The weather in — yeah, no — Portugal has been so good that Sorcha has been suffering the big-time guilts over the future of what she calls our planet? But on Tuesday everything changed when a severe depression suddenly blew in from the west — in other words, her old pair came to visit.
I’m actually lying by the pool, doing my daily sit-ups with my top off, when I hear Honor go, “Oh, for fock’s sake! Not these two focking clowns!”
Then I hear Sorcha’s old dear go, “What kind of way is that to speak about your grandparents?” because Honor hates them even more than I do?
I stand up.
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I’m there, “She has a point, though — as in, what the fock are you even doing here?”
Sorcha’s old man goes, “It’s our holiday apartment — and we don’t need your permission to use it.”
Sorcha all of a sudden steps outside, going, “Oh my God! Oh! My actual! God! What are you two doing here?”
He goes, “We thought we’d surprise you, Dorling!”
I’m there, “You’ve certainly done that. Two knobs. You’ve ruined this holiday for me and Honor — right, Honor?”
“I hate them,” she just goes — because she’s a big-time daddy’s girl. “I’d nearly burn down the aportment just so that I don’t have to look at them for the next week.”
She’s joking. Or least I think she’s joking? But then she burned down Garret and Claire’s caravan in Ballycanew last year, so maybe I’ll hide the matches and anything she might use as an accelerant.
Who’d be the father of a teenage girl, huh?
Sorcha air-kisses her old pair, then goes, “Please don’t listen to these two. It’s so good to see you. You must be storving. We were about to borbecue.”
“Oh, that would be lovely,” Sorcha’s old dear goes, forgetting that it’s me who’s going to be working the grill.
“Is he going to put some clothes on first?” Sorcha’s old man goes, because I don’t think he’s loving the full-frontal view he’s getting of me in just my famous budgie-smugglers.
I’m there, “Of course I’m going to put some clothes on,” reaching for my borbecue apron with “Hot Stuff Coming Through” on the front.
I stort throwing meat onto the grill then while Sorcha and her old pair talk about the weather and how amazing it’s been even though it’s a sure sign that we’ve destroyed the Earth.
“I’m remembering how you won that environmental ort competition,” her old man goes, “when you were in primary school. The picture of the planet weeping. If only the world had heeded your warnings back in the early 1990s, Sorcha.”
They are so full of s, h, one, t.
Honor is on it like a seagull on a child with a 99. She’s like, “You flew here, didn’t you? So how can you complain about the damage we’ve done to the planet when you can just hop on a plane on a whim and fly to Portugal — where you’re not even wanted, by the way?”
I laugh. I really enjoy Honor’s rants once I’m not on the receiving end.
Sorcha’s like, “Honor, can we please not?”
I’m there, “Yeah, no, she’s raised a valid point, Sorcha,” at the same time flipping the burgers. “Why are they here? They still haven’t said.”
Sorcha goes, “They don’t need a reason to—” but then she just happens to catch her old man’s eye and she sees something in it. “Oh my God, you do have a reason for coming.”
It’s her old dear who ends up saying it.
She’s like, “We’ve come to ask you to reconsider this plan of yours — to knock down Honalee and build aportments in its place.”
“Excuse me?” Sorcha goes.
Her old man’s there, “You’ve upset a lot of people, Dorling. Good people.”
Sorcha’s like, “Good people?”
“He means people with the resources to fight you,” her old dear goes. “They’re going to appeal the decision to An Bord Pleanála — and beyond that, to High Court if necessary.”
“Oh my God,” Sorcha goes, “they got to you, didn’t they?”
Sorcha’s old man’s there, “It wasn’t a case of them getting to us. We’ve known the Shottons and the Feltons since before you were born, Dorling. They came to us and expressed a view and we said that we’d talk to you and try to get you to see things from their perspective.”
“You’re taking their side against your own daughter?”
Honor laughs. She’s like, “Oh my God! Hill! Air!”
Sorcha’s old dear goes, “Andrea is worried that if you build a block of aportments, it will set a precedent that others will follow. And pretty soon Killiney and Dalkey will end up looking like—”
“Like Quinta do Lago?” I go.
He’s like, “This is a Lalor family matter — it has nothing to do with you.”
Sorcha’s old dear goes, “They’re just worried — as your father and I are worried — that a very special corner of the world is going to be lost.”
Sorcha’s there, “It won’t be lost. It’ll still be there — except that even more people are going to get to enjoy the view.”
“I’m talking about lost… to people like us, Sorcha.”
Sorcha reacts to this like she’s been stung.
“Oh my God,” she goes. “I never had you two down as snobs.”
Honor’s there, “Er, have you even met these two knobs before?”
I laugh — no choice in the matter.
Sorcha’s like, “I’m doing what I’m doing because there is a housing crisis in this country. We’re living on a piece of land that could accommodate more than a hundred people. I can’t justify that as a citizen — and I can’t justify it as a member of Seanad Éireann.”
She really ramps up the Irish pronunciation — giving it the full “Shack Nid Hair Khin” — which is a mork of how upset she is?
Her old man goes, “Sorcha, you are behaving like a spoilt brat.”
She goes, “I am?”
He’s like, “You’ve been given an easy hand in life and this is how you choose to play it. You just want everyone to think what a great person you are.”
Sorcha goes, “I want you both to leave — right now!”
Her old dear is there, “Can I just remind you, Sorcha, that this is our aportment?”
I’m there, “Do you want me to throw them out on their heads, Sorcha?” because nothing would give me greater pleasure.
But she’s like, “No, Ross, we’re leaving. Come on, we’re going back to Ireland.”
