The old dear rings me – there’s no focking fear in her, I can tell you that – and she goes, ‘Your father and I wanted to invite you and Sorcha over for dinner on Friday night. We want to celebrate your new house, we’re so pleased for you and Sorcha, Ross,’ and I’m there, Why would we want to go to your house for dinner?’ and she’s like, ‘Because it’s borlotti bean, pancetta and rosemary risotto – Sorcha’s favourite,’ and I’m there, ‘Excuse me while I spew.’
I’m there, ‘Sorry, is there anything else?’ and she goes, ‘Oh, yes. I got the proofs back,’ and I’m there, ‘Proofs? What the fock do you mean, proofs?’ and she’s like, ‘From the photo shoot. I think I know which one I’m going to choose. It’s the one Sally likes as well. I’m leaning over the chair and my legs are—’ and I’m like, ‘I DON’T WANT TO FOCKING KNOW!’ and I hang the fock up.
‘Nothing’s wrong.’ That’s what I tell Sorcha when she bells me on the Wolfe, but she knows me too well. She goes, ‘You’re not yourself. Anyone can see that,’ and I’m there, ‘It’s this JP business, I suppose. I was talking to Fehily this morning and he didn’t think there was much hope. Said JP had been, like, called and shit.’
Sorcha goes, ‘It’s not that either. Ross, you’re missing him – why don’t you just admit it?’ and I’m like, ‘Missing JP? That’s benny talk,’ and she’s there, ‘I’m talking about Ronan. It’s okay for you to say it,’ and she’s basically spot-on. I’ve only known the little focker a few months, roysh, but he’s grown on me in a major way.
Sorcha goes, ‘He texted me this morning. He’s missing you as well,’ and I’m there, ‘Really?’ and she’s like, ‘In his own way. Only one more week, Ross,’ and I go, ‘I suppose,’ and she’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ and I go, ‘Just sitting in my room, flicking through…’ and I can’t tell her it’s FHM, roysh, in case she thinks I’m having an Allied Irish, so I just go, ‘… I don’t know, Newsweek.’
She goes, ‘Do you want company?’ and I’m there, ‘What about the shop?’ and she’s like, ‘HELLO? I think Aoife can look after things for a couple of hours,’ and I go, ‘Yeah, that’d be nice then.’
The second she arrives she’s, like, straight on my case, going, ‘OH! MY! GOD! Will you look at this place! When was the last time you actually let them in to clean?’ but I don’t answer, roysh, and eventually she goes, ‘I’m sorry, Ross. I’m, like, SO hord on you sometimes. Here,’ and she hands me an envelope, roysh, and she goes, ‘A present,’ and I open it and it’s, like, a flight to Ibiza.
She goes, ‘It’s just for the weekend,’ and I’m like, ‘When am I going?’ looking for the date on the Wilson, roysh, and she’s there, ‘Your check-in is in an hour,’ and I’m like, ‘An hour? I can’t… I’ve no, like, summer gear with me,’ and she’s there, ‘You can buy it in duty-free,’ and I tell her that I’m speechless and she tells me to hurry up because I’m already cutting it majorly fine.
The heat hits me straight away, roysh, as if someone’s opened, I don’t know, an oven door, even though it’s, like, ten o’clock at night. I mosey through passport control, pick up what few threads I managed to throw together from the carousel, then go out through the arrivals gate and stort looking for Ronan. As usual, I hear him before I actually see him. He goes, ‘Rosser, you steamer!’ and he’s, like, standing there in his Celtic jersey and not, I notice, the Leinster one I bought him for going away.
I don’t know what to do at first, roysh, it feels a bit awkward, but in the end I go with it and give him a hug and when I pull away, roysh, he storts, like, dusting himself down and telling me he has a rep to live up to and that if I’m into that kind of thing, I should keep it to the rugby dressing-room.
I crack my hole laughing and I go, ‘Are you having a good time?’ and he’s there, ‘Ah, it’s mustard, Rosser,’ and I look around and realize for the first time that he’s, like, here on his own. I go, ‘Did you come to the airport by yourself?’ and he’s there, ‘No, the others are in the bar.’
The bor? They let a focking seven-year-old saucepan wander around an airport on his own just because they can’t say no to a drink? Ronan can tell I’m not a happy camper from the basic speed I’m walking. He runs up behind me, grabs me by the orm and goes, ‘Stall the ball, will ya?’ and I’m there, ‘That shit’s not on,’ and he goes, ‘ROSSER!’ really loud, roysh, so loud that I actually stop, then he’s like, ‘You can’t just march into our lives and start laying down the law, Rosser. You can’t tell me Ma the right and wrong way to raise a kid. She hasn’t done a bad job, y’know,’ and listening to him talk, I know he’s roysh, and I decide to say nothing.
‘Did you change yisser money?’ That’s the first thing Tina’s old man shouts at me when I walk into the bor. He’s like, ‘Ders a bayoo-ro de chonge out dare,’ and he points outside, and I actually turn around, roysh, and I’m about to go back out when they all – we’re talking Tina, her old pair and Decker, her Ken Acker of a boyfriend – crack their holes laughing. Tina goes, ‘Don’t moyind him, Ross. It’s all yoo-ros over here, like in Oyerlind,’ and I end up being made to feel like a total focking tool.
They’re all hammered, of course. On the sauce all day, by the looks of it. Her old dear’s off her face and she’s practically asleep, sitting there on her low stool, red as a focking lobster, obviously having gone out in the sun with no cream on and barbecued the shit out of herself. Tina’s the colour of milk and so is Decker, roysh, who’s wearing the same Celtic jersey as Ronan and I feel this, like, sudden, I suppose you’d have to call it jealousy, roysh, that he’d rather wear what Decker wears than what I wear.
Decker goes, ‘Are ye gettin’ dem in or wha’?’ which is basically Skobie for, ‘Buy us all a drink,’ which, like a fool, I do, roysh, the round being pint bottles of Bulmers for Tina and Decker, a Guinness for Tina’s old man and a West Coast Cooler for her old dear, who wakes up when the drink’s put in front of her. Ronan gets himself a Coke because, as he says himself, he doesn’t want to get into rounds.
When I come back from the bor, Decker’s looking inside Tina’s mouth, presumably for any gold fillings he can rob