It’s, like, New Year’s Day and I’ve got a hangover that knows my name. Sorcha sits down beside at the table and I can literally feel the heat from her smile. I’m like, “Okay, what?”
She goes, “I’ll tell you in a minute. First, I need to call Honor,” and without moving, and at the top of her voice, she goes, “Honnnorrr! Honnnorrr! Honnnorrr!”
If brains had period pains, this is exactly what they’d feel like.
Honor sticks her head around the kitchen door. Sorcha goes, “Oh, there you are!”
Honor's like, "Yeah, whatever – I didn't come because you called me. I came because there's a problem with the wifi. Er, it's not working?"
“Honor, sit down for a minute, will you?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the first day of 2016 and I want us to discuss something as a family.”
That’s when I notice the A4 pad on the table in front of Sorcha and a feeling passes over me that I instantly recognise as dread.
She goes, “We’re going to write down our New Year’s resolutions!”
Honor’s there, “I’d rather be boiled in my own spit. Why isn’t the wifi working? Can we phone someone to come and fix it?”
Sorcha opens up the pad, still smiling. "I've already written some of mine down," she goes. "I'm going to make a conscious effort to be more spiritual. That's, like, the first one down on my list. I used to be – oh my God – so spiritual. Ross, do you remember what I was like when I was in UCD?"
I’m there, “Er, spiritual?”
"Yes, spiritual. I'm going to definitely go back to being spiritual. I must actually take my Paulo Coelho books out of the attic. Oh, and I'm also going to get into the whole, like, mindfulness thing? That's my second resolution."
I'm there, "What even is mindfulness? Everyone seems to be banging on about it all of a sudden."
She goes, “It’s this, like, mental exercise where you totally empty your mind of everything so that you live in a sort of permanent present tense.”
“I’ve been doing that for years. That’s very little going on in my head and I’m saying that as a compliment to myself.”
Honor’s like, “Can I go? Because you’re storting to bore me so much, I might hurt you.”
Sorcha's there, "No, stick around, Honor, because my third resolution involves you! Oh, no, my third resolution is to lose enough weight – in other words, three stone – to fit into my Mary Katrantzou Lamur guipure lace and jacquard midi dress for Amie with an ie's wedding in May. There's this diet called the IV Drip Diet, which sounds drastic, I know, but the weight – oh my God – literally falls off you?"
Honor goes, “What’s the resolution that involves me? Is it fix the focking wifi?”
“No,” Sorcha goes, “it’s even more exciting than that, Honor! You and I are going to sit down every night and we’re going to read one Nobel Peace Prize-winning speech from the book my dad bought me for my birthday!”
Honor looks at me. “Has she been drinking,” she goes, “or is she still pissed from last night?”
It could actually be either.
Sorcha goes, “My fifth resolution is to give up sugar. Sive from my book club was saying she saw this documentary about how much sugar we actually consume in our everyday lives and how bad it is for you. I can’t remember any specific details, but I just remember thinking, Oh! My! God! And salt. I’m definitely giving up salt. And corbs.”
I stand up. I’m there, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be upstairs in the en suite, making an oral sacrifice to Armitage Shanks, The Porcelain King.”
She’s there, “Don’t go yet, Ross, because my sixth resolution involves you.”
“I had a feeling it might.”
"You and I are going to go to the National Concert Hall more often."
“You say that every year.”
“I know I say it every year. Everyone says it every year.”
“But then we never do.”
“Well, we’re definitely going to this year. My seventh resolution is to drive within the speed limit.”
Honor laughs, “I can’t wait to see how that one works out when Horvey Nichs is 15 minutes from closing and they’re holding a top for you.”
I’m like, “Good one, Honor!”
I whip out my phone. Hang on – the wifi’s not working for me either.
I hold it up and I’m like, “Sorcha, what’s going on?”
“And that,” Sorcha goes, “is my eighth New Year’s resolution. We’re going offline!”
Me and Honor look at each other. We’re both like, “Excuse me?”
"I just don't think it's healthy," Sorcha goes, "this modern obsession we all have with our phones. I mean, what are we like at mealtimes? We're all sitting there on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Whatsapp. We don't actually experience anything together anymore – as, like, a family?"
Honor goes, “So what are we supposed to do while we eat?”
"Talk!" Sorcha goes. She's obviously hammered. "Share news. Discuss the events of the day. Keeva, another girl from my book club, did the same thing and she said they have – Oh! My God! – amazing conversations in her house."
I’m there, “But I wouldn’t have much to contribute. I wouldn’t be one of history’s great thinkers. And, Honor, you don’t have a lot to say either, do you?”
“Nothing nice,” Honor goes.
“There you are then, Sorcha. We’d all be just sitting here like a pack of dopes. I suppose we could get a TV for in here.”
“No,” Sorcha goes, smiling, “because that’s my ninth resolution. We’re going to become one of those families that don’t own a TV!”
Me and Honor just stare at each other in silence for a good, like, 30 seconds, then we both run out of the room, up the hallway and into the living room, to be greeted by a sight that shocks both of us to the very core of our being – a 64 inch, white mork on the wall where the TV used to be.
ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE
