CHAPTER FIVE

The One Where Ross Lets The Cat Out Of The Bag

I get back from holidays, roysh, and I check my messages. A girl called Debbie has rung, roysh, to ask me – ‘OH MY! GOD! you are going to think I am such a freak of nature’ – whether I might have accidentally taken her Chill Out Moods CD, ‘because it was on the locker beside the bed when you … no, forget it. Oh my God, I am, like, SO embarrassed.’ It’s a shit album anyway, can’t imagine her missing it. Oh and Michelle from Ulster Bank has called to say she’s sorry that I didn’t, like, make it to some meeting I don’t even remember agreeing to, to discuss the SSIA, 50-50 funds, projected investment growth and loads of other bollocks I basically don’t understand.

For the last few weeks, roysh, I’ve basically had this, like, verruca on the sole of my foot, and I’m pretty sure I know where it came from as well. These are the things that your travel agent should warn you about before you go off on a knacker holiday, but they don’t. I reckon basically I got it from that goy from Sheriff Street, the one with, like, the tricolour hanging over the edge of his balcony. I tell this to Fionn, who I make the mistake of, like, confiding in one night, roysh, while we’re in the gaff watching ‘The Villa’. He’s like, ‘A tricolour? Ross, that could be any one of fifty people.’ I’m like, ‘You remember him. “Did you see our Joanne winning the karaoke last night, what? Sex bomb, sex bomb …”’

He goes, ‘Got you now. Why him, though?’ I’m like, ‘I just know. Fock, what am I going to do?’ He’s like, ‘Hey, why are you telling me this shit anyway?’ I’m there, ‘Hello? You’re the one in college, remember?’ He goes, ‘Ross, I’m doing psychology.’ I’m like, ‘And?’ He goes, ‘And you need a doctor. Why not go to see old what’s-his-name?’ I’m like, ‘Hello? Earth to Fionn. I’ve spent the last six months trying to get into his daughter’s knickers. I hardly think she’s going to be interested when she finds out I’ve got this big festering sore on my foot.’ And he goes, ‘Ross, she’ll just have to accept you … warts and all.’ Then he storts, like, breaking his shite laughing. Dickhead.

I’m like, ‘Fionn, you better not breathe a word about this to anyone.’ He’s like, ‘What do you take me for, Ross?’ And I go out into the kitchen, roysh, and pull out the phone book and stort looking up doctors. I can’t go to the local GP for reasons already explained, and knowing my luck, I’d probably run into the old dear in the waiting room, picking up her focking HRT, and I can very nearly hear her already. ‘Oh the shame of it, Ross! There hasn’t been a verruca in our family for seventeen generations.’ You know the way she goes on.

And anyway, roysh, it’s got to be a doctor with experience of treating verrucas. The way I see it, roysh, no GP from up our way is likely to have ever seen one. It has to be a doctor from a Ken Acker area. I eventually find one in Newtownmountkennedy, roysh, and after taking the CD player out of the cor, I hit the dual carriageway, and the next thing I know, I’m sitting in a waiting room with some total focking AJH grilling me about my business, basically a receptionist who thinks she’s a focking doctor. She’s like, ‘And what shall I say your problem is?’ I just, like, whisper, ‘A verruca,’ and she’s like, ‘A VERRUCA?’ at the top of her voice. I’m, like, looking around me. There’s these two women behind me, skangers basically, and they stop talking when they hear the word. I’m like, ‘Why don’t you put an ad in the focking Herald?’ I sit down, roysh, and I stort getting really paranoid. I’ve knobbed quite a few birds from out this direction and I keep thinking someone’s going to, like, come in and recognise me.

I’m listening to these two birds and it’s all, ‘Oh yeah, I’m a martyr to me back, Mary. Always have been.’ And when the doctor goes, ‘NEXT,’ I just get up and go in ahead of them, even though I’m not next. The two women stort muttering to each other, roysh, and one of them plucks up the courage and goes, ‘Excuse me,’ trying to put on a posh voice, ‘Excuse me, you’re after skipping the queue.’ She’s basically trying to embarrass me. I’m like, ‘Yeah? Tell it to focking Adrian Kennedy, you knacker.’

I go into the doctor, roysh, and it’s, like, pleasantries and shit and then it’s like, ‘What seems to be the problem?’ I’m like, ‘It’s a bit, em … embarrassing.’ He goes, ‘Is it a sexually transmitted disease? HERPES? SCABIES? URETHRITIS? SYPHILIS?’ I’m like, ‘What is it with people in here? Would you mind not shouting?’ He’s there, ‘GONORRHOEA? CHLAMYDIA? I KNOW MY STDs.’

