Your grandfather had a totally unblemished professional record – 36 fights, 36 defeats
‘Oh, good Lord, Ross!” the old man went, like he’d suddenly remembered something. “Were you aware that you had a namesake?” This was, like, last Saturday night? He and Helen invited me and Sorcha over for dinner and I decided we might as well go. It’s nice to be nice. “What are you bullshitting on about?” I went. He was like, “Well, there I was on Thursday night, driving past Leopardstown Racecourse, thinking about poor old Seán Quinn senior and his most recent travails, as I’m wont to do, when all of a sudden I saw a poster, advertising a night of boxing of all things – in Club 92, don’t you know! Helen here is my witness. There, on the – inverted commas – bill was a certain Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. I mean, what are the chances of there being two?!!!”
I was there, “There aren’t two. It’s actually me they’re talking about?” I swear to God, roysh, the way he looked at me, you’d swear I’d just said, “I think I’ll take my mickey out and stick it in the bisque there.”
“You’re . . . boxing?” he went.
Sorcha got in on the act then. “Charles, do not even go there. I’ve been telling him it’s ridiculous. Fighting’s not exactly in your blood, Ross.”
That was when the old man went, “That’s not strictly true, Sorcha,” and of course I was suddenly all interest. “Fighting is in his blood. Your grandfather, Ross. He was a well-known figure on the professional boxing circuit in Belfast. This was between the wars.”
I laughed. “Did you hear that, Sorcha?” because she hasn’t been as supportive as she was of my rugby career back in the day. “It turns out that fighting’s in the old genes after all.”
The old man got up from the table, disappeared into his study, then came back a couple of minutes later, holding, like, a picture frame? He handed it to me and went, “That’s your grandfather there, Ross.”
I looked at it. It was a photograph of my grandfather alright, wearing, like, shorts and a vest, with his two fists raised like a proper actual boxer? I got this sudden surge of confidence. I was like, “You never told me about this.”
“No,” he went, then he sort of, like, smiled sadly. He never talks about his old man. They never got on, see. That’s portly why he’s always trying to be bezzy mates with me.
I handed the photograph across the table to Sorcha and she started at it.
“See?” I went. “Even Buckets of Blood said I had one or two moves in training that surprised him – for a novice anyway. It’s obviously in the DNA, babes. And there was you worrying!”
She handed the frame back to the old man. He looked at it one last time – a definite sadness in him – and went, “Ah, yes! Killer Kelly!”
I laughed. I was like, “That was what they called him, was it?”
“No, no,” he went, “that was what he called himself. Had it embroidered on the waistband of his shorts. Possibly on his robe as well. Killer Kelly. What they called him – well, it was rather cruel.”
I was like, “What was it?”
He went, “The Tumbling Taig.”
“What?”
“I should point out, in the interests of absolute fairness, that ‘Taig’ was meant in an affectionate way. He was really rather popular in Belfast, my father – on both sides of the community. I think they all got a huge kick out of him.”
I was like, “Hang on, I’m not getting this. Why was he known as the Tumbling Taig?”
The old man laughed. “Well, because he wasn’t very good at fighting, Ross. Your grandfather had a totally unblemished professional record – 36 fights, 36 defeats!”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I’m not. As a matter of fact, he spent so much time on his back, the Belfast Telegraph used to buy advertising space on the soles of his boots. That’s actually true!
“No, no, if you’ve inherited my father’s boxing skills, Ross, then you’re in serious trouble. The only saving grace – if you’re anything like him – is that the punishment won’t last beyond one round.”
Sorcha was pretty much silent for the rest of the meal and for most of the drive home. We were porked at the lights at the bottom of Newtownpork Avenue when she suddenly went, “It’s not too late to pull out, Ross. You could say you were sick. Or injured. Or that you had to leave the country.”
I laughed. I was like, “Or I could emigrate – how about that?”
“Ross, please.”
“Sorcha, I’ve been called a lot of things in my time. An adulterer. A bad father. A serious Jack the Lad. A waste of an incredible, incredible rugby talent. But there’s one thing that no one has ever been able to accuse me of. And that’s – and I don’t even know if this is a proper word – but cowardness?”
“Ross . . .”
“No, let me finish. See, I was never afraid on the rugby field, Sorcha. And do you know why? Because I had people around me who believed in me. Good people. Father Fehily, always reminding me: ‘A three-pound cat will eat a four-pound fish!’ Remember that one of his? My old man back there. The goys. And you, Sorcha. You always believed in me, even when deep, deep, deep down, I maybe thought I wasn’t worth shit. You believed in me. And I’m asking you to believe in me now.” It’s some speech, even I have to admit — like one of the ones I would have given to the S back in the day. I watch a tear slip from her eye, then she nods and goes, “Okay, Ross. I believe in you.”
A minute or so later, we’re back home. I hit the sack straight away. Sorcha says she’ll be up in a few minutes. She goes into the study and I hear her opening the drawers of the filing cabinet. She says she believes in me, but I know what she’s doing is checking my life insurance is up to date.