There are – I think we’d all agree? – some great events in the South Dublin social calendar. There’s, like, the Dublin Horse Show. There’s the arrival of Santa Claus in a twin-engine Sikorsky on the roof of Dundrum Town Centre each December. And there’s obviously Bloomsday – or, as I call it, Halloween for wankers.
But none of them generates anything like the excitement of the Dalkey Lobster Festival, the weekend at the end of August when – for reasons best known to themselves – the people of Killiney and Dalkey get together and pretend they don’t eat lobster three times a week, all year round.
The highlight of the weekend is obviously the crowning of the Dalkey Lobster Festival Queen and Sorcha is proud of being a former winner. She picked up the coveted title – along with a €100 voucher for Caviston’s – back in 2001, kicking off a year of personal appearances at everything from parish fetes to prizegivings to funerals. Jesus, if you asked the girl to open a window, she’d throw on her sash and crown for the occasion.
Anyway, it’s port of the whole tradition that, on the night before the festival kicks off, the former winners gather together in The Queens to run the rule over – code for “tear the back out of” – that year’s contenders.
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And yet I’m still surprised to find Sorcha, on Thursday night, standing in front of the bedroom mirror in her good Altuzarra pant suit, practising her fake smile.
I’m there, “Whoa! You’re not thinking of actually going this year, are you?” because – yeah, no – we’re not exactly popular in these ports because of our plan to throw up a big, ugly block of aportments on the Vico Road.
She’s there, “As a former lobster queen, I’m a member of the academy that decides each year’s winner.”
“Yeah, no,” I go, “it’s just that I thought, you know, seeing as we’re social – I want to say – piranhas?”
“We’re hordly social pariahs, Ross. We’ve fallen out with a few people who don’t see eye to eye with us on the remedy for Ireland’s accommodation crisis. We still have a lot of friends in this town.”
I’m there, “Yeah, no, I’m, er, sure we do.”
“Anyway,” she goes, “will you come with me tonight?”
I’m there, “I don’t know, Sorcha. I’m was thinking of, em–” but I can’t come up with anything in that moment, then she ends up going, “Throw a shirt on. Honor will look after the boys. We’ll only stay for an hour.”
So I do what she says, then we hop into my cor and we head for – yeah, no – Dalkey. It’s, like, a sunny, late summer evening and as I’m driving I notice that Sorcha has got, like, a sad smile on her face?
It’s the weekend at the end of August when the people of Killiney and Dalkey get together and pretend they don’t eat lobster three times a week, all year round
I’m there, “You’re going to miss this, aren’t you? As in, like, living here?”
“Absolutely,” she goes, “but I’ll always have my memories. And also great friends. Plus, I can come back to visit any time I want. Killiney and Dalkey will always be a port of me – if that makes sense?”
I’m sure it does. I know she’s nervous, though, because she grabs my hand as we’re walking through the door of The Queens and she squeezes it really tightly?
But she calms down when she sees the reaction to her arrival. She’s got, like, 30 former lobster queens standing there smiling at her, including Cosette Cleary, the only woman ever to complete the famous Shellfish Grand Slam – or Grand Clam, as it’s known – by becoming not just the Dalkey Lobster Festival Queen, but also the Malahide Oyster Festival Queen and the Greystones Mollusc Festival Queen (Excluding Mussels) in the same calendar year.
“Oh my God,” she goes, “Sorcha Lalor, I was just saying, literally five minutes ago, that you were the best festival queen we ever had?”
Sorcha’s like, “Oh my God, that means so much – especially coming from you!”
They hug it out.
“And that’s not me being a bitch,” Cosette goes. “When I won the famous treble in the summer of 2005 – my year, as I always call it – I actually said that you were my role model.”
Perdita Bertrand, the 1999 winner, sidles over to us then. She’s like, “Your speech, Sorcha – when you won! Oh my God, we were all in floods? I can still quote lines from it. This isn’t just a victory for me. It’s a victory for every woman out there with a dream.”
As she says it, I can feel her hand brush the orse of my chinos. Yeah, no, we had a thing back in the day when me and Sorcha were on one of our famous breaks.
“And that’s not me being a bitch,” Perdita goes.
Sorcha’s like, “Well, I was young and naïve back then. I really did believe that my victory could make a difference to the world.”
“And can I just say,” Perdita adds, changing the subject, “I think it’s awful what the people around here are putting you through – just for standing up for what you believe in.”
“Well, thankfully,” Sorcha goes, smiling at her, “it’s only a small minority.”
It ends up being an okay night after that. We stay for, like, two hours, then we leave just before 10 o’clock, saying our goodbyes before crossing the road to the church cor pork.
“Give me the keys,” Sorcha goes, because – yeah, no – she hasn’t been drinking and I’m six pints down the road to Gee-eyed, Arkansas.
I go to grab them from the back pocket of my chinos and I realise that they’re gone.
“Oh my God!” Sorcha suddenly shrieks – yeah, no, she’s looking through the window of the cor.
I don’t get a chance to ask her what’s wrong because I spot my keys on the ground next to the cor. But as I bend down to pick them up, I discover what she’s Oh My Godding about. The cor is filled with lobsters – I shit you not, we’re talking two- or three-hundred of the things, all still alive, crawling around on top of each other.
And in that moment the penny drops. Perdita must have–.
I turn around and look back at The Queens. And at the queens. There’s, like, 10 or 11 of them – including Cosette and Perdita – and they’re grinning at us in a genuinely evil way.
“If you want to leave,” Cosette shouts, “then just focking leave. You’re not wanted around here anymore.”
