The old dear is home, and says the country has gone to the dogs – er, pot, kettle, black? asks ROSS O'CARROLL-KELLY

GUESS WHO’S BACK.

I spotted her through the window of the Lord Mayor’s Lounge, shoving half a chocolate eclair into her mouth sideways. I told her it reminded me of a clip I saw on YouTube of an African rock python eating a live gazelle.

She went, “Is that any way to speak to your mother?” Then she sipped her oolong, while I stood over her and waited for an explanation.

“I’ve been dropped by my publisher,” she eventually went.

I actually laughed? From the group mails she was sending back, you’d swear she was the next, I don’t know . . . some really big writer.

“It’s a well-known fact,” I went, “that septics have no taste. If even they’re not buying your crap, then you’d surely have to take the hint . . .”

She said thanks for the vote of confidence. I said that’s one of the things that people love about me. I call it. I’m the one who said Declan Kidney should have been sacked last Saturday night.

“So where are you staying?” I went, thinking – fock – she might have her eye on the spare room in my gaff, except she said, “With Delma,” her comrade-in-orms in the campaign to stop the Luas coming to Foxrock. I thought, “Thank God for that”, grabbed a slice of miniature Battenberg, then went to walk away.

“What happened to this country?” I heard her go, the second I’d turned my back on her, and I have to admit, it took me a little bit by surprise. “What happened? I called to see Sorcha today. I had no idea her boutique was gone . . .”

“Well,” I went, “I don’t know why you’re looking to me for an explanation. You were the one who said that the CEC wasn’t going to affect people like us.”

She had no answer to that. She just stared into the distance and said that Bentley’s – “Bentley’s, Ross!” – were doing a three-course lunch for under €25. “Can you imagine the quality of people that’s going to attract?” I just shrugged.

“Things are bad all over,” I went. “Share the pain is the big thing that everyone’s saying. Maybe it’s time you did . . .”

On the way out the door, I ran into Delma, coming back from the old Josh Ritter. She asked me if I’d met the old dear and I was like, “Yeah, she took her snout out of the cake tray for, like, five seconds to say hello.” Delma nodded and said she was worried, as in very worried? I said don’t be – there’s a coconut macaroon and an angel fancy left, though you’ll have to move fast.

“No, no,” she went. “About your mother. About her . . . mental state.” The last bit she said in a whisper. “It must be such a huge shock to her system, Ross, to come home and find the country in the state it’s in . . .”

“She was only gone three months.”

“But even in that short time – the Ireland she remembers is one of wonderful boutiques and expensive gourmet food . . .”

I said I didn’t have time for this, just like the old dear didn’t have time for me growing up – except obviously the two years she spent as a Senior Cup Mum.

Then off I headed.

Later that night, I was sitting in, roysh, eating a takeaway from Ed’s and watching my ever-expanding Sky Plus collection of Lisa Burke’s weather forecasts, when Delma rang in what could only be described as literally hysterics.

She was, like, screaming and ranting and going, “We should have done something, Ross! We should have read the signs! And now it’s this . . .” and I was like, “Delma, stay where you are – I’m on my way!”

The first thing that hit me when I walked through the front door was the hum. It’ll never leave me. It was saffron and chermoula and conchiglie and kale – the smells we all remember from childhood.

Delma was sitting on the stairs, crying. “I only left her for a couple of hours,” she went.

I went through the kitchen door like it didn’t actually exist. I was like, “Mum! Mum!” which I never call her.

I wasn’t ready for the sight that greeted me.

Every inch of the kitchen – we’re talking the island, the table, the two sideboards, the tops of cupboards, even the focking floors – was literally covered in, like, food.

I immediately recognised her cranachan with Brazil nuts and boysenberries, her Persian-style chowder and her Madras poussins with pear and rose hip chutney.

But there were, like, dishes everywhere and my eyes didn’t know where to rest. Rigatoni. Prawn pilaf. Turkey brochettes. Rainbow chard with salsa verde.

I was like, “What the . . .” but I was actually lost for words? There were, like, bowls of her famous gazpacho Andaluz. Mountains of pan-seared scallops with minted peas. Plate after plate of bruschetta with cavalo nero and mortadella. And enough tuna mayo vol au vents to keep the Handweavers in business for a year.

And there, smack bang in the middle of this pretty much feast, stood the old dear – covered from head to toe in cayenne and flour and fock knows what else, hair all over the shop, breathing hord and looking – and this is going to sound disgusting? – but very much post-coital.

I went, “What the fock?” It was, like, 10 or 20 seconds before she answered me – and even then it was only to tell me, while trying to catch her breath, that the pheasant pie with sweet potato topping was going to take another half an hour.

I managed to find a path to her between the plates of cranberry and white chocolate cookies, bowls of borlotti bean minestrone and literally buckets of dried fruit compote with Grand Marnier and Greek yoghurt.

I took her by the two shoulders and shook her, except she kept muttering about Moutarde de Meaux Pommery and jumbleberry crumble, making no sense – babbling, essentially – while at the same time I was going, “Mum! Mum!” trying to, like, snap her out of it.

I helped her over to the table, literally kicking aside budino di cioccolatos, mirin-glazed salmon darnes and halloumi bites. I took a plate of coq au riesling off a chair and told her to sit down – which she did.

It took maybe 10 minutes but eventually she was back in the room with me, looking around her at all this food she’d prepared – except it was like she was seeing it for the first time, like she’d been, I don’t know, processed by the devil, if that’s the word.

“Oh my God!” she just went. “What have I done?”

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