“So, anyway, I tee’d off,” the old man goes, loving the sound of his own voice, “and of course I managed to slice the bloody-well ball and, well, naturally enough, it ended up in the lake!”
I’m there, “I’ve heard it before – about a thousand times.”
He goes, “Well, Bernie hasn’t heard it, have you, Dorling?”
She’s like, “No, Chardles, I haven’t,” even though she 100 per cent definitely has?
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“And Hennessy here,” the old man goes, “quick as a flash, he says to me, ‘They should send you to Mars, Charlie–’”
I decide to ruin the punchline for him. I go, “If anyone’s capable of finding water up there, it’s you.”
And he’s there, “‘–if anyone’s capable of finding water up there, it’s you, old scout!’ That’s what he said to me! His very words! Have you ever heard the like of it, Bernie?”
She has. It’s basically his only decent anecdote and it’s as old as dirt.
I catch Garret grinning at me – he’s loving this – while Claire, from Bray of all places, says that it’s time for cake.
Yeah, no, it’s the old man’s birthday. I forgot to mention. We’re sitting in his new squeeze’s gaff and we’re playing, like, happy families.
“No, no,” Bernie goes, “presents first.”
Claire goes off and comes back with a box the size of a TV remote, wrapped up in – God, I hate Bray – Christmas wrapping paper.
The old man’s like, “What’s this, Claire? What have you done?”
She’s there, “Honestly, it’s nothing.”
She’s not lying.
I’m like, “It’s not very big, is it?” as the old man storts tearing at the wrapping paper.
He goes, “There’s a famous phrase, Ross, that the best things come in small–”
It’s a set of three soaps shaped like golf balls. From Dealz – that’s as sure as my middle names are Kyle, Gibson and McBride.
“Look at that!” the old man goes, like he’s never seen them before. “They look just like golf balls, don’t they, Kicker? What a clever thing to do! Soap! In the shape of a golf ball! What will they think of next? Dear, oh, dear!”
Bernie produces her gift then? Except she hasn’t bothered her orse even wrapping it. It’s in, like, an Aldi bag. The old man dips his hand into it and pulls out a navy Callaway fleece.
“Look at that!” he goes.
I recognise it. He dropped about a thousand hints that he wanted one in the lead-up to Christmas last year. I got him a set of three soaps shaped like golf balls.
He lays it out on his lap and admires it – like me if I was handed the Leinster number 10 jersey and it’s 20 minutes before kick-off at the RDS.
I’m there, “The security tag is still on it.”
The old man’s like, “Good Lord! Look at that!”
Bernie – no embarrassment whatsoever – goes, “That happens sometimes.”
I’m there, “Yeah, no, especially if you don’t pay for it,” which she chooses to ignore.
She goes, “The fella three doors down, he has a machine that can take them off. It’s just he’s away in Mallorca until Friday.”
I’m like, “You could always just bring it back to the shop,” and I’m basically just stirring the shit. “Do you still have the receipt?”
Hennessy takes a cigor out of his pocket, excuses himself and steps outside into the gorden.
Bernie goes, “I think I might have lost the receipt,” as the old man pulls the thing on over his head.
I’m there, “That’s very focking convenient, Bernie.”
Claire tries to change the subject. She goes, “So, Chorles, do you remember I was telling you that me and Garret were looking for investors to expand our coffee shop business into south Wicklow?”
I’m there, “For fock’s sake.”
Garret rushes straight to her defence. He’s like, “Is there any chance you might let her finish?”
I’m there, “You’re putting the squeeze on him for money. On his birthday. After giving him the shittest present in the world.”
It’s the kind of thing I’d do. Game recognises game.
The old man goes, “It’s a wonderful business model, Kicker. All the staff are ex-offenders. They’ll work for virtually nothing. What choice do they have?”
“It’s also about, you know, rehabilitation,” Garret goes, “repaying their debt to society and finding pleasure in blah, blah, blah.”
The old man’s like, “Very well put, Garret. Do you have that, em, detailed business plan I asked you for?”
Garret’s there, “Er, no, I haven’t had time. It’s only a hundred grand, though.”
I’m like, “A hundred K’s?” and I turn to the old man. “You are not giving these two knobs a hundred K’s.”
Garret goes, “He’ll get it back. Every cent.”
I’m there, “When? He’s 80-focking-whatever-he-is.”
Seriously, these people have so little embarrassment, they could come from Foxrock.
Bernie goes, “It’s up to Chardles what he wants to do with he’s muddy.”
I’m like, “Yeah, this is my inheritance we’re talking about?”
The orgument goes back and forth like this for about an hour before there’s suddenly three loud bangs on the front door. They wouldn’t invest in a doorbell, of course.
Claire goes outside to answer it and suddenly I can hear her going, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” like a girl who likes to pretend she went to Mount Anville even though it was actually Loreto Bray.
Four Feds – I shit you not – step into the kitchen. One of them is like, “Well, Bernie?” and it’s obvious they know each other of old.
The old man goes, “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” and I get a sudden flashback to the time the Criminal Assets Bureau kicked down our front door. “Where are we living? Communist Cuba?”
The same Gord goes, “We have a warrant to search this property as we have reason to believe that it contains stolen goods.”
“Stolen goods?” the old man goes, just as Hennessy steps back into the kitchen, his cigor smoked down to a little brown stump. “Stolen goods, Hennessy! It’s a bloody-well fit-up.”
“We’re going to need that fleece,” one of the Feds goes.
The old man’s there, “You are toying with the wrong people! Take the fleece, by all means! But you are about to discover the meaning of justice the Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara way!”
And one look at Hennessy is enough to tell me that it was he who tipped off the Feds.
