The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappuccino Years (12 page)

JP and Oisinn are having a row out on the balcony, roysh. Oisinn’s there going, ‘What you did was disgusting. There’s no other word for it. You’re so obsessed with knackers that you’ve become one yourself.’ And JP goes, ‘Cop on, Oisinn. Everyone pisses in the bidet.’

By the second week of the holiday, roysh, we’re all basically suffering from, like, malnutrition, so we all decide to head out for a meal in this, like, Indian, we’re talking the Playa Tandoori or something, for the biggest feed you’ve ever seen. So there we are, roysh, lashing into the poppadoms and knocking back pints of Ken, trying to decide what we’re going to have, and eventually, roysh, the goy comes to take our order and I go for the tandoori chicken tikka to stort and the chicken varutha curry for the main course. Fionn goes for the palak patta chat and the konkan seafood masala, obviously because they’re the most difficult to
pronounce, the focking show-off. Christian goes for the king prawns til tinka and the lamb korma, JP has no storter and the chicken tikka masala, and Oisinn orders the patrani machhi, the kadak seekh kebab, the masala dosa, two mixed tandoori platters, the beef chilli coconut fry, the chicken jalfreizi and the madras prawn thoku, all of which he will eat.

The food storts coming, roysh, and all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I notice this, like, family arrive in, we’re
talking
mum, dad, son and cracking daughter, we’re talking Nelly Furtado’s twin sister here, pretty, young, sixteen, seventeen, maybe eighteen, definitely borderline legal. And she cops me, roysh, I know she does, because I give her this, like, long look, roysh, and she looks straight back and when she sits down at the table, roysh, it’s in a seat facing me.

Oisinn’s lashing through his food, roysh, and he turns around to Fionn and he goes, ‘This madras prawn thing I ordered,’ and Fionn’s like, ‘What about it?’ and Oisinn goes, ‘Isn’t
madra
the Irish word for dog?’ Fionn’s like, ‘Don’t eat it if it’s bothering you. You’ve ordered pretty much everything else on the menu. I can’t see you starving,’ and Oisinn’s just there, ‘Remind me, who was it that won the UCD Iron Stomach competition three years in a row?’

And this bird, roysh, she’s still giving me the mince pies and you have to feel sorry for her, being at that difficult age where her old pair can’t accept that she’s not a little girl anymore and she wants to hang out with, like, lads, not her knobhead parents. And they do look like knobs, all serious and everything. The poor girl basically can’t take her eyes off me, roysh, so I give her a little smile and she gets a beamer and looks away.

JP is knocking back his sixth pint and saying we probably
should take it easy tonight what with the final of the water polo competition tomorrow. Our team, The D4s – Dumb, Ditsy and Dependent on Daddy – are supposed to be playing The Mun – or the Shower from the Towers, as Fionn calls them – at midday in the hotel pool, but right now the match is far from our thoughts. The food and the pints are going down well.

The bird, roysh, she’s looking over again and she smiles back at me and then goes all shy again, roysh, and her old man has copped what’s going on because he turns around in his seat and I just pretend to be really interested in some shite that JP’s
spouting
now about Paddy and Tony, two friends he’s made from Finglas. He says they’ve invited him to some club or other they go to on the first Tuesday of every month, basically family
allowance
day, when there are loads of loose single mothers out looking for a man. Mickey Tuesday, the lads call it. JP goes, ‘I told them I’d certainly take the idea off-line. Push it out of an airplane, see if its parachute’s good.’

The bird, roysh, I can feel her eyes on me again and when I look over at her this time, I blow her a kiss, roysh, but – FOCK – her old dear notices and the next thing she’s looking at the daughter and then back at me and then at the daughter again and then she storts giving out shite to her. The old man, roysh, I watch him take his napkin off his lap and throw it down on the table really, like, angrily. Then he gets up, roysh, and comes over to our table. The goys, roysh, they hadn’t copped what was going on – and I wasn’t going to tell them in case they wanted in on the action – and they’re all, like, totally
mystified
when the old man storts giving out yords to me. He’s like, ‘Would you mind not staring at my daughter like that. You’re making her uncomfortable,’ and I’m just there, ‘Really?
She doesn’t seem uncomfortable to me,’ and he goes, ‘Keep your eyes away from our table or I’m going to call the manager.’

And when he focks off, roysh, we all break our shites laughing and it’s, like, high-fives all round.

The D4s were soundly beaten in the final of the water polo competition. We were all too hungover to keep scores, but Andy – our asshole of a tour rep – said it was a record defeat.

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and there’s this, like, banging on our door and all this shouting in Spanish outside, and I presume it’s the hotel security guard, wanting to know who focked a box of Frosties off our balcony into the swimming pool a few minutes ago. I don’t even know why I did it. I’ve had a few scoops but I’m not, like, ossified or anything. Probably just boredom. I answer the door, roysh, and the goy’s there, like, screaming his head off and, like, pointing at me. He’s got a sort of, like, truncheon thing hanging from his belt, which he keeps pointing to as well. I’m just like, ‘No focking comprende.’ And then, roysh, I’m pretty proud of this because it came to me, like, out of the blue, I just go, ‘They’re gr
R
REAT!’ and slam the door in his face.

It probably isn’t the end of the matter, but then again, roysh, I think the management have pretty much given up on us and are, like, counting the days until we basically leave. Looking around the gaff, you can’t really blame the maids for refusing to clean the place. We’ve basically wrecked the apartment. There’s, like, beer all over the floor, the toilet’s blocked, thanks mainly to the chef at Salmonella City, and the bed sheets look like they’ve been through
a focking dirty protest. It’s like being back in Ocean City on a J1er. I’m like, ‘This place looks like a bomb’s hit it.’ And Christian goes, ‘If a bomb hit this place it’d cause thousands of pounds worth of improvements.’He can be a funny bastard, Christian.

I don’t even know how the place got into this state. Me and Christian are basically the only ones who are ever here. Fionn’s basically moved in with the two Spanish birds. He sleeps there every night and comes back in the morning to get, like, clothes for the day. There’s only his suitcase left here now. When he comes in, roysh, he just, like, looks around the place as though it, like, disgusts him. I’ll say this for the focker, though, he’s looking well. Tanned, well-fed, the whole lot. The two birds are probably cooking for him as well as everything else. No all-you-can-
eat-for-
seven-euro shit-holes for him. I’d probably have a good tan myself, but I’ve had the serious Leon Trotskys for a week now, and the colour is running out of my face quicker than I can get it in. I’ve storted, like, calling Fionn ‘Jack Duckworth’ because of the sticky tape holding his glasses together, but then he just storts singing, ‘Whenever, wherever, we’re meant to be together …’ I made the mistake of telling him that Rosa looks like Shakira. On his way out, he always goes, ‘
Buenos noches
,’ which probably means loser or something.

As for Oisinn and JP, they’ve pretty much moved out as well and are basically sleeping their way around the resort in this, like, competition they’re having. Instead of the usual craic – seeing who can score more birds – the challenge is to get your bit in as many different hotels and apartment blocks as you can. They’ve got this, like, chart on the wall for keeping score. Beside every, like, entry, roysh, there’s the name of a bird, when supplied, and a little comment:

JP is obviously a bit pickier than Oisinn but, as Oisinn always says, it’s quantity that counts, not quality. Five nights left and there’s everything to play for still. Christian’s, like, reading the chart over my shoulder. He’s like, ‘Holy shit, they move through this place any faster and they’re going to have to start heading down the coast, maybe down to Maspolomas.’ I’m like, ‘They’ll be home soon to fill in last night’s results.’