6. Transition Year
The old gaff smells of something. It could be just damp. It hasn’t been lived in for months. But then it’s not just damp? It also smells of – this could be my mind playing tricks on me – but death. Five and a half months ago, a man died in this house, possibly murdered by my old dear. And now me and the old man are back living here.
I open the fridge. There’s, like, meat in there, which smells like a corpse, and vegetables in the crisper that have turned literally black. The old man doesn’t seem to care about the state of the place. He’s just, like, walking around the living room, looking at old stuff.
‘It’s kind of missing a woman’s touch,’ I go. ‘And I don’t mean that in a sexist way. Even though I probably do. I should ask Sorcha for Brandusa’s number. She’s an unbelievable cleaner – very thorough – and we found out that she wasn’t stealing from us after all.’
He goes, ‘God, we had some happy times in this house, didn’t we? You, me, and your mother!’
I’m like, ‘Speak for yourself. I hated every focking day of it. Would you not just apologize to Helen, then we can all move back to Ailesbury Road?’
‘It’s too late for that, Ross!’
‘She was the best thing about you. What the fock were you thinking?’
‘I think it’s clear I wasn’t thinking! I think popularity may have gone to my head somewhat! It was just, well, I commissioned a private poll that showed there was considerable support out there for my wall idea – sixty-two percent of people think it’s a good idea, Ross, despite your godfather’s fears that Charles O’Carroll-Kelly had finally gone and put his bloody well foot in it! Well, I was a bit giddy with the excitement of it and then young Muirgheal asked if I’d considered appointing a Deputy Leader yet! And, well, one thing sort of led to the other!’
‘I’m stunned that anything you just said could have led to “the other”. Why can’t you just admit it? You haven’t had one good day since you put that thing on your focking head. Now you’ve lost everything – your wife, your daughter, your home.’
‘Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia, Kicker!’
My phone rings. I can see from the screen that it’s, like, Christian. He’s obviously heard. I can’t believe that it’s me cleaning up the old man’s mess for once. I’m like, ‘How the fock am I supposed to explain this to her supposed boyfriend?’
I answer.
Christian goes, ‘Is it true?’
I’m like, ‘Is what true? What have you heard?’ because it always pays to find out first. It might not even be what you think.
He goes, ‘What Erika just told me – about your old man and Muirgheal?’
I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, I walked in on them. Well, we knew she was ambitious.’
‘I thought it had to be a mistake. I said to Erika, “There’s no way in this world that Charles would ride Muirgheal. It must have been Ross.” ’
‘Yeah, thanks for that, Christian. You’re a real mate.’
‘She said no, it was him. For fock’s sake, Ross, I really liked her.’
I stare my old man out of it. He’s fiddling with the clock on the mantelpiece – fixing the time.
I’m there, ‘Yeah, Christian, I know you really liked her.’
The old man goes, ‘I think it was Isaac Newton who said, Amicus Plato, Amicus Aristoteles, magis amica veritas!’
I’m there, ‘Did you hear that, Christian?’
He’s like, ‘Yeah.’
I go, ‘Did it come as any consolation to you?’
And he’s like, ‘No, it didn’t. I need to focking talk to her,’ and he just hangs up on me.
I can’t even bear to be in the same room as the old man. So I step out into the hallway and I head for the kitchen. But then I stop as I’m passing the door that leads down to the basement. I haven’t been down there since Ari died.
I stare at the door for a good, like, thirty seconds. Then – I don’t know why? – I give it a shove with my hand. It opens with a creak. I stand at the top of the stairs, looking down. I’ve got pretty much goosebumps.
I reach for the switch and I turn on the light. Then I stort walking down the stairs, very, very slowly, seeing the room bit by bit.
Oh, holy shit, there’s actual scene of crime tape everywhere – we’re talking yellow-and-black tape that’s been used to rope off an area in the middle of the room, where the old dear’s treadmill used to be but isn’t anymore. They must have removed it as evidence.
I think to myself, we’re some focking family.
Then I see something that – oh … holy … shit … – chills me to the bone. There’s the chalk outline of a body on the floor, which must have been where Ari hit the deck after having his hort attack. Or was it where she dragged him, already dead, then went back upstairs and knocked back a glass of Stoli before phoning for an ambulance?
‘He turns on the afterburners!’ a voice suddenly goes.
Jesus Christ! I get such a fright that I end up practically levitating.
‘He turns on the afterburners!’
It’s Ryle Nugent’s voice. I forgot I changed my ringtone.
‘He turns on the afterburners!’
I answer. Then I end up getting another fright because it ends up being her – as in, my old dear?
She goes, ‘Ross? Where are you?’
And I’m suddenly shitting myself because I’m thinking, does she actually know? Can she somehow see me? Then I think, yeah, no, that’s ridiculous.
She goes, ‘Can you hear me?’
I’m like, ‘Er, yeah, no, I’m in Foxrock. I’m back in the old gaff.’
‘Oh?’
‘Helen focked us out. The old man had sex with Christian’s girlfriend. She’s, like, my age!’
She takes this surprisingly in her stride. ‘How terribly unfortunate!’ she goes. ‘How terribly unfortunate for everyone involved!’
I’ll say it again. It’s a focking miracle that I’m so normal.
She actually changes the subject then. She goes, ‘Well, I have some wonderful, wonderful news.’
I’m there, ‘You’re focking unbelievable. Go on, I’m listening.’
‘I’m going to do the Nigella Christmas for the girls in here!’
‘Er, it’s October.’
‘Well, as Nigella says, it’s all in the planning.’
‘The Nigella Christmas, though? Are you sure they can eat shit like that? Would the rich food not kill them?’
‘Spiced and super-juicy roast turkey with allspice gravy, redder than red cranberry sauce and four types of stuffing! Ham glazed with Coca-Cola! Potatoes roasted in goose fat with a dusting of semolina! Maple roast parsnips and Christmas sprouts! To be followed by Nigella’s famous Ultimate Christmas Pudding!’
‘If you definitely think it’s safe.’
Her voice drops in volume. ‘But I need you to do something for me,’ she goes.
I’m like, ‘I don’t like the sound of this.’
‘There’s some ingredients that I can’t get in here. Star anise, for instance, for the turkey. They’ve never heard of it before.’
‘Could you not just explain to them what it is? Or could they even just Google it?’
‘They’re suspicious of everything. If you ask for a new ingredient in the kitchen, they presume you want it for what they call a legal high.’
‘You can’t get high on star anise, can you?’
‘No.’
‘If anyone would know that, it’s you – you focking addict.’
‘They won’t let me have cherry brandy either –’
‘I wouldn’t blame them.’
‘– for the cranberry sauce.’
‘So what’s this favour you want me to do?’
‘I want you to smuggle them in for me.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Oh, they do it all the time in here, Ross. Drugs. Mobile phones. All sorts. Could you bring me in some star anise, a bottle of cherry brandy and some panettone for the stuffing?’
‘And how am I supposed to smuggle that lot in?’
‘That son of yours might have one or two ideas.’
‘Ronan?’
‘Well, he’s the type, isn’t he?’
‘That’s pretty insulting actually. But yeah, no, I’ll ask him.’
There’s, like, ten seconds of silence then. As a matter of fact, I’m actually beginning to wonder has she run out of coins for the phone when all of a sudden, out of the blue, she goes, ‘Some relationships are just for a particular time, Ross.’
I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m saying your father is changing. He’s becoming someone else. He’s not the man that Helen loved anymore. It happens to people.’
‘That’s deep. For you.’
‘Your father is a leader, Ross. He’s finally doing what he was born to do. Helen would have only held him back … Don’t spend too long down in that basement, Ross.’
I swear to fock, I end up nearly jumping out of my skin. I’m thinking, holy shit, can she see me?
