My head is focking fried. Just can’t come to terms with what Sorcha told me. I’m not ready to be someone’s father. Me with, like, a baby? It’s like, I don’t think so. But for some reason, roysh, everywhere I go, there’s, like, reminders. Every time I open a magazine or turn on the television or get on a bus it’s like,
THERE’S NO MILDER WIPE THAN A JOHNSON’S BABY WIPE
and it’s,
HiPP TODDLER RUSKS – GROWING UP NEVER TASTED SO GOOD
and it’s,
INFACOL RELIEVES INFANT COLIC AND GRIPING PAIN.
And if it’s not that it’s,
SMA MEETS THE NEEDS OF EVERY LITTLE CHARACTER
Or,
PERSIL NON-BIO – FIRST CHOICE FOR BABY’S SKIN
Or it’s,
CAPTURE THOSE MAGICAL MOMENTS WITH YOUR LITTLE TREASURES WITH KODAK.
It’s everywhere. And it’s going to be SO, like, hord for me to concentrate on my rugby.
Evy sends me a text and it’s just like, ASSHOLE!
Us and the Gick: we’ve got, like, history. And we’re talking a lot of history here. They’ve put us out of the Cup loads of times down through the years and there’s always a bit of, like, needle between us. They basically think they’re great, roysh, because, I don’t know, some Taoiseach or some other tool went there, which basically means nothing, roysh, although Castlerock has never really produced anyone, unless you count people like my old man, which I don’t.
Anyway, roysh, the last time Castlerock actually won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup was, like, twenty-five years ago, roysh, and it was the Gick they beat in the final, so Fehily has arranged for one of the stors of that team to come back and give us a bit of a talk, just for, like, inspiration.
So we’re all sitting there, roysh, in the assembly hall, and Fehily’s up there going, ‘I want to introduce to you a man whose name is synonymous with success. In his day he was probably one of the finest rugby players of his age anywhere in the land. Now he is better known as one of this city’s leading captains of industry …’
Fionn leans over to me and goes, ‘Tony O’Reilly didn’t go to Castlerock, did he?’ and I’m there, ‘Don’t think so,’ pretending that I know who the fock Tony O’Reilly is. Fehily goes, ‘He was the very foundation of the famous Castlerock pack in that unforgettable Cup-winning year. And it’s no surprise that he should have gone on to make his living from, well, bricks and mortar. Yes, boys, I have great pleasure in introducing to you … Edward Conroy of Hook, Lyon and Sinker Estate Agents in Donnybrook.’
Everyone claps. It’s JP’s old man. Out he comes, roysh, big Ned Kelly on him, and this giant turd of a cigar clamped between his teeth, which he’s lighting as he’s waddling out into the middle of the stage. As the clapping dies down, JP shouts, ‘LEGEND,’ ripping the piss, or at least I hope he’s ripping the piss. Then he goes, ‘THE BREADLINE!’
His old man just, like, raises his hand, as if to say, Enough, and then he goes, ‘A lot can happen in twenty-five years. The first day I walked through the doors of this school was the year that man walked on the moon. The Vietnam War was still going on. Lennon and McCartney were still talking. And the price of a bribe to allow you to build something anywhere you bloody well liked was as little as twelve old pounds, and I can see you all looking at me in disbelief but that’s what it was. Twenty-five years is a long time. But all the same, it’s gone in the blink of an eye.
‘There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about the chaps, the ones I was proud to soldier alongside. Paddy Pemberton. Johnny Gilchrist with his dazzling runs on the wing. Lugs Lane. Roddy Allen. Sadly, we lost them all. Paddy signed for Blackrock the following season. Johnny and Lugs went down to Shannon, and Roddy – old Slaphead Allen – he fell on hard times and ended up playing League of Ireland soccer, Lord have pity on him.
‘But they, like me, will never forget what it meant to win this school’s first, and only, Schools Senior Cup. Castlerock’s record since then, I am ashamed to say, is much the same as the houses I sell every day of the week – shit. That’s not to put too fine a point on it. Terrible quality. You wouldn’t put your worst enemy in some of the homes I sell to young newly-weds every day of the week.
