‘The girls just stare at me, licking their lips like the word Galaxy is tattooed across my pecs’
SORCHA WAS WORRIED that allowing Honor to stor in the movie adaptation of the old dear’s recession-era misery lit novel, Mom, They Said They’d Never Heard of Sundried Tomatoes, was going to go to the girl’s head. And I’m not going to say her fears weren’t, like, justified? Because, hord and all as it is to say this about my own daughter, the kid is only three rehab visits and two DUIs away from being Lindsay Lohan. And, hey, she’s got plenty of time. She’s still only six and the movie doesn’t even hit the screens for another three months.
Anyway, the studio which made the thing has been banging on about building up her profile between now and the time the thing, like, premieres? Which is why you’ve been reading quotes dropped here and there about how she’s, like, the most promising child actress to come out of this country since Saoirse Ronan and blahdy focking blah blah.
The latest thing is that they want to get some publicity shots of her and Sorcha leading a pretty much normal life, doing ordinary South Dublin mother-daughter things, like baking brownies, sharing a fake laugh over sushi in Dundrum and concentrating hord while doing Honor’s Mandarin homework together – both of them with a full face of make-up.
They’ve had this, like, photographer dude practically living with them for the past week.
Anyway, my name gets somehow thrown into the mix then – as in, Sorcha mentions that I still play a full and active role in Honor’s life, even though we’re getting, like, divorced and someone in the studio thinks that this will somehow “play well” with cinema audiences.
They decide they want to get a photograph of the three of us, roysh, playing happy families over afternoon tea in the Westbury Hotel. So I agree. “It’s nice to be nice,” has always been, like, a favourite proverb of mine? But then, of course, I end up instantly regretting it when Honor cops me walking across the hotel lounge and – in front of maybe 50 or 60 people – goes, “Oh! My God! What are you wearing?” And believe it or not, roysh, Sorcha – instead of going, “That’s your father, amazing role model, blah, blah, blah, maybe don’t speak to him like that,” – in fact goes, “Yeah, Ross, what are you wearing?”
There’s, like, a gang of girls at the next table – serious lookers, one or two of them – and they’re having, like, a baby shower. I can see one or two of them checking me out, obviously thinking, “Whoa, who’s this face?” Of course, I don’t want my six-year-old daughter destroying my cred in front of them, so I go, “What do you mean, what am I wearing? Er, beige chinos and my old Castlerock jersey.”
“Er,” Honor goes, “how long is it since you left school? Hashtag – so lame!”
Sorcha’s there, “Honor’s right, Ross – why would you think that people would want to see you wearing your old rugby jersey?”
And I find myself having to suddenly defend myself. “Because they’ll obviously want to know a little bit about me – how I’m possibly the best Irish rugby player to never actually make it in the game,” and then I turn to the girls at the next table and go, “I was the original Bressie,” and I give them a big humungous wink. God knows I’m good.
But no, it won’t do – even the photographer dude gets in on the act then, says he’d prefer if I changed, then he tips over to the concierge, who gives him a plain white shirt from the staff wardrobe for me to wear.
Of course I insist on changing there on the spot. I stand up, pull the old school jersey over my head, then throw the shirt on, buttoning it slowly, while the girls just stare at me, licking their lips like the word Galaxy is tattooed across my pecs.
Which, by the way, doesn’t escape the attention of my daughter or my soon-to-be-ex wife. “Ugh,” Honor goes. “You’re how old?” And Sorcha’s like, “My thoughts exactly.” Anyway, we end up doing the photos, pulling all these fake-happy faces while throwing the smoked salmon sambos and the scones with jam and clotted cream into us. I leave my jersey hanging over the orm of the chair – just as a subtle reminder to movies fans of my own famous past – but I hear Sorcha telling the photographer that she wants it, like, Photoshopped out of the final prints and the dude says that’s no problem at all.
She heads off to the Josh Ritter then. And seeing her suddenly gone, the birds having the baby shower obviously see their chance and try to crack up a whole conversation with me.
“What are the photographs for?” one of them goes – she’s not that unlike Belinda Stewart-Wilson.
“Our daughter’s going to be in a movie,” I go. “Mom, They Said They’d Never Heard of Sundried Tomatoes. Me and her mother aren’t actually together anymore, in case you’re wondering.”
She ignores the last line. “Oh my God!” she goes, then she actually smiles at Honor – just being nice – and goes, “You must be so excited.”
Honor shoots her a big patronising smile – I’m not even going to say where she picked that up – and goes, “I don’t wish to be rude but I just want to live an ordinary life.” In other words, keep your Princess Di’s off my old man and your Shiva Roses out of our business.
Well, you should see the faces on the girls. They’re looking at her like she’s a donkey speaking Spanish. Or a six-year-old South Dublin girl speaking Mandarin, come to think of it.
One of the group decides to try to, like, slap Honor down – I could have told her she was, like, wasting her time. “An ordinary life,” she tries to go. “Don’t worry. I’ve a feeling that’s exactly what you’re going to have.”
And Honor, roysh, without blinking, goes, “You should spend a little less time trying to be funny and a bit more time thinking about how you’re going to lose all of that baby weight.”
The girl drops straight into her trap. She storts looking around at the others and goes, “But. But I’m not the one who’s pregnant.” And Honor picks a sandwich crumb off her plate, eats it and, at the same time, goes, “Oops! Sorry.” Six years old. I’m telling you, if she turns out like Lindsay, we’ll have got off lucky.