I’m there, ‘How did you know I was in the basement?’
She goes, ‘The signal keeps going in and out. You shouldn’t be down there. You’ll only upset yourself.’
‘They never cleaned up. The Feds, I mean. They left tape everywhere. And a chalk mork in the shape of –’
‘– Ari’s body.’
‘I wasn’t going to say it, but yeah.’
She doesn’t really say anything after that except, ‘Ableforth’s is the best cherry brandy. They’ll have it in Mitchell’s,’ and then the pips go and she gets cut off.
It’s, like, Saturday afternoon on Hallowe’en weekend.
Me and Honor are sitting on the end of her bed playing – believe it or not – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on my old Xbox. She’s only recently gotten into it, even though she used to think it was – and I quote – lame.
Again, I think, it’s her trying to connect with me.
The boys are doing their usual thing. They’re toddling around the floor with their soccer cords spread all around. Johnny’s going, ‘Me have Azpilicueta! Me have Azpilicueta!’
I’m just totally blanking them, although every so often, when they’re not looking, I grab a handful of the cords and stick them in the focking bin.
I’m there, ‘I heard the manny moved out?’
I was talking to Christian, the poor focker – between my old man riding his girlfriend and me riding his mother, it’s a wonder he hasn’t murdered one of us – and he said Magnus and Oisinn had moved in together. An aportment somewhere down around Grand Canal Dock.
She goes, ‘Yeah, he moved out, like, two days ago?’
I’m there, ‘Do you miss him?’
‘Not really. He was all, “Honor, I musht tell you, I don’t like very much the way you are shwearing at me.” ’
‘That’s a good impression. That’s a very good impression. I can’t believe Fionn is downstairs again. He practically lives here these days.’
I hate using her for information. It’s important that I know everything, though.
Honor goes, ‘Yeah, no, he’s just trying to push the two of them together.’
I’m like, ‘Who?’
‘Her focking dickhead of a dad. There’s a zombie! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!’
Except I don’t kill him. He ends up killing me? I hand Honor the controls. ‘Take it,’ I go. ‘You’re much better at this game than me. When you say he’s trying to push them together –’
‘He keeps telling her how much she has in common with him,’ she goes. ‘He’s all, “You have the same values. You think the same politically. You have many of the same interests, including advocacy.” ’
I actually laugh. I’m there, ‘Advocacy? Okay, when has that ever done it for a girl? I think deep down the man is still terrified that she’s going to slip back into her old bad habits – namely me.’
‘I hate him.’
‘The other day, I heard him say that he couldn’t help but wonder what her life might have been like if she’d got together with Fionn all those years ago.’
‘He actually said that?’
‘I was listening at the door.’
‘And what did she say back to him?’
‘She was like, “But then I wouldn’t have had Honor and the boys!” and he was like, “Would that really have been such a bad thing?” ’
She’s going on a rampage here, killing every single focker in sight.
I’m like, ‘What a thing to say!’
She goes, ‘I got him back later on. He told me to put my dinner plate in the dishwasher and I said, “Why don’t you go sit on your thumb, you fock-knuckle?” ’
‘Fock-knuckle! Brilliant expression, Honor.’
‘Mic drop!’
‘Mic drop is right!’
‘And now he wants me to change my name.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Mom’s gone back to using her maiden name.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘And he wants me to be Honor Lalor. He said it’d be simpler all round if we all had the same.’
‘I hope you told him to fock off.’
‘I did. I was like, “I’m an O’Carroll-Kelly! I’m nothing like your focking family, you focking stain! You focking prick with ears.” ’
‘You were well within your rights, Honor.’
‘But then she rang Mount Anville and said they had to stort calling me Lalor.’
It kills me. It seriously, seriously kills me.
‘Look,’ I go, ‘you’ll always be an O’Carroll-Kelly, Honor, no matter what name they try to put on you.’
She puts her head on my shoulder while at the same time continuing to massacre every focker within shooting range. She goes, ‘I know I will?’
Sorcha’s old man bursts in at exactly two o’clock. ‘Time’s up!’ he goes. Then he looks at Honor and he’s like, ‘Will you take that ridiculous hat off indoors?’
She’s got her beanie on.
She’s like, ‘Yeah, why don’t you go and swivel, you focking piece of shit?’
I laugh. She’s not scared of anyone. It’s a lovely thing to see in a child.
He focks off and I give Honor a hug to say goodbye. I’m there, ‘I meant what I said, Honor. You’ll always be an O’Carroll-Kelly – and that’s something to be definitely proud of.’
‘Me want Harry Kane!’ Leo goes.
The boys are definitely Lalors, by the way. That should have been obvious from the moment I watched them try to play rugby.
I tip downstairs. Then I decide, fock it, I’m going to say something to Sorcha about her forcing Honor to drop my name. I wander down to the study and I listen at the door for a minute. She’s in there with Fionn and they’re discussing – of all things – my old man riding Muirgheal.
‘He’s just appointed her the Deputy Leader of New Republic,’ Fionn goes. ‘I suppose having sex with Charles was a price she was prepared to pay. I wish you’d let me put the phrase “the blind leading the blonde” out there in the public domain.’
‘I really don’t want to go negative,’ Sorcha goes. ‘Look, all Chorles and Muirgheal have done is connect with people’s disillusionment with big bureaucracy and their frustration that the recovery isn’t happening quickly enough for them. People love to vent, especially when they’re talking to people carrying out opinion polls. But I actually trust them to act responsibly when they walk into the actual polling booth.’
‘I think you’re right. Charles and Muirgheal, though! I still can’t get a visual on it – which is probably not a bad thing. I actually didn’t think he was the philandering type.’
Sorcha goes, ‘Well, as my dad said, like father, like son – as in, maybe that’s where Ross gets it from?’
I think about pushing the door and having a go at Sorcha over the whole Honor Lalor thing and then at him for slagging off my old man. But then I think to myself, what would it actually achieve? And instead I fock off home.
So I’m in bed, enjoying a nice lie-in, when I’m suddenly awoken by the sound of my phone ringing. I reach for it. It ends up being Shadden. So I answer.
I’m like, ‘Hey, Shadden! It’s very early, isn’t it?’
She’s there, ‘It’s eleven o’clock in the morden.’
That’s what I focking meant. I can hear Rihanna-Brogan crying in the background. It’s a bit annoying.
I’m there, ‘How the hell are you?’ trying to let on that I’m less pissed off than I actually am. I’m such a people pleaser.
She’s like, ‘Ine grant. C’mere, is Ronan theer wit you?’
I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘He sted in yoo-er house last neet, ditn’t he – arthur some Haddowe’en peerty?’
‘Er, yeah, no, he did. But he, er, went off to college first thing.’
‘He idn’t ansorden he’s pho-un.’
‘I think he said he had a lecture. For some reason, I’m thinking of the word Jurisprudence.’
‘If you see him, ted him Ine looking fordum, will you?’ Then she hangs up.
I hop out of bed, throw on my clothes and I point the cor in the direction of Belfield. Fifteen minutes later, I spot him, walking across the main cor pork – he’s actually just about to get into his GTI. I give him a blast of the horn and he turns around and looks at me aggressively, which is Ronan’s standard MO until he knows who’s actually beeping at him. He sees that it’s me and he wanders over to where I’m porked. He goes, ‘What the fook are you doing hee-or?’
Yeah, a lovely way to speak to your old man.
I’m there, ‘I just wanted to see how college was going? I haven’t seen you in weeks.’
I stay sitting in my cor, just talking to him through the window.
He goes, ‘Could you not have joost reng me, Rosser?’
Seriously, this kid has got more front than Christina Hendricks.
I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, I’ve been trying to phone you all morning, but there was no actual answer. You must have been in a lecture, were you?’