‘But that’s beside the point. The actual point is that this school has waited twenty-five long and lean years for a team like this to come along. And if that makes you feel special, then that is understandable because special is what you are. In you – it makes me very proud to say – I see echoes of the last great Castlerock side.’
He notices that his cigar has gone out, roysh, and he takes out his lighter and gets it going again. He goes, ‘I’m gonna make you kids an offer,’ and I can see Fehily suddenly looking up, all interested. He’s there, ‘You’re two games away from glory. Win them … and I’ll rent you the entire top floor of the best hotel in the city. For a weekend. Penthouse suites, boys. And ladies. Lots of very compliant ladies. Broads,’ I can see Fehily running his finger across his throat, basically telling him to shut the fock up. He goes, ‘I know people in this town. One phone call and – once it’s illegal – I can have it for you in half an hour. I ring my man and pretty soon you’re all going to think you’re Hugh Heffner. That’s right. Take three or four into the Jacuzzi with you. Plenty for everyone. Fill your boots.
‘That place in the final is yours. Don’t let Terenure – of all schools – keep you from your destiny.’
I left eight messages on Sorcha’s phone today and sent her six texts, but she won’t return any of my calls. I just think we should, like, talk. I know now I was a bit, I don’t know, hasty saying she shouldn’t have the baby. I’ve had a bit of time to think about it and I think I’m ready to do the roysh thing. That’s the only reason I’m so, like, desperate to talk to her. She told Sophie that I’ve turned into a total stalker and said she’s thinking of changing her number.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that I am totally kacking it when Oisinn stands up to, like, make his speech, roysh, and I realise that having breakfast at the school this morning was SO not a good idea. We’re all, like, SO nervous, roysh, that we can’t keep anything down. JP is in trap one and Simon is in trap two, borfing their chicken and pasta back up, and Sooty is down on his hands and knees, roysh, slapping the floor and shouting underneath the gap in the bottom of the door, ‘Cough it up, lads. Cough it up. Nerves are good. It’s a matter of channelling that energy. Channel it, lads.’
Oisinn stands up, roysh, and he goes, ‘Coach is roysh. Nerves are a good thing. This is a huge game. Gerry Thornley is out there today, which I think shows just how high the stakes are. Nerves show that you know it too. Terenure are a great side. You don’t make it to the semi-finals of the Leinster Schools Senior Cup without being a great side. There are no soft touches left in the competition now. But we’re so close, goys. We’re so close now that we can almost smell it. So let’s see off these orseholes today and make sure that it’s us who’s at Lansdowne Road on St Patrick’s Day.’
After that, roysh, we all just shout out this big cheer and we all stort high-fiving and hugging each other. We go through the usual, like, rituals I suppose you could call them, to try and, like, psyche ourselves up. Oisinn’s there, ‘Okay, I want ten now, goys,’ and we all count to ten. It’s like, ‘One, two, three, four,’ blah blah blah. Then he goes, ‘C. A. S. T. L. E. R. O. C. K,’ basically spelling out the name of the school, roysh, and we give it, ‘CASTLEROCK!’ and then he’s like, ‘Pick the spuds,’ and we all have to get down and pretend we’re picking potatoes, roysh, and then it might be, ‘Pull the chain,’ and you basically all have to do the actions. It’s all about morale and teamwork and shit. Of course by the end of this the goys are all going totally apeshit, kicking the walls and, like, punching the lockers, but I’m just sitting there with my towel over my head, trying my best to focus on my game.
Donnybrook is, like, jammers. We run out, roysh, and the crowd are, like, SO up for this game and even before it storts, roysh, they’re giving it, ‘ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK-ATTACK-ATTACK!’ which is basically what they want us to do from the off. And it’s what we end up doing. There’s only, like, five minutes gone when Fionn – blind focker and all as he is – slices through a gap and gets over for a try, which The Master here converts. But then things stort to go wrong, roysh, when Simon goes and gets himself red-corded. There’s a ruck, roysh, and he ends up stamping on the goy’s head – I mean, the focker was offside – but his ear was pretty much hanging off and to be honest he made the most of it. Twenty or thirty stitches and it would have been back on, and even if the worst came to the worst you can get, like, prosthetic ones, if that’s the word. But no, the referee totally over-reacts and sends Simon off and we’re all there shaking our heads, wondering whether the rumours are true that the referee went to Terenure himself and that his nephew is actually Jonathan Palmer-Hall, their captain who, I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet, is a complete tool who tried to be with Sorcha once and who hates me and the two are probably connected.
But Simon, roysh, is SO vital to our pack that once he’s off, Terenure end up basically riding us. They score, like, three tries in the next fifteen minutes, roysh, and we are, like, SO lucky to be only 32-28 behind in the last five minutes, thanks, it must be said, to my kicking. So anyway, roysh, there’s only a few minutes to go and they’re murdering us down our end, looking for another try to, like, seal it, and our supporters are giving it, ‘DE-FENCE! DE-FENCE! DE-FENCE!’ but all of a sudden, roysh, one of their goys drops the ball and it lands roysh in front of me and I just, like, boot it and it must travel, like, forty yords down the field. But it stays in play, roysh, and I bomb it down the field after it, but who’s pegging it beside me only this Jonathan wanker and we’re, like, neck and neck, roysh, and I’m going, ‘You haven’t got the pace,’ to him and I’m psyching him out of it. I’m there, ‘Your legs are gone. You’re never gonna make it, Jonathan,’ and I get to the ball about a second before him, roysh, and give it another boot, which takes it just over the line and I dive on top of it, just as the dickhead lands on top of me. It’s 33-32 to us and it’s, like, game over. I just, like, push him off me, roysh, and I go, ‘I said you didn’t have the pace. On your knees and worship me.’
When the goys arrive at the other end of the field to, like, congratulate me, I’m still, like, sitting on the ground and I’m, like, holding the ball above my head and all the goys just, like, dive on top of me and eventually the referee – he’s definitely Gick – he tells us he’s adding on at the end any time we waste. But it doesn’t matter how much he adds, roysh, it won’t be enough because I add the points and we end up holding out for the last few minutes and after getting basically pissed on for most of the match we end up in the final. Unfair, I know, but fock them, they’re Gick.
When the final whistle blows, roysh, all our fans invade the pitch. There’s, like, four or five hundred from our school, then there’s birds from, like, everywhere, we’re talking Mounties, Alex, Whores on the Shore, the Virgin Megastore. I even saw one or two from Dogfood Manor – God loves a trier. So anyway, roysh, the whole crowd picks me up and they’re, like, carrying me on their shoulders going, ‘ONE ROSS O’CARROLL-KELLY, THERE’S ONLY ONE ROSS O’CARROLL-KELLY …’ and it takes me, like, half an hour to get off the field and back to the dressing-room. And of course who’s waiting there when I do only Dick Features and that slimeball mate of his, looking a right pair of tools in their sheepskin coats and their trilby hats. Wankers, basically. The old man goes, ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Hennessy here said it, Ross. You’re a big-game player. And he’s Clongowes. So coming from him, it means something.’ Hennessy goes, ‘To survive as you did with your backs to the wall for so long and still to have the self-belief and the will to win that you showed …’ but I just ignore him, roysh, and I turn around to the old man and I go, ‘Give me three hundred bills.’ He goes, ‘Three hundred? Em …’ like he thinks it’s too much, the focking tightorse. I’m there, ‘HELLO? I want to get hammered,’ and he goes, ‘You can get drunk on a lot less than three hundred pounds, Ross,’ and I go, ‘Well then I’m going to get VERY hammered.’ He whips out this massive wad and he peels me off three hundred bills, and looking at how much money is in his hand, roysh, I wish I’d asked him for five hundred. Then I walk off.
