So it’s, like, Day Whatever-it-is and my period of isolation is finally over. I’m about to ring the goys to see if anyone fancies hitting The Bridge for a few bank holiday scoops when all of a sudden my phone rings and it ends up being dick features himself.
"Ross Kyle Gibson McBride O'Carroll-Kelly!" he goes. "How the hell are you? Are you over it yet? Even though, officially, as the leader of New Republic, I refuse to acknowledge that it even exists!"
I’m there, “Yes, I’m over it. I didn’t even have any symptoms.”
“On the record, I’m not surprised – you’re just another fool who’s been willingly duped by this famous scamdemic that was dreamt up to loosen the delicate threads that hold together our democratic freedoms! Off the record, I’m very glad to hear it, because I’ve heard it’s a terrible dose!”
“Yeah, no, I’ve heard the same thing said about you.”
“I beg your pordon?”
“I said what the fock do you even want? Dude, I’ve just done a clear antigen test and now I want to go and get messed up.”
He's like, "Kicker, I am, at this present moment in time, standing in front of our old alma mater – non scholae sed vitae! – and there's a sign outside that is visible from the road! Shall I read to you what it says?"
“Dude, I’m hanging up on you now.”
"It says, 'Castlerock College – enrolment now open for 2022-2023! Co-ed from August 2022! Girls welcome!"
“Jesus!”
“Quote-unquote!”
“I can’t believe he’s actually going ahead with it.”
Yeah, no, Fionn – my so-called friend and a member of the famous Castlerock College one-in-a-row team – is now the principal of our old school. And he's absolutely determined to let – this is possibly come going to come across as sexist – girls in?
“Did I mention that this thing is visible from the road?” the old man goes.
And I’m like, “Yeah, no, I think that’s possibly the point of putting up a sign in the first place, you stupid focking sap.”
“As Castlerock College Old Boys, it’s incumbent on you and I, Ross, to put a stop to this!”
“Dude, I’ve told him he’s being a knob, but he won’t listen. It’s that assistant principal he’s been seeing. She’s got inside his head.”
Yeah, no, Ciara Casaubon is her name. It’s only since he storted seeing her that the whole co-ed thing came up as an issue.
“A silent woman is always more admired than a noisy one!” the old man goes. “Was it Virgil who said that? It doesn’t sound like Virgil – of course, that’s often a sign that is!”
“Dude-”
“Sorry, Kicker, this thing has shaken me to my core! Is this – quote-unquote – pal of yours likely to be working today?”
He's like, 'The girls won't be playing hockey – they'll be playing rugby, just like the boys.' The old man's face turns literally white and his bottom lip storts quivering. For a minute, I think he's about to have another one of his famous hort attacks.
“Who, Fionn? On a May bank holiday weekend? I would say definitely. If you’re going in there to see him, wait for me. I still think I can reach the dude. We played rugby together. That’s still got to be worth something – even in this day and age.”
So 20 minutes later, me and the old man are walking along the hallowed halls of Castlerock College, on the way to the principal’s office, and all we can hear is this, like, hammering noise.
The old man’s like, “What in the name of Hades is that infernal racket?”
Ten seconds later, we have our answer. The hammering is coming from behind a door. And on that door is a sign indicating that this is now a toilet for – again, I'm just going to come out and say it – girls? The old man pushes the door and morches in.
I'm like, "Dude, I'm not 100 per cent sure you're allowed to just do that?"
"Oh, nonsense!" he goes. "They're still building the bloody well things!"
I follow him inside and suddenly there we are, face to face with three, I don't know, I'm presuming plumbers?
The old man looks them up and down and goes, “Well? How are you enjoying your blood money?”
All of a sudden, the man himself – we’re talking Fionn – arrives on the scene. He’s like, “Ross, what are you doing here?”
The old man goes, “We might just as easily ask you the same question! Women’s toilets? I mean, what’s next? A hockey pitch?”
“We won’t be laying a hockey pitch, Charles.”
“Well, you say that now – but I suspect that this is the stort of a very slippery slope!”
And that’s when Fionn says it.
He’s like, “The girls won’t be playing hockey – they’ll be playing rugby, just like the boys.”
The old man’s face turns literally white and his bottom lip storts quivering. For a minute, I think he’s about to have another one of his famous hort attacks.
The old man smiles at him – it's the kind of smile he pulls when he's licking lobster butter off his lips
“That’s it!” he goes. “The final insult!” and then he turns to the workmen. “You, you and you! What’s he paying you?”
“Sorry?” one of them goes.
"How much is he paying you? To fit these toilets? Never mind! I'll pay you each a thousand euro per day not to work for him!"
Fionn goes, “You’re being childish now, Charles.”
Except the three dudes are suddenly all ears. A thousand yoyos per day? They wouldn’t have earned that kind of money since 2007.
A memory suddenly comes back to me, from back in the day, when Sorcha hired a plumber to have our toilets converted to dual-flush and I walked into our en suite to find him snorting cocaine off the top of the cistern at 11 o'clock in the morning. The Celtic Tiger was an amazing thing in our lives when you think about it.
“A thousand euro per day to sit with me and my son in. . . to which hostelry are we repairing, Kicker?”
I’m like, “The Bridge.”
“The Bridge! What do you say, chaps?”
The dudes all look at each other and go, “Sounds good to us,” and they suddenly – I shit you not – stort putting their tools away.
Fionn just shakes his head. He goes, "Charles, I'll find someone else to do it. You can't pay every single plumber in the country a thousand euro per day to not work for me."
The old man smiles at him – it’s the kind of smile he pulls when he’s licking lobster butter off his lips.
“Oh, can’t I?” he goes. “You just bloody well watch me!”