He goes, ‘Er, yeah, that’s reet, Rosser – I was, er, in a leckchudder, yeah.’
I don’t want to frighten him off, so I decide to just keep the conversation casual. ‘Here,’ I go, ‘what’s the best way to smuggle stuff illegally into a prison?’
He’s like, ‘Who’s aston?’
‘I’m asking. It’s for my old dear.’
‘Gin, is it?’
How well he knows his grandmother!
I’m there, ‘No, it’s not gin – unbelievably. It’s actually a few bits and pieces for a Nigella Christmas dinner.’
He’s like, ‘Best way is in a nappy, Rosser. Thee doatunt check in nappies. You can smuggle in all sorts that way.’
I’m there, ‘Yeah, no, thanks for that information, Ro – it’s good for me to have,’ and then I very, very casually go, ‘So … are they the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?’
He goes, ‘Soddy?’
He’s got a big guilty face on him.
I’m there, ‘Yeah, no, I just saw a photograph of you on Instagram – out drinking with your college mates last night. A Hallowe’en porty, wasn’t it? I could have sworn you were wearing those same jeans and that same top.’
He’s like, ‘What are you, a copper now?’
‘It was just an observation.’
‘It’s like thalken to a copper. If you moost know, I was in a huddy this morden – rudding late, so I was – so I just grapped the neardest clowiths to me.’
‘That would explain it then.’
‘Ine tedding you that’s what happent.’
‘Good. Because I did wonder for a minute whether you might have – oh, I don’t know – scored some young one and stayed out all night?’
‘Rosser, I hab a geerlfriend and a kid at home.’
‘Hey, I had a wife and four kids at home and I still did alright for myself.’
‘Well, that’s a lesson for you, Rosser – doatunt judge evoddy one by yisser own stanthorts.’
‘It was just the fact that, like I said, you’re wearing the same threads as you were wearing yesterday. And also the fact that Shadden rang me an hour ago to ask if it was true that you stayed with us last night.’
Ronan’s mouth is suddenly flapping around like a focked umbrella in a gale. He’s like, ‘Wh … wh … wh … what did you say to her, Rosser?’ and there’s, like, panic in his voice?
‘Don’t worry,’ I go, ‘I covered for you. I told her you stayed over in Foxrock.’
‘Did she belieb you?’
‘Of course she believed me. When it comes to lying to women, I’m a professional. Just give me a heads-up the next time. She kind of blindsided me. I hadn’t a focking clue what she was talking about at first.’
‘There woatunt be a next toyum, Rosser. It was a wood-off.’
Ah, that old lie. What he did is obviously eating him up inside. ‘Ro,’ I go, ‘guilt is like a hangover. It lasts forty-eight hours – absolute max.’
It doesn’t seem to cheer him up at all.
He’s there, ‘I did the doort, Rosser. The foorst time ebber – I did the doort on Shadden.’
‘And I know you’re not ready to hear it,’ I go, ‘but I’m saying don’t be too hord on yourself. If I have one regret in my life – obviously non rugby related? – it’s that I should have ridden more women. And I rode loads. So was she nice?’
‘Who?’
‘This bird you cheated on Shadden with – I’d say she’s a total lasher, is she?’
‘She was alreet, yeah. Her nayum’s Josephine.’
‘Josephine? Jesus, she sounds like she might be a –’
‘She’s from Galtway.’
‘Galway? Am I hearing that right?’
‘Galtway, yeah.’
‘And she’s up here studying, what, I’m presuming Agricultural Science?’
‘Orts? Fair enough. I don’t know why I said Agricultural Science. Probably prejudice.’
He storts getting a bit upset then. He’s suddenly kicking my tyres, going, ‘I caddent belieb what Ine arthur doing, Rosser. Poo-er Shadden.’
In a way, I feel equally guilty? Because something is suddenly very clear to me. Ronan didn’t inherit my brains – luckily for him. He didn’t inherit my looks either – you can’t have everything. But the urge to do the dirt might be the only thing I did pass on to him – just as my old man clearly passed it on to me.
‘You can’t help it,’ I go. ‘I’m talking about cheating.’
He’s like, ‘What are you bleaten on about?’
‘Sorcha was actually right. Look at you, look at me, look at your grandfather. We’re helpless slaves to it, Ro. The temptation to stray is in our genes. It’s passed down from one generation to the next. Like rugby.’
‘I doatunt belieb that.’
‘Trust me,’ I go, ‘you’re just the latest in a long line of Kelly family dirtbags.’
I’m suddenly remembering him that night in The Broken Orms and the way he was staring at Buckets of Blood’s niece and her Porky Pigs. But he storts absolutely ripping into me then? He’s there, ‘Mebbe I doatunt want to turden out like yous! Mebbe I doatunt want to be a liar and cheat – and end up on me owen like you and me grandda. Hab you fooken thought about that?’
‘Hey,’ I go, ‘you were the one who was up all night riding Peigín Leitir Móir.’
Again, it doesn’t come as any consolation to him. He just turns around and walks back to his cor, his two shoulders slumped. He’ll hopefully come to accept who he is in time, just like I very quickly did. But I’m worried about him. Guilt – especially if you’re not used to it – can make a man do silly things. Like confess. Or buy a ridiculously expensive present that straightaway arouses suspicion.
So when he drives off, I send him a text, just going, ‘Keep the head, Ro. Don’t do anything stupid.’
The last Friday in November is traditionally the night we sit down as a family and write the children’s Santa Lists. So Sorcha has given me special permission to be here, even though her old man is insisting that it will have to be instead of my hour with the children tomorrow, rather than as well as? He really is a focktard of the highest order.
Honor is delighted to see me, though. Throws her orms around me and everything. She’s put on weight, by the way. That’s not me being a wanker. I’m just calling it as I see it.
Sorcha opens her A4 pad on a clean page, pen at the ready. ‘Okay,’ she goes, ‘boys, do you know what you want from Santa?’
‘Footbaw!’ Leo goes. ‘Footbaw! Footbaw! Footbaw!’
Sorcha’s there, ‘A football? Is that what you want Santa to bring you?’
I’m like, ‘They’re not getting a football. End of conversation.’
‘If they want a football, Ross, they can have a football.’
‘Juan Mata!’ Brian goes. ‘Juan Mata!’
‘Juan Mata? Okay, let’s find out what team he plays for?’
She Googles the focker on her phone. ‘He plays for Manchester,’ she goes. ‘Hold on, there’s two Manchesters. Okay, why is there a Manchester United and a Manchester City?’
I’m there, ‘Why is there either? That’d be my question.’
‘Okay, Juan Mata plays for Manchester United, it seems. Is that what you want, Brian? Do you want a Manchester United Soccer Club strip?’
‘Just don’t let him go outside that door wearing it, Sorcha. This is still Killiney. Can we maybe do Honor’s list? Just to get off the subject of soccer?’
Honor has a folder in front of her, stuffed with photographs cut from fashion magazines. She’s very much on top of things. ‘Okay,’ she goes, ‘I want everything in this photograph. As in, like, the whole look?’
She pushes it across the table at us. It’s a picture of Samantha Ronson. Sorcha looks suddenly confused. She actually flips it over, thinking she must be looking at the wrong side. She’s wearing, like, a black leather biker jacket over a jumper with black-and-white horizontal stripes, then skinny black jeans, black Hi Top Converse and – to top it all off – a black fedora. Samantha Ronson, not Sorcha.
I’m there, ‘Do you want the hat as well, Honor?’
She’s like, ‘Everything.’
Sorcha pulls a face. She goes, ‘Do you not think it’s a bit …’
‘What?’ Honor goes.
‘I was just going to say that horizontal stripes aren’t, like, super-flattering?’
Honor just shrugs. She goes, ‘I think she looks great.’
‘Horizontal stripes aren’t slimming is what I mean.’
‘I don’t care about being slim.’
I mentioned that – she’s turning into a bit of a porker.
‘But Hi Top Converse,’ Sorcha goes, ‘are so ugly. Why don’t you get the ladies’ shoe Converse? I have them in white and I have them in navy and they’re – oh my God – so pretty.’
‘Because I don’t want them,’ Honor goes. ‘I want what’s in that focking picture, okay?’
‘Okay, okay. Oh my God, Honor!’
I’m there, ‘I think that hat is really cool, Honor. I think it’s a great look and that’s not me sucking up to you.’
It is me sucking up to her. I don’t want her to turn her anger from Sorcha to me.
She pulls another photograph from her folder. She goes, ‘And I want this as well – again, everything.’
It’s Leisha Hailey wearing a man’s corduroy suit in brown, with a tan-coloured waistcoat underneath, then chunky white basketball runners. Then she whips out another photograph of – okay, I know way too many celebrities – Charlene Borja, who’s wearing a grey Guns N’ Roses t-shirt, with a black leather tie, black skinny jeans and white Vans.
‘Not more Vans,’ Sorcha goes. ‘There are so many prettier shoes out there, Honor. Will we go on Net-a-Porter and see what’s on trend at the moment?’
Honor ends up totally flipping. ‘Why are you always trying to dress me?’ she goes.
Sorcha’s there, ‘I’m not trying to dress you, Honor. I’m just trying to guide you. I used to be in fashion retail, remember?’
‘Well, I’m not a little kid anymore. I want to wear what I want to wear, not what you want me to wear!’
She stands up from the table. She goes, ‘This is such a waste of focking time. I’ll e-mail you a list of what I want and links to the websites where you can buy them.’
‘Yeah,’ I go, ‘and we’ll send those links on to Santa Claus.’
She’s like, ‘Yeah, whatever!’ and out of the kitchen and up the stairs she goes.
‘Christian Benteke!’ Brian goes and I’m thinking, yeah, shut the fock up.
Sorcha looks sad. She’s there, ‘I suppose I do have to accept that she has her own sense of style, even if it’s not necessarily what I’d choose for her? And, also, I don’t think she’s making the most of what she has.’
Which isn’t very much – that’s what she’s implying.
‘But,’ she goes, ‘if those are the kind of clothes she wants to wear, then who am I to tell her that she should be looking at the way the likes of Kiernan Shipka dresses. Or even Hailee Steinfeld.’
I stand up from the table. I’m there, ‘Maybe I should go and see if she’s okay.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ she goes. ‘She’ll be watching that prison thing she loves.’
I’m like, ‘Hey, speaking of which, would you mind – again, I know it’s outside of the whole supervised access thing? – if I took the kids in to see the old dear next week? Just for Christmas.’
She sighs. She’s there, ‘I was going to bring them in myself, but I’ve just been so busy. I’m about to open an actual constituency office in Donnybrook village. Fionn thinks the election is going to be called for the end of February.’
‘Is that a yes then?’
‘Well, I don’t think it’d be fair for Fionnuala not to see her grandchildren at Christmas. Okay, then. I’ll talk to my dad.’
As I go to leave the kitchen, Sorcha goes, ‘By the way, how’s Ronan getting on in college?’
I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, he seems to be enjoying it. Especially the social side of things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Shadden rang me the other morning to say he didn’t come home the night before. I overheard you and Fionn saying the philandering thing might be genetic. I’m beginning to think you were actually right.’
She goes, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Ronan is nothing like you.’
The old dear looks … happy.
See, I could have said anything there. I could have said she looks like one of the Famine Memorial statues came to life. Or if Twink had dysentry.
And even though she looks like both of those things, I’m just going to say ‘happy’ and leave it at that.
She’s bouncing Leo up and down on her knee. I think she’s trying to see if there’s another bottle of cherry brandy in his nappy. The focking lush.
‘Careful,’ I go, ‘you’ll give him whiplash.’
She’s there, ‘Sorry. You just put one bottle in there, did you?’
‘One bottle was all you asked for.’
‘Yes, of course. One should be sufficient. What’s that thing he keeps saying, by the way?’
‘I’m pretty sure it’s Theo Walcott. Don’t ask. Genuinely, don’t ask.’
‘Well, thank you again for everything.’
She’s got the brandy out of Leo’s nappy, the star anise out of Brian’s and the panettone from Johnny’s, although I had to break that up into little pieces and put it into eight ziplock bags.
It actually looked like drugs?
‘I should have asked you to bring chestnuts,’ she goes, ‘for the sprouts.’
I’m there, ‘I honestly don’t know why people bother with sprouts. Or any vegetable that has to be fried in butter with bacon just to take the taste away. Actually, curly kale is another one. Remember we used to have it at Hallowe’en? Any food where you have to stick a cash incentive inside it to get people to eat the focking thing should never have been taken out of the ground in the first place.’
I go to take Leo back from her, except she goes, ‘Leave him with me, Ross.’
I’m there, ‘I already told you there’s not another bottle in there. You don’t believe me?’
‘I know there’s not another bottle in there. I’m just enjoying holding him.’
And she actually seems to be? She’s stroking his little cheek with her finger. ‘I used to do this to you as a baby,’ she goes.
I’m like, ‘Me? I didn’t think we had any moments like that.’
‘There were lots of moments, Ross. You just don’t remember them. It used to send you off to sleep.’
It’s news to me. That’s all I’m saying.
Honor comes back from the vending machine with seven or eight bags of Hunky Dorys and puts them down on the table. She goes, ‘It’s kind of like Orange is the New Black in here – except the women are all skanks.’
I’m there, ‘That’s a good analysis, Honor. Again, maybe keep your voice down, though.’
‘Except for you, Fionnuala. You’re kind of the Piper Chapman of Mountjoy Women’s Jail. She’s the only one who isn’t a knacker?’
‘How lovely!’ the old dear goes. ‘Thank you, Honor!’
‘You’re more of a bitch, which I love. You’re posh like Piper, but a bitch like Alex.’
Then she storts horsing into the Hunky Dorys.
‘Well,’ the old dear goes, ‘I shall take it as a compliment,’ and she smiles at me then. She goes, ‘How’s your father coping?’
I’m there, ‘He’s pretending it doesn’t bother him. Helen was the best thing that ever happened to him. No offence.’
‘And what about the girl?’
‘Muirgheal?’
‘Yes – are they still …’
‘Yeah, he wishes! She’s my age. That was a one-off. She gave him a little taste just so he’d make her his Deputy Leader. The one I feel sorry for is Christian. He got royally focked over by her.’
She goes, ‘It’s lovely to think of you and your father back in the house in Foxrock. I wish I was there with you. It’d be just like old times. When we were all together. When we were all happy.’
I’m watching her still stroking little Leo’s cheek. I can see that his little eyes are getting heavy and I suddenly have this flash of memory – it could even be false memory – but it’s me sitting on my old dear’s lap and her sending me off to sleep in exactly the same way.
‘If it’s the last thing I do,’ I hear myself suddenly go, ‘I’m going to prove your innocence.’
She smiles. She has a face like clown sick.
‘Are you really?’ she goes.
And I’m there, ‘Maybe not literally. It was more of an, I don’t know, figure of speech.’
So it’s, like, three days before Christmas and I’m on my way to Kielys for a few cheeky lunchtime pints with JP. Hook, Lyon and Sinker finished up today and we’re both dying to go on the serious tear.
I’m passing through Donnybrook in the back of a taxi when I see it. I turn around to the driver and I go, ‘Stop the cor, will you?’
I pay him and I get out. I’m suddenly staring across the road at this, like, shop premises – next-door to Hair Club on the actual Donnybrook Road. It’s Sorcha’s constituency office slash clinic slash whatever you want to call it.
