CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Poor attendance’

The Leaving Cert? Went pretty well, I thought. We’re talking,

ENGLISH-HIGHER LEVEL-PAPER 1

I spent the entire time texting Sorcha, asking her what the fock I did to deserve what she did to me, but she didn’t answer. Twice the – whatever you call her – the invigilator sussed me, but before she could get down to me, roysh, I slipped the mobile up my sleeve and when she went, ‘Did I see you sending an SMS to someone?’ I go, ‘I don’t even own a mobile,’ and there’s fock-all she can do about it. And I think she looks at my paper and sees that I haven’t written a single word and there’s, like, half an hour left of the exam, so she knows I couldn’t be cheating.

ENGLISH-HIGHER LEVEL-PAPER II

This goes a hell of a lot better than Paper 1. I write my exam number on it and then I copy down the first question. It’s like,

I. DRAMA

A. KING LEAR (Shakespeare)

(i) ‘In King Lear, Shakespeare presents us with a world of mental anguish expressed in physical terms.’

Discuss this statement, supporting your answer by quotation from or reference to the play.

OR

(ii) ‘Gloucester’s sons are far more interesting than the King’s daughters.’

Discuss this view, supporting your answer by quotation from or reference to the play.

Then I spend the next two-and-a-half hours, roysh, writing out a list of all the birds I’ve been with in the past two years, with little stors beside the ones I threw a bone. Not all of them obviously, just the ones I can remember. The list takes up both sides of an A4 sheet and I sort of, like, debate over whether I should tear the page out or leave it in to give whoever’s correcting it a thrill. In the end I leave it in and I write,

WHAT I DID IN FIFTH AND SIXTH YEAR:

across the top and JP says he was watching me throughout the exam and he can’t believe how much I was writing. And then it was like,

IRISH-HIGHER LEVEL-PAPER I

Didn’t even bother opening the question paper. Wrote Tá, which is, like, the Irish word for thank you, across every line on the first page of the booklet and it was like, and then did the same on the second page. Halfway down the third page I storted to feel a bit Moby so I stopped and focked off home in time to see ‘Home and Away’. And then it was like,

IRISH-HIGHER LEVEL-PAPER II

This was, like, really clever, roysh. I just wrote, ‘I have decided not to sit this exam as a protest against the standard of refereeing in this year’s Leinster Schools Senior Cup final,’ and I try to show it to Christian, roysh, but he just ignores me because he’s afraid of being caught. I stay however long it is you have to – half an hour, I think – and I’m back home in time to see the repeat of ‘Home and Away’ and it’s getting to the stage that I can’t even look at Isla Fischer without wanting an Allied Irish. The next day it was like,

MATHS-HIGHER LEVEL-PAPER I

Always wondered whether I was cut out for honours Maths, but I needn’t have worried. Ruled every page in the booklet and then wrote out the lyrics to ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. And after a well-deserved lunch it was like,

MATHS-HIGHER LEVEL-PAPER II

but I think the – what’s the word Tony Ward used? – exertions of the morning had storted to take their toll. I was cream-crackered basically but I still found the energy from somewhere to write out the lyrics of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. So then it was on to,

HISTORY-HIGHER LEVEL

Got my second wind and used my time wisely, I felt. I just wrote out, like, really smort answers to all the questions. So if it was,

‘During the period 1875–1886, Parnell came to dominate Irish politics and built up a strong and tightly disciplined party.’ Explain how this came about. (80)

I was like,

And then if it was like,

Discuss the developments in agriculture and industry in the period 1922–1939. (80)

I was there,

I was cracking my hole throughout the exam. Then, as far as I remember, it was,

FRENCH-HIGHER LEVEL

Bad memories. Didn’t write a single word, unless you count the huge set of airbags I drew on the inside cover of the answers booklet. I mean, these correctors have a pretty shit time reading this stuff. Might as well put a smile on their faces. Left after half an hour, but I did much better in,

BIOLOGY-HIGHER LEVEL

when this bluebottle that had been annoying me all focking morning landed on my desk and – how many times has this ever happened to you? – I actually managed to swat the focking thing. SPLAT! Then I borrowed Fionn’s ruler – that goy had better watch himself – and used it to smear the fly’s guts and brains and whatever else was there all over the first page of my answers booklet. Then at the top of the page I wrote,

And then underneath that I put,

and then I put, like, arrows pointing to different ports of what was left of him and things like, ‘eye’ and ‘wing’ and ‘smeg’. Then I close the book over, seal it and hand it up.

Shannon, the character played by Isla Fischer, is having a difficult time of it lately, as do many of the birds who go through Pippa’s foster home.

And then it’s like,

ART-ORDINARY LEVEL

The hordest subject in the world to fail. If you took a shit in a mug, you could still find some focker who thought it was ort.

Anyway, roysh, the old man asks me how I got on and I go, ‘I think I’m going to surprise a few people,’ and he claps his hands together, roysh, and he goes, ‘Trinity, here we come.’ I swear to God, roysh, the sap thinks I’m some kind of misunderstood genius and of course I do nothing to, like, persuade him otherwise, but I do manage to persuade him to advance me the thousand sheets he promised me for passing the thing, which is a good job because I ended up failing miserably. JP’s claim that you get an automatic pass just for, like, ruling your page and writing your exam number proved a bit wide of the mork. It was, like, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, nul points. Twelve fewer than I kicked in the Schools Cup final, as Fionn pointed out to pretty much everyone.