I’m like, ‘It sounds like you do. Look, I’ve got a verruca.’ He goes, ‘A verruca?’ looking all, like, disappointed and shit. He’s like, ‘A verr-u-ca.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, what happened was I picked it up on a knacker holiday.’ He goes, ‘Yes, that and a lot more besides, I’d wager. Well, verrucas are actually quite common …’ I’m there, ‘Not where I come from, they’re not.’ He goes, ‘Infection of the skin caused by the human papilloma virus … can be quite painful … often picked up in swimming pools and the like … would disappear itself if you left it, but if it’s troubling you, it’s best to act.

‘Here,’ he goes, handing me this prescription, ‘slop this stuff on it a couple of times a day. It’ll clear up in a week … now, any sexually transmitted diseases to report?’ I’m like, ‘No.’ He goes, ‘CHANCROID? TRICHOMONIASIS?’ I get up and get the fock out of there and I can hear the goy still shouting this stuff after I’ve left the surgery.

The stuff smells focking vile. It’s, like, some kind of acid, roysh, but I lash on the old Gio Acqua Di before I go out that night so nobody will smell it. I hit Kiely’s and there I am, roysh, having a few scoops, and I notice that the goys are being really, like, weird around me. It’s all, ‘How are you feeling, Ross?’ and, ‘Everything okay?’ Even the birds are like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t think you’d be drinking.’ And I’m storting to wonder, roysh, whether Fionn’s actually said something.

So anyway, roysh, about half an hour into the night, I’ve got to go and, like, drain the snake, so I get up from the table and head for the jacks. That’s when I hear this, like, ringing, roysh, and basically everyone in the entire pub stops whatever it is they’re doing and storts, like, staring at me. So I look down, roysh, and it turns out that some focker – probably Oisinn, the fat bastard – has tied a bell onto my ankle when I wasn’t looking. And all the goys are standing up, giving it, ‘UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!’

Basically assholes.

I hate cats. We’re talking TOTALLY here, and I wouldn’t use that word lightly. The problem with cats is that you could spend an hour petting one, roysh, and then the thing’ll get bored with you, scratch your arm, fock off out the window and not come back for two weeks. Once someone else is feeding it, that is. I focking hate them. But Oreanna, roysh, this bird I was kind of seeing sort of, like, on and off for a few weeks, she loves them. Most birds basically do.

Anyway, this one she had, roysh, was called Simba, an evil, orange little thing. The focker could open doors, I’m telling you, and materialise through, like, walls and shit. There we’d be, roysh, me and Oreanna, getting jiggy on her sofa and, like, the cat would be outside on the window ledge, roysh, pawing away at the glass, basically trying to get in. Next thing you’d look down, roysh, and the thing was there at your feet, staring up at you and, like, hissing.

Simba hated me, roysh, and basically that’s the thing about cats. They get, like, really, really jealous if they think you’re, like, moving in on their patch. They’re big into, like, territory and shit, or so Fionn says, and he spends a lot of time in the gaff watching the Discovery Channel. Me and Oreanna would be sitting there in front of the telly, roysh, getting it on, hands busy with her bra strap, and the focking thing would jump up on the sofa and, like, squeeze in between the two of us, and of course Oreanna, roysh, the total sap, she’d go, ‘OH MY! GOD! isn’t he SO cute. And SO clever.’ She could only ever see good in the little bastard.

There was this one night, roysh, when we were in her gaff in Greystones, watching ‘Big Brother’, which is, like, her favourite programme, roysh, and all of a sudden Simba storts, like, licking my hand, and at first, roysh, I thought he was actually trying to make friends with me. Turns out he was, like, tenderising my flesh before he sank his teeth into me.

So I storted making up all these stories, roysh, which I told Oreanna I’d read in the paper, about old dears who’d, like, died in their gaffs and their bodies had been found a week later and they’d been, like, half eaten by their cats. And Simba would sit there staring at me while I said this, roysh, and, I focking swear to God, that animal understood every word I was saying. I was, like, wasting my breath, though, because basically it did nothing to change Oreanna’s mind. So instead, roysh, now and then I’d try to persuade her to make me a cup of tea and, when she was out in the kitchen, I’d try to hit the thing with the odd sly kick. The bastard was usually too fast for me though. I said usually.

Because basically where all of this is going, roysh, is that this one particular night, the night me and Oreanna finished with each other funnily enough, I was swinging the old Golf GTI into her driveway and I felt this, like, bump under the cor. And I knew straight away, roysh, what I’d done. For once in his life, the focker just wasn’t quick enough for me. I swear to God, it was an accident, though Oreanna was never going to believe that, especially after all the threats I’d made against the thing. I got out of the cor and, like, checked the damage. At first I thought there was, like, an actual scratch on the fender, roysh, but it turned out it was only a bit of fur, stuck on with blood.

I’m not being a dickhead, roysh, but the cat didn’t suffer. Had he still been alive, I’d have had to finish him off with the cor jack, which so wouldn’t have been a pretty sight. Of course, none of that would have been any consolation to Oreanna, so I decided not to tell her, one because she’d be too upset, roysh, and two because it would lessen my chances of getting my bit that night. So what I did, roysh, was I slapped the thing into the boot of the cor and decided to drive home later through Bray and fock the thing in the Dargle. She’d be pretty heartbroken when old Simba didn’t come home, roysh, but she’d just presume it’d gone off to live with some old biddy who fed him, I don’t know, cake or chocolate. I’d be sure to suggest it.

So I went into the gaff, roysh, acted natural, the whole lot. Her old pair were in Villamoura, playing golf. And she puts on this video, roysh, and it’s, like, Cats, the focking musical. I have to say, roysh, I felt like such an asshole at that moment, but there was nothing I could do. Anyway, roysh, we ended up having a really great chat, I was telling her all about this gaff I just sold down the road from her in Delgany for, like, four hundred grand, and she was telling me about how she may have to go back to wearing a brace for six months, depends what the orthodontist says on Monday. I don’t think I need to go into detail about what happened next, roysh. Not being, like, big-headed or anything, but I basically ended up staying the night. I’ll spare you the details, roysh, but basically we’re talking, TOUCHDOWN!

The next morning, roysh, she brings me a fry in bed, the whole lot, we’re talking sausages, bacon, egg, mushrooms, toast, and I’m there going, Have I struck gold here or what? As she gets out of the shower, roysh, she asks me whether I could drop her off at work. She works in some, like, building society in Bray. I have to say I was a bit pissed off about having to get up so early, roysh, but I play it cool like Huggy Bear and half an hour later, roysh, I’m sitting in the cor, with the engine ticking over, waiting for her to lock up the house, put the alarm on, blah blah blah.

She opens the passenger door, roysh, and she goes, ‘Ross, what’s that smell?’ I’m there, ‘I don’t know. I think it’s the exhaust. I’ll have to get it looked at.’ So she had this bag with her, roysh, because she was playing tennis after work with Megan, who’s, like, her best friend, and she goes, ‘I’ll just put this in the boot.’ And that was when I remembered what the smell was. But it was too late to do anything at that stage.

Oh my God, you should have heard her screams. Half of focking Greystones did. People storted, like, coming out of their houses. She’s there going, ‘He killed Simba. He killed Simba.’ I have to say, roysh, that the cat was not a pretty sight at that stage. We’re basically talking, like, rigor mortis here. Its teeth were showing, its eyes were, like, rolled backwards into its head and there was, like, a few bluebottles buzzing around where the blood … you get the picture.

I actually thought the neighbours were going to, like, lynch me, they were all there looking at me like I was, I don’t know, focking Fred West or someone. I’m just there, ‘Spare me, will you? It was a focking accident.’ And this old dear, roysh, a real shit-stirrer, she takes off her coat and puts it over Oreanna’s shoulders and she says to come with her, she’ll make her a cup of tea. And as she’s sort of, like, walking her off, roysh, I go, ‘Oreanna, text me later, after tennis.’ And this old dear, a real bitch, roysh, she turns around and goes, ‘I don’t think you should show your face around here ever again.’

And I watch them disappear into this old dear’s gaff, roysh, and that’s when I realise that they’re all still there, all the neighbours, staring at me in, like, total disgust, and I mean TOTAL. And this one goy, roysh, a real Ned Flanders dickhead, he goes, ‘Pamela’s right. We don’t want to see you around here again.’ And I go totally apeshit at that, roysh. I grab the cat – or what’s left of it – out of the boot and basically slap it down on the ground in front of him and all this, like, blood and shit splashes all over his shoes and his Farah slacks and I’m there – and I’m actually pretty proud of this, roysh – I’m there, ‘You focking bury it then, Flanders, if you’re so smart.’

Modern décor. FTB. Owner occupier. Section focking 23. Double-fronted. Architecturally acclaimed. Villa-style. Ease of access. Work-from-home spacious. I come home from the office with my head wrecked from all this shit. Been flogging these gaffs all week, roysh, out in Gorey of all places – ‘superb quality investments in village setting, only 4,275 remain’ – and they’re going like hot cakes, but it’s, like, work, work, work at the moment and the last thing I need when I get home is someone else wrecking my head.

Switch on my mobile and I’ve got, like, three voice messages. Michelle from Ulster Bank – surprise, sur-focking-prise – really does feel it’s a shame that I’ve got all that money just sitting in a deposit account when it could be working for me. She blabs on for a bit about single premium investment schemes offering unlimited growth potential, managed funds with one hundred per cent capital protection, international shares and fixed-interest securities and loads of other shite that gives me a headache. The second is from this bird, Treasa, who’s, like, second year actuarial studies in UCD, who I ended up being with at Ultan’s twenty-first, and who basically, roysh, can’t get over the fact that it was a one-night stand, although she doesn’t seem to have noticed that her Celine Dion Greatest Hits album went walkies the night I was in her gaff. So I was actually in a bit of a fouler after that, roysh, until I heard the third message and that, like, really cheered me up. It was the old man, roysh, and at first I thought it was, like, more of his bullshit, please come home, we miss you, your mother’s HRT isn’t going well, blah blah blah. But it’s not, roysh, it’s like, ‘Ross, disaster. Disaster with a capital D. The new neighbours. They’re, well, they’re not like us.’

