Dancing with the Tsars Read online

  Ross O’Carroll-Kelly

  (as told to Paul Howard)

  * * *

  DANCING WITH THE TSARS

  Illustrated by

  ALAN CLARKE

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Sorcha is Pregnant – and You Won’t BELIEVE the Reaction!

  2. What Happens to Ross Will Make Your Jaw Drop!

  3. When You See What’s on This Menu, You Won’t Want to Eat Again!

  4. This Speech by Sorcha Will Give You Goosebumps!

  5. Twitter Responds to This Shocking Comment by Charles!

  6. The Windows of This Car were Steamed Up. Wait Till You See What’s Inside!

  7. Ross Makes a Discovery – And It is Truly Stunning!

  8. People Can’t Stop Laughing at This Incident on O’Connell Street!

  9. You Won’t Believe What Yanet Garcia Looks Like Now!

  10. This Father-and-Daughter Dance Routine Will Melt Your Heart!

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  For my Auntie Anne (Warren). With love.

  Prologue

  He’s reading a book – and I mean that quite literally? He doesn’t own a TV like normal people. Yeah, no, that’d be too obvious for Fionn. He’s also listening to classical music. I can hear it from outside. Every so often he looks up from his book and sort of, like, smiles to himself, like he’s just heard, I don’t know, a note that he especially loves.

  What a complete and utter jeb-end.

  I’m watching him through the living-room window of the little gaff he’s renting in Windsor Court, just off Stradbrook Road in Blackrock. It’s, like, half-ten at night and he has the lights on and the curtains open, which means I can see in, but he can’t see out.

  I’m trying to see what book he’s reading. I don’t know why? I doubt if I’ll have heard of it. I’ve read four books in my entire life – and three of them were Brian O’Driscoll’s autobiography.

  He picks up his phone. I’m guessing that Sorcha is ringing him because he suddenly looks at his phone and his face lights up, then he turns off the music using the little remote control. He’s grinning like a butcher’s dog. But his expression quickly changes once he answers and it’s obvious that Sorcha is telling him that I’m on my way to see him, that she told me about the two of them having sex and that he’s about to be subjected to a decking to end all deckings.

  He hangs up, a big, worried look on his face, walks over to the window and looks out into the dorkness. Then he draws the curtains, which is a bit rude, so I take that as my cue to kick the front door down.

  Yeah, no, I show it the sole of my right Dube, three times in quick succession – we’re talking, Boomp! Boomp! Boomp! – and even though it doesn’t actually open, there’s definitely movement in it. Then I hear him gibbering away in the hallway, pleading with me not to hurt him.

  ‘Ross,’ he goes, ‘it was one night. And we both agreed that it shouldn’t have happened.’

  That’s what Sorcha said. Then she wanted the three of us to sit down and – direct quote – discuss it like mature adults. But that’s not how I roll. Never will be. Ten seconds after she told me the news, I took off in the cor, with her following me in her old man’s 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe.

  I reckon, if I can get through this door, I’ll have about five minutes to do whatever I want to the dude before Sorcha gets here. And that should be plenty of time. I kick the door a fourth time and this time I hear the sound of wood splitting.

  ‘Ross,’ Fionn goes, a note of definite fear in his voice now, ‘we were working together twenty hours a day on the election. We shared a passion for the issues facing Dublin Bay South – a 3fe for Ranelagh, free Invisalign braces for mothers over forty, the restoration of the right-turn onto Ailesbury Road from Merrion Road northbound – and we confused those feelings for something else. It happens, Ross. It’s called Campaign Sex.’

  I’m there, ‘She was my wife.’

  And he goes, ‘You were getting divorced.’

  ‘That’s irregordless. She’s still my technically wife.’

  ‘You’d been separated for nearly a year. She was free to be with whomever she wanted.’

  Whomever? Okay, I’m not having that.

  I kick the door again. This time it finally gives way and I move towards him with my right fist loaded and ready to deploy.

