I need a funny story to cheer Sorcha up, and the old man’s Croker choker is a doozy
SORCHA RINGS. She doesn’t sound a happy, plant-eating, burrowing mammal. I presume at first that she’s heard the news about Sasha. Not that she’s been in the place since she was, like, sixteen. But every shop around Grafton Street that goes wallop means the current economic blahdy-blah is a step closer to her own door.
She asks me if I can call out to the gaff. She's actually bawling. But I'm watching a double episode of Gilmore Girlsso I tell her what I told her when Nine West went belly-up and she locked herself in the house, refusing to shower for, like, a week – basically chillax.
But it turns out, roysh, that it’s nothing to do with the shop. It’s something else. The divorce papers have arrived. I end up having to mute the TV. It’s suddenly like, whoa – grown-up stuff.
Half an hour later, we’re sitting in her kitchen, neither of us knowing what to say. After twenty-one months of happy marriage – and probably the same being separated – it all comes down to this. Signatures on, like, documents.
She says it couldn't be happening at a more appropriate time and I ask her what she means and she goes, don't you get the sense that everything's, like, falling apart? She says that Bryan Dobson's started standing up to read the news. I wouldn't know – it clashes with Xposé.
“What about the whole Obama thing,” I go, trying to cheer her up? “Hope and all that shit.” She nods. “I shouldn’t be so negative,” she goes. “Not everyone’s giving up. I was in the Nespresso shop in BTs yesterday and they’ve got, like, five new flavours coming in April. Except they’re not not calling them flavours, Ross. They’re calling them Personalities.”
"Personalities? See, that'sgood, isn't it?"
"I suppose," she goes. "It's, like, at least someone'strying to keep the whole Celtic Tiger thing going?" She just, like, stares into space. It's literally the saddest she's been since the day I pretended I saw Stella McCartney in Thornton's, horsing a plate of foie gras.
She goes, "Tell me a happystory, Ross." "Did you hear my old man got his front teeth knocked out last weekend?" Her face just drops. "Oh! My God!" she goes. "Where?" I'm like, "Croke Park. The England match," and of course I can't help but laugh. Because I love telling the actual story.
Basically, as you may or may not know, the old man and his solicitor bought Anglo Irish Bank’s corporate box – not just the one in Croker either, the one in the new Lansdowne as well.
They're obviously not going to need them where they'regoing.
Which was happy days for us last Saturday. We were all in there – me, JP, Oisinn, Fionn – eating brie and cranberry filo parcels and giving Martin Johnson dog’s abuse through an inch of bullet-proof glass.
The old man was revving up to tell us one of his bullshit stories about the 1982 team when all of a sudden there was, like, a knock at the door.
It was Hennessy who answered it. And there, roysh, standing outside, were, like, thirty or forty people – we’re talking ordinary punters – demanding to be let in.
“That’s, like, oh my God!” Sorcha goes. I tell her she hasn’t heard the half of it yet.
Hennessy went, "This is a private box – who the hell are you to demand admittance?" "Taxpayers," one of them went. "We're the Taxpayers of Ireland." Hennessy went, "I'll show you what I think of that," and he went to slam the door. Except one of them stuck his foot in it. " Weown the bank now," the dude went. "And if we have to bear the burden, we should also share the spoils."
Of course the old man was straight out of Sean Fitzpatrick’s old chair and over to the door. “Bear the burden, share the spoils?” he was going. “Is this Communist talk? Do you want me to call a police officer?”
Sorcha asks me if I was scared. I tell her no. It was actually funny, especially hearing the old man trying to eventually bargain with them.
“Come back during the summer,” he went, “when some of these Celtic games are on. There’ll be no one using it then, I can assure you of that.” The next thing, roysh, the door got pushed in his face – knocking out his two front teeth – and the Taxpayers of Ireland stormed the box.
"Oh my God," Sorcha goes. "Were youokay?" As it happens, I was. It all ended pretty peacefully. Once they'd helped themselves to the smoked salmon sandwiches and the miniature goats cheese tarlets, they discovered there was nowhere for them to actually sit.
So they stood around awhile, watching maybe the first fifteen minutes. Then the old man – who made up his mind to just ignore them – started banging on about the old days, whistling through the sudden gap in his teeth, which is hilarious. “Ciaran Fitzgerald. Willie Duggan. Old Slats – your friend and mine, Hennessy . . .”
The next thing the Taxpayers of Ireland started drifting back to their seats. “He basically bored them into surrender,” I go. Sorcha laughs. One of the things I’ve always loved about myself is my sense of humour.
But then she’s suddenly sad again. She says she passed by the Berkeley Court the other day. I know what she’s going to say – that’s where we had our reception. “They’re doing rooms for €20 a night,” she goes, her eyes filling up with tears.
I tell her I know. I’ve availed of them once or twice. “Who’d have thought a night in the Berkeley would be cheaper than a taxi home,” I go.
Her eyes are suddenly distant. “You looked so handsome that day,” she goes.
I’m there, “And you looked so pretty.”
“I took out our photos last night,” she goes. “They made me feel a hundred years old. I mean, everyone was there, everyone so happy. You and I. Your mum and dad. Fionn and Aoife . . .” Her voice breaks. I put my orm around her.
She asks me if we can, like, notsign the paperwork tonight? I ask her does that mean she wants to get back together and she says no – she just doesn't want to be divorced. Not now. And I know the feeling.
I smile and tell her I’ve no plans anyway.
rossocarrollkelly@irishtimes.com