He goes, ‘Your mother and I went in to see them last night. Thought we’d give them a day or two to get properly settled in and whatnot. Didn’t suspect a thing, of course. Not even when we saw them bringing in the big china collie dog and the bunk beds. They’re working class, Ross! Oh, how could we have been so blind? We just jumped in there with two feet, of course. Called in with a card and one of your mother’s almond and apricot roulades, welcome to the neighbourhood thank you very much indeed.

‘Well, what a sight it was that greeted us. The man, oh I can hardly bring myself to say his name, Christy, he was in the front garden, working on the motor. His words, Ross, not mine. Working on the motor, if you don’t mind. Oh, I put my foot in it, of course. Told him about Jim, the man who fixes my car. “Why would ye shell out a couple a hundred ’n’ odd notes if you know how to fix it yisserself?” Sorry, your mother does the voice much better than I do. She’s able to see the funny side of it. Sometimes. Although most of the time she just cries.

‘Of course the woman, Cindy is her name, she comes out then. It’s “Ah, Jaysus, Howiya,” from her. Howiya indeed. I thought your mother was going to collapse on the spot. On the spot. With a capital, I don’t know, S I suppose. And what did she say then? “Oh, you’re after makin’ us a lovely cake.” Or cayik. Can’t pronounce it the way she did. Your mother said, “It’s not a cake. It’s roulade.” And this frightful Cindy person said, “It’s a fookin cake where we come from, love.”

‘Which is God knows where. Lottery winners, no doubt. Not a job between them, I’d bet. In the pub from noon till night. Kids up to God knows what. Oh, the lottery. A curse, Ross, a bloody curse. I phoned Hennessy, but of course they’ve got the law on their side. Haven’t actually done anything illegal, he said. “But they don’t belong here,” I told him. “It’s wrong, damn it.” Had to apologise to Hennessy for that. Out of order. God knows this hasn’t been easy for any of us.

‘But em … Ross … Eduard, you know, Eduard from the golf club, he says that Hook, Lyon and Sinker were the agents for that house. Em … you didn’t have anything to do with selling it, did you? Of course you didn’t. I mean I told your mother that. “This is Ross we’re talking about,” I said. He wouldn’t … em … anyway, I’d better go. Who knows when it’s all going to go off next door. Your mother’s bought a pair of binoculars. Keep an eye on things. Damage is already done, I told her. Knocked about eighty thousand euros off the value of this place. And what’s next? Heroin? Call-girls coming and going at all hours of the night? Drive-through shootings?’

Drive-through shootings. Is he a wanker or what?

Alicia is this bird I know, roysh, we’re talking the image of Lisa Faulkner here, but at the same time, roysh, as the goys always say, she’s a bit like a shirt you’d buy from one of those skanger shops in the Ilac Centre: you only really get one good wear out of her. Anyway, roysh, that’s neither here nor there. The point is that Oisinn has basically been on a promise with her for, like, six weeks – Pleasures by Estée Lauder, he calls her – and he was waiting for his old pair to go away to Bologna, so he could, like, have a porty in his gaff. Then his old dear goes and chokes on an organic strawberry, or gets food poisoning or some shit, and the trip is off and suddenly Oisinn is, like, putting pressure on me to throw a porty instead, we’re talking in one of JP’s old man’s gaffs, one of the houses I’m supposed to be trying to sell. This all comes up in Conway’s on the Thursday night. He goes, ‘Come on, half of those houses are vacant. We’ll go in, we’ll porty and we’ll be gone the next day after tidying up. JP’s old man will never know.’

JP hasn’t, like, heard any of this, roysh, because him and Fionn are in the middle of texting this joke to Ryle, and it’s like, WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RTE AND THE TITANIC? RTE HAS TWO ORCHESTRAS. I didn’t get it either, but when I stopped laughing, roysh, I asked JP what he thought about the idea of a porty, maybe in the gaff on Killiney Hill Road that’s been on the books for focking ages, and he goes, ‘Sounds like a plan, Ross. Sounds like a plan. Furnish me with updates,’ which is basically Estate Agent for Yes.

So the night of the porty, roysh, we’re talking the following Saturday night here, we’re all in the gaff, all the goys, getting totally trolleyed. And when I say totally, roysh, I am not exaggerating. And all the birds, roysh, they’re all in the next room, sitting around, trying to act all mature, going, ‘Oh my God, how old are they supposed to be again?’ They’re pretty much feeling left out of things, roysh, because it’s all the old goys off the S, knocking back the Ken, singing the old songs: ‘The Mayor of Bayswater’, ‘On Top of Old Sophie’, and ‘Give me a Clone’.