  I go, ‘This is called payback, Fionn – and it’s pronounced fock you!’ which is a really clever line that just comes to me in the moment.

  But just as I’m about to deliver the punch, he surprises me by producing a small fire extinguisher from behind his back and he lets me have it full in the face. I’m suddenly, like, blinded by foam and that allows him to slip past me and out the front door, running like a cat on Hallowe’en night.

  I manage to clear my eyes and I happen to notice the book he was reading on the floor of the hallway. The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett. I told you. Haven’t a clue.

  Back outside I go. I can’t see him anywhere, but then I hear a cor engine purring to life and I spot his silver Toyota Prius backing out of a porking space about fifty feet away from me.

  I reach it just as he’s completing the manoeuvre and I literally dive onto the front of the thing. So now I’m lying on the bonnet of a cor and I’m staring through the front windscreen at this so-called friend of mine who has committed the ultimate betrayal.

  I’m there, ‘We played rugby together!’ trying to appeal to his sense of humanity. ‘Rugby!’

  I swear to fock, he goes, ‘What does that even mean?’ and I’m thinking, he’s actually making it worse for himself here.

  I’m there, ‘It means we live by a code!’

  And he’s like, ‘What code? Ross, you’ve slept with every girlfriend I’ve ever had.’

  Which isn’t true. There was that ginger girl with the Coca-Cola bottle lenses who he went out with when he was in Trinity. She wasn’t nice at all. I only got off with her.

  He goes, ‘You slept with my sister and broke up her marriage. Well, for once I went with my urges. And do you want to know something?’

  ‘Don’t say it.’

  ‘I loved it!’

  ‘Get out of the cor or I’ll smash this windscreen.’

  ‘I loved every second of it! And so did Sorcha!’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘She said it was a change to be with someone who was a considerate lover!’

  I hit the windscreen with my elbow but it just slides off.

  He goes, ‘She said she’d never been with anyone who was so concerned with her pleasure.’

  What kind of a man talks that way?

  I’m there, ‘Open the door or – I swear to fock – I will smash …’

  I bring my elbow down on the windscreen again – like it’s an opposition player acting the dick in a ruck – and this time it actually cracks. I watch the shock register on the focker’s face. One more blow and I’ll be through it.

  So he panics then and he puts his foot on the accelerator. He takes off – well, insofar as you can take off in a plug-in hybrid? – with me sprawled across the bonnet and holding onto the windscreen wipers for dear life.

  Now I’m the one who’s suddenly scared because the dude has obviously lost it out of genuine fear.

  As he reaches the junction with Stradbrook Road, he slams on the brakes to try to throw me off, but I grab onto his wing mirror to stop myself falling, then I give the windscreen another bang with my elbow. This time it shatters in, like, a million pieces.

  I suddenly hear a woman’s screams. At first I think it must be Fionn, but it ends up being Sorcha, who has pulled up outside Dog Food Manor an
d is shouting, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ out of the driver’s window of her old man’s cor.

  I totally blank her. I can’t believe she’d say that I wasn’t a considerate lover.

  I reach through the broken windscreen and I try to punch Fionn in the face, but he puts his foot down again and turns the wheel left and I have to make another grab for his wing mirror as he tears up Stradbrook Road towards the roundabout, with me hanging onto the front of his cor like Jason focking Bourne.

  As we reach the end of the road, I try to aim another punch at him, but he pulls the wheel right this time and takes the roundabout at, like, forty Ks per hour, with me scrabbling to stay on.

  He’s still trying to justify what he did, by the way. He’s there, ‘You didn’t want her, Ross. If you did, you wouldn’t have had sex with that woman in Glenageary.’

  ‘It was technically Dalkey,’ I go. ‘It was on the border.’

  Sorcha is suddenly driving behind us, beeping her horn, trying to get Fionn to pull over – except he doesn’t? Instead, he storts doing circuits of the roundabout – five, I count – until, dizzy and feeling like I’m going to vom, I manage to finally reach through the smashed windscreen and rip his glasses from his face.

  That ends up being the key play.

  Instantly blinded, he leaves the roundabout, mounts the kerb and – with me still holding on for dear life – manages to slam the cor into a wall.

  Luckily for him, I manage to roll clear just before the point of impact.

  His cor ends up being totalled, and I’m talking totally totalled.

  Sorcha porks and comes chorging over to us, going, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ although I suspect she’s secretly flattered to have two men fighting over her.

  I’m too focked to do anything, though. And so is Fionn. He opens the door on the driver’s side and just falls out onto the grass. I’m lying about ten feet away, too sore and too tired to even move.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ he goes.

  And I’m there, ‘Sorcha’s pregnant. And she doesn’t know which one of us is the father.’

  1. Sorcha is Pregnant – and You Won’t BELIEVE the Reaction!

  Sorcha shows me to the spare room, where she keeps all the other old junk that she has no use for anymore. Her exercise bike. Her Pilates ball. Her collection of Davina McCall and Tracy Shaw exercise videos on VHS. The giant ‘Sorcha’ sign that once hung above her shop in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. All of the bridesmaid dresses she’s ever worn. Her George Foreman Grill with the plug missing. Her old ghetto-blaster that only plays cassette tapes and the radio. Her mood boards from various decorating projects that she’s planned over the years but then done fock-all about. The ice skates that she bought for her and Honor for a trip to the Smithfield Morket six or seven Christmases ago, which were never worn because Honor objected to sharing the ice with – her words? – ‘a pack of focking skanks’.

  I’m like, ‘I’m not sleeping in here. No way.’

  But Sorcha goes, ‘That’s all that’s on offer, Ross.’

  ‘What about your old pair’s room?’

  They’re moving out tomorrow, by the way. Yeah, no, Sorcha was worried that the dishormony between her old man and Honor was – what was the phrase she used? – upsetting the happy equilibrium of her home?

  The truth was that she feared what Honor might do to the dude.

  ‘No,’ she just goes. ‘Mom and Dad are upset enough that I’ve asked them to move out without them having to watch you move your stuff straight into their room. You’d rub their noses in it.’

  I’m there, ‘I wouldn’t rub their noses in it.’

  I would rub their noses in it. I definitely would.

  She goes, ‘I want us to be clear as to the nature of our relationship now, Ross. You’re only living here again for the sake of the children – especially Honor, who needs a strong male role model in her life. There’s no us anymore. There’s never going to be an us again – are we clear about that?’

  I’m looking at her Pilates ball and remembering the fun we had with it the night she finished her two-week Certificate in Mediation course in the Smurfit Business School, then drank all that tequila. Jesus, the noises out of us – like two cows smelling death on the way to the slaughterhouse.

  I’m there, ‘I still think there’s a chance for us.’

  She goes, ‘There isn’t. It’s over, Ross.’

  ‘So am I allowed to bring girls back?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m just wondering, if we are really finished, am I allowed to bring girls back?’

  ‘Do you really need me to answer that question for you?’

  From her body language, I’m guessing it’s a no, but I’ll run it past her again when she’s in better form.

  ‘One last thing,’ she goes. ‘I don’t want any repeat of what happened tonight. I’m talking about you and Fionn. One of you could have been killed.’

  I’m there, ‘How could you do it, Sorcha? Him of all people?’

  ‘You’re actually going to lecture me,’ she goes, ‘on the subject of marital infidelity?’

  ‘I just can’t believe you’d lower yourself. Focking glasses.’

  And that’s when Honor suddenly sticks her head around the door. Midnight and she’s still up. She sees me standing there and she goes, ‘What are you doing here?’

  I turn around to Sorcha and I’m like, ‘Are you going to tell her the good news or am I?’

  ‘Your father is moving back in,’ Sorcha goes. ‘He’s going to be sleeping in this room and looking after you and your brothers while Mommy is doing the important work of the country.’

  Jesus, she’s only been appointed to the Seanad.

