SORCHA AND HONOR are at war at the moment. "She hasn't spoken to me in, like, a weeknow?" Sorcha goes, as upset as I've seen her since the day she came home and caught me enjoying some horizontal refreshment with Eskaterina, the Belarusian nanny.
“She’s giving me – oh my God – the total silent treatment.” So I’ll give you an idea how that works in this part of the world. Mummy and daddy are sitting at the free-standing island in the kitchen. Daddy is having a coffee to, like, steel himself for another unsupervised access day with his six-year-old daughter in Dundrum Shopping Centre. Mummy is flicking through an interiors magazine, dreaming about all the things she’d do to this kitchen if it was still 2005 and the Hilary Swank wasn’t already threatening to take the gaff off her.
Mummy looks at the time, then shouts up the stairs, “Honor Angelou Suu Kyi O’Carroll-Kelly! I’ve already called you twice – I’m not going to call you a third time!”
Daddy receives a text message from his six-year-old daughter that says, “Can u tell ur STBX to tak a f*ing chilpil – il be down whn im ready.”
Sorcha looks up from her Poggen Pohl modern classicism designs and goes, “Was that text from her?”
I go, “Er, no.” Except she knows I’m lying.
"I can't believe you're actuallytaking her side, Ross. You've no idea what the atmosphere in this house has been like."
This is all as a result of Sorcha's decision – which I thought was a bit OTT – to pull her from the set of Mom, They Said They'd Never Heard of Sundried Tomatoes, the movie that they're making based on my old dear's misery-lit novel of the same ridiculous name.
“I wouldn’t say I’m taking her side,” I go. “I just think, you know, she only had, like, three scenes left to shoot. Wouldn’t have hurt to let her just finish the movie – it was only another week.”
She’s like, “You’re totally missing the point, Ross. The entire thing had gone to her – oh my God – head. I didn’t like the person she was becoming. God forgive me, Ross, but our daughter has turned out to be a little bitch.”
I just shrug. “All girls are bitches, to be fair to them. Especially ones from this side of the world.”
She ends up having a basic freak attack at that. “All girls are not bitches, Ross. I was looking at photographs yesterday of Suri Cruise. Oh my God, she is, like, so an amazing little girl. Just sipping her babycino. So placid.”
“I wouldn’t be a 100 per cent sure she’s not an alien.”
"She's notan alien, Ross. She's just a little girl who Tom and Katie have decided should enjoy a normal happy childhood. And you can stop rolling your eyes at me. You have to admit, Ross, you have the easier role as a co-parent here."
“Excuse me?”
“Ross, you breeze in here one day a week, bring her to Dundrum and buy her whatever she wants. I’m the one who has to raise her. Give her some kind of moral code by which to live.”
Moral code? I thought I said goodbye to the Jesuits when I left school.
The next thing I hear is the shuffle of Uggs on the floor and in walks Honor, dragging her feet, with a face on her as long as forever. She puts a piece of paper in front of me, torn from a magazine. It’s a photograph of a dress – a pleated dress by Dior in, like, watermelon, according to the caption. “That’s what I want today,” she goes.
Sorcha gives me what would have to be described as a challengingstare? I go, "Er, cool – we'll get you that, Honor, no problem." I'm a sucker for the kid. What can I say? Sorcha just shakes her head. Honor makes sure to give her a filthy on the way out the door.
I'm still driving Sean FitzPatrick's old Beamer, by the way, which the old man bought me for my 31st. Someone has, like, vandalisedit again? They've written a word on the side of it that I'd be reasonably sure this newspaper wouldn't print. Except this time they've written it in, like, anti-freeze, which has eaten into the actual bodywork, so another spray job isn't going to fix it. I'm going to need two new doors.
Honor doesn't comment on it, just climbs into the front passenger seat and belts herself in. "Oh my God," she goes, "I can totallyunderstand why you'd want to be divorced from that woman."
"Possibly don'ttalk about your mother like that?" I go. "Even though I know you're disappointed about the whole movie thing."
“She’s lame.” “She can be at times, yeah. But she’s doing her best, Honor.” “Whatevs.”
I’m, like, just turning the key in the engine when my phone all of a sudden rings. I answer it. I’m like, “Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. Since 1980,” which is a thing I’ve storted saying. It’s actually funny.
“What have you got, rocks in your head?” the voice on the other end goes.
It’s Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara, the old man’s solicitor. He sounds seriously pissed off. It has to be said, he wouldn’t be a fan of my whole routine.
I go, “Hey, dude – are you not golfing with my old man today?” trying to jolly things along.
“This right what I’m hearing?” he goes. “Your daughter walked off the set of that movie?”
"Well, it was more Sorcha who tookher off? Don't go there would be my basic attitude."
“Don’t go there? Let me tell you something – the producers of this movie are about to hit your wife with a $5 million lawsuit.”
“Okay. And this affects me how?”
“Don’t get cute, you little shithead. You’re divorcing this woman. You do not want to be paying alimony and child support to a woman with a $5 million judgment against her. You couldn’t afford it in 12 lifetimes. So listen to what I’m telling you. The kid stays in the picture.”
“It’s just Sorcha was pretty adamant . . .”
He hangs up before I get a chance to even finish my sentence. Five million dollars, though! Hennessy’s right. Honor has to finish the movie. Except you know what Sorcha’s like when there’s a basic principal involved – remember how she was around the time of the whole war in Iraq, or Iran, or whichever one it was? Once she makes her mind up about something . . .
Which means there’s only one actual solution. I’m going to have to do it behind her back.
rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com/ rossock