“Oh my God, that’s her!” Honor goes.
Her being Corina Brien, her opponent in the first round of the Joshua Pim Shield in Glenageary Lawn Tennis Club. She’s getting out of a Lexus LS with her phone clamped to her ear and she’s going, “It’s an absolute disgrace, Julie. They missed their flight to Paris, even though they were at the airport five hours beforehand. As Jeff said — Jeff can be very droll, as you know — they should just put Michael O’Leary in chorge of the country!”
She’s in her tennis clobber. She walks around to the boot of her cor and takes out a bag that’s big enough to sleep two small children. Honor is just staring the woman out of it, not even blinking — a bit like her old dear when she’s been told that she can’t return an item of clothing because it has fake tan morks on it.
The woman goes, “Anyway, I have to go. Yes, I’m playing in the first round of the Jay Pim tonight. I might see you in The Queens later, depending on how long it goes on.”
Markets in Vienna or Christmas at The Shelbourne? 10 holiday escapes over the festive season
Stealth sackings: why do employers fire staff for minor misdemeanours?
Michael Harding: I went to the cinema to see Small Things Like These. By the time I emerged I had concluded the film was crap
Look inside: 1950s bungalow transformed into modern five-bed home in Greystones for €1.15m
Ten seconds later, bag slung over her shoulder, she walks across the cor pork towards us. She fixes Sorcha with a fake smile and goes, “Hello, you must be Honor O’Carroll-Kelly!”
And Sorcha’s like, “Oh my God, no — Honor is, like, my daughter?”
The woman storts looking around her like she’s trying to find her mates in a packed pub.
“I’m Honor O’Carroll-Kelly,” Honor goes — and the way she says it gives me — literally? — goosebomps.
The woman looks down at her. She goes, “You?”
And Honor’s there, “Yes, me — do you have a focking problem with that?”
I love her attitude. Not everyone does, but I’d be a major, major fan.
“How old are you?” the woman goes.
Sorcha’s there, “She’s, like, fourteen?”
And the woman — again, this Corina one — is like, “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to see about this.”
Into the club she morches. Ten seconds later, we can hear her through the wall, going, “Why am I playing a child? No, I won’t stop shouting. I’ve got food in my cupboards that’s older than that girl out there.”
Sorcha goes, “Don’t listen to her, Honor.”
But I’m like, “Yeah, no, do listen to her? But use her confidence as a weapon against her — like a judo player uses his opponent’s weight. That’s one of Father Fehily’s lines, by the way. You can have it.”
The woman obviously gets nowhere with her complaint because a minute or two later she re-joins us, this time on the court. She’s, like, bouncing a ball up and down on her racquet, going, “Well, if there’s an upside to this, at least I won’t miss my sister’s Going Away to Malawi drinks — although I could have put my make-up on before I left the house.”
I turn around to Sorcha and I go, “I’ve never wanted to see someone lose so badly whose name wasn’t Austin Healey.”
Corina serves the ball. It’s like, WHOOSH! Straight down the middle. Honor doesn’t even move. An ace. Fifteen-love.
Sorcha goes, “Don’t get too dishortened, Honor. Remember, it’s only a game.”
I’m like, “Don’t fill her head with shite-talk like that. She’s got this, Sorcha. She’s only focking with the woman’s head.”
Corina serves again. WHOOSH! Another ace. Thirty-love. Then another. WHOOSH! Forty-love.
“You know, you really should get some lessons,” Corina goes. “I know the junior coach here. He’s wonderful.”
Of course, what Corina doesn’t know is that Honor has done a deep dive through her various social media accounts and discovered her weakness. According to her Facebook page, she broke her left orm when she slipped on ice in Berlin a few years ago and there were all sorts of complications with the whole, I don’t know, healing process?
Corina serves for the first game. WHOOSH! But this time Honor does move. She returns the ball and she puts it to Corina’s right at the perfect height to invite a left backhand. Corina swings her racquet but ends up basically slicing the air and it’s, like, forty-fifteen.
The woman shit-smiles Honor and goes, “Took my eye off it at the last minute,” and then she serves again. WHOOSH! In a flash of movement, Honor sends the ball back across the net, this time low and to Corina’s left. It bounces. She swings at it and misses. She’s suddenly embarrassed.
“This is what happens,” she goes, “when you play inferior players — no offence. It drags your own standard down.”
She serves again. WHOOSH! Honor plays the exact same return. Corina misses with the attempted groundstroke and it’s suddenly deuce. And now it’s, like, Honor’s turn to shit-smile her?
She goes, “You’re very right-side dominant, aren’t you, Corina?”
The woman’s like, “I beg your pordon?”
“I mean, your right hand is like a cannon,” Honor goes. “But your left. I can see that it’s weak.”
Corina tries to ignore her and just, like, serves again. WHOOSH! Honor plays the return to Corina’s left with plenty of top spin. Corina swings at it wildly like she’s trying to take a fly out with a newspaper.
“Advantage Honor O’Carroll-Kelly!” I make sure to shout.
Corina is getting ready to serve again.
Honor’s like, “I know you broke it. In 2019. I saw it on your Facebook page. And then I saw on your Instagram that you had to have another operation on it last year.”
Poor Corina just stares across the net at her like she can’t believe what she’s actually hearing.
“All I have to do to beat you,” Honor goes, “is keep playing shots that force you to use that left hand of yours. I can do that all night long.”
I notice that Corina is suddenly gripping her orm. She knows that she can’t face the humiliation of a six-love, six-love beating by — as she said herself — a child.
“I’ve hurt my, em, knee,” she tries to go.
I’m like, “Yeah, no, that’s your orm you’re holding?”
“I’m retiring,” she goes, “injured,” and she walks off the court.
Sorcha and I cheer and whoop in a way that could possibly be described as undignified even for parents on this side of the city.
“Enjoy your sister’s drinks,” Honor sneers at the deporting Corina. “You focking loser.”
