'He's arthur putting me on the team for the Maths Olympiad'

Tina and McGahy? If my lips weren’t paralysed by Vicks, roysh, I’d give them a piece of my mind

SO THURSDAY night ended up being date night for Tina – the so-called mother of my son – and McGahy, the principal of his school. And, yeah, it was every bit as weird as you’d expect.

It's like, can youimagine babysitting your 13-year-old boy while his mother goes out for the night with a man who called you "a mindless idiot who represents everything that's wrong with the new Ireland" – and that was while he was handing me my graduation scroll.

They were out for hours as well – whatever they were up to – and, by half-eleven, I was, like, pacing the floor of what people on that side of the city call the "sitting-room", going, "Where ha hell is urr muher?" What I meant to say, of course, was, "Where the hell is your mother?" except my mouth had been pretty much paralysed all week – which is a whole otherstory? Suffice it to say that the previous Sunday – in Temple Bor of all places? –

I ended up being with a girl from Newcastle. I’m talking about Newcastle, the quiet, idyllic town in the north of England, as opposed to Newcastle, the quiet, idyllic town in the north of Wicklow.

Now, it’s a well-known fact that the bouncers in Club M have nicknamed me The Fox for my ability to steal in, in the middle of the night, and pick off hens.

Less well-known is a little secret that I’m going to let you in on now.

Have you ever wondered how those English girls, with their devil horns and their "I'd Love Some Irish In Me" T-shirts, can clip-clop around the old cultural quarter in the middle of winter, with 80 per cent of their skin showing, and notdie of hypothermia? Well, here's the trick. They coat their bodies in Vicks Vapo Rub. This is, like, one hundredper cent true? They do it from head to toe, roysh, so they end up like actual seals – they literally can't feel the cold.

A word of warning, though, to all readers of the old paper of record. If one ever invites you back to her BB on Gardiner Street, do not attempt, as part of the preliminaries, to kiss her body all over. Because Iwoke up on Monday morning, with my nasal passages – honestly – the clearest they've ever been, but with my lips frozen numb to the point that, for five days now,

I haven’t been able to form words or drink my morning coffee without scalding my focking face.

By Thursday night, though, Ronan was finally beginning to understand all my little clicks and grunts.

“Where ha hell is urr muher?”

I went, then hewas there, "Ah, relax, Rosser! Man, your boat race – you look like a fooken chimpanzee in a hot bath!" which was a good line, I had to give it to him.

"Does it not bother you?" I went. (I'll report what I meantto say, rather than what actuallyspilled out of my mouth?)

“Bodder me? Why would it bodder me?”

“I don’t know – your old dear going out with your headmaster? That would have, like, totally weirded me out.”

"Rosser, your ma wrote a doorty buke called Criminal Assetsthat had the word throbbing in it 470 times . . ."

He had a point. When your grandmother is a cut-price, horrifically botoxed version of Jilly Cooper, there’s very little left in the world that can embarrass you.

“But McGahy!” I went. “You know he once described me as a pernicious influence, not only on the school body, but on the planet Earth?”

Ro just shrugged like it was no major thing. “Ah, McGahy’s sowint – he’s arthur putting me on the team for the Maths Olympiad. Foorst time that a Foorst Year’s ever been on it, man.” It’s cool that my son has, like, a genius IQ but I actually laughed in his face.

"Look, shit like Maths Olympiads, they have their place, Ro. I'm not really sure what that place is but it's good, I suppose, to see you taking an interest in your schoolwork and blahdy blahdy blah. But bear in mind also that this is the dude who banned actual rugbyfrom the school?"

He took out his tobacco tin and storted putting together one his famous rollies.

"Ah, I told you," he went, "I've no real inthorest in rubby any mower," which, as you can imagine, is a hord thing for any south Dublin father to hear – even though I amstill young enough to try for another kid.

I was there, “You didn’t say that a year ago when Johnny Sexton gave you the guns coming out of Arnotts.”

“That was a year ago,” he went, lighting his cigarette. “Like I told you, I’m into me boxing now.”

It was at that exact point that Tina – who's supposedly raisinghim? – finally walked through the door, holding, of all things, a rose that McGahy had obviously given to her. I had to laugh. It's no wonder the dude is still single at 50.

“How was he?” Tina went. And before I had a chance to squeeze a word out through my paralysed lips, Ronan went, “He waddent too bad. Bit cranky towards the end but you know how they get when they’re tired.” The two of them had a great laugh at that.

“Ho,” I went, ignoring it, “how hos urr ho-halled hate?”

“How was yisser date?” Ronan, luckily, translated.

She suddenly had this, like, faraway look in her eyes, one I recognised from – funnily enough – the night that Ronan was conceived.

“He’s such a lovely fedda,” she went. “A real gentleman.”

I just, like, rolled my eyes. I have no idea what women want from us but I’m reasonably sure it’s not that.

I was like, “Hare hid he hake oo?”

“He’s aston where he took you,” Ronan went.

“The Bailey – for a drink.” The Bailey? I’ve been going there for years and I’ve never seen him in there.

I tell her, again through

Ronan, that I hope she let him down gently, in a way that won't have – it might or might not be a word – but repercussionsfor the kid's schooling?

“What do you mean, let him down?” she went. “I really like him. Fact, we’re going out for dinner next week.”

“Hinner?” I just, like, turned away. It’s like I had to?

“What’s wrong wir he’s face?” Tina went to Ro. “And what’s that smell of menthol?”

“I’d say, ma, he’s been in the henhouse.”

And she laughed.

“For a minute there, I thought he might have been jealous!”

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