To be honest, roysh, at that stage I didn’t care. My head was, like, wrecked with everything that had been going on and the summer passed pretty much in a blur. So did the time up to Christmas. I saw little or nothing of the goys. After the Leaving we sort of, like, drifted aport. Happens. I did hear from Christian a lot. He went to Vancouver, where his aunt lives, just for the summer originally but he never came back, although he texted me pretty much every day, just to check I was alroysh and not thinking of doing anything stupid.

I heard that a scout from one of the big design houses – maybe Yves Saint Laurent – had seen Oisinn in action out at the airport and was involved in a catfight with Hugo Boss to sign him up as a rep. JP went to work in his old man’s estate agency and was supposed to be doing, like, a morkeshing degree at night. Apparently he talks so much jargon now you need focking subtitles to understand him. Fionn went to UCD to do rocket science. He didn’t really, although he probably had the points for it, because he got more than anyone else in the entire country. Had his picture in the papers and everything, and he ended up doing Psychology, which is, like, the mind and shit. He’s still a nerd. It said in a notice in The Irish Times, roysh, that Simon’s wife gave birth to their second child in August, which probably means he’s not going back to repeat for a fourth time.

Sorcha went to the States for the summer and is now in, like, UCD doing Orts. She met my old pair in the Frascati Centre and she made sure to tell them she was going out with an amazing goy who’s in her year and plays rugby for Blackrock, which makes him an automatic tool in my book. The last time I saw her she was on the ‘Six One News’ in, like, September or something? It was, like, some student protest or other, roysh, and she was going, ‘Four years after the genocide, the Rwandan Government is perpetuating the cycle of violence. We must ensure that Virginie Mukankusi and Deogratias Bizimana did not die in vain. End the executions without trial now.’

She looked amazing.

Erika was rumoured to have married Pierce Brosnan, but it turned out to be total bullshit and she’s doing Orts in UCD as well. Aoife got well again and she phoned me once to say she’d never forget the fact that I went to see her when she was ill and she told me I was a very decent person at hort, roysh, and that made me feel good, but then she went, ‘Even if everyone thinks you’re an orsehole,’ and that made me feel crap again.

The old pair, of course, remained total dickheads. The council dropped plans for a halting site on our road, roysh, and the old dear became locked in a battle with Dearbhla, one of her friends from tennis, for the chairpersonship of the Foxrock Combined Residents Association, while the old man took most of the summer off to try to get his golf handicap down and became even more of a tool than he already was. Sian never rang again and nor did Alyson, Eloise, Joanna, Keeva, Zara, or Evy.

As for me, I spent most of the time on my own in my room, roysh, or that’s how it seemed to me. I couldn’t go out for a quiet drink. No matter what battle cruiser I hit, someone, somewhere would stort singing that focking song, ‘Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my daaarlin’ Clementine …’ So I’d usually end up heading home early and the old pair would be like, ‘Not like you to be in before ten o’clock, Ross,’ and I’d just flick them the Vs, roysh, or sometimes just give them the finger and go up to my room and watch MTV and think of ways of getting back at Fionn, but I could never come up with anything to top Clementine. In the end I pretty much stopped going out altogether. The old pair were storting to get on my back about doing something with my life, when out of the blue I get a call from Fehily. I recognise his voice straight away. He’s there, ‘Hello, my child,’ and it sends a shiver down my spine.

At first, roysh, I think it’s about the damage I did to Crabtree’s cor on Rag Day. Thought he might have got, like, I don’t know, CCTV footage of me sticking the potato in his exhaust. I’m just about to tell him that he’ll have to talk to Hennessy when all of a sudden he goes, ‘I’d like you to come to the school, Ross. I have a proposal to put to you,’ so I go to grab the keys for the Lexus, roysh, but Bog Breath has already taken it, so I end up having to go in the old dear’s Micra, the famous spaz-mobile.

I arrive at the school, roysh, and the first thing I cop is JP’s beamer – well, his old man’s – outside and I’m there thinking, ‘What’s going down here?’ So I go in, roysh, upstairs and head straight for Fehily’s office. His secretary’s outside – mad about me – and she goes, ‘They’re waiting for you,’ basically flirting her orse off with me big-time and I’m there, ‘Later,’ and I go in. I have to say, roysh, I am SO not ready for what I find. The goys are all there. We’re talking Oisinn (he’s put on weight, impossible as that sounds), JP and Fionn. Oisinn turns around to Fehily and he goes, ‘What’s the Jackanory? You can tell us now,’ and Fehily’s there, ‘One minute. I want Christian to hear this,’ and he picks up the phone. He goes, ‘He said he’d wait for the call,’ and he dials this number – the dude’s still in Vancouver – and he puts him on speakerphone.

Then he stands up and storts pacing the floor going, ‘You five boys were part of something special. Something very, very special. You were the kernel, the core, the heart, the root, the essence of a team that brought this school to the brink of something historic and that is why I will believe, as long as there’s breath in my body, that you were a gift from the Good Lord Himself.’ No arguments there. He goes, ‘Unfortunately, the Good Lord has proven something of a miser with regard to this year’s gift. The Senior Cup team this year is – not to put too fine a point on it – bloody woegeous. The very words – I think you’ll find if you check your scriptures – Jesus himself used to describe Nicodemus’s line of patter as he tried to lead him into temptation in the wilderness. I trust you all read about the defeat to Pres Bray in a friendly before Christmas? Tried to stop the papers from publishing it, of course, but to no avail.’

I’m thinking, ‘Get to the focking point,’ when Fionn – the snake – goes, ‘I have a lecture this afternoon, Father …’ and JP’s like, ‘Yeah, you called this mind-share. Give us the bottom line.’ Fehily goes, ‘I’m getting to the point. I want you boys – all five of you – to come back to the school, with a view to winning … what is rightfully yours.’ Of course all hell breaks loose then. Straight away, roysh, I’m like, ‘Repeat the Leaving? Have you TOTALLY lost your mind?’ and Fionn’s there, ‘You want me to drop out of college for the sake of a medal?’ and through the speakerphone I can hear Christian going, ‘Not for all the Tibanna gas in Cloud City.’

But JP, roysh, he’s giving it, ‘Just think in the box for a moment, goys. Sounds very much to me like there’s a highly resourced, precisely targeted results drive going down here,’ and Oisinn, the only one in the room who knows what the fock he’s talking about, goes, ‘I’d just like to say that, for me, not winning a Schools Cup medal is something that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Ross, I know you and Fionn have had your differences. But let’s not forget that when you played rugby you made the sweetest music together.’

I’m there, ‘I’m big enough to put the past behind me if Fionn is. But it’s not just him. What about him?’ and I point at Fehily. Of course he looks at me all innocently, cracking on he doesn’t know what I’m talking about and I go, ‘One day you’re telling us we’re the chosen ones. We lost one match and everything changed. I ended up having to actually sit the mocks. When I went to you to complain, you said you’d never seen me before in your life.’ He goes, ‘I was upset, Ross,’ and I’m there, ‘I was upset. I missed the penalty that cost us the Cup and for ten months you’ve let me believe that everyone blamed me,’ and he’s there, ‘I wasn’t thinking straight.’

Christian goes, ‘What’s in it for us?’ So much for all the Tabanna gas in Cloud City. Fehily goes, ‘Apart from an opportunity to mesmerise the crowds again with your fancy footwork?’ and Christian goes, ‘Eh, yeah,’ and JP’s there, ‘I think the dude wants you to run the numbers, Father. Personally, I think the idea’s got core competency, but we all need a bottom line. Ballpark.’ Fehily doesn’t blink an eyelid, roysh. He goes, ‘You’ll each be paid five hundred pounds a week. There will be no requirement on you to sit your exams or even to attend classes. In your case, Ross, some of the teachers have asked that you don’t. All that is required of you is that you train and play. No more than that.’

Oisinn says he’s up for it. JP says we’re talking ticks in boxes as far as he’s concerned. Fionn takes me by total surprise by saying that he can defer the rest of first year and he tells Fehily to count him in. Then he looks at me, roysh, but I’ve still got issues here, not knowing whether I could ever, like, trust either Fionn or Fehily again. I’m about to say no, roysh, when all of a sudden Oisinn goes, ‘If we do this thing, Father, it’s important that you know that I’ve no interest in being, like, captain again. In fact I’d like to propose that this time Ross leads us,’ and straight away, roysh, Fionn goes, ‘Seconded,’ and I swear to God, roysh, I actually thought I was going to burst out crying there and then. I actually feel like getting up and hugging Fionn – if he wasn’t such a queer. And gay as it sounds, roysh, I can’t even speak at that moment. Fehily goes, ‘Well, Ross? It’s down to you. This thing won’t work without you, Ross,’ and all of a sudden, roysh, I hear Christian’s voice coming from practically the other side of the world and he’s going, ‘You say yes, Ross, and I’m on the next flight home. We’re like Chewie and Han, me and you. I’m always by your side.’ JP goes, ‘Sounds like a strategic fit to me, Ross,’ and of course what can I say then, roysh, except, ‘Lock up your sisters. The Man is back.’

Grafton Street is, like, SO packed it’s unbelievable, roysh, and I actually shouldn’t have bothered my orse agreeing to meet Eimear, this bird I was, like, stringing along for a few weeks because I thought she looked like Calista Flockhart, which she actually doesn’t. So much for the light in Annabel’s. Anyway, roysh, I ended up accidentally answering the phone to her yesterday, roysh, and being basically too nice for my own good, I found myself agreeing to meet her for lunch in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. As it turns out, roysh, she’s also meeting some bet-down mate of hers called Tara, who’s doing, like, auctioneering somewhere in town and when she finds out I’m repeating in Castlerock she storts that crap of name-dropping people and when it turns out I know them, roysh, she reacts like we’re living in, I don’t know, China, or some country where there’s shitloads of people. She’s there, ‘OH! MY! GOD! I can’t believe you know Sean Tyner,’ and total idiot that I am, roysh, I’m playing along with it, going, ‘He’s playing in the second row for us this year,’ and she’s going, ‘Is he still going out with Rachel Butler?’ and in the end I couldn’t be orsed answering her.

I tell the birds I need to drain the lizard and I end up just heading off, hoping Eimear takes some kind of hint from this. I check my phone. I have one new message and it’s from Beibhin, who’s, like, sixth year Whores on the Shore and who I ended up wearing the face off last week, at Glenageary Dorsh station, believe it or not. Long story, but she was on her way home from violin practice with a couple of her mates, roysh, and I was on my way home from training, and they’re all, like, giggling and giving it, ‘Are you Ross O’Carroll-Kelly?’ and of course one thing leads to another and I end up being with her, although I don’t remember giving her my number, roysh, so she must have got it by stalker means. Anyway, in her message, roysh, she says exactly the same thing she said in the one she left yesterday, which is that I mustn’t have gotten her last message and she presumes there must be something wrong with my phone or maybe her phone and could I ring her later but not after eight because she’s got practice again tonight, or if I want to I could meet her outside Pearse Street Dorsh station afterwards, she’ll be finished at, like, seven and she’ll give me until, like, half-seven to show up and if I didn’t she’d presume I wasn’t going to, but she hopes I get this message. And I’m thinking, You’re the one who’s not getting the message, girl.

So I’m heading down Grafton Street, roysh, and who do I bump into only, like, Sorcha and it’s actually the first time I’ve seen her in person since … well, since all that shit, and I can tell she’s not sure what kind of a greeting she’s going to get from me, but what can I do, roysh, only give her a huge hug and tell her she looks amazing, which she does. I go, ‘Did you have a good time in the States?’ and she’s there, ‘OH! MY! GOD! Martha’s Vineyard is, like, SO amazing. If you ever get a chance, Oh my God, SO go. I mean, we worked, like, really hord, but we went out loads. The social life was, like, really hectic.’ I know this is all for my benefit. She goes, ‘I came back without a penny to my name, of course. Oh my God! I turned into SUCH a pisshead. We nearly got arrested one night. Me, Aoife, Sophie and Claire. You know Claire, my friend from Bray?’ I do actually. She was a focking howiya until she met Sorcha through Amnesty or Vegetarians Are Us or one of that shower and suddenly she talks like she’s next in line to the focking throne.

I ask whether she wants to go for, like, lunch, seeing as I left the last one I bought on the table in the Powerscourt Centre, and she says she’s meeting her old dear outside Pamela Scott’s at two and she has, like, an hour to kill. So we hit Fitzer’s Café, roysh, and I end up ordering a beef and vegetable stirfry teriyaki and a Coke and Sorcha has a brie and camembert baguette which she doesn’t touch, spicy wedges which she picks at and a Diet Coke. She goes, ‘I heard you’re repeating?’ and I’m there, ‘Bit of a bummer, but it’s a chance to try and put right what happened last year.’

She goes, ‘Your mum said you were looking at LBS,’ which is a college, roysh, I say college, but all the goys say it stands for Loaded But Stupid instead of Leeson Business School. It’s, like, six grand a term or something, though at the end you get a degree in morkeshing from the University of, I don’t know, Bulgaria or something. I tell Sorcha that that plan fell by the wayside when I heard they had this, like, push on, roysh, to try to get State recognition for it as a legitimate third-level university. And the rumour was that the lecturers wouldn’t be giving out the summer exam papers in November, as was the tradition, because they were sick of being treated as a joke by the Department of Education. So suddenly they’re not giving out the papers until the end of, like, January, which gave people only, like, five months to go to the library and learn someone else’s essay from the previous year off by hort. Sorcha says that sounds SO unfair, but I can tell from the way she says it that she’s actually ripping the piss. Anyway, in the meantime the place went bankrupt, so it doesn’t matter a fock.

We hordly say anything while we – sorry, I – eat and I realise that, whatever happened last year, I’m actually not over Sorcha yet. I have to prove to myself as well that I could basically still have her if I wanted her, so I turn on the old chorm and stort giving it, ‘I’ve really missed you. Okay, I wasn’t exactly an angel while you were away in the States, if you know what I mean, but I did think about you a lot while you were away.’

She thinks about this, roysh, as she takes off her scrunchy, slips it onto her wrist, shakes her head, pulls her hair back into a low ponytail, replaces the scrunchy and pulls four or five strands of hair loose. Then she pushes her food away and takes out her Marlboro Lights and goes, ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ and the, I don’t know, directness of the question sort of, like, throws me. I go, ‘Kind of,’ and she shakes her head as she plucks a cigarette from the box and goes, ‘That was always your problem. You either are or you aren’t, Ross,’ and I’m there, ‘Well, I was sort of seeing this bird – Eimear. Met her in Annabel’s,’ and I think of her sitting in the Powerscourt Centre, focking steaming when she realises that I’ve left her with, like, the bill. Sorcha’s like, ‘Eimear who? As in, what’s her second name?’ and I’m there, ‘You wouldn’t know her,’ and she goes, ‘I bet I do,’ and I’m like, ‘Eimear O’Neill,’ and Sorcha goes, ‘Small, thin, straight blond hair? Went to Loreto Foxrock?’ and I’m there, ‘How do you know her?’ and she goes, ‘She was on the Irish debating team. She was actually SUCH a good debater.’ Like I give a shit?

She goes, ‘So, you’re only, like, seeing her?’ and of course I’m there, ‘Well, I’ve been kind of going out with her really,’ trying to make her jealous. I’m going, ‘I don’t know. I’m still searching for the one,’ and she goes, ‘Well, I’ve found the one. I met someone and he’s, like, the perfect goy,’ and like the fool that I am, roysh, I actually think she’s talking about me. I go, ‘Oh yeah?’ and I’m about to reach over, roysh, to touch her hand when all of a sudden she goes, ‘Brandon.’ I’m there, ‘Who?’ and she goes, ‘His name’s Brandon. Brandon Oakes,’ and quick as a flash I’ve gone, ‘Brandon Oakes sounds like a focking retirement home.’ She finally lights up her cigarette and she goes, ‘Well, he’s actually the nicest goy I’ve ever gone out with. Met him in the States. He has SUCH an amazing body. He plays, like, American football,’ and I’m there, ‘Hold on, hold on. Can we just rewind a bit? You’re telling me that you met this goy in America last summer, we’re talking six months ago. And now he’s over there and you’re over here and you’re still, like, going out with the loser?’ which I know is out of order the second I’ve said it. She stubs out her cigarette – she’s only had, like, one drag off it – and she goes, ‘You’re the loser, Ross,’ and she looks at her watch, which is the pink Baby-G I bought her for her birthday last year and she goes, ‘My mum is going to go TOTALLY ballistic,’ and she gets up and goes, roysh, and it’s only when she’s gone that I realise that this time it’s me who’s been left sitting with the bill.

The old man calls me when I’m passing by his study, roysh, and when I stick my head around the door he looks all pleased with himself. He says he’s just been on to The Irish Times, roysh, and he’s going to be sponsoring their schools rugby coverage and in future they’re going to give it, like, two pages. He goes, ‘It’ll be a bit like their Bulmers Total Golf pages except it’ll be called Total Schools Rugby Totally, or some such. We haven’t worked out the finer points yet, but isn’t it exciting? Hennessy and I are playing golf with Malachy Logan this very afternoon.’

I’m just there, ‘Yippee-doo.’

Fionn’s telling us all the difference between the Id and the Ego – fascinating, I don’t think – and I go up to get the beers in and while I’m up there, roysh, who sidles up to me only Fionn himself, going, ‘No hord feelings,’ and I shrug, but I refuse to shake the goy’s hand. He goes, ‘Ross?’ and it all comes out, roysh, I’m there, ‘You ruined my focking life,’ and he goes, ‘You ruined mine. My old pair still think I’m a knobber because of you. I could have Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer and Liz Hurley up in my room and they’d be convinced we’re just exchanging colouring tips.’ I’m there, ‘How many copies of that focking video are doing the rounds?’ and he goes, ‘I only made twelve. I can’t take responsibility for any unauthorised copies that are in circulation,’ and I’m there, ‘Half of focking Dublin has seen it. Him pulling out those electrodes that he wanted to use on my town halls. Total focking strangers have been laughing at me in the street.’

The borman puts the bevvies down on the bor. Fionn goes, ‘Why don’t we just agree that we both suffered? Look, Ross, we’re never going to be bosom buddies, we know that. But when we play rugby together …’ and he sort of, like, lets it hang in the air? I just go, ‘Pure magic,’ and he repeats what I say, he’s like, ‘Pure magic.’ He goes, ‘It’s January. We’ve got, what, three months together? Three months to work for something that we both want so much. After that we need never look at each other ever again. But the question is, Ross, are you big enough to put our differences aside to win that Cup,’ and I think about it for a few seconds, roysh, even though I don’t really need to. I just go, ‘Let’s play rugby,’ and we shake on it and then we’re back over to the goys with the pints.

JP goes, ‘You goys look like you’re dovetailing again,’ and I’m there, ‘We just want to play the beautiful game,’ and JP’s like, ‘Sounds like a win-win situation to me. Oisinn here’s just been telling us about his year. Fionn, I know you were doing alroysh scenario-wise in UCD and the Blankers-Koen is wall-to-wall in my game, but I don’t know how you’re still alive, Oisinn.’

This is all by way of introduction for Oisinn’s act. He goes, ‘I don’t either, Fionn. I ended up having two mobile phones. I’d be selling some bird Ultraviolet, or Escape for Women, or Angel. Bit of seductive chitchat about the smell, sensuous being a key word, couple of squirts and the next thing I knew they were practically begging me for my number. The Motorola was for birds over thirty and the Nokia number was for birds under thirty. You know how it is, some nights you fancy a bit of old and some you want them young. The two were ringing constantly. By Christmas I had the two of them switched off. I’d shagged myself out.’

I tell the goy he’s still a legend and Christian says he’ll second that and before we know it I’m, like, raising my glass and suggesting a toast to the best team in the land. And whatever did or didn’t happen at Dublin Airport is, like, all forgotten now and all I can think about, roysh, is how great it is just, like, catching up with each other again. We’re like, ‘THE BEST TEAM IN THE LAND …’ and I know that before the night is out, we’re going to be looking for a twenty-four-hour garage that sells mince pies.

Ultra-resistant. Fantasy ribbed. Studded. Lubricated. Luminous. Extra sensitive for her pleasure. Orange. Strawberry. Fruit of the focking forest. I know I’ve been out of the game for the guts of a year, roysh, but I can’t believe how many choices there are nowadays. I drop three pound coins into the slot, roysh, and choose a three-pack of extra-sensitive, gossamer, ribbed ticklers, which sound up to the job. On the way out the door, roysh, I check myself out in the mirror and I have to say I’m looking good tonight and the black eye actually suits me. Then I go back out to Angel, this bird from Clonskeagh who’s in, like, first year Law in Portobello.