Oh give me a clone, Of my own flesh and bone,

With the Y chromosome changed to an X.

Then when it is grown, My own little clone,

Will be of the opposite sex.

I head out to the kitchen to grab a beer and who’s out there only Claire, as in the Dalkey wannabe from Bray, and Erika. Well, you know Erika, she’s a total bitch at the best of times and she’s giving Claire a hard time as per usual, telling her that there should be mandatory sentences for people who go around begging in pubs, knowing full well that Claire’s doing, like, promotional stuff in pubs for Heineken at the moment. Claire goes, ‘Obviously what I’m doing is–’ and Erika just cuts her off, roysh, and goes, ‘Claire, what you’re doing makes you no better than a Romanian.’

And off Claire runs, roysh, bawling her eyes out, and Erika shouts after her, ‘Your roots are showing, Dear.’ I actually feel a bit sorry for her because Erika really knows how to get under her skin, but I’m just there, ‘I like the way you handled that. About time someone told her.’ Erika ignores this and looks around the kitchen. She goes, ‘When I heard you were having a porty, Ross, I thought it was going to be in that little bedsit of an apartment that you and Fionn are sharing. I’m impressed. You’re beginning to grow on me.’ I’m like, Oh my God, I am SO in here. Anyway, roysh, I’m just about to make my move when all of a sudden the front door swings open and it’s, like, JP and his old man. Hadn’t actually noticed that JP was missing, roysh, and I know straight away what his game is. He’s done a Judas on me, stitched me up big-style. For ages, roysh, he’s been jealous of the fact that I’m basically better at the job than him and he’s been trying to, like, shaft me, which he’s obviously just done, and done it TOTALLY.

His old man walks up to me and he goes, ‘Ross, did I or did I not tell you that I was trusting you with a set of keys and there was to be no parties?’ I’m like, ‘Basically, yeah.’ He goes, ‘Lies. Deceit. Going behind people’s backs …’ Then he just, like, smiles at me, roysh, and he goes, ‘… every test I set you, you pass it with flying colours. You have absolutely no sense of right and wrong. I struck oil when I found you, boy. Struck oil.’ You should have seen JP’s face. He just storms out, roysh, and I hand his old man a can of Ken and he cracks it open and turns around to Erika, looks her up and down – the goy is a total sleazebag – and he goes, ‘Nice dress. Can I talk you out of it?’

I come home from work, roysh, long hard day at the office, and I’m trying to watch ‘Temptation Island’, but Fionn’s telling me about this coffee shop, roysh, it used to be called Kennedy’s and now it’s called Bon Espresso and Patisserie and I’m like, ‘And your point is?’

The knackers are going to have to go, lottery winners or not. The pigeon loft went up on Tuesday night, roysh, and that’s what the old pair said when they saw it. They have got to go. Not that I give a fock one way or another what they say. I hadn’t actually spoken to either of them since they focked me out of the gaff, but let’s just say that suddenly what’s in their interests is also in mine.

I was actually trying to watch ‘Jackass’ when the old man rang and I made the mistake of answering it before I checked who it was, so I ended up having to listen to him bullshitting on about this loft for, like, twenty minutes. He’s there going, ‘They’re vermin, dirty bloody things that spread disease.’ I’m like, ‘It’s only a few focking birds. Get over it.’ He goes, ‘I wasn’t referring to the pigeons, Ross.’

And I can hear the old dear in the background, roysh, going, ‘Tell him, Charles. Tell him. They will not be satisfied until they have turned this road into one of those fearful council estates. Why did they ever leave Coolock or wherever it is they came from?’ I can hear the old man pouring himself a brandy, a double by the sounds of it. He goes, ‘Your mother’s right, Ross. The pigeon loft, the Nissan Bluebird, they’re the thin end of the wedge. What’s next? Horses wandering around the streets here?’

In the background, the old dear’s going, ‘Tell him about the Rottweiler, Charles. And the ice cream van.’ The old man goes, ‘Come on, we’ve no proof that it was an ice cream van.’ And the old dear storts going apeshit, she’s there, ‘Charles, I’ve been to the northside. I know what an ice cream van sounds like.’ He goes, ‘All I’m saying, Darling, is that you were upset.’ And she loses it then, roysh, she’s like, ‘I HEARD AN ICE CREAM VAN, CHARLES. WHY WON’T YOU BELIEVE ME?’ I can hear him, like, hugging her, roysh, trying to calm her down, and listening to this bullshit, roysh, I end up missing this entire scene where Johnny Knoxville gets set on fire, which pisses me off, so I end up hanging up on him and switching the phone off for a couple of hours.

I found out later, roysh, that the second I hung up, their phone rang. And of course they thought it was me ringing back. The old dear answers it and the old man’s there going, ‘Ask him did we lose the signal this end or was it that end. This chap next door’s probably got one of those blasted CB radios. You mark my words.’ But it wasn’t me, of course. It was the skangballs themselves. And going by the old man’s account, roysh, the old dear was, like, basically in shock.

