Sorcha asks me to go to Dundrum to collect the turkey from the craft butchers, but when I see the line of cors waiting to get into the cor pork – well, I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you – I decide not to bother my orse.
I manage to somehow forget about it until about 10 o’clock that night, when I’m having a few Christmas pints with Ronan in town and Sorcha texts me, going, “Er, where’s the turkey?”
I realise that I might be in a bit of trouble, so I turn around to Ronan and I go, “Would your father-in-law be able to get me a turkey?”
Ronan gives me, like, a proper disgusted look? He goes, "Do you think all Northsiders sell turkeys, fireworks and logs?"
I’m there, “Of course I don’t think that!”
I do think that. I genuinely do.
He goes, “Seerdiously, Rosser, I foyunt that offedensive.”
Offensive or not, the following morning, I get a phonecall from Kennet, going, “Howiya, Rosser? Ronan tells me you’re in the meerkit for a t. . . t. . . t. . . toorkey.”
I rest my case.
I’m there, “Yeah, no, I was supposed to collect ours yesterday and I didn’t bother my hole and I genuinely don’t think I could face the traffic now.”
“What soyuz of a toorkey are you arthur?”
“A big one. Sixteen poinds?”
“Sixteen powunts. Game-ball, Rosser. Game-ball.”
“So you’re saying you can get me one?”
“Better than that. I’ve just thropped it off on yizzer doorstep.”
I’m there, “Happy days. What do I owe you?”
He’s like, “You’re mustard, Rosser. Ronan’s arthur fixing up wit me,” and then he hangs up.
I open the door in time to see his white van disappear down the driveway, then I look down at the turkey at my feet and I feel my mouth drop open. It’s a big turkey all right – definitely 16 pounds and possibly even more. But the most noticeable thing about it isn’t its weight or even its size. The most noticeable thing about it is that it’s still alive.
I stand there just staring at it for a good, like, 30 seconds, then it literally invites itself into the gaff, stepping smortly past me into the hallway and doing the whole gobble-gobble thing as it heads for the kitchen.
I’m thinking, okay, how am I going to hide it from Sorcha? But the question ends up being irrelevant because at that exact moment she steps out of the kitchen and sees the bird making its way down the hall towards her.
She puts her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She’s like, “Ross, please don’t tell me that’s what they gave you in Dundrum.”
And I’m there, “Er, no,” because I know she’d probably ring them to complain. “I got this from, er, another source. I was thinking outside the box.”
That’s when Honor arrives down the stairs. “Who’s going to kill it?” she goes – she sounds like she’s interested in the job.
I’m there, “I will.”
And she laughs. She goes, “Oh my God, there is no way you’d have the nerve to do it.”
And then I suddenly remember that Shane Horgan grew up on a turkey farm in – believe it or not – Meath. I'm there, "I'll give Shaggy a ring. He can hopefully talk me through what's involved."
About 20 minutes later, I'm in the living room and I'm watching a rerun of Ireland's recent victory over New Zealand, just scribbling down a few notes in my famous Rugby Tactics Book, when the turkey shuffles into the room and – I'm not making this up – jumps up onto the sofa beside me, then storts literally watching the rugby.
He's big into it as well, judging from the way he's staring at the screen without even blinking. I know it sounds crazy but I stort chatting away to him about the likes of CJ Stander and Simon Zebo – the qualities they bring to the team and the areas in which I think they could improve – and he seems to be taking a definite interest in a way that my children never have?
And you can probably guess what ends up happening. We bond. Especially after I make the mistake of giving him a name. I decide to call him Henshaw – as a tribute to Rob.
Anyway, at some point in the afternoon, I fall asleep on the sofa and, when I wake up, my new friend is nowhere to be seen. I tip down to the kitchen and I go, “Sorcha, have you seen Henshaw?”
And she’s like, “If you’re referring to the turkey, Honor took him down to the coach house,” which is sort of, like, a shed at the bottom of the gorden. “She volunteered to do the deed.”
I’m like, “What?”
"Ross, it's Christmas Eve tomorrow. I need to stort prepping. There was no way you were going to do it. I heard you telling it about the 1999 Leinster Schools Senior Cup final."
I’m there, “Sorcha, I don’t want him to die!” and I race out to the gorden, just in time to see Honor emerging from the coach house, the front of the apron she’s wearing stained red with giblets, holding a humungous turkey, freshly plucked and missing its head.
My hort breaks in two. I end up just bursting into tears. I’m there, “I’m just glad the last thing he saw was Ireland’s first ever victory over the All Blacks.”
And that’s when I feel something moving at my feet. I look down and my hort is suddenly singing like a treeful of birds. It’s Henshaw!
“Honor wanted to play a trick on you,” Sorcha goes. “And I wanted to teach you a lesson. That bird that Honor has is the one I picked up this afternoon from the craft butcher’s in Dundrum.”
I turn to Sorcha and I go, “Can I keep him? Can I keep Henshaw?”
And she’s there, “We’ll have to build a little run for him out here. We can’t have him in the house.”
I'm like, "I know. Except obviously during the Six Nations. "
Honor goes, “Oh my God, you total sap – you were crying!”
And I’m there, “I know I was crying.”
She goes, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”
And I go, “Merry Christmas, Honor.”