The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years (11 page)

Every night, roysh, before we go out on the lash, we have our dinner at the same place. It’s, like, Salmonella City. The biggest buffet you’ve ever seen and it’s, like, all you can eat for, like, seven euros. It has totally focked up my digestive system and I’m basically surprised the health authorities haven’t closed the focking place down. Mind you, they won’t need to, roysh, the way Oisinn is going through their food. It’s the same craic every night. The owner, Fat Juan, takes our money on our way in and Oisinn points at him and goes, ‘I am eating you out of focking business before I go home.’ And Fat Juan laughs and goes, ‘No way, Ireesh.’ And Oisinn’s there, ‘It’s a challenge, man. It’s a challenge.’

Actually, roysh, I have to take the blame for the state that Fionn’s
in. I did promise I’d get him back for stitching me up over the Spanish birds. When he got up this morning, he was full of it, going on about how he and Rosa and Maria were going to go and check out some, I don’t know, focking banana plantation on the north of the island. He’s taking the total piss out of me – doing it really, like, subtly, roysh – but taking the total piss all the same.

The birds came down for breakfast this morning and,
alroysh
, I admit it, roysh, I was trying to make myself sound more intelligent than I am, but what I said wasn’t
that
stupid. I was just like, ‘It’s mad the way it’s called the Canary Islands and you never, like, see any canaries.’ Fionn translates this, roysh, and the three of them stort breaking their shites laughing for, like, twenty minutes. Fionn’s like, ‘Eh, Ross, the name of the islands is actually derived from
canis
, the Latin word for dog. The early explorers found many wild dogs here.’ I’m going to shove that focking guide book up his orse.

Eventually, roysh, the birds go off to the supermarket to get, like, stuff for their trip, and I turn around to Fionn and I’m like, ‘No hard feelings, man. Over–’ He goes, ‘Rosa and Maria? Are you sure?’ I’m like, ‘It’s Kool and the Gang. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.’ Now everyone knows, roysh, that Fionn can’t
handle
the sauce. He’s, like, locked on three pints. So we hit the bor and I stort, like, lorrying the drink into him and after, like, a few pints, roysh, he says he’s going on to shorts, because he doesn’t want to be too out of it for this trip. He’s like, ‘Vodka and orange,’ and I’m basically ordering triple vodkas for the focker, with a little bit of orange just to, like, colour it. After three or four of those, he’s totally forgotten about the banana plantation and me and him are, like, cruising the bors down by the beach. He’s back on the pints and, being the sneaky bastard that I am, I’m
drinking pints of non-alcoholic, which he doesn’t cop.

So five o’clock, roysh, we end up back in the hotel bor with the others. It’s weird, roysh, but pretty much everybody you meet on a knacker holiday claims to be friends with The Monk. Half his focking social circle must have been on our flight on the way over. This basically struck me while we were sitting there having a few scoops and we were joined by Eddie and Decker, these two blokes from Sheriff Street – or Shediff Stree – who were over with their wives. Anyway, roysh, Decker was basically saying how you had to hand it to Jackie Charlton, sure didn’t he do an awful lot for the country but. And Fionn, roysh, who’s basically off his tits by this stage, he goes, ‘What are you bullshitting on about? Jackie focking Charlton!’ And Eddie, roysh, it’s like Fionn’s just told him he’s been, like, knobbing his bird or something, because he gives him this absolute filthy and he goes, ‘Jackie Charlton put Ireland on de map!’ And Fionn’s there, ‘Yeah, roysh. And cartographers all over the world woke up one morning and said, “Good God! Where the fock did that come from?”’ and he storts laughing like a maniac. He’s moved on to pina coladas, I notice. Eddie’s like, ‘Do ye tink usin’ big wurds makes you better dan us?’ and Decker pulls his mate across the table and tells him to leave it. He’s there, ‘Yer man’s floothered, doesn’t know wha’ he’s sayin’. And you don’ wanna be banged up for anudder Christmas, do ye?’ which suddenly has us all wondering. Christian catches my attention and, like, motions towards the door with his eyes, roysh, and Oisinn’s looking pretty freaked-out as well. JP, of course, wants to stay, and there’s, like, no way we can leave him to these two creamers. The goy seems to have a focking death wish on this holiday.

After the Jackie Charlton misunderstanding, roysh, Decker
tries to smooth things over by chatting in general about the
holiday
, ‘For once in me bleedin’ life, I’m glad we’re after switching over to the euro, because the last time we was here, me and the wife spent the two weeks trying to get used to the Jaysusing money.’ We all nod.

Eddie goes, ‘Have yizhad de breakfast yet, lads?’ I tell him I have. He goes, ‘Not de same as at home, is it? De sausages are dem bleedin’ hot dog tings. And de bacon? Jaysus, would ye go on ourra dat!’ Decker goes, ‘Tell dem what happened de furst day we came down but,’ and Eddie goes, ‘Ah Jaysus, yeah, I didn’t know ye had to ask for de fry, so I’m there looking around de buffet – if dat’s de right wurd – and it’s all cheeses and fookin omelettes and potatoes. I says to de waiter fella – Manuel I call him, for de craic – I says to him, ‘Potatoes? Dat’s not breakfast, dat’s a fookin dinner. Get inta dat fookin kitchen and fix us a fry-up dis minute.’ Not de same but. Even de butter’s too salty.’

Christian notices this book that Decker’s been reading out in the sun. It’s, like,
The General
. Or the Genoddle, as Decker calls him. ‘Very good buke dat. Tell ye something but, he was a fookin dort burd, dat fella. Same as yer udder fella, Gilligan. A dorty-lookin’ dort burd. Scumbags is all dee are. Now I’ll tell ye sometin for nuttin, meself and Eddie there are very good friends with de Monk. He’s a personal friend of mine. And a nicer fella ye couldn’t meet. Very down to earth …’ Out of the corner of my eye, roysh, I can see Fionn getting ready to say something, and I’m not quick enough to stop him. He goes, ‘He’s a focking taxi driver!’ Decker’s like, ‘Sorry, bud?’ And Fionn goes, ‘The goy drives a focking taxi for a living.’ Eddie turns to me and he’s like, ‘Your mate’s bang out of order, bud.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, Fionn.
Kool and the Gang, my man. Kool and the Gang.’ But Fionn goes, ‘Down to earth? He’s hardly focking Stephen’s Green Club material, is he?’ And then it’s like, WHACK! Eddie decks him.

And even though I help Christian pick him up, roysh, and, like, Sellotape his glasses back together again, I’m basically happy that I’ve got him back. At least I think I have. The next thing I know, Maria and Rosa are in the bor and they’re, like, all over him, hugging him and making sure he’s alroysh and, like,
screaming
at me in Spanish. I get the gist of it. Bastard is pretty much the same in, like, any language. I’m there, ‘I didn’t hit him.’ They’re there, ‘
Bastardo! Bastardo!
’ And he leaves with an arm around each of their shoulders.

Where are they taking him, I wonder. Their room?

It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, roysh, and I’m chatting up this absolutely cracking German bird – her name’s, like, Mildred – and she’s in the pool, roysh, swimming and whatever, and I’m sitting on the side with my feet in the water, basically listening to her bullshitting on about her plans to go Inter-railing for a year, while at the same time – and this is probably going to sound
SO
sleazy – trying to look down her bikini top. She’s there, ‘There is much in Europe I like to see. I am thinking I like to see Amsterdam and I like to see the Matterhorn and I like to see Prague …’ and I’m going, ‘Come over here and relax, Mildred. You’ll get, em, cramp if you swim too long,’ and she’s like, ‘I am so sorry, Ross. I am so excited when I start the talking about the Deutsche Bahn, yah?’ She’s actually a bit of a sap, roysh, and the goys have nicknamed her, ‘Please To Help Me With My Rucksack?’ but there’s no denying she’s a ringer for Angelina Jolie.

Anyway, roysh, there I am, sitting on the edge of the pool,
basically splashing her with water and it’s, like, a major turn-on, and I’m just wondering whether she can see my stiffy in these shorts, roysh, when all of a sudden Oisinn comes up behind me and, like, pushes me into the pool, the fat bastard. Now I can’t swim, roysh. I didn’t tell Mildred this. I told her I was a pretty strong swimmer. And Oisinn, roysh, I presume he thought I was as well, at least I hope he did. So he dumps me in the water, roysh, we’re talking the deep end here, and I sort of, like, flap my arms in the air for about a minute, totally freaking the shit, and then I sink straight to the bottom.

And in that moment, roysh, I thought that was it. My whole life, like, flashes in front of my eyes and shit. And weird stuff. I’m ten years old again, roysh, and I’m in the junior school and JP and Simon find out that I live in Sallynoggin – wasn’t even
Sallynoggin
, it was Glenageary really – and they put it all over the school and JP and this gang of goys from sixth class stuff my head down the toilet next to the stationery stores and, like, flush it.

Then I’m twelve, roysh, and I’m in Irish college in Galway and it’s half an hour after the
céili’s
ended and I’m standing with my back to a gatepost and I’m getting my first snog off this bird called Martina from Boyle, County Roscommon, which I think might have been her full name because that’s how she always
introduced
herself, and I’m there wearing the face off her, half my mind wondering what I’m supposed to do with my tongue, the other half wondering whether Oisinn and the rest of the goys will have horsed all the home-made bread by the time I get back to the house, then her
bean an tí
opens the front door and gives me daggers and I peg it back to the gaff before the ten o’clock curfew.

Then I’m fourteen, roysh, and I’m having my first drink, me
and Christian skulling a bottle of his old man’s Sandeman port, then feeling dizzy, then puking our rings up in the downstairs jacks, both of us on our knees borfing into the same bowl, then falling asleep on the floor of the study and waking up in the spare room. Christian’s old pair had carried us up to bed and they never said anything to my old man, in fact they never, like, mentioned it again.

Then I’m sixteen, roysh, and I’m meeting Sorcha for the first time at a porty in Fionn’s gaff – he was basically going out with her cousin – and she was wearing a pink Ralph with the collar up, light blue jeans, which I think were Levi’s, and Dubes, and she looked amazing, roysh, and we spent the whole night talking about everything – how I was hoping to make the Senior Cup team, how I hated my old pair, how I seriously needed grinds if I was going to do Honours economics for the Leaving – and we slept together in Fionn’s sister’s bed, roysh, and she told me she’d never done it before and I never told her that I hadn’t either, and five minutes later, roysh, when it was all over, she storted crying and saying she was
such
a fool to do what she’d just done because I would never respect her now and I told her she was wrong, I was like, ‘You are
SO
wrong.’ Then I think of her crying on a few other occasions and me basically not giving a shit.

And then I’m nineteen and me and Christian’s old dear are on the bathroom floor and … slap … SLAP … SLAPSLAPSLAP … Oisinn’s slapping my face and he’s shouting, ‘WAKE UP! WAKE UP, YOU BASTARD!’ and Fionn’s pressing my chest and Christian’s shouting, ‘DON’T DIE. DON’T YOU FOCKING DIE.’ And I can feel the cold, hard tiles against my back and I can hear Mildred sort of, like, borking orders, really calmly, and I can smell chlorine and I can taste vom in my mouth,
and my stomach feels like it’s about to burst, and I open my eyes just as Oisinn’s about to give me mouth-to-mouth and I’m like, ‘Don’t even
think
about it, lover boy.’ And all the goys break their holes laughing, roysh – relief, I suppose – and I roll onto my side and spend five minutes coughing and puking my ring up.

Oisinn goes, ‘Fock it, Ross. Thought we’d lost you there.’ And Mildred, roysh, she goes, ‘But Ross, you told me that you are hoping to make it onto the Ireland swimming team for the Olympics.’ And listening to her say it, roysh, I just break my shite laughing in her face and she goes, ‘To tell lies is not so good, I am thinking,’ and she storms off in a snot, and me and the goys
basically
collapse in laughter again.