PS I Scored the Bridesmaids
ROSS O’CARROLL-KELLY
‘PURE AND UTTER DICKLIT
The infantile ramblings of a privileged south Dublin airhead. A Golf GTI ride through a world of moral entropy, social advantage, conspicuous consumption and alcohol-driven sexual misadventure. This book sets the women’s movement back forty years. It’s like Germaine Greer was never born. Its author – if he can even be described as such – is Holden Caulfield on ten pints of Heineken with a pure testosterone chaser, and what he has to say is puerile, misogynistic trash. If this is what the Celtic Tiger has spawned, then roll on the next recession.’
Sunday Tribune
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the Dublin City Council that finally gives Bob Geldof the freedom of the city.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Mum, Dad, Mark, Vin and Rich for the memories. Thanks to Matt Cooper for making Ross a star. Thanks to Paddy Murray and Jim Farrelly for not letting it go to the boy’s head. Thanks to Ger Siggins, Maureen Gillespie, Deirdre Sheeran and Colm Voyles for being inspiring. Thanks to Alan Clarke whose pen has breathed new life into Ross. Thanks to Emma whose design work makes these books sing. Thanks to Rachel Pierce, an editor who was once again right about everything and who made this book twice what it might otherwise have been. And a very special thank-you to Michelle Murphy and Sarah and Karl Holmes – the wedding planners.
Contents
Reviews
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1: To Have and to Hold
CHAPTER 2: To Love and to Cherish
CHAPTER 3: To Honour and Obey
CHAPTER 4: For Better or Worse
CHAPTER 5: For Richer or Poorer
CHAPTER 6: In Sickness and in Health
CHAPTER 7: And Forsaking All Others
CHAPTER 8: All the Days of Our Lives
CHAPTER 9: Oh, and PS …
About the Author
Other books by Paul Howard
Copyright
Got this, like,
Valey’s Day cord from Sorcha, roysh, we’re talking six or seven months ago, when I was throwing her a bone for a little while. She basically arrived home from Australia minus Penis Head, Cian or whatever his name was, that tool she went off with on the so-called romantic trip of a lifetime. Realised the spark wasn’t there anymore, she said, and they both wanted different things in life – code for Cian storted rattling some other Sheila. So she comes home and after a couple of days, roysh, and not wanting to sound like a total orsehole here, let’s just say it’s not just her tail she’s got between her legs. The girl’s got it bad, alroysh. So sue me. It’s, like, phone us now for your free consultation. Just dial 1850 STUD MUFFIN. No foal, no fee.
Anyway, we ended up being together maybe, like, three times, roysh, when this cord arrives and in it she’s written, ‘You are the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep at night,’ which I was sure she robbed off a Westlife record, or ‘Dawson’s Creek’, or some, I don’t know, Patricia focking Scanlon book. Or maybe they learn it in school. Yeah, I can hear a lot of birds out there shifting uncomfortably in their seats. And with good reason. Your secret’s out. Goys, remember that time in sixth class when the priest took us all out to play, I don’t know, tag rugby or some shit, and all the birds had to stay behind for a chat with some woman teacher who was focking morto? Thought it was about the blob, didn’t you? The old period costume drama. Wear loose trousers, hold a hot-water bottle to your stomach and try not to stab any men. News flash, goys. That little chat, it had fock-all to do with telling the birds what to do when Munster are playing at home. It was like, ‘How To Get A Goy: Step One – tell him he’s the first thing you think about when you get up in the morning and the last thing you think about before you go to sleep at night. They’re suckers for that shit,’ which we basically are. I even find myself repeating it back to Sorcha, like a total sap, going, ‘You’re the first thing I think about in the morning as well. And the last thing I think about at night,’ and it’s total bullshit and the thing is, roysh, we’re talking totally here. I could name fifty things I think about in the morning before Sorcha ever crosses my mind. You want to take that bet?
Jessica Alba. Jade Jagger. Christina Ricci. Anna Kournikova. Ali Landry. Heidi Klum. Halle Berry. Gail Porter. Drew Barrymore. Katie Holmes. Denise Richards. Teri Hatcher. Yasmine Bleeth. Tiffani Amber Thiessen. Angelina Jolie. Isla Fischer. Calista Flockhart. Why not? Estella Warren. Heather Graham. Claudia Schiffer. Gillian Anderson. Andrea Corr. Rachel Stevens. Liz Hurley. Jennifer Love Hewitt. Alicia Silverstone. Natalie Imbruglia. Billie Piper. Alyson Hannigan. Rebecca Romjin-Stamos. What am I up to? Thirty? Amanda Holden. Cat Deeley. Sarah Michelle Gellar. Holly Valance. Britney Spears. Anna Friel. Shania Twain. Jennifer Aniston. Tyra Banks. Liv Tyler. Charisma Carpenter. Neve Campbell. Elisha Cuthbert. Kirsten Dunst. Hannah Spearitt. Penelope Cruz. Mena Suvari. Claire Danes. Ashley Judd. Kate Beckinsale.
There you have it. Fifty cures for the old morning wood. You wake up at ten o’clock and your little love warrior’s already been up an hour. This book was going to be called The Goy Who Went To Sleep In A Bed And Woke Up In A Tent, but they couldn’t fit it on the focking cover. I know there’s a lot of birds out there whose blood is, like, boiling at this point. Hey, I’m called an orsehole on average ten or eleven times a week. Twice that if I venture out to Knackery Doo, which isn’t often these days. I’ve overfished the waters. But the last time I was there, roysh, a bird who I’d never clapped eyes on in my focking life – nobody’s bargain, to be honest – she goes, ‘Your problem is you think with your dick,’ which is basically all true, except for the bit about it being a problem. Because it’s not. I do think with my dick. Or at least I listen to it, roysh, and that’s because it’s hordly ever wrong. Okay, I’ve woken up with a few mingers in my time, but generally I do alroysh.
Listening to your lad. You know another word – well, two words – for that? Animal attraction. So snap the bracelets on me, roysh, and take me to see the judge, but while you’re at it, you’re going to have to charge the rest of the animal kingdom as well, because they’re choosing who to score and who not to score on exactly the same basis as me. It’s nature. Birds – as in women – think they’re, like, cleverer than nature. Want to know on what basis they decide whether a goy is worth jumping? Come on, you know this. How many times have you heard a girl say that you can tell a lot about a man by looking at his shoes. His focking SHOES! ‘Slip-ons, Orlaith, do NOT go there!’ ‘OH! MY! GOD! They’re not even proper Dubes, Eibhin!’
Get this, roysh. JP was seeing this bird who he was basically mad into. The name’s not important, but she had great top tens and an alroysh boat. Chatted her up while showing her old pair around a gaff in Monkstown that they were buying as, like, an investment property. So he gets her number, roysh, and they end up going out with each other for, like, six months. It’s so serious, roysh, that me and the goys didn’t see the focker for basically ages and when he finally resurfaced he was talking about, like, babies and engagement rings and mortgages and shit. So one night, roysh, they’re in Annabel’s and JP’s wearing a pair of Timberland boots. He’s actually sitting down, roysh, shooting the breeze with me, when he stands up to get the Britneys in and doesn’t realise that the bottom of his chinos are tucked into his boot, just at the back. So he ends up walking around like this for, like, five full minutes, roysh, and his bird cops it, as do all her friends. So what does she do? OH! MY GOD! SO embarrassing! She focking dumps the dude. These are the same creatures who sit crying with the curtains drawn wondering why their hearts are low, their hearts are
soooo low … Want to know what JP’s ex is up to now? She’s with some tosser who played for Belvo when we were at school and he’s already boned two of her friends behind her back. Wears nice shoes, though. And birds think I’m focked up? You see, the whole goy-girl thing, roysh, is basically simple. It’s birds who choose to complicate things. You meet a bird. If you’re attracted to her, you bail in. If she’s good, you give her your mobile number the next morning. If she’s not, you give her the first ten digits that come into your head. And you don’t get married, not this side of forty anyway.
