SEEN & HEARD:SO SORCHA rings me and tells me about her latest scheme to drag people into Sorcha, her contemporary fashion store in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, and Circa, her vintage clothes shop next door, writes ROSS O'CARROLL-KELLY
We're talking complimentary green tea beberos. And, yeah, that was exactly myreaction. "Er, what?" "Don't give me that," she goes. "It's a premium matcha tea, Ross. In fact, it's practically a superfood." I'm there, "Is it?" except, of course, she's got a strop on now, because she knows I'm Scooby Dubious.
"Ross," she goes, "it's, like, a 900-year tradition in Japan. It's grown under the shade of handmade bamboo reed canopies and it's got, like, antioxidants, B-complex and, oh my God, loadsof other stuff." I'm on the Stillorgan Dualler when we're having this conversation. I'm actually flashing my lights to tell this ambulance in front of me to pull into the slow lane if he's only going to do 90. Siren or no siren, some of us have shit to do.
"Don't get me wrong," I go. "It's a decent idea . . ." She's like, " Andit's organic." I'm there, "Okay, decent andorganic. But what you're actually forgetting is that people are going to rip the piss. They're going to go, 'Don't have to spend four or five snots on a macchiato on the way to work anymore – happy days!' You're not going to sell any extra clobber. In fact, all you're going to do, long-term, is piss off Buckys. And you know how I feel about that." Of course she can't be told – none of them can.
She’s there, “The only other place I know that actually does these teas, Ross, is Urth Caffé in Hollywood, which is where all the major stars go for breakfast!” and she hangs up on me, like she’s just delivered some, I don’t know, argument-winning line.
Now, I’ve never been one to blow my own booty hoo, so it gives me no pleasure to tell you that I ended up being right. Thursday morning – we’re talking, what three days later? – she rings me, sounding majorly Hasselhoffed, asking me what I’m, like, doing and shit? I tell her I’m pretty much working. Then I go, “This country’s dirty secrets aren’t going to shred themselves,” which, I admit, is a line I’ve been using in the bars and clubs.
"Oh," she goes, sounding a bit disappointed, in fairness to her. "I just wondered, you know – that's ifyou were anywhere near town – if you fancied popping in for maybe lunch? I was thinking we could get, like, sandwiches from Fallon Byrne and eat them here." I was like, "Job's a good 'un!" because as it happens, roysh, I'm actually on Stephen's Green at the time? I should add that there's what sounds very much to me like a commotion in the background. I think I can pick out one girl's voice saying that her dream job would be, like, a Goodwill Ambassador for the Rainforest Alliance, liaising with the likes of Starbucks and Nespresso on their sustainability programmes, then another girl's voice saying that Kelly Rutherford has called her son Hermès, which is – oh my God – soan amazing name when you think about it.
At first I presume that one or two of Sorcha’s friends are in, maybe Chloe or Sophie or Amie with an ie. It’s only when I hit the shop that I find out the actual Jack.
The queue is out the door, not the door of the shop, I should add, the door of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre and halfway up South William Street; we’re talking two or three hundred people, all standing around waiting. I ask some random bird what she’s queuing for and she just, like, shrugs and goes, “Something for free,” proving what I’d been saying all along – Irish people are famous for ripping the piss, never more so when there’s a recession on.
I follow the line all the way to the shop and look through the window to see Sorcha, done up like a barista, standing beside the counter, her old dear’s Burco bubbling away behind her, three Aeroccinos on the permanent go and steam coming out of her basic ears. Of course she’s working like the rent’s due to make sure everyone gets their, I don’t know, beberos or whatever the fock, and at the same time she’s going, “I’ve just got exclusive new lines in by Bailey, Percy, Literature, Nicole Miller and Sue Wong. And Radcliffe jeans, which I think are even more slimming than Sevens, if you can believe that.”
Of course no one's paying her the slightest attention. They're collecting their teas, then turning and walking straight out of the shop. And that's if she's lucky. Some of them have the actual towns to complain. "It could be hotter," this one old dear goes. Sorcha's like, "Oh my God, I'm sosorry – I'll get you another." "I mean, I've been queuing for over an hour. It's just not good enough." I know we're, like, technically nearly divorced, but I can't even begin to tell you what it does to me, seeing my stillwife being treated like that.
“Sorcha!” I go, and she looks up from her, I don’t know, frothers and various other bits and pieces. She’s there, “Ross!” and I swear to God, roysh, the look of, I suppose, desperation in her eyes breaks my actual hort. I’m there, “It looks like you could do with some help.” She smiles at me and I go, “Go on, hand me that other apron.”
You think I put it on, don’t you? No, I get it, roysh, and I twist it into what is essentially a whip and I stort lashing people across the shins with it, going, “Out! What the fock do you think this is – a soup kitchen? Out! Out!” It only takes me, like, 60 seconds to drive them all out of the shop, then I put the latch on the door. I turn around. It has to be said, I’ve never seen Sorcha looking so grateful, except maybe the first night I was ever with her.
She goes, “Oh my God, Ross, I should have listened to you,” and I’m just there, “Hey, I’m not one for saying I told you so – luckily for you, in this case.” “I should have known what was going to happen,” she goes. “People in Ireland have never had beberos before.” I’m like, “Hey, they’re storving out there – they’ll take anything they can get.” She goes, “Maybe I’ll try it again but with, like, green tea espressos this time?”
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