“Stop!” Sorcha goes.
Yeah, no, we’re driving through Donnybrook at the time. I generally slow down anyway as we’re passing the spot where Kielys once stood, just to make the sign of the cross on myself. Except Sorcha is looking past me at the other side of the road?
She’s like, “Ross, I said stop!” so – yeah, no – I end up slamming on the brake.
“Oh! My God!” she goes, as she throws open the front passenger door. “Oh! My actual–?” and then races across the road.
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By the time I catch up with her, she’s in – literally? – tears. She’s looking in the window of Eddie Rockets – or what used to be Eddie Rockets – because the place is, I’m just going to come out and say it – gone.
I’m like, “What the fock?” and I mean every word of it.
She’s there, “I know I’m being silly, Ross, but I feel like my mom did when Pia Bang Home went, or like my gran did when they got rid of the Latin Mass. It’s just, I don’t know, too much change too soon.”
I just go, “Hmmm.”
You’d have to – given how upset she is.
She presses her nose to the glass and goes, “This is where we first met, Ross.”
And I’m there, “Now you’re bringing me back,” even though I have no memory of it whatsoever. “You’re definitely, definitely bringing me back, Sorcha.”
She goes, “It was, like, the 28th of January 1998–”
“I remember it like it was yesterday.”
“–and you’d just beaten, I don’t know, I think it was Clongowes?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“You were sitting right there at the counter. With Christian. You had a school copybook in front of you and you were discussing, I don’t know, some play where you thought Christian could have done better. Oh my God, I was so attracted to you.”
“Were you?”
“Yeah, no, I was a total perfectionist-slash-OCD head myself. I remember I was sitting over there with Erika, trying to look at you without looking at you – if you know what I mean. And I remember trying to pluck up the courage to go and talk to you. I went to the toilet and drank half a naggin of vodka before I had the guts to walk up to you and go, ‘Congrats – I thought you had an amazing game today’. And I’ll never forget what you said – because they were, like, the first words you ever spoke to me. You were like, ‘Yeah, no, thanks.’”
“I had the gift of the gab – even then.”
“I asked you if I could pay for your chocolate malt. I actually still have the receipt.”
“What, I let you buy it?”
‘Then you told the waitress that she had a serious attitude problem. And that when you made it as a top-class international rugby player, you were going to come back and buy the place – and then sack her. Oh my God, she was in tears’
— Sorcha
“I ended up paying for your entire meal. I didn’t realise that you’d also ordered a Classic with bacon and cheese fries and a side of chicken tenders.”
She was a bit of a sap for me – in fairness to her.
She goes, “And I still have the napkin that you signed for me.”
I’m there, “What, you asked me for my autograph?”
“No, you offered it to me.”
“Yeah, no, that sounds about right.”
“You said you were going to be famous one day–”
“I could have been the next Brian O’Driscoll – and that’s before there even was a Brian O’Driscoll?”
“– and your autograph would be worth money.”
“Again – classic me.”
“And Christian said not at the rate you were signing them. I think every Sixth Year in Mount Anville and the Loretos had a Ross O’Carroll-Kelly autograph.”
“I always had the confidence that I’d make it in the game. It was one of the things I loved about myself. I mean – yeah, no – I didn’t make it in the end, so it was based on fock-all, but I love that I believed my own bullshit.”
“I remember you storted flicking through the jukebox and you asked me to pick a song – any song I wanted, as long as it wasn’t Ace of Base.”
“I hated Ace of Base. Still do.”
“I asked you to put on Dreams by Gabrielle.”
“Still a good song.”
“My treat, you said.”
“I had serious game in those days.”
“Then you asked me if you could borrow 50p.”
“Serious, serious game.”
“Anyway, 20 minutes later, the song still hadn’t come on –”
“I used to lose my shit when that happened.”
“I think they had, like, a CD on.”
“Did I lose my shit?”
“You told the waitress that you wanted your 50p back. Even though it was my 50p?”
“Is that what this is about, Babes?”
“She gave it to you and you put it straight in your pocket.”
“Jesus, I’ll give you the 50p if it means that much to you.”
“Then you told the waitress that she had a serious attitude problem. And that when you made it as a top-class international rugby player, you were going to come back and buy the place – and then sack her. Oh my God, she was in tears. I was so impressed.”
“Yeah, no, it wasn’t the 50p – it was probably the principle of the matter.”
“I went home that night, pinned the autograph to my study board and I said to my mom, ‘Today I met the boy I’m going to marry.’”
“What was it Gabrielle said? Dreams can come true. She wasn’t bullshitting, in fairness to the girl.”
Sorcha dries her eyes with the tips of her fingers. She’s like, “I’m sorry for being silly, Ross.”
I’m there, “Sorcha, I stopped eating for five days when Kielys went. It’s, like, totally natural when a little piece of your past disappears.”
She goes, “We’d better go,” because I left the car in the middle of the road with its two front doors open and the traffic is backed up probably all the way to Leeson Street Bridge.
Yeah, no, people are leaning on their horns and one dude is shouting in our general postcode, going, “Is that your cor? Move it, you selfish fockers!”
And I’m there, “We don’t have to go straight away, Sorcha. We can stay for a little while longer.”
