Honor looks at Sorcha like she’s just been handed a Zayn Malik doll.
“Okay,” she goes, “what the fock is this?”
Sorcha’s there, “It’s an Easter bonnet, Honor. This is what I’ve been working on for the past three days.”
It’s basically a giant set of rabbit ears, which she made from her grandmother’s old TV aerial, covered in pink crepe paper, then surrounded with yellow ribbons, tiny chicks and little foil-wrapped chocolate eggs.
“Okay,” Honor goes, “there is no way in the world you’re leaving this house wearing that.”
Sorcha laughs. She’s like, “It’s not for me, Honor! It’s for you!”
Honor turns to me then. "Your wife is menopausal," she goes. "The woman needs to be medicated."
"I'm not menopausal, Honor. I'm just excited. This day was always – oh my God – such a major port of my childhood and I just want it to be a major port of yours as well."
She’s referring to the Killiney and Dalkey Annual Children’s Egg Hunt, which takes place every year on the day the schools break up for the Easter holidays.
Two or three hundred local kids, wearing ridiculous bonnets, go searching every corner of Dalkey village for chocolate eggs that the local traders hide from them.
Although given that it's South Dublin, home of the most Body Mass Index-obsessed children on the planet, most of the chocolate eggs go unfound – and those eggs that are found are quickly re-hidden. They'll be discovered in thousands of years by archaeologists.
“I’m not doing it,” Honor goes. “It’s lame.”
Sorcha’s like, “Come on, Honor – this is one of those things that help generate a sense of community spirit.”
For what it’s worth, I’ve never considered that an excuse for anything.
It’s at that exact moment that the doorbell rings. As usual, I’m the one who goes to answer it and I’m not really prepared for the sight that greets me when I open the door.
Standing on the doorstep is Honor’s friend, the infamous Lindsay, and on his head he’s wearing – I swear to God – an enormous chicken made out of just, like, tissue paper?
Behind me, I hear Honor laugh.
She goes, "Oh my God – hillair!" clearly under the impression that he's wearing it in, like, an ironic way. "You are so, bad."
Except Lindsay doesn’t even crack a smile. He just steps past me into the hallway, then past Honor, going, “Is Sorcha home? I want to show her the bonnet I made!”
Me and Honor just look at each other, then we follow him down to the kitchen.
I may or may not have mentioned it to you before, but the boy my daughter has a crush on happens to have a crush on her mother. Like I said, it’s the southside – we have our own ways.
"You made it yourself?" Sorcha is going, definitely impressed. "It's – oh my God – so amazing!"
Lindsay turns around to Honor then. He’s like, “Why aren’t you wearing your bonnet?”
She’s there, “Because the Egg Hunt is for saps.”
“It’s not for saps. You know, people like your mother go to huge amount trouble every year to arrange it. It helps to bring communities together.”
“So does shouting swear words at water meter engineers,” Honor goes. “Community spirit isn’t an excuse for everything, Lindsay.”
Sometimes she’s so much like me I could weep.
“Come on,” Lindsay goes, “put your bonnet on. Your mother spent three days working on it.”
In my head, I’m thinking, don’t do it, Honor. Stick to your guns. Right or wrong, never be afraid to call it. But she looks at me, then at Lindsay, and then, to my great disappointment, she picks up the ridiculous bonnet that her old dear made her and she puts it on her head.
She looks like a dope.
I watch her trying to tie the little ribbon underneath her chin and I’m just, like, shaking my head, letting her know I’m disappointed in her. Another fool for love.
Sometimes she’s so like her mother I could weep.
During the drive to Dalkey, Sorcha turns around to me and goes, “Now, I don’t want you doing your traditional Easter Week disappearing act.”
I’m like, “What are you talking about, Babes?”
"You know what I'm talking about, because you do it every year. You say, 'Oh, I think there might be some eggs over here!' and then you're gone and we end up having to give up the Egg Hunt to do a Ross Hunt in all the local pubs."
“That’s horsh,” I go. “I’d consider that a slur on my reputation.”
Anyway, 20 minutes later, I'm sitting at the bor in Finnegan's, enjoying a cool pint of the obvious and I'm scribbling down my Leinster XV to face Bath this weekend on the back of a beer mat.
I end up getting a bit emotional while I'm doing it, because I stort thinking about how I'd break the news to the goys I have to leave on the bench, given that a lot of them are heroes of mine and – I think they'd probably agree – friends? But then I can't let my hort rule my head. Honor did that – now she's walking up and down Castle Street with a set of rabbit ears.
Just as I’m thinking this, I become suddenly aware of someone standing at my right elbow. I turn my head and there, staring at me, with a look of thunder on his face, is Lindsay.
He says the most unbelievable thing to me.
He goes, “I don’t like the way you treat Sorcha.”
I end up nearly spitting a mouthful of Hydrogen over him. That’s how hord I laugh. I’m like, “Is that so?”
He goes, “You disrespect her and you don’t show any interest in the things that she’s interested in. In short, you’re not worthy of her.”
I’m there, “Kid, what do you know about anything? You’re eight years old with a chicken on your head.”
He goes, “I might be eight with a chicken on my head, but one day I’ll be older. And by then, Sorcha will have got sense and divorced you. And then I’m going to marry her.”
He is one creepy kid.
“And shortly after that,” I go, “I predict that this will become your bor stool,” and then I nod at the borman to pull me another one-third-of-a-binge.
I need it. ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE