Two More Pints (6 page)

— She's the Queen's cousin or somethin', is she? I get mixed up – I don't give much of a shite.

— She's the Queen's granddaughter-in-law.

— For fuck sake – draw me a fuckin' diagram.

— I don't give much of a shite either, to be honest with yeh.

— Boy or girl?

— Stop fuckin' pretendin'.

— What'll they call him?

— It'll be announced in due course.

— Wha' they should do – if they'd anny imagination or guts . . .

— Wha'?

— Did yeh see the YouTube tha' was doin' the rounds a few weeks back? The missis showed it to me. The fuckin' eejit talkin' to the other pair o' fuckin' eejits abou' how she judges kids by their names.

— Seen it, yeah.

— The fuckin' head on her. Annyway, she objected to Chantelle an' – was it Tyler?

— Think so.

— That's wha' they should call him, so. Tyler. Show solidarity with their people. For once.

— Prince Tyler?

— Why not? The first royal rapper.

— King Tyler.

— The First.

— Or Jamal.

— Jamal the First? Sounds too like a pope. The fuckin' Orangemen would be riotin' again.

— See Pat Kenny's gone.

— To Celtic?

— Wha'?

— Has he gone to Celtic?

— Fuckin' who?

— Kenny. The young lad tha' plays for Home Farm. Celtic and Colchester were lookin' at him an'—

— Pat Kenny. From RTE.

— What about him?

— He's gone.

— 'Course he's gone. It's the summer. They all fuck off for the summer in tha' place.

— No—

— Replaced by even bigger fuckin' eejits than themselves.

— No—

— Even the news. Kids from Transition Year do the reportin' an' tha'. Little fellas an' girls standin' on boxes so their faces can reach the camera.

— Will yeh fuckin' listen—

— While the other red-faced fuckin' wasters get the same holidays as the teachers they're all married to an' fuck off to France an' Donegal.

— He's fuckin' gone, I'm tellin' yeh!

— Who?

— Kenny! He's gone. For good.

— For ever, like?

— Yeah.

— Did he bring Joe Duffy with him, did he?

— Not as far as I know.

— So. Just to be clear. Pat Kenny doesn't work for RTE annymore.

— No.

— Well, my God. Where's he gone?

— Newstalk.

— An' come here. Seriously. Are we supposed to give a fuck?

— Yeah.

— But do we?

— No.

— No, we don't.

— Thirty-five grand.

— What about it?

— It'd buy yeh a lot of gargle.

— It fuckin' would.

— Thirty-five thousand cans of Dutch Gold. Just for example.

— Fuck – I'm not sure that's an attractive thought annymore.

— I'm just givin' yeh a simple picture. An idea of the scale o' the thing.

— You're talkin' about the amount o' booze tha' got delivered to the Garda station in Belmullet.

— In 2007 – yeah.

— Who gave it to them again?

— Shell – or some gang o' cunts workin' for Shell.

— The Garda inquiry said there was no evidence.

— 'Course not. They fuckin' drank it, didn't they?

— Wha' did they do with the empties?

— Threw them in the fuckin' sea on their way to hammerin' the heads off the protesters.

— Tha' makes sense.

— It's efficient. But yeh know the really mad thing about it?

— Wha'?

— There was only ten Guards in the station.

— That's, like, three an' a half thousands' worth of drink per pig.

— Yep.

— Does tha' include mixers?

— Good question.

— Or crisps an' nuts.

— I know wha' yeh mean. Accessories, like.

— Were yeh ever in Belmullet?

— No – thank fuck.

— Yeh'd need a lot o' free jar to survive a year in tha' fuckin' kip.

— See Elmore Leonard died.

— The singer?

— The writer.

— Which one was he?

— American, brilliant –
Get Shorty
.

— Was tha' him?

— Yeah. Look at me.

— Wha'?

— He wrote loads o' them. Look at me.

— Wha'?

—
Out o' Sight
,
Jackie Brown
,
Rum Punch
,
Killshot
. Look at me.

— I am lookin' at you. Why d'yeh keep fuckin' sayin' tha'?

— It's a quote.

— Wha'?

— It's a line. John Travolta says it.

— In
Get Shorty
.

— Yeah – good. Yeh know it.

— I do, yeah. 'Course. An' I'm goin' to make an educated guess here. Look at me.

— Wha'?

— I bet it's the only line yeh remember from the fuckin' fillum.

— No, it isn't.

— Go on, so. Give us one.

— Fuck off.

— There. I knew it – yeh cunt.

— Wha'?

— Yeh couldn't think of another line.

— I just did.

— Wha'?

— Fuck off.

— Tha' doesn't count. Tha' line is in nearly every fillum worth watchin' tha' was ever made.
Taxi Driver
,
The Godfather
,
Adam an' Paul
,
Bambi
—

— Fuckin'
Bambi
?!

— The rabbit says it, if you're listenin' carefully – when the young prince's birth is announced.

— Fuck off.

— He's a bit of a Shinner, tha' rabbit.

— Look at me.

— Wha'?

— It's your round.

— D'yeh remember ‘Kitty Ricketts'?

— I fuckin' married her.

— The song.

— The song, the attitude, the whole fuckin' shebang.

— The song – stop messin'. Yeh know what I fuckin' mean.

— I do, yeah.

— You remember it.

— Yeah.

— It was brilliant, wasn't it?

— Yeah – brilliant. There were great songs back then.

— Great gigs as well.

— Yeah, yeah. The Blades, The Atrix.

— The Radiators from Space.

— Songs about Dublin.

— Made us proud, didn't it?

— Still does.

— The fella tha' wrote tha' one, ‘Kitty Ricketts'.

— Philip Chevron – yeah.

— There's a testimonial for him tonigh'.

— Football?

— In the Olympia.

— Football in the Olympia? Fuckin' brilliant. The Radiators from Space versus A Republic of Ireland Eleven – from space.

— Niall Quinn up in the gods.

— His natural fuckin' habitat.

— Eamon Dunphy on drums.

— Tha' makes sense.

— Philip Chevron on the left wing.

— With his mazy runs an' silky skills. Slashin' at his opponents' shins with his guitar.

— He isn't well.

— Yeah.

— Yeh know wha' tha' means – ‘isn't well'? For men our age, like.

— I do – yeah.

— Okay.

— Chevron, but. What sort of a name is tha'?

— It's Irish. He dropped the O.

— O'Chevron?

— Exactly. It means son of the unfortunate fucker who couldn't get the odds together to emigrate.

— Here, look it. We don't normally do this. But we'll lift the glass for Philip, will we?

— No – we won't.

— Why not?

— Cos punks don't do tha' shite.

— Could you ever see the Irish Army usin' chemical weapons?

— Well, I could see them goin' into Limerick with a bottle o' Harpic.

— Seriously.

— Why?

— Well – like. The Syrians gassin' their own people.

— Ah, fuck off. Is this one o' those ‘we're nicer than the Arabs' conversations?

— No—.

— Cos we're not.

— I know. Although our music's better.

— Not by much.

— Okay. But the gassin' an' tha'. An' the Yanks an' the Brits plannin' on—

— The French as well.

— Never mind the French. They're all mouth, those fuckers. But do none of them have kids or mas or – just, families?

— People they love.

— Exactly. Have they no fuckin' imaginations?

— I nearly gassed the kids once.

— I'm serious.

— I know. They'll tell us they're doin' it for the good of the world but wha' they'll actually be doin' is destroyin' families.

— That's it – it's desperate. If they – Obama an' Cameron an' the headbangers – if they'd think of a great family moment, yeh know, everyone laughin' or something, before they do—. D'yeh know what it is? I'm scared.

— I know wha' yeh mean.

— Do yeh?

— I think so.

— See Seamus Heaney died.

— Saw tha'. Sad.

— Did yeh ever meet him?

— Don't be fuckin' thick. Where would I have met Seamus Heaney?

— That's the thing, but. He looked like someone yeh'd know.

— I know wha' yeh mean – the eyebrows an' tha'.

— He always looked like he liked laughin'.

— One o' the lads.

— Except for the fuckin' poetry.

— Wha' would possess a man like tha' to throw his life away on poetry?

— Exactly.

— Although, fair enough – he won the Nobel Prize for it.

— He'd probably have won it annyway.

— For wha' – for fuck sake?

— I don't know. Football, plumbin' – annythin'. Tha' was wha' was special about him. He was brilliant but he looked like he came from around the corner. The poetry, but.

— I feel a confession comin' on.

— I was givin' one o' the grandkids a hand with the homework.

— Go on.

— She had to write about one of his poems. ‘Mid-Term Break', it's called.

— Yeah, go on.

— Well, it was fuckin' unbelievable. Just shatterin' – brilliant. About a child's funeral.

— ‘A four foot box, a foot for every year.'

— You read it as well.

— You're not the only man in the shop with grandkids.

— See fruit's bad for yeh.

— I always said it.

— All tha' one-in-five bolloxology.

— Fuckin' scientists – they're fuckin' eejits. How could fuckin' kiwis be good for yeh?

— She's fuckin' furious – at home. She's thinkin' o' suin'.

— Suin' who?

— Fuckin' everyone – far as I can make ou'. Says she's suffered permanent spinal damage carryin' all them bananas home from SuperValu.

— So – she's suin' Africa? The country of origin, like?

— Africa's not a country – strictly speakin'.

— Okay—

— An' in fairness to the Africans, I don't think they came up with this one-in-five shite. They'd have different priorities, I'd say. I think what's really got her goat is the fact tha' she can't claim tha' the blackcurrant in her rum an' black is one of her daily five. She'll have to replace it with celery or broccoli or somethin'.

— Vegetables are still officially healthy, are they?

— For the time bein'.

— I hate them.

— Yeah. Little green cunts.

— Useless.

— It's gas but, isn't it? How we get suckered in. Some prick in a white coat says if you eat all o' your peas Gina Lollobrigida will sit on your face.

— An' we fall for it.

— Every fuckin' time.

— So Trap's gone.

— He was never here.

— Ah now, that's a bit fuckin' harsh.

— I'm only statin' a fact. His interpreter—

— Manuela Spinelli.

— Exactly. Yeh know the way she stood beside him, noddin' at everythin' he said—

— It was kind o' sexy.

— It fuckin' was. Exactly wha' yeh want in a woman. Anyway. The very first press conference, when he got the job, like. He says somethin' in Italian. An' she's noddin' away but you can see it in her eyes.

— Wha'?

— Panic.

— Okay. Why?

— Cos he thinks he's in Iceland.

— Wha'?!

— He thinks he's the new manager of Iceland. Tha' he's in Copenhagen.

— Reykjavik.

— Exactly.

— Fuck off.

— I'm serious – you fuck off. Look at it on YouTube. She decides – yeh can see it clearly, in her eyes, like – she decides not to give the game away, and she starts goin' on about how he's lookin' forward to workin' with the Irish lads, when he's actually sayin' he's a big fan o' Björk an' he can't wait to see the fuckin' volcanoes.

— Fuckin' hell.

— An' she's been at it ever since. Basically.

— She's – Jesus. Did she choose the teams as well?

— Someone had to.

— D'yeh think there'll ever be a mad fella with a gun in Ireland like they have them in America?

— Did yeh miss the fuckin' Troubles?

— Yeh know what I mean, but.

— The country's full o' mad cunts with guns. They're always shootin' one another.

— Yeah – one another. The drug fellas an' tha'. But that's just business, isn't it?