Confidence is occasionally a problem for the Rossmeister. I know that statement is going to have a lot of people choking on their lobster eggs Benedict this morning, but it's an actual fact. I don't mean confidence in terms of my appearance, because I know I look great? And I don't mean confidence in terms of my personality, because everyone who meets me – I think it's only fair to say – falls a little bit in love with me. I'm talking about confidence in terms of my brain power – the famous green matter.
The people around me haven’t exactly helped in this regord. Whenever we’re at a rugby match, my old man always feels the need to explain the score to me – “Six points behind, Ross, which means we need a converted try to win by a point” – as if all those blows to the head I took playing the game at school have left me unable to do simple subtraction, multiplication – whatever the word is for, like, adding up.
Honor was doing her homework recently and she asked me if I’d ever heard of Cú Chulainn. I went, “If you’re feeling sick, Honor, you really should talk to your mother. She’s the one who knows when you’re making up these illnesses.”
Well, this story has obviously done the rounds on social media, because whenever I drop Honor off at school now, I can see the other kids – and a few parents as well – laughing at me behind their hands.
I think you get the picture. If you showed Dermot Bannon around the inside of my head, he'd say the design was minimalist.
So when I mentioned that I was thinking of leaving Hook, Lyon and Sinker and setting up my own estate agency, the response was pretty predictable. The old man reminded me that I had "a rugby brain", and I'm almost sure he mouthed the word "injury" immediately afterwards.
Sorcha said she didn’t want our entire financial future depending on a man who once thought a cubic foot was something that entitled you to pork in a wheelchair space.
“Do we have to keep bringing up my Leaving Cert Maths exam?” I went. “I’d like to think I’m slightly more intelligent than I was back then.”
She just said her point still stood.
I'm thinking about all of this while I'm on my way to Dortry. I'm about to show a young couple around a bungalow that's so small their Jack Russell will have to go outside to wag its tail. I'm thinking, why do I let people put me down like that? Okay, I'm not what you would call a brainiac, but Father Fehily used to say, "No one can make you feel inferior without your actual permission."
It's just as I'm thinking this that my phone all of a sudden rings? It's JP's old man. He's supposedly retired these days and left the running of Hook, Lyon and Sinker to me. But he's another one who doesn't properly trust me and he's been showing his face around the office more and more lately.
"You idiot," he goes – and that's, like, his opening line?
I’m there, “What are you talking about?”
“Did you write the copy for Saint Finnian’s?”
He’s talking about Saint Finnian’s Pork, a humongous estate of houses that’s about to go up in Clonord, County – believe it or not – Meath. We’re going to be, like, the official agents for it and, yes, I wrote the copy.
He’s like, “You put the wrong date on it, genius.”
I’m there, “No, I didn’t. I put, ‘Coming February 2018!’”
“Then explain to me why there’s 200 people queuing up outside.”
“Fock!”
"They've been sleeping out for two nights. Friend of mine drove past this morning. It's, like, rows and rows of tents. He said it was like Calais. "
“What’s Calais? I’m presuming a music festival?”
“Doesn’t matter. It won’t ever concern you. But you’ve got to go out there and tell them the truth.”
“But I’m supposed to be reshowing a gaff in Dortry.”
“JP can do that. You go tell those nice people they just wasted two days of their lives they’re never getting back.”
“They’re not going to be happy rabbits.”
“Your mess – you clean it up. Hey, you’re a great estate agent. It’s just you got a rugby brain.”
“Did you just mouth a word after that?”
“No.”
“It’s just there seemed to be a pause at the end – like you said another word in your mind.”
"You're being paranoid. Now get out to Clonard. "
This mate of his wasn’t lying. There’s, like, hundreds of tents pitched in the mud of what is still an empty field with loads of just holes in the ground. I don’t know how long these people think it takes to build a gaff but they should have realised it was the wrong date when they arrived and saw that not a single brick had been laid.
The people are all gathered in little clusters. They’re sitting on collapsible chairs – like the one that Sorcha’s granny bought for the pope’s last visit and gets treated like a family heirloom. They’ve got fires burning in barrels and they’re drinking coffee from flasks and they’re singing songs. They’ve obviously all bonded.
I stand in front of them and I ask for a bit of hush. “My name is Ross O’Carroll-Kelly,” I go – just in case there’s any non-rugby fans in among them, “and I’m from Hook, Lyon and Sinker. I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. Whoever wrote the copy for the ad accidentally put, ‘Coming February 2017!’ instead of, ‘Coming February 2018!’”
“No, they didn’t,” some dude goes, handing me a piece of paper printed off the Hook, Lyon and Sinker website. “It says 2018.”
And I go, “Well, if you know it’s February 2018, why are you all here now?”
And as thick as I am, I don't need anyone to answer me. My old man has been talking about the Celtic Phoenix for a few years now. But, right now, I know I'm actually seeing it for the first time.
And I know something else, too. I was put on this Earth to kick points – and to sell houses. And from this moment on, I’m going to be doing it purely for myself.