I ask her if she wants another drink and she says OH! MY! GOD! if she drinks any more there’s no way she’ll be able to get up for water aerobics in the morning and I go, ‘There’s only one kind of aerobics you’re going to be doing in the morning,’ and of course I’m kicking myself for coming across so, I don’t, sleazy, roysh, but from the smile on her face, she doesn’t seem to mind. Her best friend, Ana with one n, wouldn’t mind a shot at the title as well. In fact it was her who tried to get in there first, giving it all, ‘Congrats. You had SUCH a good game today.’

We basically hammered CBC Monkstown into the ground in the first round, me, Christian and JP all getting two tries – a brace apiece, as One F in The Stor called it – some and the goys are back in Kiely’s living off the glory, roysh, and it’s like we’ve never been away. There must be, like, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty birds here and they all want a piece of the focking Dream Team. Like I said, roysh, I’ve been out of the game a long time and I very nearly make the mistake of taking the first thing that comes along. Ana with one n wants me and I’m actually entertaining serious thoughts of nipping it when I cop Angel, who’s like a young Cameron Diaz, and straight away I know that in two hours’ time I’m going to be conkers deep in this one.

Ana with one n knows it as well, roysh, because she’s resorted basically to being a bitch to Angel and within twenty seconds of me coming back from the can with the jimmie hats she’s going, ‘I cannot BELIEVE you ate two of those Weight Watchers dinners. That’s like, OH! MY! GOD!’ and Angel looks at me, roysh, to get my reaction, and of course I couldn’t give two focks what she had for dinner, even though I’m going to be tasting it myself soon enough. Angel goes, ‘I only ate half of the salmon mornay. It was SO disgusting,’ and Ana with one n is there, ‘Hello? That’s why I told you to have the chicken in peppercorn sauce in the first place. Instead you had to have, like, two,’ and Angel goes, ‘Whatever,’ and Ana with one n takes her lip balm out of her miniature backpack, gives her a filthy, then focks off to the jacks and when she’s gone, roysh, Angel goes, ‘I wouldn’t mind, but they’re MY buckled-back flared jeans she’s wearing. You think SHE can afford to shop in Jigsaw? I don’t THINK so. Her shoes are from Nine West, but they’re the only decent pair she has.’

When she shuts the fock up, I manage to persuade her out onto the dancefloor, roysh, and it’s ‘Praise You’ by Fat Boy Slim and I am giving it absolutely loads. I’m dancing with Angel, roysh, but I’m also flirting my orse off with this bird who Fionn knows from UCD and her name’s, like, Rebecca and she’s, like, first year Social Science and so like Liz Hurley that you could actually be looking at her. So, more to make Angel jealous than anything else, I cruise over beside her and I give it, ‘You’re a pretty amazing dancer, has to be said,’ and she just, like, wiggles her little finger at me, which presumably means she’s heard I have, like, a small penis, which I don’t.

So then it’s back to Angel of course and she obviously hasn’t copped what just happened because she goes, ‘I’d say that becomes SUCH a pain,’ and I’m there, ‘What?’ and she’s like, ‘Girls, like, bothering you all the time. Propositioning you and stuff,’ and I’ve gone, ‘I’m not exactly fighting you off, am I?’ and I throw the lips on her. Twenty minutes of deep throat exploration and she’s, like, fishing in her bag for her cloakroom ticket and before we know it we’re back at her gaff in Clonskeagh, and get this, roysh, she doesn’t live with her old pair. They actually bought her this gaff so she could study in peace and quiet for the Leaving. We’re talking big bucks here.

Much as it pains me to say it, it’s ten months since I had my Nat King Cole, roysh, so when she asks me if I want a cup of tea, I don’t even answer, I’m just, like, bailing into her, ripping the clothes off her and she’s going, ‘Be careful, Ross. These combats are Hobo,’ but twenty seconds later, roysh, we’re both in the raw, on the floor of her sitting-room and she’s gagging for me and we’re talking seriously gagging here. Five minutes of foreplay – she better not tell anyone or they’ll all want that – and I’m ready to do the bould thing but she goes, ‘Do you have any protection?’ and of course I’ve got the old Johnny B Goodes in my sky rocket.

So I reach for my chinos, roysh, and I stick my hand in the back pocket and I pull out the little box. And of course I’m there in the dork, roysh, trying to find the little flap in the cellophane that lets you get into the box, but it takes me, like, five minutes and of course I’m worried all this time that the old snake chorming act’s gonna fall flat. As it happened, roysh, he held up his end for once. But that’s when it all went basically pear-shaped. When I got the cellophane off the packet and tore off the top of the box, what fell out weren’t johnnies at all, but – I CANNOT FOCKING BELIEVE THIS – a comb and a length of, like, dental floss and a tiny toothbrush and the smallest tube of toothpaste you’ve ever seen. And of course straight away the performance is over as far as the old pant python is concerned. She looks at all the stuff, roysh, and she storts laughing, not normal laughter, roysh, but evil, Wicked Witch of the West laughter. And I haven’t been so humiliated since, well, since Fionn made me look like George Michael trying to pick up some homo at the airport, which is less than a year ago, so I suppose it’s not so long. I end up just making my excuses and getting the fock out of there as quick as I can.