As I’m going into the dressing-room, roysh, who do I bump into only Jonathan what’s-his-face, who’s on his way out. He’s just finished with the niceties, the losing captain congratulating the winning team, saying he enjoyed the match and wishing the rest of the goys best of luck in the final. He sees me, roysh, and he goes to shake my hand – he ACTUALLY goes to shake my hand – but I just, like, pull away from him and stand there with my orms up over my head in sort of, like, triumph I suppose. He just, like, shakes his head, roysh, and he goes, ‘You got lucky.’
Of course, I just smile at him and I’m there, ‘No, I got the ball.’
Melanie is this slapper from Pill Hill who I was with two weeks ago, roysh, and she’s left, like, a message on my mobile that’s kind of, like, struck a raw nerve, if that’s the right expression. It was left on Thursday night, roysh, in between two more of those ‘Short Dick Man’ ones that basically aren’t funny anymore. Anyway, she says I’m, like, an orsehole for not ringing her and at least telling her I didn’t want to see her again and that I don’t give a fock about anyone’s feelings except my own and that one day I’ll meet someone who I really care about and they’ll treat me like shit and then I’ll know how it feels. And she’s crying as she’s saying this, roysh, and then I stort crying as well because I know she’s basically roysh and it’s already happened. This Sorcha situation is on my mind the whole time
If the truth be told, of course, the only reason I want her is because I know she doesn’t want me and it’s, like, wrecking my head at this stage. She won’t, like, return my calls or anything. I thought she might ring after the game, especially after the stuff Gerry Thornley wrote about my performance – a star is born, blah blah blah – but she probably didn’t even read it.
I make up my mind, roysh, to go and see her. It’s, like, Saturday morning, which means she’ll be, like, working in her old dear’s shop – boutique, she calls it – out in the Merrion Shopping Centre. So I lash on my white Henri Lloyd, which I know she likes, roysh, and my bottle-green Timberland fleece, and I drive out there. I hang around outside for, like, ten or fifteen minutes, roysh, looking into the shop, obviously not wanting her old dear to see me, just in case Sorcha’s, like, spilled the beans. It doesn’t look like Sorcha’s actually working today because I can see her old dear and her cousin, Clara, who’s, like, first year International Commerce with French in UCD, but there’s no sign of Sorcha. I’m about to head off, roysh, when I hear this voice behind him and it’s like, ‘OH MY GOD! What are you doing here?’ and I turn around and it’s, like, her and she’s holding, like, three takeaway coffees, probably cappuccinos, because it’s pretty much all she ever drinks.
I’m there, ‘Sorcha, we have things to talk about,’ and she’s like, ‘It’s too late for talking,’ and I’m going, ‘I just came out to see how you’ve been?’ She’s there, ‘As if you give a damn,’ and I go, ‘I do, honey,’ and I’m trying to get a sly look at her stomach, roysh, to see if it’s, like, storted to show yet, but her eye contact is, like, pretty intense, roysh, and I know I’m going to get sussed. Probably a bit early for her to be showing anyway.
I tell her she’s looking well and she goes, ‘Whatever,’ and I ignore this and tell her I was a bit scared to go into the shop and face her old dear and she goes, ‘Boutique. And I don’t blame you.’ I go, ‘You haven’t told her yet?’ and she goes, ‘With all she has on her plate at the moment? I don’t THINK so,’ and I ask her if her old man’s still in the whatever-you-call-it islands and if she misses him and she goes, ‘He HAPPENS to be there on business. Mum could end up losing the boutique, you know.’
I go, ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise … how are you coping with … I mean …’ and she goes, ‘The baby? You can say the word, Ross. Actually, I’m not even thinking about it. I’ve got too much on my plate right now. The Leaving is, like, twelve weeks away and I’m SO far behind. Then there’s this petition I’m doing for Amnesty to try to stop all these executions without trial in Rwanda – whatever she did or didn’t do, time is running out for Virginie Mukankusi. And this whole Aoife situation is, like …’ and I go, ‘I know, she doesn’t look well,’ and she goes, ‘What the fock do you care?’ and I go, ‘I do care,’ and she’s there, ‘You don’t care about anyone but yourself, Ross. And that is why I don’t want you having anything to do with this baby. You’re an orsehole. And I don’t want MY baby having an orsehole for a father.’
