'What were you doing? Checking out the Budget?'

Christian, my best friend in the world, is home from the States for Christmas – and something’s playing on his mind

WHAT HAS Cameron Diaz done to her boat? I’m sitting in Mickey Ds at the bottom of Grafton Street, checking out her new cheek implants on my iPhone, even showing them to Honor – although just the odd one, because I don’t want her having nightmares. “Look at her,” I go. “She’s got a face like a bee-keeper’s glove.”

Honor laughs, the way three-year-olds do, and she’s like, “You funny, Daddy!” and I’m thinking that’s one of the lovely things about her at this age – she’s really storting to appreciate my humour.

Christian arrives back from the Josh Ritter.

See, that’s the other big news. My best friend in the world is home from the States for Christmas, along with his wife and Ross jnr. He was owed so much time in lieu after project-managing the new Stor Wars casino in Vegas that George Lucas told him to take, like, the month of December off.

“I was just thinking,” I go, “what an amazing thing technology is.”

He nods and goes, “What were you doing? Checking out the Budget?” and I end up nearly laughing in his face.

“Er, something like that,” I go, so as not to hurt his feelings.

He looks into the pram at little Ross. “He didn’t wake up?”

“No, and I’ll tell you another thing, dude – he’s getting bigger by the day. He’s a second row, if ever I saw one.”

" Ora wide receiver," he goes, then he suddenly can't look at me, because it's the first time he's acknowledged the fact that he's probably never coming home? He suddenly seems – I thinkit's a word – preoccupied?

Lauren’s hitting the shops today with Sorcha and Erika. I’m wondering did Christian give her his credit cord.

I'm there, "You think you'vegot it bad? My one's actually divorcing me and she stillexpects me to pay for her to get this done . . . "

I flash him the picture of Cami D and he turns away like he’s been blinded.

I’m like, “Not pretty, is it? Sorcha’s found this place where they can do it without major surgery. They just inject fat from your orse into your face – you’re in and out in an hour . . . ”

He tries to look at the picture again. “She looks like that YouTube clip you sent me of the komodo dragon eating the water buffalo.”

She doesactually?

“Look,” I go, “Sorcha’s been through a pretty hord time of it lately, what with her shop going tango uniform in a ditch. Anything that helps, dude . . . ”

He's quiet again. There issomething on his mind. I tell him to spill.

“Well, do you ever wonder,” he suddenly goes, “what kind of a world it’s going to be when these two” – meaning Honor and little Ross – “reach our age?”

I’m like, “Whoa, what is this? As in, where’s it suddenly coming from?”

I didn’t realise the States was bad as well.

“It’s just, you know, the way things are at the moment. The collapse in property values. Major corporations going to the wall. Banks having to be bailed out by the taxpayer. All the things we believed in, Ross – all the things we held dear . . . ”

I’m thinking, okay, it’s time for some of my famous straight-talking here. “Are you asking me am I worried?” I go.

“How could we not be? We’ve brought children into that.”

"Okay," I go, "this is going to soundweird? But I've been doing a lot of listening to my old man since I storted working with him. I mean, yeah, he can be an orsewipe, and I'd be the last person in the world to defend him. But he can also talk a lot of sense. He was telling me the other day that when he was – okay, I don't even want to think about it – but conceived, the entire European mainland was . . . I think the word he used was, like, aflame?"

“Yeah, that would have been the second World War, Ross.”

Ah, that'swhat he was talking about.

"Okay, well, I knew it sounded bad, whatever was going down. The point is, thatdidn't stop people from, you know, reproducing. If anything, it encouraged them. And what the old man says is that if we were to let every little global crisis affect us, the human race would have been, I don't know, extinct a longtime ago?"

“Your old man said that?”

“He’s different, Christian. He’s no longer the same man who would have described those floods in Cork as God’s wrath against Munster supporters. Prison really changed him. I mean, some of the shit he says, I’ve even storted to write it down. As in, he’ll say something when he’s driving – while I’m in the back working the shredder – and I’ll end up sticking it in a text and sending it to myself, just to, like, have it?”

“That’s pretty deep, I hope you don’t mind my saying . . . ”

“Not at all,” I go. “I’ve developed a thicker skin about that kind of thing. I’m still the same old Ross – in other words, I might be wiser, but I’m still a filthbag . . . ”

See, I’ve suddenly spotted this bird in the queue who’s giving me sly Georges.

I hand Honor to Christian and go, “Hammer time!” which was always a catchphrase of mine, back from the time when I was the Wizard of Wez. I go and stand in the queue behind her, cracking on to get Honor a sundae. From the side, she’s a definite ringer for Amy Adams, except with, like, blonde hair?

She ends up making the first move.

She’s like, “Hi!”

I laugh and go, “Hey! It has to be said, I think it’s pretty cute when a bird makes all the running . . . ”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I think it just shows, I don’t know, independence, which is something I love. Those kids over there aren’t mine, by the way.”

“Oh, really? I thought the little girl looked a lot like you.”

"No, no – they're, like, my mate'skids? So anyway, what's your name?"

That’s when she properly turns around and I end up nearly bombing my boxers.

“You should know it by now,” she goes. “We’ve been technically married for seven years.”

rossocarrollkelly.ie