I’m just in from practicing my kicking when Erika rings, and I’m there thinking, to what do I owe this pleasure? But of course I know. Now that I’m on the S again I’m just about worthy of scoring as far as she’s concerned and she is SO going to show Sorcha that she could have me if she wanted. She goes, ‘I drove past you about half an hour ago. You’re not actually looking all that bad. I don’t think it’s going to be as painful as I thought,’ and I go, ‘What isn’t?’ and she’s like, ‘Puh-lease. I don’t find that Little Boy Lost act the least bit endearing. I’m going to be with you, Ross. Not yet. It’s still a total no-no for someone like me to be with someone like you. Especially since I’m in UCD and you’re still in school. But if you win this rugby … thing that you’re playing in, you move up a place on the social acceptability scale. I’ve never been a rugby groupie but I’ve known Sorcha long enough to know how it works,’ and I play it Kool and the Gang, roysh, I really do.

I’m there, ‘I’m actually seeing someone at the moment,’ which is total bullshit but it doesn’t matter, roysh, because she just, like, ignores it totally. She goes, ‘I’ve looked up the fixtures and it seems you’re playing Pres Bray tomorrow in Greystones. If you beat them, it’s not a terribly big deal. I think I’m going to leave it at least until you reach the final before I’m with you.’ I’m like, ‘Do I have a say in all this?’ and I’m picturing her right now – a total and utter goddess – and I know I don’t.

She goes, ‘You’re going to get the night of passion you’ve always dreamt of and then we’ll see how high and mighty your little girlfriend is,’ and I’m about to tell her that Sorcha’s not my girlfriend when all of a sudden she goes, ‘That’s the vet at the door. Orchid’s got a twisted testicle,’ and when she hangs up, I’m wondering whether she had anything to do with it herself.

The thing I forgot to mention, roysh, is that Fehily himself is coaching us this year. Sooty got sacked from the school after we lost the final last year, roysh, though not because we lost the final. He basically did an interview with the school magazine in which he said that people who live in council houses are paying for the sins of a previous life. Fehily goes, ‘Merit as there was in his point, once the Dublin 4 media got their hands on the story, he had no choice but to go.’

I actually don’t think Fehily’s much of a coach, roysh, but it’s like he said, once me and the other goys from last year are firing on all cylinders, the team basically runs itself. As captain, he’s also given me a pretty big role in deciding, like, tactics and team selection. To be honest, roysh, he came to me the day before we lashed CBC Monkstown out of it, hands me a blank sheet of paper and asks me what team I’d pick if it were down to me.

Now I’m not the brightest, roysh, but I knew what was going down here. He was basically asking me to pick the team and the first thought that, like, occurred to me was that there were one or two old scores I could settle at the stroke of a pen. I seriously considered dropping Fionn, roysh, but I know the goy’s too good a rugby player to leave out, though I’d never admit that to his face. I do drop Laurence Leahy, our inside centre who Wardy was bulling up in that morning’s Indo. Let’s see who’s a Genuine Star In The Making now. I also end up drop-kicking this tool who plays in our second row, we’re talking Rory Smyth. The main, I don’t know, stumbling block with him is that he fancies himself as a bit of a ladies’ man and had the balls to tell me a couple of weeks ago that New Castlerock – as in the bunch of losers who lost a friendly in Bray before Christmas – would out-score Old Castlerock – as in me and the goys – in the old scenario stakes. The reason he was easy to drop is that he’s crap.

Of course he comes to me the morning we played Monkstown, roysh, just after Fehily broke the bad news to him, and he tells me that he’s very disappointed not to have even made the bench, and I tell him he needs to keep his head down, lay off the scoops, ease off on the old nights out and keep plugging away. I tell him he’s close, so close he can smell it, knowing full well in my mind that as long as I’m picking the team the only chance he has of playing for the school is if he joins the basketball team, which is basically for knobs. He goes, ‘Thanks for the advice,’ and he focks off, the tool.

The morning of the return game against Pres Bray – which has become a bit of a grudge match – he comes to me again and he goes, ‘I want to play today, Ross. When their coach said what he said in the Bray People, about Castlerock being a fading power in the Schools Cup competition, I took it personally, because I was one of the players who under-performed that day. You’ve got to tell Fehily, Ross. I am SO up for this match,’ and then Laurence Leahy arrives over and storts throwing in his two-pence worth, giving it, ‘We should at least be offered a chance to put things roysh.’ I don’t know how I don’t just, like, crack up laughing in their faces, roysh. Instead, I give them this, like, solemn look and I go, ‘This is no time to be taking risks on goys who never delivered in the past. It’s a day for men, not boys.’ The poor fockers have been breaking their balls in training. I’m there, ‘Keep up the hord work, goys, and you never know, maybe you’ll make the bench for the quarter-final,’ and they go off actually looking grateful to me.

Fehily gives us this, like, no-nonsense speech, all about Bray being famous for nothing more than slot machines and inbreeding. ‘But last year – owing to the local Presentation College’s, it shames me to say it, victory over this proud institute of education and social advancement – Bray emerged like an ugly, weeping sore on the face of schools rugby. And this, my children, is the cure.’

He holds up this huge plastic tub, roysh, which it turns out is full of, like, white powder. He goes, ‘Fifty milligrams stirred into a glass of water five times a day,’ and, almost thinking out loud, roysh, I go, ‘Is it creatine or something?’ and he’s there, ‘Creatine is last year’s buzz. You don’t NEED to know what this is. Just that it works,’ and he sends Magahy – the total wanker who coached us as juniors – around the dressing-room, giving us each a tub of the stuff. We all stort, like, pouring it into our water bottles and knocking it back.

