I'm in the office and Cillian storts banging on about the former prime minister of Singapore. And I'm supposed to believe my wife is, like, in love with this goy?
Half-two in the morning and One F rings me from Renards to tell me stories about his time in Vietnam and the night he met Bonnie Tyler. I've heard them all, like, a million times before.
"Did I tell you how big her hair was?" he goes.
I'm like, "Yes, Derek - huge . . . ". "Huge doesn't cover it," he went. "Wait'll I get another bourbon here. By the way, I've decided what I'm going to call my autobiography - Last Night a JD Saved My Life," and that was when I hung up on him.
Because it's all right for One F, working for the Building Labourer's Bugle or whatever rag it is he writes for. The dude's practically nocturnal, if that's the word.
And of course there was a time when Bláthnaid and Sheana were my alarm clock too. Not any more. Not now that I'm working in global political risk assessment.
The project I'm involved in at the moment had me in the office at, like, quarter-past-eight this morning. It's one of those ones you really have to concentrate on, involving a lot of difficult calculations.
How many of these long sachets of sugar is the equivalent of, like, two spoonfuls? Should I splash the cup with hot water first? Should I stir clockwise or anti-clockwise? Cillian makes a point, roysh, of always looking at his watch when I put the cup down on his desk, no matter what time it is, even when I'm, like, early.
"I have to say," he goes, "you've really surprised me since you started here, Ross." I'm like, "Really?" He's there "Absolutely - I never used to like cappuccino." I take it on the chin, then settle down for another day of totally mind-numbing boredom.
I stort opening his post.
He's on the Wolfe, giving it, "Yaw, yaw, we probably need to revisit the credit worthiness - or otherwise - of those two pesticide concerns we were talking about before Christmas. Given the situation in Kenya, of course. Dodoma's not exactly a million miles away . . . " He goes like that for the next two hours. It's external cash flow methodologies, event databases and all sorts of other shite that you usually only ever hear after five o'clock on Friday in the Ely.
I'm online, looking at the Ireland squad for the Six Nations, counting up how many of them I've actually stolen birds from over the years, when he tells me he has a job for me. I make him wait, of course, while I go through the last of the backs.
"The office is a little dull," he goes, stating the obvious. "Could do with brightening up," and I'm thinking, yeah, one or two posters maybe. Adriana Lima. Keeley Hazell. Emily Scott.
"Get a hammer and a nail and put that up," he goes, nodding at this picture frame, which is leaning face-in to the wall.
I turn it over and of course it's not Adriana Lima. It's not even Abigail Clancy. It's, like, a quotation.
It's like, "In nearly every economic crisis, the root cause is political, not economic." And underneath it's like, "Lee Kuan Yew." "He was the prime minister of Singapore for 30 years," Cillian goes, without me even asking. "I mean, he built the country, for God's sake." Sorry - and I'm supposed to believe that my wife is in love with this goy? I hang it up - for all the good it does - then go back to my desk and kill another couple of hours fluting around on the net.
Just before lunch - it's always just before lunch - he tells me he wants to talk to me about something. So I sit down opposite him, roysh, with one ankle balanced on my knee, just to let him see that these are actual Mezlans I'm wearing.
"Sorcha tells me you called to the house the other night," he goes, but he doesn't say it with any, like, authority. He knows he's outside his, I don't know, remit here.
"Would that be my house?" I go. "As in, the one I paid the mortgage on?" "What did you want?" he goes and I suddenly know my power here.
"I was asking Sorcha if she had my Hootie and the Blowfish CD. I wanted to put it on my iPod. I ended up staying for coffee and a catch-up." "And of course you knew I was working late on that lecture I'm preparing, Forecasting Hostile Government Action Abroad."
I go, "Cillian, let me give you a quotation. Father Fehily used to say, 'If you can't hang with the big dogs, then stay your puppy ass on the porch'," and I'm looking around me, going, "We should try to find some wall space for that one." He's spitting nails of course. But then he says the weirdest thing.
"Ross," he goes, "would you run your eye over these cost-analysis projections for the Winchester project?" and he turns his laptop around to me, then goes, "Oh damn - looks like I've double-clicked on the wrong file. This is footage of Honor taking her very first steps . . . " I just freeze. I'm staring at the screen and I get this immediate lump in my throat.
I don't know when this was taken - way before Christmas, I reckon - but it's definitely her, walking for the first time, slowly putting one foot in front of the other, while someone holds her steady.
Someone meaning Cillian.
What I want to do is turn away and crack on that it doesn't bother me. But I can't. My eyes are, like, glued to it - Honor's little giraffe legs trying to carry her across the living room, and Sorcha - holding the camera - shouting encouragement and throwing in one or two oh my Gods for good measure. And Cillian holding her little shoulders, guiding her.
Cillian, not me.
Suddenly it feels like I've got a big hole in my chest where my hort used to be and I think I'm going to burst into tears.
"Hey, I'm sorry if that upset you," he goes. "Now I know why Sorcha didn't want me to show it to you." But I don't cry. I don't give him the pleasure. Instead I go out for lunch, get some air and stort thinking about my life at the moment. It's absolute kack - there's no doubt about that.
But it's like the Ireland rugby team going into the Six Nations on the back of the World Cup they had. When you're down you learn to appreciate life's little victories even more. Like knowing that I will always be Honor's dad.
And honking in Cillian's coffee every morning and telling him it's cappuccino.
