‘In a weird way, I actually admire what she’s doing, even though – at the same time – it kind of disgusts me?’
VODKA CHOCOLATES. Silly string. Some movie that Angelina Jolie did when she was, like, 20 and has probably never bothered her hole even watching herself. Forty copies of it. On VHS. Grease remover tablets. Packs of 64 clothes pegs in the colours of the Ireland flag. Twenty-metre scart to 2-RCA phono leads. Fingerless gloves, 95 per cent acrylic, one size fits all. Bottles of bath and shower gel with characters on them that look like Star Wars characters but aren’t? Fruit jellies that taste of literally nothing. Bottles of hand sanitiser in wild berry. A movie about snooker with a young Bob Geldof in it.
I try not to let Sorcha see what I’m thinking. Except she does, of course. She can read me like The John Deere Coffee Table Book of Big Tractors – 80 copies of which are piled up on a table, waiting to be shifted.
“You can take that look off your face,” she goes.
I’m like, “What look?”
“Er, the one of, like, disgust?”
“I wouldn’t describe it as disgust. It’d be more deep shock. I just had no idea that people lived like this.”
It’s her first day as manager of the Euro Hero discount store in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre – in the actual unit where Sorcha Circa used to be. I’m there to offer supposedly moral support.
“Ross,” she goes, “an increasing number of people are turning to discount stores, as the recession continues to bite.”
“It doesn’t make it right, though.”
“Well, right or not, they’re a pretty much fact of life now? My boss – as in, like, Mr Whittle – he says we’re providing an actual social service . . . ”
“We?” Only one day in the place and she’s already a company woman. She’s there, “My gran, just as an example – Oh! My God! – loves these shops? She said in her day they used to call them huckster shops. And you could buy literally anything in them, from a needle to an anchor.”
I’m like, “What about a framed photograph of a waterfall with moving lights inside it that makes tropical bird noises when you walk past?”
She takes it out of my hands. “If you’ve only come in to mock me, Ross . . . ”
I end up feeling instantly bad then, so I go, “Hey, I want to take that.”
“What?”
“I want to buy it.”
“Ross, I’ve had a long day . . . ”
“I’m serious, babes. I’ve decided to support you. So I’m going to take it.”
In a weird way, I actually admire what she’s doing, even though – at the same time – it kind of disgusts me?
“Do you have cash?” she goes.
I’m like, “No, I’ll stick it on the old Visa cord.”
“I’m afraid we can’t process credit card transactions for purchases of less than €10.”
“What?”
“It’s only a fiver, Ross. Mr Whittle said it wouldn’t be worth the cost of, like, processing it?”
“Okay, I’ll take this, er, bicycle puncture repair kit as well.”
“Okay, that brings it up to eight.”
“And what about this set of six plastic coat hangers?”
“Still only nine.”
“And the pet lint roller. I’ll take the pet lint roller.”
She takes all of the shit from me, rings it through and sticks it into a bag. As she’s handing me my receipt and purchases, I end up asking the question that’s possibly on both of our minds?
“What do you think Honor’s going to say?”
I look at her little face, trying to be brave. “Well,” she goes, “we’ll know soon enough. Linh is bringing her in straight from school.”
Linh is Honor’s nanny. Nothing to look at, in case you’re wondering. No one can say that Sorcha didn’t learn from experience.
I’m there, “And you’re saying that Honor doesn’t know what your new job even is yet?”
“Don’t make such a big deal of it, Ross. It’s like my dad was saying – Honor is going to have to adjust to the new economic paradigm, just like I’ve had to and millions of others like me.”
The kid is going to shit an organ. I know it and she knows it – but she insists on putting a brave face on things.
“There’s, like, 75 boxes of diabetic chocolate gingers left over from Mother’s Day in the storeroom,” she goes. “Do you think people would buy them for Christmas?”
That’s when Honor arrives. It’s actually Linh’s voice that I hear first. She goes, “This is the place, Honor,” and I turn around to see my daughter walking into Euro Hero with her nose, as usual, stuck in her mobile phone.
She’s sort of, like, chuckling to herself, going, “Oh my God,” she’s going, “LMFAO! Deena Cortesse looks like a bowling ball in Uggs,” no idea at all that she’s walking into a discount store. There’s an argument to say that that’s why these kind of shops shouldn’t even be on this side of the city. “Er, hashtag – who is your stylist?”
“Hi, Honor,” Sorcha goes. “Welcome to mommy’s new place of work.”
Honor’s head goes up. She doesn’t say anything for literally 20 seconds. She just looks around here, taking it all in. The 2011 calendars with a picture of an Airedale terrier for every month of the year. The mechanical pencil set with the rip-off Littlest Mermaid pictures on the packaging. The soap that doesn’t even have a name – it just says “SOAP” on the outside and smells of Loughlinstown Hospital. The faux bronze ashtrays with the little man standing on the side having a slash.
She takes it all in with her mouth open, then she looks at Sorcha, closes her eyes and let’s the loudest horror movie scream out of her that I’ve possibly ever head. It’s like, “Aaarrrggghhh!!!”
“Well, you’re just going to have to accept it!” Sorcha’s going.
“Aaarrrggghhh!!!”
“You can scream all you like, Honor. It’s like you always hear them say – we are where we are. And like it or not, this is where we are.”
“Aaarrrggghhh!!!”
“We’re all doing what we have to do to get by.”
“Aaarrrggghhh!!!”
I get suddenly worried about her, though. I’m like, “Sorcha, I think she’s hyperventilating.”
Sorcha’s there, “She’s not hyperventilating. She’s being a spoiled little . . . madam.”
She is hyperventilating, though. For once, she’s not play-acting. She has genuinely lost it.
“Breathe!” I’m telling Honor. “Breathe!”
She can’t actually catch her breath, though. She’s turning literally white. “Sorcha,” I go, “quick – get me a bag.”
But she still doesn’t believe it’s for real. “They’re 15 cent each, Ross.”
“Sorcha,” I end up having to shout at her, “just get me a bag!”
rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com/rossock