‘When I whipped back the valance, it turned out to be one of those beds with, like, drawers built into the base? Thank you, Jim Langan – this is the legacy you’ve left us’
T WAS THE great Rob Kearney who once said of me: “If putting your trousers on running was an Olympic event, that focker would have won medals.” Which is one of my favourite quotes about me. I even remember thinking at the time – wouldn’t be a bad line to have on my gravestone, that.
One thing I do have to admit, though, is that it doesn’t get any easier, no matter how many times you do it. Some of you might even be familiar with the drill yourselves. You’re lying there with a beautiful woman, contentedly spitting zeds, having spent the night going at each other like two Protestants in horse show week – then, all of a sudden, she’s sat bolt upright in the bed, giving it, “Oh, no! My husband’s home!” And that’s pretty much where we join the story of what happened last Thursday morning.
Louisa de Groot is one of Erika’s – funnily enough – equestrian friends? She’s been in love with me for years – that much, everyone knows. So Wednesday night – won’t go into the ins and outs of it – but it finally happened.
Her dream came true and blah blah blah.
When she gripped my wrist, shortly after nine o’clock the following morning, then asked me if I heard a noise downstairs, I sensed what was coming, as sure as a cat who heads for higher ground before anyone else even knows that a focking tsunami is about to hit town.
In fact, I was already pulling back the sheets while she was still going, “I mean, it couldn’t be Clive. He’s going to be in England until, like, the weekend? It’s supposedly a major audit he’s doing.” On went the shirt and chinos, while my feet found my Dubes like they were guided by satnav.
“Louisa!” a voice downstairs went. “Surprise!” I was fully dressed and heading for the only available route out of there while she was, like, silently mouthing her first, “Oh! My God!” of the morning.
In my years as – I like to think – Ireland’s leading philanderer, I’ve climbed through more windows than the entire population of Mountjoy’s D Wing. And yet there’s still nothing quite like the shock of discovering – as in this case – a locked one. I felt along the window sill for the key, except it wasn’t there.
“Oh! My God!” Louisa was still going.
I ran for the bed, already in a half-crouch, getting ready to throw myself under it. Except when I whipped back the valance, it turned out to be one of those ones with, like, drawers built into the base? I remember thinking, thank you, Jim Langan – this is the focking legacy you’ve left us.
The wardrobe was my next thought. Oh, yes – many are the mornings I’ve spent stuck behind a sliding door, farting myself two jean sizes thinner, while trying not to breathe in case it sets the hangers tingling. Except the wardrobes were all, like, shelves? There was no actual standing room in any of them.
Of course, now I was storting to panic. And that was when Louisa came up with an idea – one that even I would have been proud to call my own. “Say you’re here to fix the heating,” she went.
I was like, “What?” “The radiators won’t heat,” she went. “I was supposed to call a plumber. I haven’t had a minute.” Before I could say another word, she’d ushered me out on to the landing, thrown open the door of the hot press and practically shoved me into it. Then she tipped down the stairs and I was suddenly listening to the two of them in the hall, kissing and talking about how much they missed each other.
At least one of them was lying.
Thirty seconds later – I mean, I was waiting for it – I heard him coming up the stairs. It turned out that Clive was English, which meant he didn’t recognise me and knew nothing of my famous rep. “What do you think it is?” I heard him go. He was, like, stood at my shoulder. I was down on my hunkers, pretending to take an interest in the actual boiler.
I was like, “Sorry?” “With the heating,” he went. “It’s a fault in the motorised zone valve, isn’t it?” I stood up and pulled a face – the exact same face I used to pull at school whenever a teacher asked me about the theme of a particular poem or the periodic symbol for water. In other words, non-commital.
He laughed. “Just don’t tell me I need a new cylinder!” he went, then I laughed as well, even though I hadn’t a focking bog what a cylinder was or why needing a new one would be actually funny. “I’ll leave you to it,” he went, then he disappeared downstairs.
I was stood there, thinking, okay, Rossmeister, how are you going to play this one? I thought, well, I’ve got to at least sound like I’m working here, so I took off one of my Dubes and I storted literally belting one of the pipes with it. The plan was to do that for, like, 60 seconds, then go downstairs and tell him that I needed to go back to my – I don’t know – workshop and get a particular tool that I needed. He’d open the door and I’d be Maud focking Gonne.
I was actually putting my shoe back on, while trying to decide where I was going to eat breakfast, when all of a sudden I heard him calling up the stairs. “It’s back working.” Now, I have literally no idea what I did. Freed something would be my guess. A bubble maybe. Or maybe I did nothing. You know the way some things stop working, then for no reason stort working again? Either way, Clive seemed definitely impressed.
“What was it?” he went, when I met him at the bottom of the stairs.
I was like, “Er – that thing you said earlier.”
“The motorised zone valve?”
“Exactly.”
“I knew it. So,” he went, putting his hand in his sky rocket, “what do I owe you?” I was stood there, thinking, I’ve just slept with this dude’s wife – what kind of man would I be if I let him give me money? “Er, €300?” I went. He was like, “Okay – and what for cash?” “Sorry?” “Come on, it’s the way the world’s going. How much to keep it off the books?” I went, “Er – €200?” An hour later, I was eating crème brûlée French toast with drunken strawberries in the Merrion Hotel – hey, I wasn’t paying – when my phone all of a sudden rang. I recognised Louisa’s number and I answered, expecting it to be her, going, “That was close – enjoyable, but close.”
Instead, roysh, it was Clive. “My brother-in-law,” he went, “he lives in Ashford. He’s got a problem with his long element . . . ”
rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com