Sorcha says she’s sorry and I’m there, “Hey, it’s cool,” even though I’ve no idea what she’s even apologising for?
She goes, “Oh my God, I was such an idiot.”
And I’m there, “Let me be the judge of that,” because it could be literally anything.
“I’m talking about the meltdown I had around new year’s,” she goes and – yeah, no – that’s when the penny finally drops.
Sorcha is standing at the island with a boning knife in one hand and an espresso in the other, grinning at us like a serial killer
The old dear goes, ‘I don’t want my vital work on the campaign Move Funderland to the Northside to die with me’
‘I remember Past Ross thinking, you need to stort being nicer to Future Ross. He’s a genuinely good bloke’
‘Sorcha, I’m wondering is climate justice maybe a bit above Santa’s pay grade?’
Long story short, my wife discovered, while in the process of renewing her passport, that she was born, not on April 19th – the date on which she’s celebrated her birthday for the past 40 years – but in the early hours of April 20th, making her a Taurus rather than an Aries.
This has led to her questioning quite literally hundreds of life decisions she made based on what it said in her horoscope, including – if you can believe this – marrying me.
She’s spent the first, I don’t know, however many weeks of the year staring at a page that she tore from Cosmopolitan the week we first met in Eddie Rockets in Donnybrook. Arians were advised this particular month to persevere if they had recently emborked on a relationship that was already proving difficult and testing. Which is what Sorcha did, in fairness to her.
But Taureans, that same week, were told not to waste one more minute of their time on people who were – their words? – unworthy of their love, because a bad decision at this juncture could lead to – again, this is a direct quote – a lifetime of unhappiness.
She’s like, “You’re an amazing father to our children.” At that exact moment, through the window of the kitchen, I can see Brian, Johnny and Leo ripping up all of her daffodils. I pull down the blind
So Sorcha has spent January, and the first bit of February, reading, then re-reading, then re-rereading her real and fake horoscopes from January 1998, and thinking about what I’ve heard her describe to her friends as “this big Sliding Doors moment” in her life.
But now she’s, like, sorry?
She goes, “I’ve realised that it’s all superstitious rubbish anyway. I don’t need a 26-old copy of Cosmopolitan magazine to tell me that I married the wrong man.”
I’m there, “Especially when you’ve got a mother and father to do it instead.”
She laughs – she obviously thinks I’m joking.
She goes, “You’re an amazing husband, Ross.”
I’m there, “Am I?” because I really don’t give myself enough credit sometimes.
She’s like, “And you’re an amazing father to our children.”
At that exact moment, through the window of the kitchen, I can see Brian, Johnny and Leo ripping up all of her daffodils. I pull down the blind.
I’m there, “That low sun was annoying me. Continue, Sorcha. You were saying what a great dude you married – in spite of all the things that your old pair have said about me over the years.”
She goes, “I’m going to cook a special meal for us tonight – with the day that’s in it.”
I’m like, “Er – and what day would that be?” and it’s a genuine question.
“Stop pretending you don’t know!” she goes. “You’re always pretending that you’re not romantic when you – oh my God – so are?”
Fock, it’s Valentine’s Day. I know that because it always comes very soon after Sixmas. I’ll get on to the Tesco website and get them to deliver 12 roses – no, six roses – no, fock it, 12 roses before they finish their deliveries for the day.
She goes, “Ross, can you do me a favour?”
I’m there, “Bear in mind, I was about to rewatch the Ireland versus Italy match – ”
She’s like, “Can you put this in the bin for me?” and then – very dramatically – she tears the page from Cosmopolitan in half, then into quarters, then into, I don’t know, you do the math.
She hands me the pieces and I throw them in the Brabantia and she goes, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Ross.”
I’m like, “You got there a fraction of a second before me, Sorcha. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Réaltín goes, “Our round-of-32 match – against the Dorseys – it’s been switched to tonight. Seven o’clock in Fitzpatrick’s Castle”
So I sit down to – like I said – watch the match again with my Rugby Tactics Book open on my lap and that’s when my phone all of a sudden rings.
I’m like, “Who the fock rings anyone any more?” and when I check the screen, I see that it’s Réaltín – as in, like, my Padel mixed doubles portner.
I answer. I’m like, “Réaltín, how the hell are you?” trying to keep the conversation light because she can be a bit, I don’t know, intense? “I was just asking out loud there, who rings anyone in this day and age?”
And she goes, “People who can’t get replies to their focking text messages.”
I’m there, “Sorry, I saw I’d a few from you all right,” because she WhatsApps me randomly, we’re talking seven or eight times a day, to ask me what I’ve eaten for a particular meal, or to tell me something inspirational that Mortin Luther King or Mortina Navratilova said, or to remind me to drink this liquid she gave me that tastes of mushrooms, and may or may not have performance-enhancing drugs in it. “Yeah, no, usually, Réaltín, I set aside half an hour at the end of the day to read all of your messages together.”
And that’s when she says it.
She’s like, “Our match has been switched to tonight.”
I’m there, “Exsqueeze me?” which is something I’ve gone back to saying.
She goes, “Our round-of-32 match – against the Dorseys – it’s been switched to tonight. Seven o’clock in Fitzpatrick’s Castle.”
“But it’s, like, Valentine’s Night.”
“So?”
“I don’t know – it’s just a big deal, isn’t it?”
“What, and getting into the last 16 of the Leinster Padel Championships isn’t?”
“I’m not saying that. It’s just that, well, Sorcha was just banging on about what an amazing husband I am. I mean, it was all horseshit at the end of the day, but I’m a sucker for a compliment. She’s cooking dinner for us tonight.”
She goes, “Do you think Brian O’Driscoll, or Johnny Sexton, or Paul O’Connell would have said that? If a Six Nations match fell on Valentine’s Day, do you think they’d have said, ‘Not a good day for me. I’ve plans.’”
She knows what buttons to press with me.
She goes, “Do you want to be considered a good husband – or do you want to be remembered, really remembered, as a winner at something?”
And although I’m no great believer in astrology, I’ve got a very strong suspicion that it’s going to be a bad week romance-wise for Taureans.
