THE NEXT TIME he sees John O'Donoghue in Leopardstown, the old man says, he's taking him to the Silken Glider – no bloody arguments – for a steak the size of a horse's flank and a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild as old as Methuselah, writes ROSS O'CARROLL-KELLY
"I'll say, 'No, no, Ceann Comhairle, you're not putting your hand in your pocket.' Not that he ever has, of course – but after the week we've had, I think the least we owe the chap is a slap-up meal fit for a . . . well, a petty officer in the Irish cabinet."
What he means is, the services of Shred Focking Everything!have never been in greater demand. With all the stuff in the papers about thatdude, then Fás as well, there's suddenly a lot of troubled consciences in this town. The phone hasn't stopped ringing all week and, by three o'clock on Friday afternoon, I'm as a shagged as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking competition.
I’m even, like, yawning as I’m sitting there in the passenger seat, reading through seven years of some random dude’s expenses claims.
"What even isAlmas," I end up going.
The old man's there, "It's a type of caviar," and then he goes, "Ross, it does say confidentialshredding service on the side of the van." I ignore him.
"Have weever had it?"
“Oh, good Lord, yes. Well, back in the day, a trip to Twickenham for Hennessy and I wasn’t complete without a visit to the Caviar House Prunier, there in Piccadilly. Yes, we’d pick up a kilo each, in a 24-carat gold tin – cost about twenty-thousand of your Earth pounds. Of course that was back when twenty-thousand pounds was a lot of money.”
"Look at this one," I go. "Four hundred snots for lunch – and we're talking sterlingsnots?" He looks over my shoulder. "Ah, Cliveden, Berkshire," he goes, suddenly all wistful. "That brings me back, too. Oh, they'll have had the von Essen Platinum Club Sandwich, no doubt about it. Quails eggs, white truffles and the most tender corn-fed poulet de Bresse you'll taste in a hundred lifetimes. I don't blame whoever it is for feeling guilty about that one. Not what the taxpayer wants to be hearing right now. Just throw it in the shredder, Ross, and say, there but for the grace of being self-employed go I."
It might be all this talk about, I don’t know, old times, but the old man suddenly decides that we should call it a day – or call it a week, because it’s, like, Friday? Which is how the two of us end up in the Horse Shoe Bor, me with a pint of the old Milk of Amnesia, him with a cognac the size of a foot spa, shooting the shit like two people who actually like each other.
I tell him I have to laugh. See, I presumed, all the way through school, that me and gainful employment were going to lead parallel and mutually exclusive lives. But here I am, roysh, having just worked my third, what, 20-hour week in a row and I feel – weird as it sounds – happy? “Well, good for you,” he goes. “The very attitude that made this country great for eleven-and-a-little-bit years – and will again, you mark me.”
I get a second pint in, roysh, and he asks after Sorcha. “She’s in pretty good form,” I go, “except that that shop of hers looks like it’s about to go tits up in a ditch.”
He’s there, “I’m not so sure. Don’t underestimate that girl’s determination, Ross. Do you remember her debating in Irish?”
“Who doesn’t? It was agus this and agus that . . .”
“She made a wonderful case for rerouting the Liffey to place Crumlin and Drimnagh on the northside. I made it part of my local election platform, remember?”
"No, this is different. I mean, she's trying – as in reallytrying? She's storted opening at some ridiculous hour."
“I heard talk of nine-thirty.”
"It's actually true. In normal circumstances, I'd say, er, this is Sorchawe're talking about? She'll have that place turned around quicker than she can say BCBGMAXAZRIA. But, according to her old man, she hasn't sold a focking stitch since pretty much May."
The old man shakes his head and blows hard. “Retail is suffering, there’s no doubt about it.”
"Well, hewants me to persuade her to shut it down. And he has a point. God, if even Guess can't make a go of Grafton Street . . . and that was opened by Calum actual Best." I'd never realised before how deeply this whole recession thing was storting to affect me, but all of a sudden it comes flooding out. "You know, I accidentally switched on the news the other night and there was this, like, fifteen-stone farmer running at a line of gords . . ."
“Oh, yes,” he goes, smiling to himself, “at the Fianna Fáil think-in.” I’m there, “The world used to have this, I suppose, image of us – as in the Irish? – knocking back cocktails and buying up half of London. That was who we used to be – as, like, a nation? Now, we’re a fat farmer and three fat gords, rolling around in the mud of Westmeath.” I’m on the point of pretty much tears.
"What isthis?" he all of a sudden goes, loud enough for practically the entire Shelbourne to hear. "Defeatist talk? Do you think the likes of Dermot and JP are talking like that? Of course they're not. If I know them, they'll be staring down the ninth fairway of the old Green Monkey – for my money, the most difficult par five inthe game – saying, we can make a fortune out of this!"
I nod. Deep down, I knowhe's talking sense? He says he's got five jobs booked in for tomorrow – he asks me if I'm interested in a bit of OT. I go to say, "Er, on a Saturday? You must be focking joking!" but the words, "Ain't no thing but a chicken wing," come out instead.
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