  Honor’s face lights up like I don’t know what? Then she comes running at me and throws her orms around my waist, squeezing the basic life out of me. I actually laugh. I’m there, ‘I knew you’d be happy. This way, I get to see my daughter every single day.’

  ‘And your sons,’ Sorcha goes.

  And I’m like, ‘Meh,’ although I don’t actually go, ‘Meh’? I actually go, ‘Hmmm.’

  Honor’s there, ‘I’m so happy you’re home. You’re the only person in the world who actually likes me.’

  ‘Hey, I more than like you,’ I go. ‘I think you’re hilarious. The other good news, if you haven’t heard it yet, is that Sorcha’s old pair are moving out.’

  ‘Oh! My God!’

  ‘Tomorrow!’

  ‘I was trying to think of ways to kill them and make it look like an accident. Like my grandmother did with that American man.’

  Sorcha goes, ‘Don’t keep saying that, Honor. Fionnuala was cleared by an actual jury.’

  And I’m thinking, yeah, a jury that didn’t have all the evidence.

  I’m there, ‘Well, now you don’t need to kill them, because they’re focking gone-zo, the pair of them. Two dicks.’

  Honor is suddenly looking around her with – it’s not even a word – but a quizzical expression on her face? She’s like, ‘Are you sleeping in here?’

  And I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, this is going to be my room.’

  She looks at Sorcha and goes, ‘Why isn’t he sleeping in your bed?’

  She’s a real daddy’s girl.

  Sorcha’s there, ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Is it because you’re a frigid bitch?’ Honor goes.

  I laugh. She can be very funny – when you’re not the one on the wrong end of it.

  I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, maybe you shouldn’t speak to your mother like that.’

  She goes, ‘I’d say she’s like Elsa in bed. The focking ice queen.’

  ‘Honor, I said that’s enough. Look, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you put your pyjamas on …?’ and I hand her my wallet with my credit cords in it, ‘… then go online and buy yourself something nice.’

  Oh, that does the trick! She hugs me again, then skips off to her room. Kids just need a firm hand. And then obviously money for st
uff.

  Sorcha goes, ‘She really hates me.’

  I’m there, ‘I’m sure she doesn’t. Deep, deep, deep, deep down.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll be upset when she finds out – about the baby?’

  ‘Does Dermot Bannon like natural light?’

  ‘I thought we might put off telling her for now. She’s had – oh my God – so much upheaval in her life lately. I think we should wait until you’ve been back here for a few weeks, just so she feels safe and secure enough in her environment to take the news on board.’

  She’ll shit a kidney.

  Sorcha goes, ‘I’m going to have to tell my parents, though. Obviously – because my mom’s, like, my best friend?’

  I’m there, ‘I can only imagine what your old man’s reaction is going to be. His precious daughter. Make sure I’m there for that, will you?’

  ‘I don’t want you gloating.’

  ‘I’m going to gloat. I’m warning you now.’

  ‘I’ve asked Fionn to be here for one o’clock.’

  ‘Fionn? Why does he need to be here?’

  ‘Because he might be the father, Ross. He should be here when I tell my parents the news.’

  I actually laugh.

  I go, ‘Hey, I’m already looking forward to it. I’m sure they’re going to be very understanding.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  Sorcha’s old man’s reaction is the exact same as the time we told him we were engaged.

  ‘I’m going to have a baby,’ Sorcha goes. ‘I’m twelve weeks pregnant. And before you ask the obvious question, Dad, the answer is no, it’s not going to affect the important work I have to do as one of An Taoiseach’s appointees to the Seanad.’

  Sorcha’s old man looks at his daughter like he thinks she’s lost it. He goes, ‘I wasn’t going to ask that at all. I was going to ask how the hell you managed to get yourself pregnant?’

  He obviously just assumes the worst – that I’m the father?

  I’m there, ‘Well, when two grown-ups love each other very much, they sometimes exchange a special kind of hug that can often result in –’