PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids, page 18
I get a text from Sorcha. It’s like, Ur mum orgnsed a sprise brdal showr 4 me. So amazng. Goin 4 flwers 2moro. Hows Oz? Mis u hon. X X X. No comment.
‘Close your eyes,’ Oisinn goes and I’m like, ‘Come on, we’re not kids.’ JP’s there, ‘No, he’s roysh, Ross. We want to see the surprise on your faces.’ Oisinn and JP have been painting the Chick Wagon, as we’ve decided to call it. Me, Christian and Fionn were knocking back the old Jim Beams while the goys were busy at work. ‘Come on,’ Oisinn goes, ‘play the game,’ so we knock back the last of our drinks and the goys lead us outside, me, Christian and Fionn just there feeling our way with our eyes closed, like a three focking tools. They manoeuvre us into position and then JP goes, ‘Okay goys, get an eyeful.’
I open my eyes, roysh, and I cannot BELIEVE it. The whole thing’s been painted green, roysh, and there’s loads of shit painted on the side of it in, like, spray paint, things like, ‘BABEMOBILE,’ we’re talking, ‘LOVE MACHINE,’ and we’re talking, ‘ROCK BOYS ON TOUR,’ in huge letters on the sides. Then there’s other shit like, ‘EDDIE O’SULLIVAN’S GREEN AND WHITE ARMY,’ except Eddie’s spelt EDDY, which I’m sure is wrong, and then on the back there’s like, ‘CAUTION – LOVERS ON BOARD!’ I’m like, ‘It’s absolutely, focking brilliant,’ and I turn around and Christian and Fionn are just shaking their heads. Oisinn goes, ‘Something like that, it’d be easy to make it look cheap and nasty,’ and JP’s there, ‘But I think we’ve avoided falling into that particular trap.’ We all hop in the back. Fair focks to them, roysh, they’ve even managed to find new sheets and everything. I’m like, ‘Hey, those beds are going to be seeing some action between now and the time we hit Sydney,’ and we all go, ‘TOUCHDOWN!’ and high-five each other.
Oisinn’s there, ‘Speaking of which. Fionn, have you drawn up the itinerary?’ and Fionn pulls this piece of paper out of his pocket, pushes his glasses up on his nose – focking nerd – and goes, ‘Yeah, I was thinking we might hit the road the day after tomorrow.’ JP’s like, ‘Zero-nine-hundred hours?’ and Fionn goes, ‘Roger that. We’ll hit Cookstown, then Cairns. Spend four or five days there, acquaint ourselves with the local female populace,’ – that’s a laugh in his case – ‘maybe check out the Great Barrier Reef. Then we’ll hit Townsville, Noosa, a few days in Brisbane, then into Sydney in time for the Romania match.’ All the goys are like, ‘Kool plus significant other,’ and JP’s giving it, ‘Military-style precision,’ but I’m like, ‘The day after tomorrow? But this place is a kip. What’s there to hang around for?’ and wait’ll you hear this, roysh, Fionn goes, ‘There’s the East Point Military Museum for storters. They’ve got actual real footage there of the Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1942,’ and we all just look at him for ages, roysh, then I crack my hole and go, ‘Lo-ser!’ but then Oisinn goes, ‘I actually wouldn’t mind getting a look at that myself,’ the fat bastard that he is, and JP goes, ‘And that gallows they used for the last hanging in the Northern Territories, where’s that?’ and Bill focking Bryson’s there, ‘The Fannie Bay Gaol Museum,’ all delighted with himself basically.
Quick as a flash I go, ‘There’s only one kind of fanny I’m interested in,’ trying to, like, get the goys on my side. Oisinn’s there, ‘Well go on then, Ross. Off you go and find some.’ I’m like, ‘Roysh, I will. I’m off to do what I was put on this Earth for – to bring happiness to the lives of young ladies,’ and I head out, slamming the door behind me, and I can hear them, roysh, I can hear them through the walls of the caravan, doing impressions of me, going, ‘The name’s Ross. Played a bit of rugby in my time,’ and they’re all cracking their holes laughing, even Christian, my so-called best mate. So later on, roysh, I’m sat at the bor in Mulligan’s – there’s Irish bors everywhere you look here – and I’m there, ‘Can I get another beer?’ The bird or whatever it is behind the bor just goes, ‘I told you half-an-hour ago the bar’s closed,’ and I’m like, ‘Can I just stay for a bit longer? You won’t even know I’m here.’
