I need an alibi, like, pronto, but who'd have thought there'd be one on the M50?
SO I'M IN, like, Mackey D's in Stillorgan with Honor last weekend and I'm looking at that little bag of raisins they give you with the focking Happy Meal, basically to stop you suing them for making you fat, and of course the Rossmeister's away, having one of his big intellectual moments, thinking it'd probably be a much better world all round if there were no, like, lawyers in it.
The weirdest thing, roysh - it's at that exact moment that my phone rings and who is it only Hennessy Coghlan-O'Hara. So he comes straight out with it. He always does.
"You're being named as a correspondent in a divorce case," he goes and obviously it takes a little while to sink in.
I'm there, "Okaaay," I go. "I take it that's not a good thing?"
He's there, "What are you, shitting me? Course it's not a good thing. You think I'm happy having to come out of retirement to clean up your fecal matter?" I'm there, "I'd have to say probably not." "Well, you'd be right," he goes.
"But I'm doing it as a favour to your father. You been in Bojangles recently?"
I'm like, "Em," pretending I'm, like, racking my brains to remember. He sees straight through it, of course. He's there, "Don't play cute with me, shit-kicker. Either you was or you wasn't - Saturday, the sixth of December . . ."
Saturday, the sixth of December. I can tell you now. Leinster 33, Castres 3 - too focking right I was in Bojangles. Celebrating in a major way. I'm like, "What can I say? I'm a sucker for the old Disco Divorcees." He has a total freak attack then. "She ain't no divorcee," he pretty much screams down the phone at me. "She's married to a very wealthy man. He's had a private dick following her for months now . . ."
I just, like, shake my head. Jesus, you can't trust anyone. I'm thinking, what kind of a world have I brought my daughter into? "I got a picture here in front of me, taken with a long lens . . ." "And you're saying it's, like, definitely me?" I go. "You got a tattoo? Top of your right arm? Says, Leinster - Heineken Cup Champions, 2009?" I'm there, "Oh, no!" What can I say - the fockers always bring out the optimist in me.
"The picture's grainy," he goes. "Chance it won't stand up in a court. I don't need this shit. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to get yourself an alibi for between 2.30am and 2.48am in the early hours of 7 December . . ." Eighteen minutes? "I'm sure it was longer than that," I go, but he's already hung up on me.
I just look at Honor and I go, "What a stupid, handsome fool you have for an old man." But as well as stupid and handsome, I'm also quite possibly the jammiest man basically ever. Because, roysh, not five minutes later, my phone rings again and this time it's, like, Sorcha.
"Ross," she goes, "I forgot to tell you, another of those bills came for you today. Why are you still even using this address?" I'm like, "Hang on - what bills?" "The M50 toll," she goes. "Every time you don't pay it, Ross, it goes up . . ." I'm there, "But I never used the focking M50 toll," and she's like, "Well, just ring them and tell them it's a misread."
I suddenly stop. I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Give me the date on that again." What are the chances! What are the chances. They're longer than Leinster winning the Heineken Cup in 2009, I can tell you that.
Seventh of December - 2.36am! I'm like, "Happy days - someone up there's looking after me," then all of a sudden, roysh, for reasons best known to herself, Honor just blurts out, "Chicken nuggets!"
Of course Sorcha's straight on it. She's like, "What was that? Did she just say chicken nuggets?" See, I'm not supposed to bring her to Mackey's because of - I don't know - all the stuff they do. Rainforests, the Developing World, blahdy blahdy blah-blah - Sorcha'll give you the full rapsheet if you're interested.
She's there, "Oh my God, have you got her in McDonald's?" "No, Honor," I go, having to think on my feet, "not chicken nuggets - sushi, remember? Sushi. Poor little kid, she gets confused - anyway, Sorcha, I better go. My tuna roll's getting, I don't know, cold."
I hang up, ring directory inquiries and get put through to the toll crowd.
"Hello," I go, "you bunch of useless idiots. I got, like, a bill in the post from you, even though I haven't used the M50 in, like, two years."
"Ah, just stick it in the bin," the woman on the other end goes. "Sure we send them to everyone." I'm like, "What?" "Yeah," she goes. "There's thousands of them going out all the time. You know yourself. Some will have used it. Some won't. Some'll pay . . ."
She's about to hang up, roysh, when I go, "Well, I actually want to pay?" She's like, "Even though you didn't use the toll?" I'm there, "Yeah, here, take my credit card details," which is exactly what she does, obviously thinking, "Weirdo?" especially at the end, when I tell her to keep up the good work.
Father Fehily, our old coach, used to say, give me a lucky player ahead of a great player any day.
As it happens, I was actually both - but luck is the one thing that's always followed me around, throughout my life. To celebrate, roysh, I bring Honor back up to the counter and order her nine more nuggets, then I change my mind and go, "Actually, fock it - make it twelve."
It's just as I'm turning around with the tray that I suddenly see Sorcha coming through the door, with a face on her like a blind cobbler's thumb. There's obviously a way out of this. I just need a second to think. See, there's always a way out. "Father Fehily, our old coach, used to say,
give me a lucky player ahead of a great
player any day. As it happens, I was actually both