'Ross, you're 30 years of age and still behaving like a teenager'

Hey, who wouldn’t want to end up like Johnny Ronan? And why does Sorcha suddenly care?

SO I’M LYING in bed on, like, Thursday morning, staring at the ceiling, a 20-year-old model called Maolisa Slyne sound asleep beside me – snoring like the focking Fall of Baghdad – and in my mind I’m rummaging through my grab bag of excuses for getting rid of one-night stands, settling eventually for the tried and trusted gas leak.

I’m just reaching down for the bottle of bleach and vinegar that I keep by the bed for this very thing. That’s when, out of the blue, I hear the sounds of the bedroom door opening, Ugg boots shuffling across the corpet and then the curtains being yanked aport, suddenly flooding the room with light.

It takes a few seconds for my eyes to, like, adjust? Then I’m left thinking, uh-oh, I forgot she had a key.

By this stage, Maolisa is also awake and obviously curious about this girl who’s giving her, like, serious death rays across the room.

“Who are you?” she even goes.

Sorcha does even blink. She’s there, “Er, I’m his still wife?” I think about going, “Er, soon to be ex,” but in the end I don’t, roysh, for fear of drawing Sorcha’s anger onto me? Maolisa looks at me then, all shock-horror. She’s there, “You didn’t say you had a wife,” and I go, “I don’t remember us saying much of anything,” then I give her a sly wink, which goes down about as well as you’d expect.

She throws back the sheets, then storts getting dressed, at the same giving me an unflattering review of my performance last night, certain elements of it obviously chiming with Sorcha, because I notice her nodding and smiling, you’d have to say, sympathetically? Ever the gentleman, I still insist on walking the girl to the door, where I stick a Brody Jenner into her hand and tell her to get herself some breakfast somewhere, before giving her the goodbye guns.

I can hear Sorcha suddenly pottering around in the kitchen and living-room, fixing the sofa cushions, rinsing out our glasses from last night and basically tut-tutting about the state of the gaff. I’m wondering should I tell her she was just a friend who needed somewhere to lay her head for the night, then I think, no – er, she’s divorcing me? I’m, like, a free agent. So I decide to front it out.

I walk into the living-room, clutching my back, as if in pain. “God,” I go, “she certainly took me up through the gears. I mean, there’s not a scrap of meat on the girl, but she handled me like a focking rental cor!” Except Sorcha doesn’t take the bait. She’s sat there with her orms folded, pretending to be engrossed in Sybil and Martin. I sit down on the sofa beside her.

When she does eventually talk, it’s only to go, “I see you’re still using that hydrogen sulfide trick.” She’s the one who got an A in chemistry, so I don’t bother even arguing. “Yeah,” I just go, “you actually arrived just in the nick of time – saved me having to stink the place out and shout, ‘Evacuate! Evacuate!’” She gives me a sideways filthy then, the kind of look you give as you’re passing an old biddy in a Subaru Signet doing 30 in the inside lane of the dual carriageway because she intends turning right at some point in the next hour.

“That’s the same stunt you pulled the morning after we were first together,” she suddenly goes.

I laugh. “It sounds to me like somebody’s jealous.” She laughs then? “Oh, I’m hordly that, Ross. If you must know, I honestly can’t wait for my freedom? I just think, the way you’re carrying on, well, it’s actually a bit sad.”

“Sad? As in?”

“Sad, as in pathetic. Ross, you’re 30 years of age and you’re still behaving like a teenager. Do you want to end up like Johnny Ronan?” I have to laugh at that. “Of course I focking do.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Er, what guy doesn’t? Forty-five and he’s still loving it, loving it, loving it. Although the word around town is that he only got Rosanna on that plane by telling her I was going to be in Marrakesh? Still, hate the game, not the player.”

I’m just getting around to asking her how it’s any of her beeswax anyway when she says something that makes it suddenly clear. “Look, your dad has asked me to have a word with you.” I’m like, “What?” literally unable to believe what I just heard. “About the way you’re living, Ross.”

“What’s it got to do with him?”

“Well, you know he’s planning to run to become Dublin’s first directly elected mayor . . .”

“Er, I was at the press conference, remember?”

“Well, he doesn’t want you embarrassing him and hurting his chances.”

“Me embarrass him? Er, this is a man who’s done actual time?”

“You still didn’t have to heckle him at the press conference, Ross. You didn’t have to shout, ‘Take him away! The man belongs in focking handcuffs!’ from the back of the room.”

“Well, I’d had a few Bartons at that stage. I was probably just showing off in front of Samantha Libreri.”

“Well, you ruined his day. The whole idea of him announcing his candidacy so early, Ross, was so he could publicly repent for his past mistakes and get people used to him again . . .”

Something suddenly occurs to me. “Er, why did he ask you to say this shit to me? You’ve never had any control over me, in fairness to you.” She smiles – for possibly the first time since her boutique went tits up. “He’s asked me to be his campaign strategist.”

I’m like, “You’re pulling! My plonker!”

“I’m not! He’s also asked me to help him with his – oh! my God! – speeches?” I look down and notice she’s got that dude Obama’s book face-down on her lap. “I’m, like, re-reading it?” she just goes. “It’s about time somebody gave the people in this country hope.” All I can do is just shake my head.

She gets suddenly serious then. “What I’m doing here, Ross – in the States they call it, like, dustbusting? It’s getting rid of dirt before it becomes an actual issue.”

I give her one of my world-famous sincere looks. “Hey,” I go, “don’t worry – you’ve nothing to fear from me.”

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