I look into her eyes and I know she means it. I search for something to say, roysh, something – anything – that might change her mind, but all I can think to say is, ‘Did you hear we’re in the final?’ and she looks at me, roysh, as if she’s just wiped me off the sole of her shoe and she goes, ‘Grow up, Ross.’
Then she looks me up and down and says it again. She goes, ‘Just GROW up.’
The old dear’s left one of her birds’ magazines on the table in the sitting-room, roysh, and I just sort of, like, pick it up and flick through it and I swear to God, every page I open has something to do with babies and pregnancy. It’s either,
DO YOU BELIEVE IN SEX AFTER CHILDBIRTH? –
FROM EARTH MOTHER TO SEX KITTEN WITH THESE TEN EASY TIPS
Or it’s,
HOME FROM HOME – BEHIND THE SCENES OF A NATURAL BIRTHING WARD
And if it’s not that it’s,
NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH – SURVIVING THE AGONIES OF YOUR BABY’S TEETHING.
I’ve better things to be doing than listening to the old man crapping on about nothing, but when he calls me into the sitting-room, roysh, I make the mistake of actually going in. He’s there, ‘Ah, Kicker, there you are,’ and I’m like, ‘This better be important.’ He goes, ‘Well, I just thought, you know, big game tomorrow – big with a capital B, of course – St Michael’s in the Schools Cup final and so forth, I just thought …’ and I’m there, ‘Any chance of you getting to the point before I need to shave again?’ which I have to say I’m pretty pleased with.
He goes, ‘It’s just, I wondered if you’d like to sit down with your old dad and watch a video. It’s Ireland beating Scotland 21-12 to win the Triple Crown. Lansdowne Road, how are you? Twentieth of February 1982, thank you very much indeed. God, I remember it like it was yesterday. You wouldn’t, of course, but we sat and watched it together. You must have been all of eighteen months old. We were in the old house then. Glenageary, quote-unquote.’
He’s there, ‘The tickets. Rare as hen’s teeth, they were. Myself and Hennessy – he was doing his devilling that year if memory serves – we got our hands on a couple. Morning of the match, you got an attack of colic. Cried all day. Well, your mother felt one of her world-famous migraines coming on and she took to the bed. So I rang Hennessy and I said, ‘Cockers’ – because that’s what we called him at school; Coghlan and so forth – I said, ‘Cockers, I’ve got an emergency at home and it’s one with a capital E. So you’re going to have to tell Ciaran Fitzgerald and Hugo McNeill and old Ginger McLaughlin that they’re going to have to do it without me.
And do it, they did. Ollie Campbell. Magnificent. Kicked twenty-one points that day. Six penalties and a drop goal. A record points haul for the master technician. Talk about grace under pressure. Five steps backwards, up and down on his toes and then – WALLOP – another one in your eye, so-called Scotland.
And you know what the oddest thing was? You stopped crying. There wasn’t a peep out of you for the entire match. You just sat there, mesmerised by the great man. I knew then you were going to be a kicker. Your mother came downstairs not long after the final whistle. Said she was feeling a bit better. She had some work to do on some campaign or other. I think it was Travellers then as well. It was houses they were after in those days, but that’s by the by. We’d just bought our first video recorder – they were new at the time – and I taped the game. Your mother asked me why on Earth I’d bothered recording a game I’d just watched. And I remember – it’s like it happened yesterday – taking the tape out of the machine and telling her, “This, Fionnuala, is history.’’
