‘It’s so much easier than facing up to the fact that her grandmother was kicked out of Knock for being mullered’
I’VE HONESTLY NEVER seen Sorcha so upset. Except for the time I rang her cracking on to be Aung San Suu Kyi, thanking her for her poem, Oh, Wingless Bird of Paradise.
And possibly the time I slept with her sister.
She barely said a word during the four-hour drive to Mayo, just sat there, crying occasionally, but mostly just trying to get her breathing under control, a trick she learned on that Smurfit Business School presentation skills course she did a couple of years ago.
The call came at, like, half-six this morning. All we were told was that her granny had taken some kind of I don’t know turn on the parish trip to Knock. Sorcha’s old pair are in Portugal, trying to offload an aportment they bought as a supposed investment property but Father Perry said that someone needed to come and get her.
I was like, “If she’s had a so-called turn, why isn’t she in hospital?” And Sorcha went, “I know as little as you do, Ross! Just drive, will you?”
I did what I was told. Floored it, in fact. I had to with the mood she was in? We pull up outside the guesthouse and she has the car door open – I swear to fock – before the thing has even stopped. She races inside while I pork the beast. And when I finally follow her in, I find her sitting in the living room, with her orm around her granny, who’s shouting at the top of her voice: “It’s rubbish! The whole thing is rubbish! The resurrection! Salvation! Life ever after! It’s all lies! It’s all bullshit!”
Sorcha mouths the word, “Sorry!” to Father Perry, except he holds his hands up as if to say, “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ve heard worse,” and I’m sure he has. I think his previous parish was Orklow.
I’ve honestly never heard a bad word slip from Sorcha’s granny’s lips before. Even the time when she saw me out and about with a bird who wasn’t her granddaughter and I persuaded Sorcha and her entire family that there was something wrong with her eyes. She ended up in Specsavers in Dundrum getting fitted for a pair of Coca Cola bottle lenses and she didn’t swear once.
Now, she can’t stop.
“Look at that asshole,” she goes. “He’s evil to the core.” She’s referring to me, by the way, rather than Father Perry. He’s actually pretty sound.
She’s like, “Why did you take him back? He’ll destroy your life and you’ll be left a lonely old lady – like me.” I go, with a big smirk on my face, “Hey – that all remains to be seen,” trying to turn the whole thing into a bit of a joke, except she practically roars at me then. “You’re a liar!” and then she turns to Father Perry and goes, “And you’re a liar, too. Selling hope to people! Based on what? Based on what?”
Now Sorcha’s big into the whole God thing. I mean, you’d see her going out to Mass six or seven times a year. And obviously she’s not ready to hear her grandmother diss – I don’t know – the Lord? “It must be the whole digital switchover,” she tries to go.
I’m like, “What do you mean?” calling her out on it, even though I know I possibly shouldn’t? She’s like, “The whole analogue-to-digital thing. She’s had a TV aerial for, like, forty years, Ross. Then suddenly the signal is switched off? Must be something to do with, I don’t know, electromagnetic waves or something, interfering with, like, her brain?”
I pull a face as if to say that, yeah, that would certainly seem to be the most reasonable explanation alright. Except I know it’s not? Because it’s pretty obvious to me what the deal is here.
“Look at him, grinning at me!” she shouts. “The devil is in him! Satan is inside that man!” Father Perry – fair focks to him – goes, “You’re going to have to get her out of here. I have the rest of my parishioners to think of,” and before he has to say another word to her, Sorcha has led her granny outside to the cor.
I hang back to have a word. Like I said, I’m pretty sure I know the deal here. I’m there, “She’s banjoed, isn’t she?” He’s like, “If by banjoed you mean drunk, then yes, she’s banjoed.” I end up just shaking my head. “She supposedly doesn’t drink?” “Well, she does now. She’s been drinking since we arrived here two days ago. She’s been disruptive. She’s insulted the other parishioners. She’s been personally abusive to me.”
“And to me. You heard what she said there. I mean, she’s always been one of my biggest critics. Some would say not without cause. I’ve always been a bit of a player. Correction – I’ve always been a player’s player. But being called Satan and whatever else – that’s a definite first for me.” He gives me a look as if to say, “Are you still here?” so I take the hint and I step outside.
Sorcha has put her granny into the back of the cor and she’s already sitting in the front, ready for the long drive home. I open the driver’s door and the whack of whiskey hits me straight away.
“Why did you take him back?” the granny goes. “You could have done so much better for yourself than that.”
“Try and get some sleep,” Sorcha goes. Literally 30 seconds later, the woman is snoring loudly from the back of the cor, sleeping off whatever she’s had.
“I’m wondering did the switchover affect many other people,” Sorcha goes. “I must see if there’s anything about it on the internet,” because it’s so much easier than facing up to the fact that her grandmother was kicked out of Knock for being mullered.
And here’s one in the eye for all those people who say I’m too wrapped up in myself to ever have a thought for another human being. “Gay Byrne should have warned us,” I go. “The dude should have at least warned us.”