The old man arrives, full of the literally joys.
He goes, “Is your good lady wife home?” at the top of his voice. “Or should I say the future New Republic Teachta what’s-it for the constituency of Dublin South-East?”
I’m there, “They should stick you at the end of the East Pier to keep the focking ships off the rocks. She’s in the study.”
He’s like, “In the study, quote-unquote! Oh, she’s just like you, Kicker! A bloody well grafter!” and he steps past me into the gaff.
He’s carrying some kind of poster, rolled up, under his orm.
Sorcha is delighted to see him, of course. It shocks me how easily taken in she is by people like him. Then again, I suppose that’s how she ended up married to someone like me.
She’s there, “Charles, I’m glad you’re here. I was just about to put out a statement,” and, while she’s saying this, it’s air-kisses and all the rest of it. “It’s so lovely to see you.”
He goes, "Sorcha, I'm here tonight – as your party leader – to tell you to start preparing for a General Election!"
“Oh my God – are you saying it’s going to happen…”
“In October of the year twenty-hundred-and-fifteen – that’s the word I’m hearing!”
“That’s like, Oh! My God.”
“Yes, I don’t think there’s any question of that!”
The old man's facial expression changes – it's like he suddenly smells something bad?
“Wait a minute,” he goes, “did you say you were about to put out a statement?”
She’s there, “Yes, I did. I think it’s about time we made our position clear on the issue of water charges.”
The last time I saw the old man look as shocked was back in 2005 when the Criminal Assets Bureau were wheeling away his filing cabinets.
I decide to take a seat. This could actually be good.
The old man's like, "You do know that all statements have to be passed first by Hennessy Coghlan-O'Hara, my Special Adviser with Responsibility for Public Enlightenment."
"Well," Sorcha goes, "I have a bit of an issue with that arrangement. I've given Hennessy – oh my God – numerous statements. About the role of afforestation in, like, corbon sequestration? About increasing our commitment to the indigenous bioenergy industry? He didn't put any of them out."
The old man looks at me, like he’s expecting me to pull her into line or something. I just grin at him, as if to say, ‘Hey, you’d want to try being married to her!’
“Sorcha,” he eventually goes, “a very clever man once said that politics was the art of something or other. I think we’d all be well advised to heed that advice.”
Except Sorcha isn’t going to be fobbed off so easily. She’s there, “Charles, the issue of water and how it’s supplied is going to decide the next election.”
He goes, “Agreed.”
"And I just think that it falls to me, as New Republic's spokesperson on the Environment, Sustainable Industry and Natural Resources…"
He looks back at her blankly, no idea what she’s talking about.
“Charles,” she goes, “I asked you if I could be the porty’s environmental spokesperson the night you asked me to run for election. You turned up here with flowers and a leather-bound copy of Alastair Campbell’s diaries…”
“He was pissed,” I go.
The old man's there, "Ross, it might be helpful if you permitted Sorcha and I to conduct this conversation in camera , as it were."
“Dude, I’m not leaving this room. I can’t wait to see how you talk your way out of this one.”
Sorcha goes, "Charles, did you even read my environmental manifesto?"
“Well, of course I did,” he tries to go. “Terribly interesting, the entire thing.”
“So you’ll know that the conservation of water is an issue of, like, major importance to me.”
That’s actually true. This is a woman who stops talking to me for three days if I give the jacks a pre-emptive flush before sitting on it.
She goes, “If people in this country had to pay for the water they use, they would realize what an – oh my God – precious, precious resource it is and they’d be less wasteful. There are seven-hundred-and-eighty million people in the world who have no access to clean water, Charles. And lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills people at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.”
I look at the old man’s face. I can tell what he’s thinking is that it doesn’t actually seem like a lot of people.
Sorcha's there, "Charles, we are in favour of water metering, aren't we?"
He pulls a face. “Look, I’m sure we are,” he goes. “The problem is that we don’t want to go announcing that ahead of a General Election.”
“Excuse me?”
"Look at what's happening out there on the streets. People marching. Shouting all sorts. No to this! Yes to that! There are no votes in being pro water charges."
"I disagree. I think if we put those statistics that I've just given you in front of people on the actual doorsteps and at the same time we went, 'Oh my God – hell-o? ' I think they'd genuinely listen."
“Sorcha, at this moment in time, if the polls are to be believed, New Republic is the sixth largest political party in the country. I think we have a bloody good shot at winning eight seats in the next election if we avoid saying anything…”
“Anything controversial?”
“No, just anything. I was actually finished that sentence.”
Sorcha looks at me, definitely confused.
I’m there, “It’s hilarious that you’re only finding out now how dodgy my old man is. He’s done actual jail time, bear in mind.”
She goes, “So we’re a porty with, like, no principles at all?”
The old man's there, "How dare you!" and it's genuinely the first time I've ever heard him raise his voice to her. "New Republic is a party founded on principles. It's just we haven't figured out what any of them are yet. But we will once we've taken the, um, pulse of the electorate. And our financial backers, of course."
Sorcha is on the point of walking there and then. She actually goes, “Charles, I don’t think I’m going to be able to…”
Except my old man is too quick for her and he’s too clever for her. He takes the poster from under his orm and he unrolls it to reveal a picture of my wife – looking well, it has to be said – and above and below her face is the slogan, “We’re talking change – we’re talking TOTAL change!”
And looking at that poster, Sorcha’s bottom lip storts quivering and her eyes are suddenly like pinwheels.
She goes, “My hair looks really well in that shot.”