Fehily goes, ‘What happened before Christmas should shame you all. Yes, there have been some changes since then, some old friends have come back to help us in our hour of need. But even my old friend Matt Talbot never knew the kind of shame that you heaped onto this school by losing to that shower before Christmas. The time for vengeance is at hand.’

He goes, ‘First will come honor and then freedom, and from both of these happiness, prosperity, life: in a word, that state of things will return which we Germans perhaps dimly saw before the War, when individuals can once more live with joy in their hearts because life has a meaning and a purpose, because the close of life is then not in itself the end, since there will be an endless chain of generations to follow: man will know that what we create will not sink into Orcus but will pass to his children and to his children’s children.’

This is in the dressing-room, roysh, and when he’s finished there’s no, like, cheering or anything. I just go, ‘Come on, goys. Let’s go to work,’ and we go out there and basically kick ass.

They actually fancy themselves a bit, roysh, obviously got, like, notions about themselves. Their hooker, roysh, William something or other’s his name, he comes up to me and he goes, ‘Bit sad, isn’t it? You lot, I mean, having to leave college to come back and bail out your school,’ and without even thinking, roysh, I go, ‘This time it’s for real,’ and he ends up having a mare of a game and couldn’t hit a cow’s orse with a banjo. We’re, like, lording it over them in the lineout and knocking seven shades of shit out of them in the scrum. They hold out for, like, fifteen minutes and then suddenly it’s, like, raining tries. Christian scores two absolute crackers. Fionn got one and the Stud Muffin here goes and scores three. After the third, roysh, I shove the ball up my shirt and walk up to this photographer who I think takes the pictures for The Irish Times and I stand in front of him and, like, point at myself as if to say, ‘Who’s the man?’

We’re actually ripping the piss at the end, just basically enjoying ourselves while we’re waiting for the final whistle, and when it goes, roysh, I head straight for the press box, roysh, at the side of the field and I go, ‘Anyone here from the Bray People?’ and all the press, roysh, they look up from what they’re doing, sort of in, like, shock. One F is obviously on the phone to The Stor because he’s going, ‘Pres Bray … will remember … this one … as fondly … as a tour of duty … in ’Nam, full point,’ and when he hears what I say he points at the dude behind him, who’s like, ‘Yes, I’m covering the game for the …’ and I just butt in, roysh, and I go, ‘Some fading power, huh?’ It must be that powder Fehily gave us that’s making me so angry. I’m going, ‘You know, by St Patrick’s Day you’re going to be looking at this team and all we’ve achieved and you’re going to say it was a pleasure to see your team lose to us.’

I get up, roysh, and the old man’s in the kitchen, looking like somebody’s pissed on his Corn Flakes. He goes, ‘I take it from the equanimity of your mood that you haven’t seen it yet?’ and I’m there, ‘What are you shitting on about now?’ He hands me a copy of the paper, roysh, and they’ve printed the photograph of me with the ball up my shirt and underneath it says, ‘Ross O’Carroll-Kenny salutes the crowd after scoring his third try in Castlerock’s victory over Pres Bray in Greystones yesterday,’ and Knob Head picks up the phone and before I can tell him to cop himself on he’s giving out yords to some dude on the end of the phone and in the end the goy promises to print a correction. The old man’s like, ‘I want it on the front page, too. And you can bloody well print the photograph again as well. Otherwise you’ll be hearing from my solicitor.’

He slams down the phone and tells me not to worry because Wardy – a real journalist – managed to get my name roysh. He’s there, ‘Wait until you read what he’s written about your performance. A cracking prospect. His words, Kicker. Not mine.’ And as he leafs through the paper to try to find the page, he suddenly stops and he goes, ‘A girl called for you this morning. About nine o’clock. Hope you don’t mind, I told her you were in bed, recovering from battle. Beibhin she said her name was. Nice girl. Said she’d call you later on your mobile.’

I’m on the Stillorgan dualler, roysh, and I hit a red light at Cornelscourt, so I check my messages. Some bird called Jennie with an ie rang and said I gave her my number in the rugby club on Sunday night and she hoped I remembered because we were both SO drunk, but she hoped I didn’t mind her ringing and she just wondered whether I was, like, doing anything later in the week. Beibhin rang to say that – get this – she read my horoscope in the paper this morning and OH! MY! GOD! she couldn’t BELIEVE what it said. Then she storts, like, reading it into the phone, going, ‘Hobbies and pastimes bring enjoyment and success. That’s obviously the match against Pres Bray. But be more prepared to show your softer side. You are about to woo and win the heart of someone close. Prepare yourself for sweet nothings and sentimentalities. This is the amazing bit. Strong attractions towards Cancerians,’ and then she lets out this, like, squeal and she goes, ‘My birthday’s on, like, June twenty-eighth. OH! MY! GOD!’ and I’m wondering how focking gone in the head she is that she can believe what Fergus Gibson says and ignore the fact that I’ve never returned one of her calls since I nipped her that day, the sad bitch.

There’s also a message from Angel, who doesn’t seem to have been put off by the whole Travel Hygiene Kit incident and wants me to phone her.

The last message is from Sorcha, who says she’s SO sorry she hasn’t been in touch, roysh, because she’s been rushed off her feet with this whole Khemais Ksila situation, which, at a guess, involves some black dude in some shithole of a country who’s in the clink for acting the dick and is about to get snotted.

I’ve a wood on me like a focking broom handle. It must be this stuff we’re taking. I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to decide whether I should have an Allied Irish or ring Sorcha back.