I looked at Honor. She was on the point of literally tears. ‘They’re going to call me a Dolite. That’s the name they have for people whose parents are, like, unemployed’
MY DAUGHTER WASN'T talking to me because I was refusing to let her star in this movie they're making based on the old dear's recession-era, misery-lit novel, Mom, They Said They'd Never Heard of Sundried Tomatoes.I had my reasons, of course. First, it's bad enough having my so-called mother disgracing the family name, without her dragging Honor into it — even if the shekels are good. And second, I don't want my kid turning into one of those, like, spoiled movie brats.
I was explaining my reasons to Sorcha again the other morning when all of a sudden Honor walked into the kitchen, still in her PJs, an adorable little smile on her five-year-old face, and said what a total bitch Pippa Middleton was for upstaging her sister on her big day and then how they can do – oh my God – nothing with Beatrice and Eugenie.
I laughed. Kids need positive reinforcement – or at least that’s what a lot of these books supposedly say – and she turned and saw me sitting at the free-standing island, tucking into a bit of brecky. She, like, wrinkled her nose, turned to her mother and went, “Oh my God, what is that disgusting smell?” And from the way she said it, I knew she wasn’t talking about Sorcha’s sweet potato and salmon griddle cakes.
I didn’t take the bait, though. I decided to try to keep it light. Hey, I’m a people-pleaser. It’s how I played my rugby and it’s how I still roll, even now.
“So where’s it going to be today?” I went, because it was one of my court-appointed access days. “Dundrum or Grafton Street? The choice is yours.” She, like, totally blanked me. And Sorcha didn’t pull her up on it, by the way.
See, I know she’s secretly on Honor’s side. Like I said, they were offering her serious wedge. But I was sat there thinking, okay, you’re supposed to be her father – it’s time you storted acting like it.
So I went, “I was just thinking, Honor. Five years old – it’s possibly about time you got your first BT storecord.” Again, nothing. Actually, it was worse than nothing. Because she turned around to Sorcha and went, “Mom, will you tell your ex-husband that I have no interest in going, like, anywhere with him today?”
“Er, I’m technically still her husband,” I went, quick as a flash. “Which means the joke is actually on you.” She didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at me.
Sorcha sat down on the high stool beside me. I saw a definite look pass between her and Honor, then – as if it had been rehearsed – she went, “Speaking of Dundrum, I was there the other day. Oh my God, you only have to look around the corpork to see that we’re living in an all-of-a-sudden different country. Even a year ago, it would have been all Mercedes CL500s and Volkswagen Touaregs. I saw a Qashqai.”
I just nodded. “It is sad, I suppose.”
“I mean, an actual Qashqai, Ross!”
“I’m agreeing with you, Sorcha. I’m saying it’s a disgrace.” I know her long enough to know when she’s building up to tell me something.
“I’ve come to a decision,” she suddenly went.
Told you.
I was like, “What kind of decision are we talking?”
“A life one. And I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to hear it from someone else.” “Er, okay.”
“I’ve decided to, like, sign on?”
I was there, “Sign on?” in my total innocence. “Sign on what?”
She just laughed. “The dole, silly.” I literally didn’t know what to say. That’s how much in actual shock I was.
“The dole?” I managed to blurt out. “But you’ve got an Orts degree.”
She just shook her head. “There’s no shame in being out of work, Ross. Especially in the current economic climate. Even mum was saying the other day that unemployment is no longer the fault of the actual unemployed any more? Half my class in UCD supposedly don’t have jobs.”
I was still pretty speechless, it has to be said. I tried to be supportive, though. “Where does this – okay, I’m going to say it – signing on even happen?”
“I don’t know,” she went. “Presumably in a dole office.”
“But is it definitely safe? For a girl like you, I’m talking.”
She just shrugged. “I don’t know, Ross. All I do know is that Honor and I can’t live on, like, no income?”
I was there, “Hey, I give you alimony.” I very nearly said vagimony. That’s the old man’s solicitor’s word for it.
She went, “But it’s not enough, Ross.”
I was like, “Well, I’ll just have to give you more then. Shred Focking Everything is actually doing really well out of the whole current economic thing. I’ve got plenty of moo.”
“Thank you, Ross, but this is me finally facing up to the reality of being an out-of-work single mother. If that means having to go on the dole . . .”
It was Honor who suddenly piped up then. “Mom,” she went, her little face full of sadness. “What will my friends in Montessori say if they find out you’re signing on?”
“You’ll just have to rise above it,” Sorcha went. “This is what they’re calling the new reality, dorling. People are doing what they have to do to put food on the table.”
I looked at Honor. She was on the point of literally tears. “They’re going to call me a Dolite. That’s the name they have for people whose parents are, like, unemployed?”
“Well, we’re all going to have to just endure, Honor.”
If you’ve ever wondered how women grow up to be the master manipulators that they are – how they can, like, twist us around their pretty much fingers – then there’s your answer. It’s, like, a skill, passed on from mother to daughter. It reminded me of a wildlife documentary I saw once, where a lionness was showing her cub the exact point to stick her teeth into the wildebeest’s throat to render it powerless.
“Okay,” I suddenly blurted out, “you can be in the old dear’s movie.” Honor just clapped her hands together – everything suddenly forgiven – and said I was the best father in the, oh my God, world.
And you know me. I’m a sucker for a compliment.
rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com/rossock