The old pair aren't fooling me with their 'showmance' but how long can I keep fooling Fintan O'Toole that granny's paintings are my own work? Readers in need of advice can text Ross on 087-9773781
THURSDAY WAS MY granny's month's mind - four weeks since the old bird fell off the perch - and so it's, like, basically Mass with a big shout out for her at the end.
The old dear is playing the grieving daughter to a tee. Paperback sales of My Beautiful Gypsy Mot - a story of the multicultural love between a truck driver from Ballybrack and a Romany girl who lives with 85 members of her extended family on a roundabout on the N3 - have been disappointing but the publicity has catapulted the stupid whelk right into the top five.
And suddenly, having not mentioned for 27 years of my life that she even had a mother in the funny farm, she's telling Mork Cagney, and anyone who'll have her on, that she's writing through her pain.
The whole thing's a joke, roysh, though it was nice of the goys to come today as, like, a show of support. Especially Oisinn, who has his own Hoffs to deal with - in other words, gambling addiction? - though he's looking actually well and he's only got, like, two or three weeks of treatment left.
Fionn says it's nice to see my old pair getting on well again and I follow his line of vision, roysh, across the aisle to where the old man is standing with his orm around her shoulder, doing all the prayer responses at the top of his voice, one line behind everyone else. She's wearing the black Stella shades that Sorcha bought her for her birthday. Hennessy, meanwhile, is six or seven rows back, taking sly photographs of them - why, I don't know, but you can be sure it's something to do with their divorce.
"It's a charade," I tell Fionn. "Either she's using him or he's using her or they're both using each other. Either way, it's a con job." "Pots and kettles," he goes. "How many of your granny's paintings have you sold now?" I laugh. "Ten," I go. "Over a hundred Ks I've made as well." He shakes his head, half in disappointment, half in - you would have to say - admiration.
He's there, "Ross, what you're doing is fraud. You'll be lucky if you don't end up in a prison cell." I'm like, "Too shrewd for that, my four-eyed friend. Nah, I'll flog the rest, then it's the south of France for me. A villa on the beach, with three or four Barbies, Ken on tap and a huge plasma screen playing Shane Horgan's try against England at Croke Pork on an endless loop."
He shakes his head again. I think, for all his, like, brains and shit, Fionn would love to actually be like me? "You possibly should ease off on the showboating," he goes. "I read your interview with Fintan O'Toole. What was that thing you said? People who know me will tell you I've always had a questing intelligence - but that's never stopped me from confronting the obviousness in art. Where did you get that anyway?" I'm like, "Off the internet. Look, you've no idea what it's like being the toast of the Dublin ort world, Fionn. You're expected to come up with all sorts of clever shit. I mean that Fintan O'Toole - I thought you'd brains to burn. You'd want to get a load of this dude. Do you think that painting, exclusively, the town in which you grew up - your milieu, if you like - has led you to form a more profound and fully experienced relationship with your past?" I watch Fionn's eyes go wide. Even he has to admit that that's not right.
I'm there, "So I had all these, like, quotes written on my palms, up my orms, the lot. I'm skulling the mint juleps - because the Times was paying - and every so often I have a sly look at my hand and go, 'The life's desire of the ortist must be to live, much like an animal, in a purely sensory world', or some other piece of bullshit I cogged. Actually, it reminded me of Geography in the mocks."
Oisinn throws his euro's worth in then. He's like, "Ross, do you remember what happened in Geography in the mocks?" I'm there, "Dude, chillax - I'm not going to get caught. Look, don't get me wrong, I'm loving the whole ortist's life thing? I'm earning serious wonga and I'm getting my Billy Joel on a regular basis. But - famous last words - I'll know when to pull out." The goys look at me, still Scooby Dubious.
The granny gets her mench - mad name that, Millicent - then, before you know it, it's go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Outside, roysh, I'm standing around, chatting to the goys, avoiding eye contact with the old pair, when all of a sudden this woman - a bit like Gillian Anderson, as in the old Gillian Anderson? - comes up to me. Never clapped eyes on her in my life.
"So," she goes, "you're the famous artist?" and of course the pressure's on me straight away to say something, I suppose, deep, so I'm trying to remember one or two of the quotes I got off the internet.
I'm like, "Yeah, I try to, er, paint from within, blah blah blah." "I'm sure you do," she goes, "I read your interview," then she just, like, stares at me for longer than is actually comfortable? I'm thinking, what is she? A crazed fan?
"I was a friend of your grandmother's," she goes and suddenly I'm not liking where this conversation is headed.
I decide to play it LL Cool J. "Supposed to have been a lovely lady. Mad as a box of frogs but supposedly sound." She's like, "I'm a psychiatric nurse. I was the one who suggested she take up painting." She doesn't need to say anymore. Those two - I suppose - sentences say it all. I'm like, "What do you want?" She laughs. She actually laughs? She's like, "I'm a highly paid healthcare professional - you think I'm interested in blackmailing you?" I'm there, "Well, if you are, I can guarantee you, say, half. No, actually, what am I saying? A third."
She just smiles at me and goes, "You haven't heard the last of this."
www.rossocarrollkelly.ie
Darryl in Stillogan goes, "Ross, did u hear abercrombie hav decided not to open a store on grafton st cos its too tacky?" I know - let's just close it down now. Leave it to the elements and Caddles Irish Gifts.
Ruan from Idlewild in Dalkey goes, "Can I just ask, who's going to pay for the décor of the café after the fight in here last week. Had to repaint the whole place after we got the froth off the walls." Dude, you only have to serve her low fat chai lattes - try being married to her.
My old mate Conish goes, "I was in the toilets of café bar deli the other day and someone had written 'eire nua' on the door of trap one and underneath it someone else had written 'omg get back to your own side of the city you pover'.
The Celtic Tiger might be wasting away but its cubs are obviously alive and dining well." And there was Brian Lenihan worrying!
