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They're porked the whole length of Brighton Road – we're talking BMW X5s of every colour. You'd never know there was, like, a global pandemic on?
The old man is surprised to see me at the door – although shocked is possibly more the word?
“Kicker!” he goes, quickly closing it over, so that he’s suddenly talking to me through a gap about an inch wide. “What a lovely surprise?”
I’m there, “What are you doing?”
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"Well, we're all supposed to be social distancing, aren't we? No one wants to catch this – quote, unquote – thing!"
"Er, I thought you didn't believe it even was a thing?"
“That’s a slight misrepresentation, Ross. I said it was created in a laboratory with a view to inducing moral panic on a global scale and preparing the planet for a totalitarian world government! It’s hordly the same thing!”
“Well, either way, I need to talk to you about the old dear.”
“What about her?”
"Er, she's being held hostage in a so-called stylish budget hotel on, like, a motorway."
“Oh, yes! Awful, awful business!”
"It's got two focking stors," I pretty much roar at him. "She's living on chicken Kiev and chips and little screw top bottles of Sauvignon blanc!"
He’s there, “This is the new world order, Ross! People treated like dangerous subversives for the simple act of travelling abroad! Policemen looking in your shopping bags and asking if your lamb cutlets were necessary! It’s no wonder fear stalks this once great land!”
“Why aren’t you doing something about it? The woman’s ringing me, like, 20 times a day.”
"Hennessy and I will be in the High Court on Tuesday!"
“Tuesday? Her quarantine will be nearly over by then.”
“The wheels of justice move slowly, Kicker – if they move at all!”
“Are you not going to ask me in?”
“It’s, em, not a good time, I’m afraid.”
I go, “What are you up to?” and I give the door a firm nudge with my shoulder, sending him staggering backwards into the hallway.
I can hear voices in the gaff – we're talking a lot of voices?
I’m like, “Does this have something to do with all those cors being porked out there?”
I head for the living room with him running after me, going, “Ross, it really isn’t a convenient time!”
I give that door a serious shove as well. The room ends up being full of all his dickhead mates. We're talking Aurelius Burke. We're talking Gordon Greenhalgh. We're talking Ambrose Rahilly.
If you set off a bomb in this room, you wouldn't see a sheepskin coat at Leopardstown this Christmas.
"The fock is this?" I go, asking the obvious question.
“If you must know,” the old man goes, “it’s a vaccine porty!”
“A vaccine porty?”
“Yes, a chap Hennessy knows was able to get his hands on some – left over at the end of the day, etcetera, etcetera!”
“What, so you’re having brandy and cigors, followed by –”
“That’s right! Aurelius is going to do the necessary, what with him being a qualified medical practitioner!”
“Isn’t he, like, a horse vet?”
“Oh, it’s just an injection, Ross! Although between you and I, he’s not exactly happy about all of this! But, as the only eye-witness to his 1987 hole-in-one, commemorated on the board in Portmornock Golf Club, I threatened to tell the truth – that we’d made the entire thing up with drink taken!”
I'm there, "Can you not see that this whole thing is – and it's a not a phrase that I'd usually use – but morally wrong?"
"Oh, don't bring morals into it, Ross! Look around you! In this room are some of the most important people in Ireland! You don't honestly believe they should stand at the back of some bloody well line while those idiots in Leinster House try to figure out their left foot from their right, do you?"
“Hang on, you don’t even believe in the vaccine. Isn’t New Republic’s position that the Government is using it to read people’s thoughts?”
“As a politician, Ross, I’m fully entitled to a public view and a private view!”
There’s, like, a ring on the doorbell then, followed by a shout from Hennessy of, “The focking Guards are outside!”
How many times have I heard him say those words over the years?
Of course, it causes, like, panic in the room? Like the dude said, these are important people with a lot to lose.
“Stay calm,” the old man goes, “and remain quiet! I shall deal with our friends!”
I follow him out to the front door. He opens it a crack and goes, “What do you want?”
I hear some dude in a – not being racist – but country accent go, “There’s a lot of BMWs parked on the road out there.”
"Well, you're not in Leitrim anymore," the old man goes, "or whatever rain-sodden grief hole you originally hail from."
He can be alright sometimes, my old man.
“We’re looking for Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly,” I hear the dude go. “She absconded from her Mandatory Hotel Quarantine this morning.”
“I wouldn’t blame her! Chicken Kievs? This Government has a bloody well nerve! She’s not here if that’s what you’re implying!”
All of a sudden I hear what would have to be described as a kerfuffle coming from the downstairs jacks. I hear shouting and banging and flushing.
The dudes at the door obviously hear this too because one of them goes, “May we come in?”
The old man's like, "No, you bloody well can't! They may not have taught you the finer points of Constitutional Law in Templemore, but if you wish to search my home, you will obtain a warrant," before literally slamming the door in their faces.
I follow him down the hallway to the jacks then. Hennessy and six or seven others are standing outside, pounding on the door, shouting, “Open this door now!”
The old man’s there, “Was it the cheese you ate, chaps?”
But Hennessy goes, “Aurelius took fright. He didn’t want to be caught in the same house as the vaccines. He’s flushed the bloody lot.”
The old man just sighs, then goes, “Pop upstairs, Ross! I’m sure your mother would love to see you!”