested in this, like, lamp they’ve got in the window display. Turns out she has focking seen me, though – never misses anything, the stupid cow.

  She’s going, ‘Ro-oss! Ro-oss! Ro-oss!’ making a show of me in front of half of Grafton Street. I turn around and I’m like, ‘Would you mind shouting a bit louder? There’s one or two people up in Stephen’s Green who didn’t focking hear you,’ but she just, like, ignores this and goes, ‘I’m just in getting a few things. Lotions and potions. I’ve got my photo-shoot in the morning.’

  I’m like, ‘Whoa! I thought I told you you weren’t doing it!’ and she actually has the cheek to turn around to me and go, ‘Well, it’s for a good cause,’ and quick as a flash I’m like, ‘Why don’t you get people to sponsor you to leave your focking kit on. You’re only going to make a fool of yourself, and me,’ and she’s like, ‘I don’t know. Sally seems to think I’ve a great body. Pert, is the word she used,’ and I’m there, ‘Why are you focking telling me that shit? Hey, TMI. TM focking I!’

  I’d been, like, expecting the call for days. No one knows JP as well as I do, but when his old man rings, roysh, I don’t know what to tell him. It’s, like, I can’t explain his behaviour. He’s going, ‘He’s quit, Ross. He hasn’t shown up for work for two weeks. The first day, I thought, Good for him, the little pisshead. Twelve o’clock, I phone him, he tells me he’s found God and wants to quit, turn his back on a great career in property and leave me to run Hook, Lyon and Sinker on my own. What the hell happened over there?’ and it’s weird, roysh, but even though I can’t actually see him, I know that as he’s saying this he’s, like, eyeing up one of the secretaries and scratching his town halls.

  I’m there, ‘I don’t know. He storted asking me did I believe in God one day, then he bought a Bible and suddenly it was, like, Goodnight Vienna.’ He goes, ‘He’s talking about joining the priesthood, you know that?’ and I nearly, like, choke on my club sandwich. I’m there, ‘JP? A priest? You’re shitting me now,’ and he’s like, ‘I wish I was. He told his mother and I last night. My son! A priest! I’ll never be able to hold my head up in court again. Ross, talk to him, will you? You’re the closest one to him,’ and I go, ‘I’ll try. Not sure it’ll do any good, though.’

  So that night, roysh, I peg it out to Rathgor to have a word, roysh, and I have to say that the goy who, like, greets me at the door seems like the old JP. He goes, ‘Ross, I want to apologize if I, like, freaked you and the goys out while we were away. I was having, shall we say, an experience,’ and I’m like, ‘You mean you’re back online now? No more of this Holy Mary Mother of God bullshit?’ and he’s like, ‘I’m apologizing for going weird on you, Ross. I’m not apologizing for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is what happened to me.’

  I’m about to ask him, roysh, if there’s any truth in this story about him joining the priesthood, but then I notice the bottle of Baileys on the table and my worst fears a
re confirmed. He goes, ‘You heard I’m signing up, so to speak?’ and I’m there, ‘I don’t get it. What’s the angle?’ and he’s like, ‘There is no angle, Ross, unless of course it’s the love of the Risen Lord,’ and I go, ‘But you were focking coining it in working for your old man,’ and I actually end up apologizing for my language to JP, of all people.

  He goes, ‘I sold houses, Ross. But all was not good with my own house,’ and I’m like, ‘Look at the sponds you were pulling in,’ and he goes, ‘People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs,’ and then he’s like, ‘Timothy, 6:9,’ and I’m thinking, he SO has to be making this shit up.

  I hit him with, ‘So what’s wrong with making shitloads of money?’ and he goes, ‘You know, PJ Wingate once said that “Give us this day our daily bread” is probably the most perfectly constructed and useful sentence ever set down in the English language,’ and I’m like, ‘Meaning?’ and he’s there, ‘Meaning that none of us really needs anything more than that which nourishes us,’ which is, like – whoa! – big-time deep.

  He goes, ‘You’re a restless spirit, Ross. Just like I was,’ and it’s weird, roysh, because it’s not like talking to JP at all, and it’s not just because he’s stopped saying shit like, ‘Can we think in the box,’ and ‘It’s a win-win situation from my POV,’ and ‘Let’s have a quick mind-meld on this.’ It’s like the focker can see into my soul.