“I can’t suddenly switch my attentions to one of her mates just because I’ve lost interest in her. This isn’t Wesley. Although life, of course, would be much simpler if it was

IT’S OBVIOUS that she’s never heard of Julianna Margulies, although she takes it as a compliment anyway. I could give a correspondence course in talking young women horizontal.

And I might yet. Pretty much every goy in the Queens is looking over, in a jealous but at the same time admiring way, obviously thinking, I wish I had his confidence, but all the same, fair focks.

"She's an actress," I hear her friend tell her out of the side of her mouth. "I think she's in, like, Snakes on a Plane?"

"Oh," I go, "you better believe she's in Snakes on a Plane," which possibly sounded a lot slicker in my head than when I said it out loud.

There’s, like, four of them, by the way, and they’re all American, which I knew the second I walked through the door and copped them sitting in their little huddle around a low table. A lot of Septics end up in here because it’s in all the tourist guides. Once I saw the pink North Face pac-a-macs and the four glasses of Guinness on the table, untouched, I immediately knew where they were coming from. And where one lucky winner among them is headed later.

“The States?” I go, really laying on the chorm. “I presume you’re over here on holiday slash vacation.”

She – as in the bird I’ve decided I’m going to have a crack at – goes, “Yeah. We came out on here, like, the Dart train? Because we read that the Guinness is, like, so amazing?”

I go, “There’s a lot of things in here that are so amazing,” just to keep the conversation going. “The name’s Ross, by the way.”

“Oh, this is Justice,” she goes, introducing me to her friends, “Alexia, Leandra. And I’m Egwene.”

She says this just as I’m throwing back a gobful of the old Dutch master and I end up nearly showering them with it. It’s true, it really does pay to pack a mac.

“Egwene?” I go, trying to get it together. “Egwene! What a, em . . . What a beautiful name.” Which it isn’t, of course. It belongs in a GP’s waiting room on a poster warning about the dangers of not bagging up.

I don’t say that, of course. I

go, “Can I . . .” and I sort of,

like, indicate the seat with my head and they tell me to sit

down.

“So,” I go to Egwene, trying to, I suppose, gauge the size of the job in front of me, “do you have, like, a boyfriend back home?”

"Yes," she goes, except she says it a bit tooquickly? Then I notice this look pass between the rest of them. It's obviously complicated.

It's Leandra who goes, "Egwene, you have gotto be kidding," and then she turns to me and goes, "She's been with a guy for the past three years who's, like, a total jerk. They're on, like, a break," and she sort of, like, punctuates the word with her, I suppose, indexfingers?

Egwene’s obviously embarrassed. She’s like, “Leandra, he asked for time to decide what he wants and I said I’d give him that time.”

I decide, roysh, that I need to take chorge of the situation here.

"God," I go, doing my best to look angry, "why do goys have to belike that?" and I can instantly feel all four sets of eyes on me. "The sad thing is that they end up giving the good ones a bad name."

One of the things I love about American women is how easily taken in they are – as in, they’ve no idea how full of S, H, One, T I am.

“Well, you seem really decent,” it’s Alexia who goes, and I just shrug and try to look all humble. I’m there, with a totally straight face, “All I’ll say is, not all goys hurt,” which’d be one of my stock lines.

“Okay,” Egwene suddenly goes, standing up, “I need to use the little girls’ room,” and she sort of, like, carefully edges herself out of the seat, trying not to knock the drinks over. I point her in the direction of the old TK Maxx and off she goes.

I'm sat there, admiring her fundament, when something immediately strikes me as odd. It's, like, the way she moves? She sort of, like, shuffles rather than walks. So I look again and I notice with a fright that actually has me mouthing the word "Fock!" that Egwene . . . is pregnant.

Now, as shallow as this is going to make me sound, my first instinct is to get the fock out of there as quickly as possible. Because’s Egwene’s way down the road – we’re talking six or seven months from the looks of her – and I can’t suddenly switch my attentions to one of her mates just because I’ve lost interest in her. This isn’t Wesley. Although life, of course, would be much simpler if it was.

No, I realise, with the instinct of a man who’s found himself in a thousand situations like this before, that I need to make like the shepherds in the Bible story and get the flock out of here.

Leandra tells Justice that they – oh my God – have to find out if they do, like, baton

mouche cruises down the Liffey, and I take advantage of the diversion to sort of, like, lean low to my right and slip out of the seat, then, on my hands and knees, stort crawling towards the door.

I’m thinking , I’ll be sat in Finnegan’s with a pint of something responsible before the first “What an asshole!” slips anyone’s lips. I’m even congratulating myself on another slick exit when all of a sudden, roysh, I find myself staring at a pair of black Kurt Geigers that seem weirdly familiar. Then a voice above me goes, “What the hell are you doing down there, Kicker?”

Oh, for fock’s sake! I look up at him and go, “I’m, er, looking for my contact lens,” which luckily seems to just wash over him.

“Oh,” he just goes, then he sees the four American birds, who are all staring at me.

"I'm Charles," he just goes. "Ross's old dad, as he famously calls me," and before I get a word in edgeways he adds, "I've got some news, Ross, that's going to blow away your Budget day blues. Your sister got engaged tonight!"

I look across the bor and there are Erika and Fionn, laughing away at some private joke. The light catches the stone on Erika’s finger and it ends up nearly blinding me, even from this distance.

Fionn looks delighted with himself, of course. Knows how lucky he’s just got.

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