There’s a massive photograph of her in the window, looking concerned, which is a good look for her. Then it says, ‘Sorcha Lalor!’ in humungous letters. ‘A Strong, Independent Voice for the people of Dublin Bay South!’
I cross over the road to get a better look at it and that ends up being my big mistake. Because Sorcha is actually in there. I spot her sitting at her desk, tapping away at the keys of her MacBook, while Honor is sitting opposite her, staring at her phone, wearing an expression that I like to call Resting Bitch Face.
Honor looks up in time to see me tipping past the door. Her face lights up. I put my finger to my lips because Sorcha – like most women – never liked the idea of me ever properly relaxing. Whenever she saw me settling down to a few drinks, she’d always try to come up with little jobs for me to do, as if I only drank for the want of something to do rather than the sheer pleasure of being totally wankered drunk.
I’ve almost cleared the front of the place when she suddenly looks up and sees me. She goes, ‘Ross?’, her brain already trying to come up with some chore for me to pass the afternoon. I try to ignore her, except she runs to the door and storts shouting up the street after me. ‘Ross? Ross? Ross? Ross?’ to the point where I can no longer ignore it.
So I end up having to turn around and go back to her. I’m there, ‘Hey, Sorcha. I didn’t hear you. I’m just on my way to meet –’
‘Can you do me a favour?’ she goes. ‘Can you take Honor to the hairdresser’s for her Christmas cut?’
I’m like, ‘Er, I’m not supposed to have unsupervised access to our children,’ and I hate having to make that argument just so I can enjoy a pint in peace. ‘Honor nearly broke another kid’s neck the last time I was left alone with her. I can’t be trusted. I think I’ve proven that.’
‘This is a one-off, Ross. I’ve been asked to speak at a meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Lady Theatre People.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s a new advocacy group campaigning for gender equality in the orts and more strong and independent female characters in leading roles, especially in theatre. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. I’d ask my mom and dad, but they’ve taken the boys down to Christmas Island in Rathdrum.’
I’m like, ‘The thing is, Sorcha, I’ve got this important meeting with JP – to discuss, er … Come on, brain –’
‘Ross,’ she goes, ‘I’m asking you to do this as a favour to me. You said you wanted to prove yourself in terms of deserving increased access going forward.’
‘I’m not sure that that’s how I phrased it?’
‘If you did this, it would prove to a lot of people, including my dad, that you are capable of behaving like a responsible parent. Please, Ross. This is – Oh! My God! – a really, really important issue for me to be seen to be involved with. I’m going to suggest arranging a morch on the actual Dáil.’
I end up just giving in. Sorcha locks up the constituency office and heads off in her cor, leaving me and Honor standing on the side of the road.
Honor goes, ‘Why don’t you just go to Kielys?’
I’m there, ‘I promised I’d bring you for this famous haircut, which is going to take half the focking day, I’m sure.’
‘I could just go to the borber’s.’
‘What? Really?’
‘The hairdresser’s takes, like, three and a half hours. If you go the borber’s, you’re in and out in, like, ten minutes.’
‘That’s what I always think.’
‘There’s a borber’s next-door to Kielys, isn’t there?’
‘What, Bren’s? Too focking right there is. That’s where a lot of the Leinster goys go to get their hair cut. It’s where Sean O’Brien once gave me a high-five. Unprompted. Didn’t say a word either. Didn’t need to. He just hung it up there – high-five – then we both went on our way.’
‘Why don’t you just go to Kielys? I can go and get my hair cut by myself.’
All I can do is smile at her. She is going to make someone an unbelievable wife one day. Although this whole – I think it’s a word – reasonableness thing will probably be knocked out of her in her teens. But for now she’s talking sense. So I do exactly what she suggests.
Kielys is rammers. It looks like it’s not only Hook, Lyon and Sinker who finished up for Christmas today. I manage to find JP and his work crowd. He’s already a good three pints down the road. He puts his orm around me and goes, ‘Here he is! The man! The legend!’
It’s all nice stuff for me to hear, even though he’s leathered.
I’m there, ‘Jesus, you’re tanning it, aren’t you?’
He goes, ‘We’ve had an unbelievable year, Ross. Un-focking-believable! We’re the official agents for Beach Cove in Ballycanew. Eight years ago, it was a ghost estate. Last week, they were queuing overnight, Ross – overnight, do you remember those days? – to put deposits down!’
I’m about to say fair focks when my old man’s face suddenly pops up on the TV in the corner. Again, it’s the news. I turn around to Mary and I go, ‘Here, turn up the volume, will you?’ which she does before pulling a pint for me.
The reporter – it’s Mortina Fitzgerald this time – goes, ‘Gardaí are investigating whether comments by New Republic leader Charles O’Carroll-Kelly about Cork might constitute incitement to hatred. A spokesman confirmed that they had received more than two hundred complaints following a series of interviews in which Mr O’Carroll-Kelly promised to build a wall around the city to regulate the movement of its people to Dublin and other parts of the country. The spokesman said they would be preparing a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether or not to initiate criminal proceedings.
‘Charles O’Carroll-Kelly was unrepentant today. In one of a series of angry messages posted on the social networking site Twitter, he wrote, “Investigation is a SMOKESCREEN. This is being driven by FIANNA FAILING and its Cork-born leader who are TERRIFIED of our movement!” followed several minutes later by “Open migration between Cork and Dublin has FAILED! We cannot allow our compassion to overrule our common sense on this issue! WE NEED A WALL!” A short time later, he tweeted, “If Cork is as great as Michael Martin and others seem to think, they should have no objection to us walling them in!”
‘New Republic Deputy Leader Muirgheal Massey today denied that the party was deliberately drumming up hatred for short-term electoral gain. And she reiterated her party leader’s earlier claim that the cost of the wall would be recouped through a series of levies on Cork businesses and homeowners.’
There’s suddenly a shot of Muirgheal standing in the middle of Ringsend. And she storts doing the accent, going, ‘As poditicians, we have to accept that the open doh-er podicy bethween Cork and Dublin, as well as Cork and utter peerts of the cunter doddy, has fayult. And it’s fayult for a number of diffordent reasons, be it Cork people refusing to assimilate, becoming involved in criminality or joost constantly moaning about evoddy thing and lowerding the gener doddle mood of the rest of the cunter doddy. These people are placing a boorden on the local infrastructure in vardious diffordent peerts of the cunter doddy – the helt serbice, housing, soshiddle welfeer – and ordinary, law-abiding people feel they’ve taken enough. That’s why we are determined to build this wall and build it immediately.’
JP’s old man sidles over to me. ‘Your father’s talking a lot of sense,’ he goes. ‘They’ve had free and unfettered movement for years – and where’s it got us? We’ve been inundated. And they don’t come here to be our friends. They don’t want to mix at all. Every Friday, they’re on the train back to Kent Station and they bring whatever money they’ve earned back with them.’
I’m there, ‘Well, I personally think the focker has lost it. Helen used to be able to talk to him. Tell him when he was being a knob. Now he doesn’t have her anymore.’
‘He’s only saying what a lot of people secretly think but are too frightened to say. Scared of being called racist.’
I end up having a couple of pints with him and we shoot the shit about old times. After a while, he turns around to me and goes, ‘By the way, who’s that little boy standing beside you?’
I turn and I look down. It ends up not being a little boy at all. It ends up being Honor. She’s had her hair chopped really, really short, then – oh, holy shit – dyed jet black.
I can’t keep ignoring Sorcha’s phone calls. Or could I? It wouldn’t need to be forever. It’d only have to be until Honor’s hair grows back – we’re talking April, possibly May, next year. But then that would mean not actually seeing my children on Christmas Day. I’m supposed to be calling over in the evening to watch them open their presents. So it’s a definite dilemma for me.