So that night, Hennessy and I arranged to meet for a couple of celebratory brandies in the Shelbourne, which was where the Ireland players were staying. And I remember saying to him that night, I said, “Hennessy, that little lad of ours, he sat silently throughout that match today, transfixed by the performance of the great man. He’s an outhalf, Hennessy, I can feel it.” And I said to him, “Mark my words, he’ll go on to play for Castlerock. And the night before the schools cup final, I’ll pull out that tape and we’ll sit down together, as father and son, and we’ll relive the match that started it all.” So what do you say, Kicker?’ and he slaps the sofa cushion beside him to try to get me to sit down.
I go, ‘I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.’
JP goes, ‘Of course there is one major incentive for us to win tomorrow,’ and we’re all, like, totally clueless of course, and he goes, ‘We’ll all get a kiss off Oisinn’s old dear,’ and we’re all, like, ‘Yyyeeaahh!’ The mother of the winning captain always gets to present the cup, roysh, and Oisinn’s old dear is a total yummy-mummy. Oisinn takes this well, of course. He’s giving it, ‘No tongues, goys, I mean it,’ and we all crack our holes laughing. Then JP leads us all into a chorus of, ‘We’re rich – and we know we are, we’re rich – and we know we are …’ which is sort of, like, his song and at the end he storts shouting, ‘THE BREADLINE!’ over and over again and we’re all cracking up. I have to say, roysh, staying over in the school dorms tonight was a really good idea, just to, like, boost morale and stuff.
Oisinn – you’ve got to admire his focus, roysh – goes back to his perfume catalogue, learning off all the shit about some new range or other, which he says keeps him from worrying about tomorrow. But of course I’ve got, like, Sorcha and the baby to do that. Christian knows that something’s up, roysh. I know he’s away with the, I don’t know, Ewoks half the time, but he’s actually good at sussing out when something’s wrong. He catches my eye, roysh, and sort of, like, gestures at me to follow him outside, which I do and we go into the kitchen and straight away he goes, ‘What’s she done now?’
Of course I’m going, ‘Who?’ but there’s no fooling this goy. He’s there, ‘Ross, did you know you’ve got two looks when someone’s pissing you off – one for when it’s Sorcha, the other when it’s someone else.’ There’s no point in beating around the bush. I have to tell someone. Might as well be my best friend. I go, ‘She’s pregnant, Christian,’ and even saying it makes my whole body go weak. He’s there, ‘PREGNANT? And you’re the …’ I’m like, ‘Father. I can say it now. Couldn’t at first. I wanted her to have … well, you know. It was just a shock, I suppose. But now I’ve actually storted to like the idea. Me and Sorcha and our little, I suppose, baby. Okay, it’s not like I expected things to be but – Fock it - the old man will give us the money for a house.’
Christian goes, ‘But I take it Sorcha wants nothing to do with you?’ and I’m there, ‘I don’t blame her because of the way I, like, reacted. But it was just shock, Christian. My whole life was being turned upside down and …’ He goes, ‘Have you ever thought that hers was too?’ I look at him. He’s there, ‘All the things she was looking forward to after school – college, travelling, a social life, a life full stop – they’ve gone, Ross. And for what? Half an hour of passion?’ He’s being a bit generous there, but I just nod. He goes, ‘I’m saying this to you as your best friend, Ross. Don’t be too hord on her. What you’re going through is probably only a quarter of what she’s going through. Give her time. She’ll come round.’
I love talking to Christian. I go, ‘I’ve barely been able to think about anyone else. I’ve got that French bird coming next week. Haven’t even got excited about that.’ He goes, ‘Ross, there’s only one thing you should be focusing on right now and that’s tomorrow’s game. You don’t need me to tell you how much the team relies on your kicking. If you’re not roysh, then the rest of us aren’t either. All these other things, Ross, they’ll sort themselves out. Things have a way of working out for the best. You just need to focus on the here and now.’
I give the goy a hug, roysh, a really long one. Then he looks at me and he goes, ‘You, a father. I can’t believe it myself.’
Inside the dorm we can hear JP shouting, ‘THE BREADLINE!’ again and we both crack up. Then Christian goes, ‘You must rest, Skywalker. You’ve had a long day.’