This wan, roysh, Cindy I think he said her name was, she’s asking her something, and you can just picture the old dear there going, ‘Yes … yes … tomorrow night? Em … I don’t know …’ And the old man, who’s copped who it is, roysh, he’s there telling her to, like, play it cool, go along with whatever she’s saying. And the old dear’s there going, ‘Em…I’ll see…I’m not sure if I can make it, but … okay … bye …’ She hangs up, roysh, and the old man’s going, ‘What was all that about?’ And she’s like, ‘She wouldn’t take no for an answer, Charles. She’s invited me to a party. Tomorrow night. In her house.’ The old man’s there, ‘You? On your own?’ And the stupid bitch goes, ‘Yes, she said she’s having “a few of the girls” around. Bit of a party. I tried to make some excuse, but …’ And the old man goes – now this is according to him – he goes, ‘Darling, you have to go. You really do. Otherwise they’ll think something’s up. Just go and do your best to act naturally and then, when I speak to Hennessy and we hit them with the solicitor’s letter – BANG! – they won’t know what day of the week it is. In the meantime, we’ve just got to act as though everything’s normal.’

And you can imagine the old dear, roysh, the stupid wagon coming over all faint at the thought of it, and I have to say, roysh, a video tape of her stepping through the front door of that house would be funnier than anything that’s ever been on ‘Jackass’. She goes, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, Charles. I’m not strong like you.’ The old man’s like, ‘I know it’ll take an enormous effort, but …’ She goes, ‘Oh, I can just picture it, Charles. The horror. Net curtains. Brass flower pots in the windows. Clothes drying on radiators …’ And the old man’s there going, ‘Darling, be brave. This could be our only chance to get rid of them. Once and for all.’

So basically, roysh, what happened was that at eight o’clock the next night, the dopey bitch pops in next door with a bottle of Chateâuneuf du Pape. According to the old man, when he saw the bottle of wine he went, ‘Oh, good cover. I like it. You’re thinking, Darling.’ Before she left he checked she had her panic alarm with her, and then she was off. Two hours later, roysh, she was back, basically in focking tears. She just, like, fell into the old man’s arms and he was like, ‘It’s over, Darling, it’s over. You’re home now. You’re safe.’ And she goes, ‘You don’t understand, Charles. It was a … oh, I can’t even say the word.’ He’s like, ‘Well, don’t. Just try to forget about it.’ She goes, ‘No, I can’t, Charles. I have to say it. It was a … a … a lingerie party.’

I can’t keep the laughter in when the old man tells me this. She went, ‘It was awful, Charles. Her friends, they’re … animals. That’s all you could call them. It was Howiya this and Ah Jaysus that. Frizzy hair and tight jeans …’ And he turns around to her, roysh, and he goes, ‘Try not to think about it.’ She goes, ‘And then the lingerie came out. Oh, it was horrid, Charles, horrid. And they knew. They knew how uncomfortable I was with it. Kept telling me to buy various things. Spice up your love life, they said. And they’d all laugh. Horrible laughter. I said I didn’t have my credit card with me …’ The old man tells her she might feel better after a shower and she goes, ‘No, I have to tell you this, Charles. This Cindy woman, she said it didn’t matter. She’d buy me this as a present,’ and the old dear pulls this thing out of her pocket, roysh, and throws it on the table, and from the old man’s description it basically sounds like a pair of red crotchless knickers with feathers on them. I am breaking my shite laughing when I hear this. I basically can’t hold it in.

The old man, roysh, he’s still bulling when he tells me all this on the phone. He goes, ‘Ross, I have a job for you.’ I’m like, ‘I already have a job.’ He goes, ‘Well, call it a bit of moonlighting then. It’s a special project and it’s worth five grand to you. That’s what I’ll pay you to get those animals next door out. Within two months. And I don’t care how you do it either.’ I’m like, ‘I’ll do it. But don’t think this means we’re back playing happy families again. You can get that idea out of your head. But for five thousand bills, I’ll take the job.’ He goes, ‘Two months, Ross.’ And I’m there, ‘Piece of piss.’

Fionn says he only has one rule when it comes to the opposite sex, roysh, and that’s never go out with a bird who lives on a Close. I’m like, ‘Fionn, you have some seriously focked-up ideas.’ He goes, ‘Ross, have you ever known me to have trouble with the opposite sex?’ and he actually has a point.

