It’s a very exciting day for me and Sorcha. We’re chaperoning Honor on her first actual date. For South Dublin parents, it’s one of those landmork days in your daughter’s life, like her first visit to the orthodontist, or the first time she arrives home from studying in a friend’s house with the faint smell of spirits off her breath.
Sorcha has been grinning like a fox with an orse full of buckshot since about seven o’clock this morning. The doorbell rings and she shouts up the stairs, “Honor! He’s here!”
He meaning Lindsay. If you haven't had the pleasure yet, Lindsay is the most obnoxious eight-year-old it has ever been my displeasure to meet. He and Honor couldn't be better suited, although I'm sure a major port of the attraction for her is the fact that her old man hates his guts.
Welcome to the next 25 years of my life.
I answer the door and the kid is straight away on my case. “Why do you always have that dumb expression on your face?” is his opening line. “Like you’re trying to remember where you porked the cor.”
I don’t respond. I don’t get the chance. Honor suddenly arrives down the stairs, smelling like the cosmetics hall in B.T.s and ten seconds later we’re leaving for Dundrum - or Sunday worship as it’s known in this house.
Sorcha’s doing the actual driving. But when I go to get into the front passenger seat, I get my first major surprise of the day. Lindsay has got there before me. Even Honor seems a bit put out by this. She’s like, “Why are you sitting up there?”
Lindsay goes, "I can only sit in the front of cors - otherwise, I get, like, nauseous?"
I’m wondering is he just playing it cool. I had one or two moves of my own at that age.
I hop into the back with Honor and off we go. Sorcha’s there, “So what movie do you want to see?”
I'm like, "Big Hero 6 – that's if you're asking me."
Except Lindsay goes, "What do you want to see, Sorcha?"
Sorcha laughs. She’s like, “Me? It’s not up to me.”
The kid's there, "Honor tells me you're really into like, human rights and stuff?"
"Actually," Sorcha goes, "I've been a member of Amnesty International Ireland since I was your age."
"Well, what about Selma then? Have you seen it?"
“I wanted to go to see it, but Ross said it sounded boring.”
I’m there, “I knew I wouldn’t have been able to follow it,” because I’m as thick as gutter mud.
"Well, I'd quite like to see it myself," Lindsay goes. "Honor, let's go to see Selma."
And Honor turns to me with a look of, like, total confusion on her face. I’m thinking, allow me to make the introductions here – Honor, opposite sex; opposite sex, Honor.
Sorcha goes, “I genuinely don’t mind what we see. I’m just – oh my God – dying for some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!”
I laugh. I’m like, “We better book two seats for you then!”
And Honor laughs, which is nice. She goes, “Good one, Dad!”
Lindsay goes, “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
I’m like, “Hey, she the one who admitted this morning that she piled on the pounds at Christmas. I think the phrase ‘two-seat orse’ was actually used.”
"Yeah, but Sorcha is allowed to say stuff like that about herself? Other people aren't. Sorcha, you should be allowed to eat whatever you want without being made to feel guilty."
And that’s when the penny finally drops. The kid has a crush on my wife. Honor, who’s far quicker on the uptake than me, has obviously copped it, too, from the furious way she’s staring at the back of her old dear’s head.
We pull into the cor pork. Lindsay jumps out while the cor is still rolling to a stop, runs around the other side and opens Sorcha’s door for her.
Sorcha’s like, “Thank you, Lindsay – what a lovely little gentleman you are!” not having copped it yet herself.
Honor is spitting nails. As we’re walking through the shopping centre, she goes, “Why is she even dressed like that?”
I’m there, “Like what?”
"Er, like she's the one going on a date?"
Hell hath no fury like a something-something blahdy-blah.
Up to the counter I go. I'm like, "Four tickets for Selma. Is it as boring as it looks?"
The dude goes, “It’s about a march for Civil Rights in America’s Deep South in 1964.”
I’m like, “Yeah, no, you’ve lost me already. Is it long?”
“It’s over two hours.”
“It would be, of course. It’s like my old man always says – people looking for rights tend to go on, don’t they?”
I tip back over to the others with the tickets.
Sorcha is holding her Morc by Morc Jacobs leather clutch to her chest and in her other hand is the biggest cup of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream I have ever seen. From 20 feet away, she looks like the Statue of Liberty.
Into the actual theatre we go. There’s a bit of an awkward ballet in the aisle as we try to work out who’s going to sit where. I end up sitting down first; then next to me, Honor; then next to Honor, Sorcha; then next to Sorcha, at the end of the row, Lindsay.
Honor turns to me, again, looking for an explanation. "He bought that ice cream for her," she goes. "He didn't even ask me if I wanted anything."
It’s time for me to act like a proper father – luckily, it’s one of the things I’m genuinely amazing at. “Your boyfriend has a crush on your mother,” I go. “It’s kind of funny.”
Honor’s like, “Oh, is it?” and she sits there, silently raging during the trailers and the ad that says watching an illegal download is like stealing a handbag, which usually makes her laugh.
I can hear her anger coming to a boil. Suddenly, without saying anything, she takes the cup of ice cream out of her old dear’s hand, then tips it onto the woman’s lap. Sorcha screams – as in, like, literally screams – with fright.
“Oh, dear,” Honor goes. “What a klutz. Let’s go. I think this date is over for you, Mom.”
ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE