The old man rings me and goes, “Kicker, do you have any idea what’s wrong with your mother?”
I’m there, “I could work on a list for you over the weekend. But – spoiler alert – I can tell you now that dipsomania and norcissism are going to be pretty high up on it.”
"It's just that we had the most wonderful Christmas together. Everything was back to normal. Including, well, not to be indiscreet about it, but sexual intercourse and so forth."
"Jesus Christ."
I'm the most normal member of this family and it gives me no pleasure to say it.
“Your mother is a very physical woman – always was – and I wasn’t exactly hiding like a frightened child in the wardrobe when the battle was joined.”
“Dude, I’m hanging up on you now.”
"But on St Stephen's Day, well, let's just say her mood suddenly dorkened. She seemed to be overcome by a sense of ennui, if you'll pordon the French. She was sad, listless and very withholding – and I do mean that in a sexual way."
“I’m the most normal member of this family and it gives me no pleasure to say it.”
“Anyway, she’s on her way over to you now.”
“What, she’s coming here?”
“Yes, I suggested it might do her a little bit of good to get out of the house for the morning.”
“Yeah, no, thanks for warning me. I could so easily have opened the door to the woman.”
Anyway, about 15 minutes after he hangs up, there ends up being a ring on the doorbell. Well, several rings. I ignore the first six or seven, but she knows I'm home because all of my cors are porked outside, and when she storts shouting "Coo-eee!!!" into the letterbox, I realise I have no choice but to open the door, what with her willpower being stronger than mine.
I’m there, “Sorry, I didn’t hear the doorbell.”
“I was pressing it for a good 15 minutes,” she goes, stepping past me into the gaff.
I’m there, “Well, you’re dogged – I’ll give you that. The number of times you’ve had your nose reset tells us that.”
“Ross, I’m in a terrible funk,” she goes, “and I can’t pull myself out of it.” I feel instantly bad for leaving her outside in the rain.
Being too nice for my own good, I’m there, “Why don’t you come down to the kitchen and we’ll see can we find out what it’s all about?” And, with the whiff of Hendrick’s and the rattle of medical alert bracelets, she follows me.
Honor drops her phone on the island the second she sees her. She’s like, “Fionnuala!” because the two of them are like peas in a basic pod.
“Hello, Honor,” the old dear goes. “I was just telling your father that I’m experiencing what my own mother used to call the post-Christmas blues.”
Honor’s there, “Will I make you a Bloody Mary?”
"That would be lovely," she goes.
Honor makes the best Bloody Mary I've ever tasted.
Sometimes in life, Ross, you get what you want and you realise that it wasn't what you wanted at all.
“Maybe you’re drinking too much,” I suggest. “Or not enough. I know it’s hord to find the exact biting point sometimes with all the meds you’re on.”
"I know why I'm in a funk," she goes. "It's not a mystery."
I’m there, “What is it then?”
“It’s Funderland.”
"Funderland? Er, isn't it, like, cancelled this year?"
"Yes – and with it, my post-Christmas raison d'être."
Yeah, no, just to fill you in on a bit of background here, for the last, like, thirty-something years, the old dear and her mates have staged an annual protest-slash-picket to try to run Funderland out of Ballsbridge.
The Move Funderland to the Northside campaign was as much port of our Christmas as me driving my old man home from Leopardstown Racecourse because he was too pissed to remember where he'd left the cor.
"I miss it," she goes. "The camaraderie with Delma and the other girls. Talking about the Christmas we'd just had. Then someone would produce a flask of hot chocolate – yes, Ross, sometimes spiked with a little something – and we'd sing Kumbaya My Lord until dorkness fell over Ballsbridge."
I’m like, “But you got what you actually wanted – as in, no Funderland.”
"Sometimes in life, Ross, you get what you want and you realise that it wasn't what you wanted at all. Or rather the wanting was better than the actual getting. Maybe, looking back, all we really wanted was the fight. But now there's no Funderland and all I keep thinking is, what if it never comes back?"
“You’ll just have to find a new focus for your bitterness and lack of self-fulfilment,” I go.
Seriously, I should be a life coach.
She wanders over to the window then and looks out. “What on Earth is that?” she suddenly goes. “Look! Up there in the sky!”
I’m there, “You’re hallucinating. Honor, hurry up with that Bloody Mary.”
Honor’s like, “It’s a drone, Fionnuala.”
“A what?” the old dear goes.
I'm there, "Yeah, no, the Killiney and Dalkey Concerned Residents' Association use it to check if there's any unauthorised building going on in the area. They do a flyover three or four times a week."
And that’s when, out of nowhere, Honor goes, “Dad, let’s shoot it down!”
The old dear’s like, “Oh, yes – can we?”
I actually laugh.
I'm there, "Er, what exactly are you proposing to shoot it down with?"
Honor goes, “One of the pellet guns on top of the cupboard there.”
She's talking about the pellet guns that Santa brought for Brian, Johnny and Leo but which Sorcha thought were an inappropriate gift for three five-year-old boys with anger management issues and which Santa now has to return to a friend of Ronan's who goes by the name of Buckets of Blood.
“Can we, Dad?” Honor goes. “Please!”
The pressure of being the cool parent ends up being too much for me. I stand up on a chair and I take down the three guns.
“Okay,” I go, handing them their weapons, “I’m putting up 500 yoyos for whoever can bring the thing down.”
Five minutes later, I’m watching my old dear place the bead at the end of her barrel on the drone, just as it does its third pass over Honalee. She pulls the trigger and there’s a dull crack and suddenly the thing comes dropping from the sky like a shot duck.
And the smile that comes over her face in that moment is something I could never put into words.