‘Nothing settles a woman’s doubts about her outfit quite like seeing another woman who’s made a total pig’s ear of hers’

The first day of the new school term ended up being the usual emotional bouncy castle for the O’Carroll-Kellys of Blackrock. We’re talking anxiety. We’re talking tears. We’re talking tantrums. And that was only Sorcha trying to decide on an outfit for the school run.

Honor slept through the worst of it, while I was prodded awake at three o’clock in the morning to advise my wife on such vital matters as whether it was too early in A/W13 for cashmere and whether a Cartier scorf was a bit “fock you” in the current economic blahdy blah.

School run fashion, you probably already know, is a serious, serious business and the first day of the new school year is the most important day of all for fashion-savvy moms. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression – and at the gates of Mount Anville, you barely get a first.

“What you wear on the day that school begins will define you for the rest of the year,” Sorcha went. “If you get it wrong on Day One, you can spend the next few weeks overcompensating, and, before you know it, it’s Christmas time and the other mothers are taking about you behind their hands.”

She then listed several – what she called – paradigms? These included, from memory, Uber Rugby Mom, Career Mom in Slim Tailoring and Gym Mom with a Full Face of Make-Up. Once or twice, I nodded off. It was a case of the spirit being unwilling and flesh not really giving a fock.

But Sorcha kept shaking me awake again and when I opened my eyes she was always in the middle of some big, important-sounding question, like: “If I go with the ‘Keeping Down with the Joneses’ look, would High Street come across as, like, sarcastic?”

After several hours of this, I was like one of those Guantanamo detainees that you see in, like, movies. I’d have said yes to any question I was asked in exchange for even five minutes of sleep? But just before eight o’clock, and after a lot of tears – many of them mine – Sorcha finally settled on an outfit for the morning: we’re talking a delaine twill blazer in antique rose by Theory, dark blue skinny jeans by Current/Elliot and black Chloe ballet pumps.

And then it was time to get up.

I swung my feet out of the bed. The bedroom floor looked like a mad bull had run loose in BTs. I had a Munster farmer’s breakfast – a long, open-mouthed stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and a drink of water straight the faucet – then I threw on the first clothes that I could find and grabbed my cor keys.

Deciding on a look for the morning didn't seem to bring Sorcha any happiness. Every minute of the drive between Newtownpork Avenue to the Lower Kilmacud Road, I had to listen to her outpourings of outfit remorse. "Maybe I should have worn a statement colour," she went. "You know my Michael Kors wool-felt blazer in bright blue? I'm wondering now is antique rose possibly a bit meh?"

This was at the traffic lights outside the old Spirit of Negative Equity. The lights had turned green, but, having had pretty much no sleep, I didn’t notice until the dude behind me in a white Mitsubishi Colt gave me an angry blast of his horn. I gave him the finger out the window, then I carried on. And so did my wife.

She was like, “I haven’t completely settled on a bag yet.”

I went, “What the fock are you talking about? We’ve already left the house.”

“I put three or four in the boot. To choose from. The bag is the most difficult thing to get right, Ross. A clutch makes it look like this is the only thing I have to do today. But something over-the-shoulder can totally misshape a blazer. It might even end up being no bag at all.”

Of course, nothing settles a woman’s doubts about her own outfit quite like seeing another woman who’s made a total pig’s ear of hers. We were outside the school, waiting to cut across the oncoming traffic, when the critiquing of the other mothers began.

"Oh my God," she went, "look at Granuaile Sweeney's mum. I mean look, but don't make it obvious that you're looking?"

I was like, “What’s wrong with what she’s wearing?”

“Er, a black maxi dress and Converse? She’s trying way too hard to look like she doesn’t give a shit.”

"Maybe she genuinely doesn't?"

“Of course she does. Look at her hair. She’s had that done somewhere this morning.”

"She's totally undershot the runway. Oh my God, is that Penny Osborne? It is Penny Osborne. Just smile and wave, Ross. Oh my God, how many seasons ago were ponchos in?"

“I don’t know, Babes. I’ve lost track. I didn’t have a lot of sleep, bear in mind.”

"Unless they're back in and I somehow missed it. Have you heard anything about ponchos being back in?"

“Er, no. I’m sure I’d have mentioned it to you.”

I pulled up and killed the engine. Through the front windscreen, Sorcha fake-smiled a woman who I think was Rebecca Morgan’s old dear. “A tight-fitting plaid shirt, with jeans and knee-high boots,” Sorcha managed to go without moving her lips or teeth. “I’m glad I didn’t do that now.”

She checked her make-up in the rearview, while I got out of the cor and opened the back door, only to discover, with a fright that almost stopped my hort, that the back seat was empty.

“You, er, forgot to bring our daughter,” I went.

Sorcha was like, "I told you to wake her, Ross. Oh my God, was it not obvious that I had enough on my mind?"

I got back into the cor and storted it again. As I pulled back out onto the Lower Kilmacud Road, I tried to make light of what happened. I was like, “Late on her first day back. That’s not good.”

And Sorcha went, “No one’s going to see me now. All that effort was for nothing.”

ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE