So it’s, like, ridiculous o’clock on a Saturday morning – we’re talking nine, ten, something like that – and I hear a ring on the front doorbell, followed, a short time later, by the sound of a woman’s voice going, “Is this the home of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly?”
Now, in normal circumstances, this would be a cue for me to run outside to the landing and shout over the banister, “Sorcha, we were on one of our relationship – I think it’s a word – hiatuses at the time?”
But for some reason, I lie there, saying nothing, only listening, until I hear the woman go, “My name is Angela. I believe my husband is staying here?”
I throw back the sheets, put on my Leinster training top and my baggy Cantos with the focked elastic and head for Brett’s room. I knock and push the door at the same time and go, “Dude, I think it’s only fair to tell you that your wife is downstairs?”
‘I haven’t really been living before now,’ Brett tells his wife. ‘Ross has slept with more than 800 women’
‘I’m not even a bit stressed,’ Honor goes, ‘I haven’t done a focking tap for these exams’
‘He obviously decided that he’d wasted his life, focusing on career, marriage and family goals’
‘We’ve been through so much. I slept with two of JP’s ex-girlfriends, and Christian’s actual mother and even that didn’t break us up’
Not one, but two, heads pop up in the bed, the first belonging to my brother slash half-brother, the other belonging to a woman named Mairead, who, it turns out, he met in a nightclub that hosts – we’re talking literally – Divorcee Discos three nights a week and which the taxi drivers in this port of the world have nicknamed Jurassic Park.
“I presume you mean ex-wife?” this – like I said – Mairead one goes.
I’m there, “I don’t know what to tell you, Mairead – except that it might be best if you stayed here while your boyfriend goes to talk to her.”
The dude throws back the duvet while I tip downstairs.
I recognise Angela from the photographs that Brett showed me on day one, except she’s not smiling – and why would she be? Her husband came to Ireland for a week six weeks ago and there’s been zero contact from him since then.
And, by the way, it’s straight away obvious who she blames.
I lean in for the air-kiss and go, “Hey! Ross O’Carroll-Kelly!” because it’s nice to be nice. “You look as beautiful in actual life as you do in the photos that Brett has been showing us – no lie – constantly since he got here.”
She goes, “I’ve been trying to ring you – solidly, for six weeks.”
I’m there, “Me?”
Sorcha – who you’d imagine would be on my side? – takes the phone out of my hand and a few seconds later goes, “There’s 108 missed calls from your number, Angela.”
I’m there, “Yeah, no, it was an overseas number I didn’t recognise. I thought it was probably scammers.”
Angela’s like, “I left you voice messages – dozens of them.”
“I mean who even listens to voice messages?” I go. “As my daughter says, what year is this – 2005?”
Sorcha hands me back my phone and goes, “He has you listed in his contacts as ‘Brett’s Wife – DO NOT ANSWER!”
And I’m like, “Thanks, Sorcha. Thanks a – literally? – bunch.”
I look at Angela and I’m there, “I’ve done very little, in fairness to me”
It’s actually a relief when Brett finally shows his face. He walks into the kitchen wearing the clothes he went out in last night – we’re talking tight trousers and white shirt with big, pointy collars, open to the – pretty much – navel? I think when I told him it was, like, a Seventies slash Eighties disco, he presumed it was fancy dress.
Angela goes, “Where the f**k have you been?”
And it’s clear from the way she says it that this is not me arriving home at midday on a Sunday, 16 hours after popping out for a Chinese. This is way more serious than that – this is, like, real life.
“I’m staying here,” Brett goes. “Our mother is dying,” looping me into the whole conspiracy, “and I’ve decided that this is where I should be right now.”
Angela looks at me like I might be somehow to blame for this change that’s come over the dude.
She goes, “Brett, what the f**k is going on with you?”
He’s there, “Look, I’ve changed since I came to Ireland. And I owe it all to–”
I’m thinking, please don’t say me – definitely do not say me.
He’s like, “This guy!” and he puts his orm around my shoulder.
I look at Angela and I’m there, “I’ve done very little, in fairness to me.”
“This guy,” the dude goes, “taught me that I haven’t been living before now. As in, like, really living? You know he’s, like, a sporting hero in Ireland?”
I’m there, “Sporting hero?” never one to blow my own trumpet. “That’s for others to say. Which they have, by the way.”
He’s there, “This guy has slept with more than 800 women in his life.”
Oh, Jesus, I think. Yeah, no, it’s a figure I’ve heard bandied around The Bridge 1859, even though I’ve never done the actual math?
Sorcha goes, “Eight hundred?”
I’m like, “That number gets exaggerated.”
Brett’s there, “He doesn’t take shit and he doesn’t answer to anyone.”
“He answers to me,” Sorcha goes.
I’m using my famous quick-thinking skills to try to save someone else’s marriage for once?
— Ross
Angela skewers him with a look and she’s like, “All I need to know is – are you coming home?”
He looks her in the eye – reminds me of me in my prime – and goes, “No, I’m not coming home. I’m never coming home.”
Angela turns on me then? She’s like, “This is you! This is your influence!”
I’m there, “This has fock-all to do with me – please, believe me.”
And it’s then that the famous Mairead decides to show her face.
She’s like, “Who the fock do you think you are, leaving me on me own upstairs?”
Quick as a flash, I go, “I thought I said I wanted you to stort by clearing the gutters today,” cracking on that she’s our cleaner?
I put my orm around her shoulder and sort of, like, guide slash drag her out of the room towards the front door, then out through the front door and into the actual front gorden?
She’s like, “What the fock are you doing?”
I’m there, “I’m using my famous quick-thinking skills to try to save someone else’s marriage for once? There’s a Hailo on the way.”
Yeah, no, I managed to order her a taxi while – it’s a made-up word – conducting her to the door?
I tip back inside and I go, “Sorry, she hasn’t been with us for long. She needs need firm direction.”
Angela looks at me and nods like she’s had similar problems with domestics back in the States – but I can’t help but notice that Brett is looking at me in, like, total awe.