But then I think, she’s probably just going to keep ringing – they do say that Mounties always get their man – so I decide to just answer the thing, then act as if nothing’s wrong. I’m there, ‘Hey, Sorcha. How the hell are you? I can’t stay long, by the way. I’m about to go into – believe it or not – church.’
Which is actually true. It’s the Castlerock College Old Boys’ Thanksgiving Mass – a Christmas Eve tradition.
She goes, ‘What kind of a way was that to send your daughter home the other day?’
I’m there, ‘Are you talking about the fact that she looks like a boy?’
‘I’m talking about the fact that you put her in a taxi.’
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘What do you mean, thank God? Anything could have happened to her.’
‘Look, to be honest with you, I thought you’d have a complete shit-fit when you saw what she’d had done to her hair.’
‘Well, yes, as it happens, I can’t believe you sat there and watched them do that to her beautiful, blonde curls.’
Honor mustn’t have told her about me focking off to Kielys. She’s a great kid. There’s evil in her definitely. But if she happens to be on your side, you have very little to worry about. Of course, the problem is that you never know when she’s going to turn on you.
Sorcha goes, ‘Ross, I can’t believe you didn’t try to talk her out of it. Out of cutting all her hair off.’
I’m there, ‘It’s impossible to talk Honor out of anything. If you try to stop her, she’s just going to hit you with a load of genuinely hurtful comments.’
She just sighs.
I’m there, ‘I have to say, you don’t sound as pissed off as I expected you to be. I’d have rung you back if I’d known you were going to be this calm about it.’
She goes, ‘I cried for five hours straight, Ross.’
‘Okay, that’s a lot of crying.’
‘My mom cried as well. But then, when I thought about it, I just decided, okay, if that’s the way Honor wants to wear her hair, then who am I to keep showing her pictures of Sailor Lee Brinckley-Cook? The whole gender fluidity thing is creeping more and more into mainstream fashion. The idea that little girls should dress like little girls is – oh my God – so nineties. Er, hello – Shiloh Jolie-Pitt? And that’s not a dig at you, Ross – even though I know you have issues with traditional-gender-non-conformity.’
‘Yeah, I don’t know what that even means.’
‘So I’m just going to have to be the cool parent who accepts that that’s just how Honor wants to look. Although I did mention that her new hair possibly de-accentuated her cheekbones and made her face look round. I could have said fat but I said round instead.’
‘Yeah, no, let her figure it out for herself. Anyway, like I said, Sorcha, I’m just heading into – literally – Mass here.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Come for six o’clock. We’ll be finished with our dinner by then.’
I hang up, then into the church I go. It turns out I’m late. It’s already half over, in fact. Father Amokachi has just finished reading The Gospel and he’s about to give his sermon, which I’ve always looked on as Mass’s version of post-match analysis.
I’m looking around for the goys, then I suddenly spot them, we’re talking JP, Fionn, Christian and – fock him – Oisinn, all sitting together in a pew towards the back of the church, except there ends up being no room there for me beside them, so I end up having to sit on the other side of the aisle, next to some old dude whose name I don’t remember but who captained Castlerock in the 1950s and now smells of parmesan.
‘This Christmas,’ Father Amokachi goes, ‘I’m going to talk to you about history’s two most famous refugees.’
Felix Jones and Ian Keatley, I think.
‘I’m talking about Joseph and the Virgin Mary,’ he goes.
Father Amokachi is from Nigeria, by the way, and I’m not saying that in a racist or any other kind of way. I’m saying it so you can picture him as a black man and maybe do the accent in your own heads.
He’s there, ‘I want you all to think about the story of the very first Christmas. The long journey that Mary and Joseph made on foot to Bethlehem, where they were refused shelter, refused food and forced to spend the night in a stable, where Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus. And I want us to consider this as a metaphor for our own lives. Are there times when we have behaved as that innkeeper behaved? Have we turned people away who needed us? Have we done it because we lacked basic human compassion? Or because we have a fear of what we might call The Other?’
Holy shit. He’s staring directly at someone in the fourth row and I suddenly realize that the someone he’s staring at is my old man. It’s unbelievable how obvious he’s making it. The old man is obviously uncomfortable with the heat he’s getting because he keeps turning around in his seat, catching various people’s eyes, then shaking his head like the priest is talking out of his hole.
‘The Bible is a love story,’ Father Amokachi goes. ‘It’s the greatest love story ever told. Better than Fifty Shades.’
Everyone laughs. He’s good value, in fairness to him.
‘Yes, the greatest love story ever told,’ he goes. ‘So why do people read it looking for reasons to hate? Paul writes to the Romans and he says you must love The Other. Accept others for the glory of God, he says, especially those who are different than you, because Christ accepted you and all the people for the glory of God. That means accepting and loving The Other, whether they are black, white, gay, lesbian – or even from Cork.’
There’s a wave of muttering that makes its way from the front of the church to the back. He’s not going to win people over in this port of the world looking for sympathy for people from Cork. His line about gay people, though – that’s the one that gets to me. I’m suddenly thinking about Oisinn and the fact that we haven’t spoken for, like, months now.
‘Ideas are fashions,’ Father Amokachi goes, ‘just like clothes. They have their time and they are gone. Things that seem absurd yesterday are logical today and things that seemed logical last year are now absurd. Taboos become social norms just as social norms become taboos. One day we love a slogan, and another day it makes us embarrassed, or even ashamed, that we ever thought that way.’
I can see my old man just shaking his head from side to side. He’s definitely not buying it. I’ve got, like, tears in the corners of my eyes, though.
The priest goes, ‘We are one of several million species of animal clinging to a rock that is spinning around and around the sun. And the only thing that distinguishes you is how you treat other people in the short time that you are here. That is all that matters to Christ – not how you love, just that you love. And that is my message for Christmas.’
I turn my head and I catch Oisinn’s eye and I give him a little – I don’t know – nod, just to let him know that I agree with every word he just said, especially the bit about loving as many people as you can get around to in a lifetime. And for a second I think he’s about to smile at me, which would be – you know what? – the greatest Christmas present I ever got. But in the end he turns to face the front again and storts saying his Apostles’ Creed.
The old man has tweeted – I shit you not – seventeen times about Father Amokachi today. Today being Christmas Day?
His feed is like, ‘Father Amokachi, a highly overrated priest, attacked me at the Castlerock College Old Boys’ Christmas Mass last night …’
‘Father Amokachi is a failing priest and a Michael Martin flunky who is about to lose BIG!’
‘More dishonest clergy!’
I’m there, ‘I never thought I’d be saying this to you, but is there any chance you could put your phone away?’
He goes, ‘What’s that, Kicker?’
‘It’s Christmas Day and I’m focking storving. Where’s my actual dinner?’
‘Patience!’ he went. ‘As I said to the party faithful at our Christmas drinks during the week, good things come to those who wait!’
He promised to do the cooking. That’s the only reason I didn’t take up Ronan’s offer of spending the afternoon with him and Shadden. The old man went, ‘It’ll be a bachelors’ Christmas! You, me and your godfather!’
But now it’s, like, three o’clock in the afternoon and all I’ve eaten is an entire tin of Quality Street, even the shit ones that I actually hate. Now that I think about it, I looked in the fridge earlier and there wasn’t even a turkey in there.
The three of us are just sitting around the kitchen, skulling Courvoisier and watching whatever Christmas movies are on TV. Only Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara, by the way, could watch Home Alone and see Macaulay Culkin as the villain.
‘These two guys,’ he goes, meaning Joe Pesci and the dude who plays Marv, ‘would be fully entitled to sue this little prick’s parents for criminal recklessness for any injuries they received during the course of the burglary.’
I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s a kids’ film, Hennessy,’ even though it’s also one of my three favourite movies of all time – the others being Invictus and Home Alone 2.
Marv pulls what he thinks is the cord for the lightbulb and he ends up getting smashed in the face with an iron.
‘Two fractured eye sockets,’ Hennessy goes, ‘broken nose, blurred vision, loss of earnings. I’m going to say a hundred fucking grand.’
The old man goes, ‘My comments about Father Amokachi are trending, I’m happy to report!’
Joe Pesci opens the back door, tripping a wire that turns on a blow torch and burns the top of his head.
‘First degree burns to the calavarium,’ Hennessy goes, helping himself to another brandy, ‘requiring months of skin-graft operations and – depending on the degree of necrosis – quite possibly a skull bone transplant. I’m going to say half a million for that one.’
This is basically how Christmas Day passes – me eating my body weight in sweets, my old man constantly refreshing his Twitter feed to see the reaction to him calling out a priest, and Hennessy costing the personal injuries received by two dudes burgling Macaulay Culkin’s gaff.
‘Okay,’ I eventually go, ‘I’m going out.’
The old man’s like, ‘Don’t worry, Kicker! I can feel the elbow in my ribs! You’re wondering about your dinner, aren’t you?’
I’m there, ‘I asked you straight out about it twenty minutes ago but you were on focking Twitter. The fridge is empty, by the way. You forgot to buy a turkey, didn’t you?’
He goes to the – I shit you not – freezer, then he pulls out three flat boxes, which actually look like pizza boxes?
‘Who needs to go cooking a turkey,’ he goes, ‘when you can have one of these?’
I’m like, ‘Okay, what the fock?’ and I pick up one of the boxes. It says on the front, ‘Microwavable Festive Dinner for One!’ and – I’m not making this up – it’s an actual frozen Christmas dinner, we’re talking two slices of turkey, two slices of ham, a tablespoon of stuffing, two little roast potatoes and four sprouts.
I’m there, ‘Are you focking shitting me?’
He goes, ‘Eight minutes on defrost, then four minutes on full power is all it requires! There’s even a little sachet of turkey gravy to pour over the whole thing once it’s fully heated!’
It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
I’m there, ‘Is there a piece of paper and little pen in the box to write your focking suicide note afterwards?’
He goes, ‘Come on, Ross! Enter into the spirit of the thing!’
This is what a world without women would look like. Within a week, we’ll be eating beans straight from the tin and shitting where we sit.
‘A full tin of paint,’ Hennessy goes, ‘has got to weigh ten pounds. That hits you in the face, it’s going to break bones, teeth and cause concussion. I’m going to say three hundred grand for that.’
The old man removes the sleeve of a Microwavable Festive Dinner for One. Now, he goes, ‘Does anyone know how these bloody well microwave ovens work?’
The old dear rings me just as I’m driving through the gates of Honalee. She rings me from her cell. Yeah, no, to say thank you for cooking them Christmas dinner, the girls – as she’s taken to calling them – have given her a present of a mobile phone.
Probably robbed, but it’s the thought that counts.
‘We’re not supposed to have them,’ she goes, ‘but it’s lovely to be able to ring you from my suite –’
I’m like, ‘Cell.’
‘– and wish you a Merry Christmas.’
‘How did the Nigella Christmas dinner go down?’
‘Absolutely wonderfully. Did you know, Ross, there are women in here who’d never had ham other than that awful sliced one that you see in packets?’
‘There’s a lot of inequality in the world. Thank God.’
‘Anyway, they loved it. They said it was like they’d all died and gone to heaven.’
I laugh. I’m there, ‘Sounds like you ate better than we did. I might even join you in there next year.’
‘Well,’ she goes, ‘I’m hoping I won’t be here next Christmas. I’m hoping my trial will prove my innocence.’
And I’m just like, ‘Yeah, no, I forgot. Anyway, I better go. I’ve just pulled up outside Honalee. We’re about to do the whole opening presents thing.’
‘I do hope Sorcha comes to her senses soon.’
‘Unfortunately, I’m not sure that she’s ever going to. It’s like you said when Helen and the old man broke up – some relationships are just for a certain amount of time.’
‘Merry Christmas, Ross.’
‘Merry Christmas, I suppose, Mum?’
It’s a word I’ve hordly ever used. I hang up, then I get out of the cor and I grab the presents from the boot.
He opens the door – as in Sorcha’s old man? He’s wearing a paper crown and he does this thing where he pretends to be mid-laugh – just to let me know what a great day he’s having – then his face goes all serious when he sees me standing there. ‘One hour,’ he goes out of the side of his mouth, ‘starting from now.’
Down to the living room I go. Everyone is sitting around – we’re talking Sorcha and the kids, we’re talking her old pair, and we’re talking her sister, who’s obviously home for Christmas, even though I still can’t remember her name. She’s actually the most enthusiastic about seeing me, in the sense that she’s the only one who gets up out of her seat to say hello. She’s like, ‘Hi, Ross!’ and she gives me a big wet kiss on either cheek, then rubs her hand up and down my stomach.
‘Oh my God,’ she goes, ‘have you been working out?’
I’ve ridden her four or five times.
‘Just the usual thousand sit-ups a day,’ I go.
They’ve obviously been playing board games because I notice the Trivial Pursuit board on the table. On the sideboard, there’s a buffet of food laid out. Turkey and ham sandwiches. Pigs in blankets. Mince pies. Christmas cake. I’m instantly salivating.
‘So,’ I go, ‘did everyone have a nice Christmas?’
I’m just making conversation. I don’t give a fock one way or the other.
‘It was magical,’ Sorcha goes. ‘Just like the Christmases we had as children.’
Her old man is delighted to hear that – big smug grin on his face. But Honor lets them all down by calling it. ‘It was lame,’ she goes. ‘The entire focking thing.’
Sorcha’s old man’s there, ‘How would you know? You barely left your room all day.’
‘That’s because you’re a pack of focking knobs and I hate being around you.’
I chuckle to myself and I make sure he hears it.
The sister – I must check the tags on her presents to see can I find a name – brings me over a plate of food from the sideboard. I’m just about to take it from her when her old man goes, ‘Don’t you dare give that to him!’ and he basically roars it at her?
She’s like, ‘What?’
‘He is not here to eat! He is here to watch the children open their presents and then leave after one hour! Food is not part of the deal!’
Sorcha – being essentially a nice person – goes, ‘Dad, it’s just a few sandwiches.’
Then I go, ‘Yeah, which I paid for through my maintenance. You certainly couldn’t afford to put on a spread like that, you bankrupt fock.’
Honor laughs.
Sorcha jumps to her feet. ‘Okay,’ she goes, ‘can we all try to get along – just for this one day of the year? Ross, take the food.’
I’m there, ‘I don’t want the food. I’m not hungry.’
I’m storving.
‘Let’s just get these presents open,’ I go.
I grab the boys and we all gather around the tree, except for Honor. I’m like, ‘Honor, are you coming?’
She’s there, ‘No, I opened all of my presents four days ago.’
Sorcha goes, ‘Okay, for the young people, there are Santa presents, there are Mom and Dad presents, there are Nana and Grandad presents, and there are Great-Gran presents.’
Great-Gran! I’m thinking, of course, where the fock is she?
Five seconds later, she walks into the room, going, ‘I say the same thing every year: “Don’t have Christmas pudding because you know it backs you up!” Was I gone long?’
‘About an hour,’ Honor goes, without even looking up from her phone. ‘And you better not have left a focking smell in there.’
I just glower at the woman. I literally haven’t laid eyes on her since that day in Dublin Castle. But she avoids my stare.
‘Come on,’ Sorcha goes, ‘let’s do presents! I’m so excited about what I got for you, Nana!’