I’m in Mullingar, roysh, and I’m not even sure what county it’s in. All I know is that it took me two focking hours to get here and that JP’s old man told me to refer to it as ‘the gateway town of Mullingar’, presumably to give the impression to the suckers I’m showing it to this afternoon that it’s on the outskirts of Dublin. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, Mr and Mrs Nugent are already there at the gaff when I get there, roysh, both of them already bulling. The goy goes, ‘Well, we’ve already spotted the first untruth in the prospectus.’ I’m like, ‘Sorry I’m late,’ trying to subtly change the subject, but he’s there, ‘Forty-five minutes from Dublin, it says here. In what, a Lear jet?’ I’m there trying to remember some of the killer lines I learned earlier. I go, ‘The strategic radial corridor should slash commuting times …’ but the focker’s too quick for me, roysh, he’s obviously been swotting up, and he’s there, ‘By strategic radial corridor I presume you’re referring to the N4?’ I’m there, ‘Em … yeah.’ He goes, ‘We took the N4. And I can only presume the N stands for nights, as in it’ll take you the best part of four bloody nights to get home.’

I’m there, ‘Hey, I’m getting majorly negative vibes here. If you don’t want the house …’ His wife, roysh – not bad looking, a little bit like Emma Forbes, D&G coat, Burberry scarf, cracking on she’s really posh, but if she was she wouldn’t be looking to buy a house in the middle of Bogsville – she goes, ‘Calm down, Pat. Let’s at least look the place over … we’ve come this far,’ obviously knowing their options in the housing market are limited, which makes them, like, easy prey for me. Of course, I’m there leading them through the gaff – a total dump if I’m honest, which I’m not – going, ‘You will have seen on your approach that this is a desirable residence in an exclusive enclave of sumptuously designed houses by an award-winning architect …’ Actually, the award-winning part is a bit cheeky. As JP’s old man says, the only thing the goy was ever awarded was temporary release from a four-year sentence for trying to bribe council officials, roysh, though as my desk diary said this morning, You’ve got to speculate to accumulate …

I’m going, ‘These innovative homes with their well-proportioned living areas, blah blah blah, generous specifications, bullshit bullshit bullshit, possible Section 23 relief, piece of focking cake.’ The goy mutters something about the TSB/ESRI house price index, whatever the fock that is, and the impending national spatial strategy – again, he’s on his own there – and I just go, ‘With the market in a state of flux, any theory I might postulate is as good as the next man’s,’ which is the emergency line to bluff your way out of any difficult corner in this job, and he just nods his head, roysh, and seems to accept what I’ve said.

I know what’s coming next. Of course it’s Emma Forbes who asks. She’s like, ‘Are you prepared to be flexible on the price?’ I’m like, ‘I am. Unfortunately, though, the market isn’t as generous as me. I have to remind you that I have two other clients to show around this afternoon.’ The two of them stand there humming and hawing, roysh, while I’m hitting them with things like, ‘optional full furniture fit-out package’, ‘rear-facing garden with sunny aspect’, and other bullshit, knowing damn well the saps aren’t going to get anything better than this. The goy’s like, ‘Okay, we’ll offer the asking price. What is it, W210,000?’ I’m there, ‘Excellent,’ showing them out. I go, ‘Now, unfortunately, there are two other clients coming this afternoon. It’s the highest offer I’m obliged to take, you understand that.’ They both nod, looking all mopey, roysh, like someone pissed on their cornflakes.

I actually don’t have anyone else coming to see the house, but I thought I’d let the fockers sweat. I wait around in my cor for about twenty minutes, let them get a good head stort on me, roysh, then I hit the strategic radial corridor back to Dublin.

During the summer, roysh, I was stringing along these two birds, we’re talking Becky and Iseult, and in the heat of the moment, roysh, I told both of them that I’d fallen in love with them, basically just trying to get my bit out of them. This is not actually unusual for me, roysh. I’ve been known to play five or six girls together at the same time, hence the Little Richard nickname that’s mentioned on the back of one of the cubicle doors in the men’s in Annabel’s.

What made this one different, roysh, was the fact that Iseult and Becky were actually in the same class at school, we’re talking sixth-year Whores on the Shore here, and keeping them apart was basically a tightrope act, which I have to say I managed to perform pretty well, until the day they both asked me to the same debs.

The goys were giving me total slaggings, roysh, telling me I’m getting far too old for that whole lark, and I did say that last year’s Mount Anything debs would be my last – the chicken à la crème was the best-looking bird there – but I love, like, defying the odds, roysh, and the challenge of bringing two birds to the one debs, without them actually knowing about each other, was enough to persuade me out of retirement for one night only. Fionn turns around to me in the gaff one night and he goes, ‘Never been done before, Ross.’ I’m like, ‘Odds?’ He goes, ‘We’re talking 25 to 1.’ I’m like, ‘I’m up for the challenge.’

Day arrives, roysh, and I grab a hundred bills from the Drinklink, hit Blackrock, grab two orchids and two boxes of Leonidas chocolates, the medium-sized box, no point in going mental as I’ve been there and back with both of them. I get back to the gaff, roysh, and I phone up Iseult first and she’s like, ‘Of all the people I could be going with tonight, I’m SO glad it’s you, Ross. You have been SO good for me, especially when I didn’t get the points to do international commerce with German,’ and eventually, roysh, after I’ve finished borfing, she asks me to call up to her gaff – this huge pad in Glenageary – at, like, six o’clock because her parents are having, like, a cocktail porty beforehand, which is music to my ears because Becky doesn’t want me to pick her up until eight, so I’ve got time to play with.