She gives this big fock-off Maori guy a nod and he comes over – ten foot focking six, roysh – and he picks me up, still sitting on the stool and everything, he carries me to the door and focks me out into the cor pork. I get up and check my watch. It’s, like, twelve bells. Too early to head home. I head around the back of the boozer and sit down next to a wall. I’m a bit more hammered than I thought and I end up conking out. I wake up with, like, spit dribbling down my face. I wipe it off and check my watch. It’s, like, four o’clock in the morning.
I head back to the Chick Wagon. No, we’re calling it the Chuck Wagon now. Chuck is Australian for basically bird. I open the door, making loads of noise, roysh, making sure to wake the goys up and I’m there going, ‘Sorry about that, goys. Met a couple of Sheilas. Talk about passion,’ and Fionn goes, ‘Funny that, we went out ourselves. We saw you passed out in the cor pork.’ Then all I hear is all this sniggering. I wait until they’ve fallen asleep, then I take a dump in one of Fionn’s shoes.
I’m in the can, roysh, having a shave if the truth be told, when JP storts, like, banging on the door, demanding to be let in. I open the door and I’m like, ‘What is it, you fag?’ and he goes, ‘I need to ask you something,’ and straight away I’m there, ‘Before you do, I just want to tell you I’m strictly into birds.’ He goes, ‘Ross, this is serious shit. I’ve got a strange feeling about this place.’ He’s talking about the Chuck Wagon. I’m there, ‘What are you bullshitting about?’ and he goes, ‘Have you not noticed the way it’s colder inside than it is outside?’ I wipe the last of the shaving foam off my chin. I’m there, ‘You’re not making much sense, JP.’ He goes, ‘We had to open the windows the other night to let some heat in. Dude, I think the place is possessed.’ I’m like, ‘Possessed?’ He goes, ‘Ssshhh, will you,’ and he looks over his shoulder, as if someone might be listening. Then he’s like, ‘A man died in here, Ross. And we don’t even know how.’ I’m just there, ‘You’d want to lay off the sauce, man.’
There we are, roysh, on the open road, sun beating down on us, me – Lead Foot himself – at the wheel, which I shouldn’t technically be, I suppose, because I don’t have a licence, but no one’s gonna know that out here. It’s, like, the desert, roysh, and there’s fock-all out here, just sand basically and the open road. The radio’s blaring, roysh, and it’s ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ and we’re all giving it loads, air guitars, the lot. She got eyes of the bluest kiiind. Next thing, roysh, there’s two birds behind us in a Ferrari and they must have the same radio station on as us because I can see them in the rear-view and they’re, like, mouthing the words to the same song. Then they pull up alongside us, have a quick scope in at us, crack their holes laughing, put the foot down and leave us for dust. ‘Let them go,’ Oisinn goes, feeding his face as usual. Vegemite. Focking stinks. He’s there, ‘Save ourselves for the birds in Cairns.’ He better brush his teeth. After a couple of hours, roysh, we lose the radio, so we strike up a few songs. We basically give them all an airing. We’re talking ‘Ring The Bell, Verger’. We’re talking ‘Ruck, Ruck, Wherever You May Be’. We’re talking ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’. Then, roysh, I pull a cracker out of the bag. We’re talking ‘Bestiality’s Best’, which is, like, to the tune of ‘Tie Your Kangaroo Down’. I’m giving it:
Bestiality’s best, boys,
Bestiality’s best (fock a wallaby),
Bestiality’s best, boys,
Bestiality’s best.
Then you’ve got to come up with, like, your own lines for the verses, roysh, like, ‘Stick your lug in a slug, Doug. Stick your lug in a slug,’ and, like, ‘Slip your slew in a ewe, Lou. Slip your slew in a ewe,’ and it’s, like, totally amazing. We’re all, like, high-fiving each other as we try to outdo each other with the lines and it’s just like old times, like it was at school. Even me and Fionn are, like, hitting it off. So what if he wears glasses. He’s into books and learning and shit, so what basically? We’re laughing and singing and cracking one-liners and, like, reliving old times. And none of us even gives a shit when the focking gearbox suddenly falls out of the Chuck Wagon. We just, like, laugh at that as well. We walk the three miles to the next village – don’t think it even has a name – and we find a mechanic, who tells us it’ll cost a thousand bills to fix the heap of junk, which is, like, two hundred lids each, and we’re like, ‘We don’t care. We’re rolling in it, dude.’
We hit the town’s only restaurant to get some nosebag. It’s, like, twenty minutes since Oisinn last ate and bless him he’s fighting that anorexia every inch of the way. We’re looking down through the menu, roysh, and JP turns to the owner and goes, ‘Is this roysh? They eat kangaroos here?’ and quick as a flash, roysh, Oisinn goes, ‘That’s what we’ll have. Five kangaroos. And five pints of Fosters.’
The grub arrives, roysh, and we’re straight into it, just breaking our holes laughing between mouthfuls, and Oisinn keeps going, ‘Well, Skippy, your old dear sure did taste nice,’ and I can hordly eat I’m laughing that much. My phone rings, roysh, and who is it only Sorcha, sounding majorly pissed off. Checking up on me basically. She goes, ‘You haven’t returned any of my messages. You said you’d text me every day,’ and of course I’m pretty horrendufied at this stage, and I’m like, ‘Can’t talk roysh now. I’m looking at the most magnificent animal I’ve ever seen,’ and she’s suddenly all interested, going, ‘What is it?’ and I’m, like, trying to keep the laughter in, going, ‘It’s a kangaroo, Sorcha.’ I happen to know they’re, like, one of her favourite animals. She goes, ‘OH! MY! GOD! I never saw one outside of captivity. What’s it like?’ and I’m like, ‘What’s it like?’ while the goys are, like, cracking their holes. I’m like, ‘It’s, em, medium rare, Sorcha,’ and I hang up and high-five all of the goys in turn and tell them that these are going to be the best five weeks of our lives. And everyone just goes, ‘Totally.’
I’m in the sack, roysh, watching ‘Home and Away’ when JP barges in and goes, ‘Seen the condensation on the windows?’ and I’m like, ‘What about it?’ and he’s like, ‘It’s on the outside.’ I got an F in biology in the Leaving Cert. Is that supposed to, like, mean something to me?
The big debate of the week, roysh, turns out to be whether we should actually go to the Romania match, which would mean, like, slamming the foot down all the way to Sydney and seeing Australia at pretty much ninety miles an hour, and in the end we were all, like, fock that for a game of soldiers. Didn’t want to break our necks getting down there and plus, roysh, it took longer than expected to fix the gearbox on the Chuck Wagon, we’re talking sixty-five hours, no fifty-eight – fock it, whatever three days is in hours – but we spend the time anyway hanging around, doing the whole goy thing, knocking back beers, having the craic, meeting Sheilas. Eventually, roysh, we get our wheels back and we hit the road again, the plan basically being to carry on rolling into these little outback towns that have never clapped eyes on five Irish stud muffins before and hit the road again when we’ve got the entire female population grinning from ear to ear. It’s like, next stop Cairns. Takes us three hours to hook up with these three Septics, roysh, California they’re from, total honeys, so hot you’d basically need oven gloves to get their focking bra straps open. We meet them in this bor, roysh, yours truly breaking the ice as per usual with a few cheeky one-liners, giving it, ‘I must have died and gone to heaven – all I can see is angels.’
And they’re loving it, roysh, they’re telling me I’m, like, SO sweet, then one of them – image of Penelope Cruz – storts telling me that her great-grandmother comes from County Donna Gall and I manage to resist the temptation to go, ‘And this affects me how?’ because it’s nice to be nice sometimes, roysh, and when you’re away from home you’ve basically got to be, like, an ambassador for your country and shit.
We pair off pretty quickly. I bag off with Penelope, JP scores the Drew Barrymore lookalike and Oisinn ends up with the one who looks a little bit like Barbara Hershey, as in ten years ago. Christian, of course, is still going out with Lauren and has no interest in doing the bould thing behind her back – whatever you’re into – and none of the birds has any interest in Fionn because he’s an ugly focker.
Of course he’s bulling it, roysh, because none of the birds has the slightest interest in the facts he’s quoting about the annual rainfall in the Northern Territories – they’re air hostesses, for fock’s sake – and he leans over to me, roysh, and he goes, ‘Bit dizzy, aren’t they?’ and I’m like, ‘Whatever.’ Just to try to hammer his point home, roysh, he turns around and goes, ‘Remember those two planes crashed into the World Trade Centre? Does anyone remember what date that was?’ and the three birds – The Flying Waitresses, we call them – they look at each other, totally focking clueless, and eventually, roysh, my one goes, ‘I think it was around this time of year? Was it, like, September, or October?’
I give the goy a filthy, but it doesn’t matter, roysh, because fifteen minutes later, me, Oisinn and JP are taking the porty back to test the suspension on the old Winnebago, leaving the glasses-wearing geek at the bor, listening to Christian spouting on about how Lobot was never the loyal courtier that Lando Calrissian thought he was.
The next morning, we take the whole show on the road again, the birds and everything, and we hit the Great Barrier Reef. They’re actually mad into seeing coral and shit, so me, Christian, Oisinn and JP hit the nearest battle cruiser and leave them to it, although Fionn goes with them, with his guidebook and his focking glasses. As JP says, the goy lacks dignity at times. Me and the rest of the goys get talking about rugby. Don’t know much about Romania really, except that wine we had at Odhran’s twenty-first, Riesling or some shit, one-ninety-nine a bottle, ended up borfing my ring up all over the gaff. ‘Crap jeans,’ Oisinn goes. ‘That’s another thing you associate with Romania. Remember that whole Communism thing came to an end. All those stone-washed baggies pegging it into the west,’ and we all break our holes laughing. JP goes, ‘Hey, I can just picture your old man at this very moment in time, Ross. He’s at the bor in Portmornock offering everybody in the bor his views on the match, whether they want them or not. “The Romanians have contributed nothing to our society except that wretched accordion music”.’ Have to say, roysh, it’s an unbelievable impression. He’s going, “They’ve ruined the Blue Danube for Fionnuala and I”,’ Oisinn goes, ‘Hey, didn’t your old pair try to adopt one of those Romanian babies, Ross?’ and I’m there, ‘Yeah. Till this social worker bird came around and heard some of the old man’s views. He told her he thought everyone in Ballymun flats should be turfed out onto the street so they could be redecorated and used for student flats,’ and we all crack our shits again and high-five each other.
The Flying Waitresses arrive back with Fionn in tow, bullshitting on about how the reef is the biggest structure in the world built by living organisms, pissing into the wind basically, and the birds tell us it was, like, SO beautiful and, like, SO amazing – they actually talk like Sorcha – then we suggest we all go out for dinner, roysh, which is, like, a farewell thing more than anything. Because we’ve had our fun basically and it’s time to move on, though sadly the birds didn’t see it that way. No bird likes being given the Spanish Archer, although we were probably wrong to break the news to them by phone. I was the one who did the dirty deed, ringing Penelope Cruz on my mobile. She goes, ‘Where are you guys?’ and I’m like, ‘Em. Halfway to Townsville, if Fionn’s directions are roysh.’ She goes, ‘Townsville?’ obviously not a happy bunny. I go, ‘Hey, they’re the rules of the road, baby,’ not wanting a big emotional scene and shit, but her voice goes all sort of, like, quivery, roysh, trying to lay the whole guilt vibe on me by threatening to turn on the waterworks. She’s going, ‘But … but you told me last night you … loved me.’ Oops. That focking Bundy rum.
JP told Fionn and Oisinn he heard noises in the night. We’re talking voices. He also said he woke up at one point and saw a figure standing over him. I’m pretty sure it was me getting up for a hit and miss. I did stand over his bed for a minute or two trying to decide whether I should shave the focker’s eyebrows off or not. But the voices. Weird voices, he said. He’s pretty much freaking us all out at this stage.
We hit Sydney eventually and if you’re asking me, roysh, it’s not a moment too soon. JP’s got this CD of Elvis gospel songs that he petty-pilfered off some – get this – forty-six-year-old bird he pulled in some kip on Leeson Street, and I swear to God, roysh, if I have to listen to it one more time it’ll be JP walking that milky white way of the Lord one of these days.
The last two weeks have passed in a haze of nights I can’t remember and birds whose names I never bothered my orse asking. Fabienne is the bird I’m with now, roysh, French chick, we’re talking twenty-seven, hasn’t put out yet, but she’s a total lasher. Stick Courtney Cox on a drip, wean her slowly onto three square meals a day and you’re in the same ballpork.
Fionn’s pulled her mate, this Cork bird called Ciara, who’s basically cat, roysh, though not bad for an ugly focker like him, and she also has a head full of useless bullshit, which makes them perfect for each other. As for Oisinn, he’s pulled this, like, Aussie bird called Shona, and if I called her a dog, roysh, I’d have the ISPCA on my case for cruelty to animals. She puts the bet in bet-down.
