Sorcha rings me and there’s an air of, like, panic in her voice?
She goes, “Ross, where are you?”
Yeah, no, we’re in Portugal for midterm – along with the rest of south Dublin – and I’m on the road from Quinta do Lago to Vilamoura. Although I don’t tell her that.
I’m there, “I needed, em, something from the shop.”
‘My old dear said you had a kid together. Well, I’m its half-brother. Or half-sister if it’s a girl’
‘Only cheat with someone who’s married. It’s the principle of mutually assured destruction’
‘I strip down to my boxers. I can always drive home commando. Wouldn’t be the first time’
When Ronan was 10, I said, ‘I need to have the chat with you about sex.’ And he said, ‘What are you wanting to know, Rosser?’
She goes, “Ross, the shop is, like, 50 yords away. Why did you take the cor?”
I’m like, “Just to warn you, Sorcha, my mobile reception isn’t great today for some reason.”
She’s there, “Hang on, I’m looking at you here on Find My iPhone. Oh my God, you’re in Vilamoura.”
“I’m going to have to hang up on you,” I go. “I’m only getting every second word.”
So then – yeah, no – I do hang up on her and switch my phone to silent. I can’t tell her what I’m about to do in case she tries to talk me out of it.
The satnav tells me that I’m four minutes away from the address – the one I found rooting through the old dear’s, I want to say, personal effects?
I’ve literally no idea what I’m going to say here. I decide to just wing it, like I did with the Oral Irish back in the day, minus the flirting.
I pull up outside the gaff and it’s ginormous. Yeah, no, I heard the dude had money. Not our family’s kind of money – money made from the corruption of the planning process in the name of naked avarice and I’m quoting from the findings of the Mahon tribunal here. I’m talking about money that had been in the dude’s family for, like, generations.
The elderly man who opens the door is like, ‘Who the hell are you? I don’t keep any money in the house, so you’re wasting your time'
I get out of the cor and I approach the electric gates, which just so happen to be closed. There’s, like, an intercom thing on the wall and I’m just about to press the button when the things open and out walk two women, who I’m guessing are the dude’s cleaners.
They both smile at me. I’ve been sitting in the sun for the best port of a week and I’ve always looked well with a Peter Pan.
I raise one eyebrow and I go, “Ladies!” and one of them says something to the other one in the local lingo, then they both burst out laughing. They’re making it pretty obvious that they’re into me in a major way, but for once in my life I don’t follow through on it. I’m on a mission here.
I slip through the gates just as they’re closing and I walk up to the front door. I press the bell once. When no one answers, I press it again. A few seconds later, an elderly dude pulls open the door and goes, “You forgot to dust the armoire, you stupid f***ing–” and then he cops me standing there. He’s like, “Who the hell are you? I don’t keep any money in the house, so you’re wasting your time.”
He’s definitely my old dear’s type. It’s a wonder they ever broke up.
I’m there, “I’m not here to rob you. Or to dust your whatever-you-said. Are you Conor Hession?”
He goes, “Depends who’s asking.”
I’m there, “The name’s Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.”
He goes, “I’ve never heard of you,” clearly not a Leinster schools rugby of the late 1990s trivia nerd.
I’m like, “You had a thing with my old dear – even though the thought of it turns my stomach – before she met my old man.”
He takes a step backwards like a man who’s realised that he’s about to be served a writ. He goes, “You don’t mean–”
I’m there, “Fionnuala O’Carroll. You were, like, engaged to her?”
He looks genuinely, genuinely terrified.
I’m like, “She said you had a kid together. Well, I’m its half-brother. Or half-sister if it’s a girl.”
He goes, “You’d better come in,” and he opens the door to let me inside.
The traffic in front of him clears and I know what he’s about to do next, so I throw myself across the bonnet of his cor
I step into this humungous, morble hallway and I’m like, “I’m sorry to just crash in on you like this,” hearing my voice echo off the walls. “We’re spending the week in obviously Quints.”
Except when I turn around, the dude has gone out through the front door and pulled it closed behind him. By the time I get it open again, he’s sitting in the driver’s seat of a white Porsche Cayenne with the doors locked.
I’m suddenly banging on the window, going, “I need to know the truth.”
He’s like, “Go away! Please!”
Suddenly, the cor storts up. He floors the accelerator and tears towards the electric gates, which are opening slowly. He just about makes it through the gap.
I set off after him. Not being up on his schools rugby history, he knows little or nothing about my acceleration from a standing stort, and he’s shocked when he pulls up in traffic to find me pulling at the handle of the driver’s door.
He’s like, “I have nothing to say! I have nothing to say about that woman!”
I’m there, “Dude, she can’t hurt you any more! She’s in a nursing home!”
He goes, “Please! Leave me be!”
The traffic in front of him clears and I know what he’s about to do next, so I throw myself across the bonnet of his cor, except he still puts his foot to the metal, and suddenly he’s flying through the streets of Vilamoura with me holding on to his windscreen wipers for dear life.
I’m going, “Stop the cor! Stop the focking cor!” but he’s got this look of, like, fear in his eyes. I’m also, like, blocking his view of the road, so it’s no surprise 60 seconds later when he ends up driving into a Stop sign, wrapping the Cayenne around the pole and sending me hurtling through the air.
Thanks to my – again – rugby training, I know how to land without hurting myself. My eyes are closed and the next thing I hear is a woman’s screams – not any woman either. It’s Sorcha. I must delete that Find My iPhone app.
She’s going, “Ross? Ross!”
Then I hear a man’s voice – Conor Hession’s – going, “Is he okay?”
Sorcha turns on him. She’s like, “What were you thinking? You could have focking killed him!”
I open my eyes.
I’m like, “Please, I need to know. Do I have a brother or sister?”
Sorcha’s there, “A brother or sister? That’s, like, oh my God!”
And the dude goes, “Come back to the house. I’ll tell you everything.”
