Her name's Asia – that alone should have alerted my 'fifth sense'. Or the big sign over her head saying 'bunny boiler', writes ROSS O'CARROLL-KELLY
IT’S ALWAYS BEEN a bit of a rule of mine – and one that’s served me well over the years – never to get involved with a bird named after a colour, a continent or a month of the year, what with them being generally mad as a focking meataxe.
Asia Denning was one of those rare exceptions when I decided to ignore the dangers, sucker for a pretty face that I am, and ended up unleashing basic hell on myself – and I still don’t know how it’s going to end? But I can tell you how it storted. It was last Sunday. The homecoming at the RDS. I remember JP was saying that you’re going to have people from Longford and Offaly and all sorts following Leo’s Lions now and I was looking up at Big Mal holding that cup and I went, “That’s a price that I, for one, am prepared to pay.”
I’ve always had this, like, fifth sense for when someone’s, like, checking me out? For some reason, roysh, I looked over to my left and there’s this bird – think Keeley Hazell and you’re bang on the money – literally staring over in our general direction. Of course, Oisinn, Fionn and JP are like three kids back in the Wez.
“Which one of us do you think she’s into?” JP goes and I laugh – I know it’s not a word – but knowingly? I’d never be so big-headed as to actually say it but it’s always me they’re looking at.
Eventually, roysh, she plucks up the courage to tip over and she’s straight up to me. “Hi,” is her opener, “you’re Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, aren’t you?” and I tell her yeah and the three goys are left shaking their heads, as if to say, how does he actually do it? Now, pretty early in the conversation, roysh, Asia says that she saw me in Krystle last weekend. She also mentions that she picked up my empty pint glass when I left it down and took it home as, like, a souvenir. Looking back now, I’m thinking, how much more obvious could the danger signs have been – short of her putting traffic cones around her and wrapping herself in scene-of-crime tape.
But that’s me – prepared to give anyone a chance, especially if they look like that. At the time, I was thinking, so she took my glass – the Muckross birds used to do that when I’d walk out of Ed’s in Donnybrook back in the day.
Anyway, you don’t need me to fill in the blanks. After a few Bartons in the Home
of the H, we ended up back in her gaff in Dundrum and I don’t think I’d be pushing it if I said we both had a good time.
Eight o’clock the following morning, the usual, I’m tipping out of there like I’ve just burgled the place. But you can imagine my shock, roysh, when, just as I’m getting home, my phone rings and it turns out to be her.
Naturally, roysh, I was like, “How did you get this number?” but she just went, “Ways and means,” then asked me what I was doing later and of course I had no choice then but to just hang up on her.
Anyway, roysh, I stuck my phone on silent, went to bed and slept like a focking teenager. Ten hours later, I wake up, check the Wolfe and I’ve got, like, twenty-seven missed calls from her. Tuesday, it’s thirty-eight. Wednesday, she broke the magical half-century barrier, the equivalent, in stalking terms, of the four-minute mile, which was when I decided that I was going to have to go North Korea on her.
See, I’m all for letting people down gently? But over a hundred calls in three days forced me to give her The Talk.
I swear to God, roysh, she answers her phone before I hear it even ring.
I just go, “Look, Asia, I enjoyed myself and I dare say you did too. But it was a Poko Ono – in other words, One Night Only? I don’t care what you do to get over me. A lot of birds pick, say, a song that reminds them of me – it ends up being James Blunt or Snow Patrol a lot of the time – and they listen to it over and over again. But whatever you do, you’ll save yourself a lot of tears if you stort the process now. End of.”
It seemed to do the trick, as it always does. There were no calls at all on Thursday. Or even Friday morning.
Friday lunchtime, I was in the sack, turning my mind to the weekend and where I might take Honor on Sunday afternoon. So I ring Sorcha in the shop, to find out if she still objects to me bringing our daughter to the zoo, and we end up shooting the shit for, like, half an hour, during which time, by the way, she doesn’t have a single customer.
She asks me if the old dear has sold the gaff yet and I laugh. “In the Current Economic Blahdy Blah? You’re pulling your chain, aren’t you?” Anyway, I end up telling her about my week, I suppose portly to make her jealous? “This bird brings stalking to new levels,” I go. “She was seriously smitten. I the end, I had to say a few horsh things.” She’s silent for a moment. I suppose she’s heard most of them herself.
“You didn’t use the phrase Poko Ono, did you?” I’m there, “Em, I don’t think I did?” “Good,” she goes, “because it’s very offensive, Ross. I don’t care how in love with you she is — she doesn’t deserve that.”
It’s at that exact point, roysh, that I stort to get that exact same feeling that I got at the RDS last weekend. I look up, roysh, and there, standing in the room, at the foot of my bed, is Asia.
Naturally, I’m like, “How the fock did you get in here?” but the next thing I hear is the old dear’s voice behind her going, “Oh, yes, Asia, this is the second master bedroom. It’s also ensuite. And that layabout, still in bed at one o’clock on a weekday, is my son. He doesn’t come with the house.”
Asia just, like, stares at me, pretty much salivating? “More’s the pity,” she goes. “More’s the pity.”
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