The old man giving Sorcha financial advice? This is one bailout I want no part of, writes ROSS O'CARROLL-KELLY
The old man asks me for my thoughts on the Budget. It’s like, “Sorry, have we ever met?” I just stare him down. He’s got, like, cappuccino froth on his nose but I don’t tell him – I think because it makes it easier for me to, like, hate him?
"From each according to his means,"he goes. "I never thought I'd live long enough to hear those words pour from the mouth of an Irish government minister. Thirty years ago, you'd have been shot in the street for that kind of talk. Or at least fitted up for a mail train robbery."
“They’ve thrun anutter twenty-five cents on a packet of smokes,” Ronan goes. “Hitting the weak again. Here, you’ve something on your nose there, Grandda.” I give him a filthy – he really is a crawler.
We’re sitting in that restaurant in the middle of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, waiting for Sorcha to arrive. The bad news is that her shop’s in major trouble. Of course she had to know it was coming. She said it herself. Working on Grafton Street these days is like working in a battlefield hospital – you go in every morning and find out who went in the night. Nine West. Guess. Sasha. It was touch and go for Karen Millen for a while. And Oasis.
Now it looks like it's hertime.
She comes in and sits down. She looks, it has to be said, like crap. I know she hasn’t been sleeping because I’ve been getting a lot of 3am calls, to the point where I’ve had to switch my phone to silent before I go to bed now.
She looks at the old man – I know it's not a word – but expectantly? "Well," he goes, "I've looked at the books, like you asked, and what strikes me, first and foremost, Sorcha, is that you're not making enough money in terms of retail sales to meet the shop's overheads."
I laugh in his actual face. "You needed to take the books away to find that out? In the last week, she's sold the sum total of one Christian Lacroix pleated dress and one Bebe braided belt . . ." " Anda Gerard Darel Crochet bag," she goes.
I'm there, "Whatever. She knowsthat the shop is focked – what she's looking for is, like, solutions?"
“Why don’t you budden it?” Ronan suddenly goes.
Sorcha and the old man both look at me.
“He means burn it,” I go. “My twelve-year-old son is suggesting we commit arson, presumably for the insurance.” The old man’s there, “Well, let’s hear the little chap out, Ross. There’s no such thing as a bad idea – take it from someone who came out of the last recession with a reputed fortune of eighty million of your Earth pounds.”
Ronan’s there, “Reet, you know me mate, Nudger?” “Of course,” the old man goes, “he was on my landing. How is he?” “He’s moostard. In anyhow, this happens to be a sideline of his. He’s a brutter, woorks in the fire brigade, knows how to make it look like an electrical fault . . .”
The old man’s there just nodding away. “What are we looking at in terms of overheads?” he goes.
I'm there, "Overheads? What the fock is this – Dragon's Den? You're not burning anything, Ro." Sorcha's there, "I don't think I even could? I'm still the only shop in Dublin stocking Lauren Conrad. And I was the first to do metallic-look Uggs. I literally couldn't stand there and watch it all go up in flames." "Plus," I go, "you had the shop converted to wind power?" which no one seems to have factored in.
A waitress stops by to take Sorcha's order. And to tell Ronan that he can't smoke in here – she gives me a filthy then? I'm there, "Believe me – I've nocontrol over him." Sorcha asks for a soy milk latte and says that sometimes she thinks the best thing would be to just close the shop down. I have to say, I'd be allfor that. She'd be home all day and it'd save me a fortune in childcare. Anyway, it was her old man who gave her the moo to open the shop and it was only ever to give her something to do. What else are you going to do with an Orts degree?
"What's this?" my old man has to go then. "Is this defeatist talk? Are we all to just give in now? Go on the dole and become Communists, like our friends on Kildare Street? Share the painand what-not? This isn't the spirit that brought about what looked for a couple of years there like an economic miracle. Come on, Sorcha – think!"
“Okay,” she goes, “whenever I have, like, a difficult decision to make, I always think, WWSD? In other words, What Would Stella Do?” That’s how there ended up being fourteen wind turbines on the roof of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, by the way.
“I think in this situation,” she goes, “Stella would probably open a second shop in the vacant unit next door, selling, like, vintage clothes? I was thinking I could call it Circa – it’d be, like, Sorcha and Circa.”
"Ah, clever that," Ronan goes, while the old man's there, "Excellent idea!" which is easy for him to say – this is myalimony she's talking about spending here?
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I go, “your answer to the fact that your existing shop isn’t doing any business is to open a second next door, selling secondhand clothes . . .” “Not secondhand, Ross – previously loved.” “Secondhand clothes at, what, four times their original price?” “There’s a lot of nostalgia for the Seventies and Eighties.”
The old man’s like, “Good for you, Sorcha! I’ll tell you what, I’ll even put up the money for it. Or as they say on that show – I’m in!”
I failed Maths in the Leaving Cert. In fact, I didn't even know I didMaths until I got my exam timetable. And I can stillsee what a bad idea this is. Yet I'm the only voice of reason around the table and – I have to admit – I don't like the feeling.
I never thought I’d say this but I think I’d like to hear more about Nudger and that brutter of his.
www.rossocarrollkelly.ie
