Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

‘The Vico Road to the Beacon is the same distance as the Beacon to, I don’t know, sleeping in the focking doorway of Foot Locker’

SORCHA’S FACE lights up – enough to nearly, like, illuminate the entire of her old pair’s attic. “Oh! My God!” she goes. “Do you remember these?”

I’m crawling around the boards on my hands and knees looking for the switch. I find it and flick it and suddenly it’s bright. Sorcha’s holding one of those old-style white telephones with a big smiley face on it and wheels and a bell inside that, like, rings when you put your finger in one of the number holes and turn the dial.

I’m there, “No, I don’t remember them.”

She’s in, like, shock. “You didn’t have one of these? Oh my God, Ross, everyone had one of these!”

“I didn’t. The old dear spent all her money on booze and uppers, remember. The old man used to just buy me, like, rugby gear, rugby balls, blah, blah, blah.”

“Oh my God, Ross, that makes me really sad.”

“Hey, I loved my rugby, Sorcha. Still do.”

She asked me to help her clear her old toys out of her old pair’s gaff. They’re obviously not going to have room for them when they downsize and they’ve asked Sorcha to just take whatever she wants to hang on to.

It's like being on the Late Latefocking Toy Show, there's that much stuff. All it's missing is a couple of dozen tapdancing kids, grinning like they're being electrocuted, and Tubs in a focking sweater.

There’s, like, boxes of Care Bears and My Little Ponies and all Seven Dwarves and bikes of every size and colour. There’s a duck on a lead with legs that spin around on a wheel and every boardgame you can possibly think of and an Airedale terrier that you push around – for some reason – on a trolley. There’s, like, dolls houses of every shape and size. Actually, Sorcha had a decent-sized property portfolio before every other focker on this side of the city got one.

“Oh my God! My mini cooker!” she suddenly goes. “I used to spend hours playing with this. I wish Honor was interested in this kind of stuff – especially at this time of year. We did her Santa list last week.”

“Kids aren’t into, like, toys any more, though, are they?”

“No, it’s sad. I don’t think there was a thing on it that didn’t come straight from the Brown Thomas autumn-winter catalogue.”

Then she laughs. “What do you think she’d say if I brought this downstairs to her now? Or even my Petite 990 over there!”

I’m there, “She’d go, ‘Er, lame much?’”

She’s like, “Or she’d go, ‘OMG, mum! I heart it muchly! Hashtag – get a life!’”

And we both fall around laughing, even though what we’re actually laughing at is what a little bitch our daughter has turned out to be.

I’m there, “Has she got her head around the idea of you managing the euro discount store yet?”

“I don’t think so. But also I don’t care? We’re all having to, like, share the pain of this recession, Ross.”

“You hear people saying that alright. What was the deal with the shampoo, by the way? Did you get to the bottom of it – of why it was making people’s scalps bleed?”

“No, I haven’t been able to get Mr Whittle on the phone. He’s, like, away on business? ”

“Will he not have a shit-fit when he finds out you took it off the shelves?”

“I had to make a decision, Ross, weighing up the commercial interest against the potential threat to public health. Sometimes in retail you have to make those calls.”

I just nod, then I stort checking out this mad-looking thing – it’s, like, a doll’s head and shoulders that you throw slap on. I suppose it’s good preparation for when they’re 14 and going to Wesley.

“So is there any sign of this gaff being sold?” I go.

She’s like, “No, the bank want mum and dad to lower the asking price. They don’t think anyone’s going to pay two million for it in the current climate. They just want it sold. But so do mum and dad, of course.”

“Have they got somewhere else to live yet?”

“They’ve found this – oh my God – beautiful apartment in The Beacon.”

“The Beacon? Jesus!”

“There’s nothing wrong with The Beacon, Ross.”

“Hey, I know. No offence, Sorcha. I’m just saying – the Vico Road to the Beacon is the same distance as the Beacon to, I don’t know, sleeping in the focking doorway of Foot Locker.”

“Well, it’s got two bedrooms,” she goes. “I mean, it’s a sensible-sized home that’s more appropriate for a couple of their age. As my dad said, they don’t actually need this much space if they just de-junk their lives?”

I’m there, “I suppose,” at the same time thinking, good enough for the old focker, because he’s never been a supporter of mine.

Sorcha looks suddenly frustrated then. She’s like, “I don’t know what to keep.”

I’m there, “Keep it all. There’s hordly anything in the attic in Newtownpork Avenue.”

She goes, “I can’t keep it all. It’d take, like, 10 trips in the cor.”

I’m there, “I’ll do 10 trips.”

“Would you?”

“Of course.”

She all of a sudden spots something under a pile of something else. A teddy bear. Obviously an old favourite judging from the squeal she suddenly lets out of her.

“Steve Biko!” she goes.

I laugh. I remember Steve Biko.

I’m there, “You had him when we storted going out together. He was called something else. I remember you renaming him.”

“Oh my God, Ross, you used to knock him off the bed! Do you remember? When we’d be – you know – doing stuff . . . ”

“I didn’t like the way he sometimes looked at me.”

“You used to say, ‘You don’t need Steve Biko any more, Sorcha – you’ve got me.’”

I did actually say that. My seduction technique and my kicking technique were the only two things in my life that I wasn’t totally and utterly shit at.

I suddenly realise that she’s looking at me – and she’s looking at me in that way? Slowly, our hands creep towards each other, along the dusty boards until our fingers are, like, touching. We sit there just staring at each other, a blizzard of dust blowing between us, then our two heads move closer together until our lips are no more than an inch aport.

Then her old man sticks his big, fat barrister’s head through the attic trapdoor and goes, “How are you getting on up here?”

And Sorcha pulls away from me, like I’m suddenly toxic, which I suppose, in the eyes of my soon-to-be-ex-father-in-law, I am.

“I’ve decided I’m going to give it all away,” Sorcha goes. “I’m sure there are children in hospitals who would be delighted with it. Especially at Christmas time. I’m just going to keep one thing.”

And she pulls Steve Biko close to her chest.

rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com/rossock