So just as I’m thinking this, roysh, I pull up in traffic outside the church in Donnybrook, and everyone’s, like, craning their necks out of their windows to see this bird in a long white dress getting out of a wedding cor, and of course I’m thinking, ‘What a dope!’ She’s only, like, my age, we’re talking twenty-two or twenty-three, roysh, a ringer for Abie Titmus, and she’s about to walk into that building and swear that she’s only going to knob one man for the rest of her days. HELLO? So the bridesmaids are fixing the veil on her, roysh, and fussing around her when all of a sudden, for absolutely no reason – and I did not imagine this – she looks over her shoulder, towards my cor, and basically our eyes just, like, lock together. And I can tell, roysh, that in her mind she’s wondering if she’s doing the right thing. She’s wondering why she’s settling for the muppet at the altar when there’s still people like me in the game. She’s basically going to herself, ‘I’d love to jump in that cor. Escape. Go wherever the Stillorgan dualler takes us. Make a new life with that incredibly handsome goy.’ I wink at her and she just, like, smiles at me, but then the goy behind me beeps me because the traffic has storted moving again, so I give the accelerator some and she’s left there thinking
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. The one that got away …
CHAPTER ONE
To Have and to Hold
‘Do you know how difficult it is to get wisteria in this country?’ That’s what Oisinn says to me, standing there in his long, white coat, surrounded by hundreds of bottles and, like, test tubes filled with, like, funny coloured liquids, which he’s heating over a Bunsen burner. He goes, ‘Do you know how difficult it is to get wisteria in this country?’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what the fock that is and I don’t care either. Come on, dude, let’s get mullered,’ because the rest of the goys have been in the M1 since, like, half-six.
He goes, ‘I was going to maybe mix it with vanilla, ginger and sandalwood, but I’m wondering would it be too close to Blv Absolute,’ and I’m just standing there staring at him, thinking the goy has seriously lost the plot this time. Couple of weeks ago, roysh, he chucked in that handy number he had going out at the airport to try to basically invent a new smell, lash it in a bottle and flog it to Calvin Klein or one of that crowd for a million sheets. So his old pair’s shed suddenly looks like the focking science lab in Castlerock. He’s like, ‘I suppose if I go easy on the musk accords,’ and I go, ‘Dude, this is your last chance. Are you coming for scoops or not?’ He sniffs this one bottle, roysh, then looks at me, cops that I’m serious and goes, ‘All work and no play. Suppose you’re roysh,’ then he whips off the lab coat and twenty minutes later the two of us are stepping into the Merrion Inn, every set of female eyes in the place glued to us.
Christian greets me by going, ‘Why you slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler. You’ve got a lot of guts coming here after what you pulled,’ and we high-five each other and I get the Britneys in, three Kens and one Probably. JP’s in flying form. No sign of Fionn, though, the focking geek. JP goes, ‘Looking suave and debonair, my man,’ and I’m there, ‘Likewise, dude,’ which he is, I have to say. The property morket’s obviously treating him well. He flicks his thumb in Christian’s direction and he goes, ‘Did George Lucas there tell you his news?’ I look at Christian and he goes, ‘I’m making a film, Ross,’ and I end up nearly spitting beer all over him, roysh. Making a film? I wouldn’t trust him to get one developed, best friend and all as he is. He goes, ‘It’s no joke, padwan. Got a grant through the college and everything,’ and I’m there, ‘Yeah, roysh,’ and he goes, ‘Ten Ks,’ and I just freeze, my pint glass about two inches away from my lips. I go, ‘Ten thousand bills? They’re giving you ten thousand bills to make a movie?’ and he just, like, nods his head.
I’m there, ‘That’s it. It’s got to be a porno,’ and JP and Oisinn just, like, high-five each other, as if to say, you know, the goy’s a focking genius. I can actually see it. I’m like, ‘It’s Christmas. Everyone’s having fun at the office porty. Everyone except, I don’t know, twenty-one-year-old receptionist Christine, who the boss has asked to work late. So Christine’s pretty fit, roysh, but she doesn’t, like, make the most of herself, we’re talking glasses, hair up in a bun, and here she is, roysh, slaving away while everyone else is off enjoying themselves. Boss pops back to the office and before you know it she’s whipping off the specs, shaking down her hair–’ and JP goes, ‘And he does her from behind while photocopying her baps and faxing them to the office in Tampere. It’s been done before, Ross. But respect to the porno idea.’ ‘Em, actually,’ Christian goes, ‘it’s going to be more of a science fiction film really. I’m planning to present a distant future in which a space pirate, loosely based on you-know-who, gets a fit of conscience, gives up his roguish ways and settles down on Makkerat, a strange planet where no one grows old and no one dies. There he falls in love with a girl called Azanda who, unbeknownst to our hero, is a shape-changer and also a secret agent for the Empire.’ And we’re all just, like, staring at him.
Eventually, I go, ‘I’ve got someone in mind to play Christine. We’re talking Emer,’ and Oisinn goes, ‘Howth Emer?’ and I’m like, ‘Sandycove Emer. Used to be in ballet with Sorcha,’ and JP goes, ‘Ten-four, I’m hearing you loud and clear, dude. The bird would do anything to be famous. Puts her name down for everything. We’re talking ‘Big Brother’. We’re talking ‘Pop Idol’.’ I go, ‘And I was thinking, who better to play the boss than my good self?’ and Oisinn and JP both high-five me and go, ‘Stud muffin,’ and I’m there, ‘Well, I’ve been there before. Me and Emer have this, chemistry, you see. On-screen it’ll be pure focking magic.’
Christian goes, ‘Our hero has bad debts all over the galaxy and Azanda’s job is to bring him in. But of course she soon finds herself falling in love with him,’ and I go ape-shit listening to him, roysh, I’m like, ‘Christian, don’t touch that focking money until we’ve had a proper talk,’ and he looks at me like he’s about to burst out crying, roysh, and even though I feel pretty bad for hurting the dude’s feelings, I’ve got to be, like, firm with him. I go, ‘It’s not going to be a focking science fiction film, okay? I’m putting my foot down, Christian. It’s going to be a porno and that’s that.’
The focker would end up spending the money on, I don’t know, light sabres or some shit. The beauty of my idea, roysh, is that it’ll cost pretty much fock-all to make. We’re talking seven-and-a-half Ks for my services, leaving two-and-a-half for whatever other overheads there are. Emer will do it for free, that much I can guarantee, and we can use JP’s old man’s office for the filming. The photocopier can be a bit dodgy, but we’ll film it at night so we can do plenty of takes. We’re talking lights, camera, action, baby.
‘Have you heard from that tool you went to Australia with?’ That’s what I say to Sorcha, roysh, but she just, like, shoots me a filthy and goes, ‘His name happens to be Cillian. And yes, Ross, we’re still friends.’ I’m there, ‘After he abandoned you in Sydney?’ and quick as a flash, roysh, she goes, ‘How’s Christian?’ which is basically a subtle reminder to me that I’m not exactly the nicest goy in the world myself. Then she goes, ‘Sorry. That was uncalled for. Why am I always such a total bitch to you?’ and I shrug my shoulders, roysh, and she goes, ‘I suppose I have been listening to a lot of Mary J Blige lately.’
She looks great. Her year away doing fock-all except spending her old pair’s money really suited he
r. She’s still got that just-back-from-holidays look even though she’s back, like, six months or something, and looking across the table at her, roysh, I realise that I SO want to be with her today. I go, ‘There was no one else, Sorcha. While you were away,’ and she nearly chokes on a mouthful of water. She must be back on Weight Watchers, the way she’s knocking back that stuff. She goes, ‘Sorry, Ross, but I simply can’t let that one go. What about Melanie?’ and of course I’m like, ‘Melanie?’ playing the innocent. She goes, ‘You know very well who I’m talking about. And Siun.’ I’m there, ‘Siun was a mistake,’ and she’s like, ‘Was Ali a mistake, too?’ and I’m there, ‘Who’s Ali?’ and she goes, ‘Ali would be Siun’s sister, Ross.’ I’m there, ‘Was that her name?’ and I tell her I can’t believe they’ve taken the tuna melt off the menu, just to try to, like, change the subject. She goes, ‘Of course, why should I be surprised that you didn’t even ask the girl her name before you slept with her? You were with Tamara as well. Anna. Lucy. Elaine. Lia …’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, okay. Didn’t know you were keeping score.’ She pours herself some more water and sort of, like, smiles to herself, all smug, and goes, ‘Not keeping score, Ross. Keeping you in your place,’ and I think I’ve got it bad for this girl again.
We order and the food arrives. She picks all the blue cheese and olives out of her blue cheese and olive salad and leaves them on her side plate. Don’t ask. As she’s doing this, she goes, ‘What are you doing at the moment, we’re talking careerwise?’ Careerwise? I’m like, ‘Well, I’m pretty much chilling at the moment, basically,’ and she goes, ‘You were pretty much chilling at the moment basically when I went to Australia. Your life is passing you by, Ross, and you’ve done nothing with it,’ and she makes it sound like a bad thing. She’s back working in her old dear’s boutique, which is hordly, like, the end of the focking rainbow.