Iseult’s old pair are just like Iseult, saps basically, giving it the whole, ‘So, this is the young man Iseult has spent the entire summer talking about,’ bit, roysh, and Iseult’s like, ‘OH MY! GOD! Daddy, you are SO embarrassing me,’ and I’m there going, you can focking cut that out right now, because they’ve basically got me down as, like, future son-in-law material here. It’s all, like, bullshit talk for about half an hour, roysh, me knocking back Diet Cokes and losing the will to live.

Eventually, we head off and I drop Iseult off at the Shelbourne, roysh, then tell her I’ve forgotten to bring this amazing present I bought her (she’s like, ‘Oh, you are SO sweet’) and I hop back in the cor and peg it out to Becky’s gaff in Stillorgan. Oh my God, roysh, Becky’s old pair have invited half the focking world around for drinks, we’re talking aunts, uncles, neighbours, you name it. Her old man is a total dickhead, leading me around the sitting room, roysh, with his arm around my shoulder, introducing me to all his, I don’t know, business associates I suppose, going, ‘This is Ross, Rebecca’s boyfriend,’ which is news to me, though I say nothing. He goes, ‘Captained Castlerock the year they won the Cup, 1999 I think I’m right in saying.’

Her old dear, who was actually a bit of a yummy-mummy, spent the next, like, half an hour practically force-feeding me focking vol-au-vents before we finally escaped with a few words of treat-my-daughter-like-a-princess advice from the penis in the Pringle sweater. I’m like, ‘Your parents are really cool,’ as we get in the cor. She goes, ‘I’m SO glad you got on well with them.’

The trickiest part of the evening, roysh, was the meal, the big dilemma being who do I sit with. Basically what I did, roysh, was I asked Iseult would she mind if I sat at another table, just for, like, the meal and shit. She goes, ‘Oh my God, you don’t want to be seen with me? Is it, like, the dress?’ I’m like, ‘No, no, I just want to have a chat with Hayser’ – this goy who was at school with me – ‘he’s pretty upset about not making the UCD team this season.’ She looks at me and then at Hayser, roysh, then she goes, ‘Oh my God, you are SO a good friend,’ and she gives me this, like, peck on the cheek, roysh, and I just fock off.

So there I am, roysh, sat at a table across the far side of the room, with Hayser on one side of me and Becky on the other, and I nearly choke on a garlic and cheese potato when Becky turns around to me at one stage and goes, ‘OH MY! GOD! Iseult Mooney must have come on her own. What a sad bitch.’ I’m basically there coughing and spluttering my guts up. I’m like, ‘Who’s Iseult Mooney?’ still trying to play it cool as a fish’s fart. She goes, ‘Oh, believe me, she is not someone you’d want to know.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I’m glad I’m here with you and not her,’ and she looks at me and goes, ‘Oh my God, this is turning out to be SO one of the best nights of my life.’

It was the perfect crime, roysh. After the meal, it was, like, twenty minutes with one, then the other, back and forth all night, the two birds thinking I was their date for the night, and I was sitting there, roysh, storting to let my guard down, pretty confident at that stage that I was even going to end up scoring the two of them at the end of the night, but then it just, like, totally came apart, and we’re talking TOTALLY here.

I completely forgot, roysh, but this bird, Aoibheann, let’s just say a very recent conquest who I might also have said the dreaded L-word to, she was there as well, roysh, and she ends up getting completely off her face, having a row with me over what a bastard I am to women and then focking a vodka and Red Bull over me. Of course, Iseult and Becky arrive over at exactly the same time and they both want to know – ‘OH MY! GOD! OH MY! GOD! OH MY! GOD!’ – what’s going on. And that’s when they find out about, well, each other. Becky goes to Aoibheann, ‘That’s, like, my boyfriend,’ and Iseult turns around to Becky and she’s like, ‘Hello? You’re, like, delusional, girl.’

Aoibheann sort of, like, disappears, roysh, and the two birds are left there, like, screaming at each other. I’m not sure if they’ve, like, copped on what’s been going on here tonight, but it’s obvious they’ve been dying to get stuck into each other for a while. Becky tells Iseult that Iseult has SO had it in for her ever since she took her place on the hockey team, and Iseult tells Becky she’s a knob, always was and always will be. She goes, ‘You were always SO up Miss Pendleton’s orse.’ Becky tells Iseult she has an attitude problem – a TOTAL attitude problem, she goes – and, flattering as it is, roysh, to have two birds fighting over me, I decide then to get the fock out of there when no one is looking. I was just like, ‘Goodnight, Vienna.’