I empty the Mom and Dad presents out of the sack onto the floor. The boys have no interest in them, though. It breaks my hort to say it, but they make a grab for whatever Sorcha’s old man bought them – three square boxes. They tear open the paper and I swear to fock it’s like he’s done it on purpose. He has done it on purpose. It’s three soccer balls – one for each of them.
Sorcha’s old dear takes them out of the boxes and rolls them across the floor to them. Brian squeals with excitement, then he kicks his ball across the living-room floor and scampers off in chase, followed by Leo and Johnny shouting, ‘Footbaw! Footbaw! Footbaw!’
It breaks my focking hort.
‘That’s un-focking-believable,’ I go. ‘I mean, I’ve tried giving them rugby balls and they don’t know what to even do with them.’
Sorcha’s old dear goes, ‘I think it’s the shape of the rugby ball they don’t like. They don’t trust the way it moves.’
‘Well, they should trust it.’
‘What I mean is, I think most children prefer a ball to be round, don’t they?’
‘And what the fock would you know about sport?’
Sorcha’s old man gets involved then. He goes, ‘How dare you speak to my wife in that way!’
I’m there, ‘She played tennis in Glenageary – badly, as I remember – and now she’s an expert on everything?’
But then suddenly everyone is looking at the granny because she’s opened her present from Sorcha – and, hilariously, it turns out to be a silk scorf … in the gay pride colours.
I laugh. What else am I going to do?
She goes, ‘Oh, thank you, Sorcha. That’s, em, very, er …’
‘Wow,’ I go, ‘look at that! You’re going to be the envy of all your friends, aren’t you? What with you all being so into the whole gay rights thing.’
I take the scorf from her, then I walk around the back of her chair. I drape it over her shoulders and – I swear to fock – her entire body stiffens, like I’ve just hung a snake around her neck. ‘You can wear it to the Active Retirement, can’t you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she goes. ‘Mrs Hudson has one just like it – except with not as many colours.’
I’m there, ‘I have to say, it genuinely suits you, doesn’t it?’
Sorcha goes, ‘Do you love it, Gran?’
And the granny’s like, ‘Oh, yes … Yes, I do … I love all gay things, Sorcha.’
I’m there, ‘I must grab a picture of you in it. You can show it to the parish priest.’
She goes, ‘No, I’ll put it away in the box – just so it’s safe!’ and she whips it off her before I can get the shot.
Sorcha opens up one of her presents and lets a scream out of her. ‘Oh! My! God!’ she goes – and at first I think it’s my gift that she’s opened. It’s not, though. It ends up being from Fionn. ‘It’s a first edition of Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope,’ she goes. ‘And look, it’s even signed: “To Sorcha, Yes, you can. Barack Obama.” Oh! My God!’
It puts the popcorn-maker I bought her in the focking shade. If I ever needed a sign that he was definitely trying to get in there, I don’t anymore. Sorcha’s old man goes, ‘What a wonderful young man he is. I’ve been saying it to you, Sorcha, since you were how old?’
She goes, ‘Oh! My God! How did he get Obama to sign it?’
‘Speaking of coloured people,’ I go, trying to subtly change the subject, ‘did you see my old man slagging off Father Amokachi on Twitter this morning?’
Sorcha’s face just drops. She’s like, ‘Do you know how – oh my God – racist you sounded just there?’
I go, ‘Coloured people? I hear you say coloured people all the time.’
‘I don’t say coloured people. I say people of colour. There’s a huge difference, Ross.’
‘Is there? Because they kind of sound the same to me.’
‘One is a preferred term and the other is one of the worst things you can possibly say about someone who doesn’t share your ethnicity. I can’t believe that you’re actually out there in the world not knowing any of this stuff. You really need to get on the Internet and educate yourself, Ross.’
I don’t get the chance to argue my point any further because Sorcha’s granny suddenly goes, ‘Ross! How could you do something like that?’
Everyone’s like, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ and that’s when I get this horrible burning smell in my nostrils.
She goes, ‘Ross threw my beautiful gay people headscarf on the fire!’
Now, you can probably imagine my reaction. I’m like, ‘What?’ obviously more than a bit confused by this? ‘What the fock are you talking about?’
Then I suddenly notice her rainbow scorf blazing away in the fireplace. I’m there, ‘I didn’t do that.’
The granny goes, ‘Yes, he did, Sorcha. He hates the gays – we knew that about him. He must have thrown it on the fire while you were looking at that book about that person of colour.’
Sorcha goes, ‘Oh my God, Ross, why would you –?’
I’m like, ‘Sorcha, I swear to God, I didn’t do it.’
And that’s when her old man sticks his hooter in. ‘He did, Sorcha,’ he goes. ‘As a matter of fact, I watched him do it.’
My jaw goes literally slack. I always knew he hated my basic guts, but I never thought he’d stoop so low as to lie just to fock me over.
The granny goes, ‘Oh, he hates the gays does Ross. God didn’t create Adam and Panti Bliss. That’s what he said.’
And Sorcha’s old man is like, ‘I know we said he could stay for an hour, but I think it would be best all round if he left now.’
There ends up being the most unbelievable screaming match then. Sorcha, her old pair and her granny are all shouting at me and I’m shouting back at them. I’m going, ‘I didn’t focking do it! She’s the one who hates gay people! I’m all for them!’
Then, all of a sudden, there’s a roar and it’s louder than any other voice in the room. It just goes, ‘I said shut the fock up!’
There’s immediately silence.
It’s Honor. She’s got a face on her that’s all business. ‘I’ve got something I want to tell you,’ she goes, ‘since we’re all here together. It’s been on my mind for a while now.’
Sorcha’s like, ‘Honor, what is it?’
And I’m there, ‘Yeah, no, is everything okay?’ because she looks kind of upset.
She goes, ‘I’m a boy.’
Sorcha’s there, ‘You’re a what?’
‘I’m a boy. Meaning I identify as male. And I want to change my gender identity.’
You can imagine my face. Again, my mouth falls open – as does Sorcha’s, by the way, and she’s supposedly a lot more open-minded than I am.
The granny goes, ‘What’s this she’s saying?’
Sorcha’s there, ‘She’s saying she was born in the wrong body, Gran.’
‘The wrong body?’ the granny goes. ‘Whose body was she born in?’
‘She means that she’s not happy with her assigned sex. Is that right, Honor?’
Honor nods.
Sorcha’s old man ends up totally flipping. He’s obviously dubious. He goes, ‘You don’t seriously believe her, do you? It’s just attention-seeking behaviour. This is more of it now.’
To say I’m confused would be the understatement of the century.
Sorcha’s there, ‘Dad, Honor is sharing with us the fact that her sense of herself doesn’t correspond with the gender attributed to her at the time of her birth. We have to not only respect that but celebrate it.’
‘Gender’s not something you can pick and choose,’ he goes, ‘like the colour of your hair or what shoes you wear.’
But Sorcha just blanks him. Pennies are storting to drop for her – all over the place. ‘Honor,’ she goes, ‘how long have you felt this way?’
Honor just shrugs. She’s there, ‘I don’t know. All my life.’
‘Oh my God, is that why you’ve been wearing the beanie all the time? And those awful skateboarding shoes?’
‘Er, I like my Vans?’
‘Oh my God, is it also why you’ve been so difficult since childhood and why I’ve never really been able to form the kind of deep friendship with you that I have with my own mom? Was it because you had all of this conflict going on inside you?’
I’m there, ‘Do you honestly think that would explain her behaviour?’
‘His behaviour,’ Sorcha goes.
I’m thinking, Jesus Christ, not this again.
Sorcha’s there, ‘Aren’t you listening to what Honor is telling you, Ross?’
I’m like, ‘What is she telling me?’
And Honor goes, ‘I don’t want to be known as Honor anymore. I want you to call me Eddie.’