Two More Pints

Two men meet for a pint – or two – in a Dublin pub. They chew the fat, set the world to rights, curse the ref, say a last farewell … In this second collection of delicious comic dialogues Doyle's drinkers ponder:

• a topless Kate Middleton
  
• Barack and Michelle Obama (‘fuckin' gorgeous')
  
• David Beckham (‘Would you tattoo your kids' names on the back of your neck?' ‘They wouldn't fit')
  
• Jimmy Savile (‘a gobshite')
  
• the financial crisis (again)
  
• abortion (again)
  
• and horsemeat in your burger …
  

Once again, those we have lost troop through their thoughts – Lou Reed, Seamus Heaney, Reg Presley, Nelson Mandela (‘he should never have left the Four Tops'), Phil Everly, Margaret Thatcher, Shirley Temple – and they still have that unerring ability to ask the really fundamental questions like ‘Would you take penalty points for your missis?'

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of eleven acclaimed novels including
The Commitments
,
The Snapper
, and
The Van
, two collections of short stories,
Rory & Ita
, a memoir about his parents, and most recently,
The Guts
. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
.

Fiction

The Commitments

The Snapper

The Van

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

A Star Called Henry

Oh, Play That Thing

Paula Spencer

The Deportees

The Dead Republic

Bullfighting

Two Pints

The Guts

Non-Fiction

Rory & Ita

Plays

Brownbread

War

Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

The Government Inspector
(translation)

For Children

The Giggler Treatment

Rover Saves Christmas

The Meanwhile Adventures

Wilderness

Her Mother's Face

A Greyhound of a Girl

Brilliant

To my father, Rory Doyle
December 8th, 1923 – March 16th, 2014

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA

Copyright © 2014 Roddy Doyle

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published in 2014 by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, and simultaneously in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape, a division of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., London, both Penguin Random House Companies. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Doyle, Roddy, 1958–, author
Two more pints / Roddy Doyle.

Short stories.

Electronic monograph in HTML format.

ISBN 978-0-345-81536-1 (ebook)

I. Title.
PR6054.O95T858 2014    823'.914    C2014-905257-X

Contents

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Roddy Doyle

Dedication

Title Page

Copyright

19-9-12

3-10-12

7-10-12

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— Wha' d'yeh make of the photographs?

— Wha' photographs?

— Kate Middleton.

— Who's she?

— You're jokin'.

— I'm not.

— You have to be.

— I'm not. I lose track o' them all.

— She's – look it, she's married to Prince William.

— Which one's he?

— For fuck sake—

— I know who yeh mean. Topless pictures.

— Exactly.

— An' riots in all the Arab places because o' them.

— No, listen—

— Egypt an' Australia an' tha'.

— No – that's a fillum abou' Muhammad.

— Topless?

— No – that's the French cartoons.

— Wha'?

— Let's just concentrate on the Middleton pictures.

— Your man, Muhammad – he's dead, isn't he?

— You're gettin' distracted. Listen.

— Wha'?

— You're out on your balcony.

— I don't have a balcony.

— You're out the back. An' it's a lovely day.

— Okay.

— You take your top off—

— So I'm topless.

— You are.

— An' me tits are bigger than your woman's.

— They are.

— Serious – they are.

— So are mine.

— Desperate, isn't it?

— We'll get back to tha'. Annyway. You don't know it, but someone's takin' photos of yeh.

— The cunt. Who?

— A paparazzi. Me, say. An' I sell the pictures to the
Star
.

— Okay.

— For a fortune.

— Fair enough.

— I brought me camera.

— Give us a hand with this zip.

—
Top o' the Pops.

— Wha'?

— D'you remember watchin'
Top o' the Pops
when you were a kid?

— Yeah – 'course.

— Pan's People.

— Fuckin' hell. The first women.

— Wha'?

— For me, like. That was wha' it felt like. I remember them dancin' durin' a Status Quo song.

— ‘Down Down'.

— You remember it as well.

— I do, yeah.

— They were un-fuckin'-believable.

— They fuckin' were.

— An' I remember thinkin' – it sounds fuckin' ridiculous – but I remember thinkin', They're women!

— A eureka moment.

— Something like tha', yeah.

— An' it made you very happy.

— It fuckin' did.

— An' it still does.

— A bit, yeah.

— An' Jimmy Savile. When yeh saw him on
Top o' the Pops
. Wha' did yeh think?

— Fuckin' eejit.

— Yeah – me too. A gobshite. But never annythin' else.

— No.

— Yeh never thought you were lookin' at a fuckin' paedophile.

— Well, look it, I went to the Christian Brothers. I didn't have to look at
Top o' the Pops
to know what a paedophile looked like.

— It's horrible but, isn't it?

— Fuckin' horrible.

— Makes yeh wonder how many more television celebs an' tha' were paedophiles back then.

— Nearly all o' them, I'd say.

— The lot.

— Except Morecambe an' Wise.

— They were sound.

— See Enda Kenny's on the cover of
Time
.

— Give me a shout when he's on the cover of
Playboy
.

— It's a big deal, but. He's the first Irishman to make the cover since, well – probably Obama.

— He's not Irish.

— Obama?

— Kenny – he's not fuckin' Irish.

— Wha'?

— He's from Mayo, yeah?

— Think so – somewhere over there.

— Then he's Moroccan.

— Wha'?

— I seen it on a thing – on the telly. The Moroccans came up from wherever the Moroccans come from—

— Morocco.

— Yeah. An' they settled in Mayo an' Galway an' tha'. Took it over, basically. An' the locals never noticed.

— Says nothin' abou' Morocco on the cover. The Celtic Comeback, it says.

— Me hole.

— Annyway, listen. They interviewed him—

— Did they interview Reilly as well, did they? Doctor fuckin' James.

— I don't think so—

— The Celtic Cunt. He'd try to sell them a second-hand ol' folks' home.

— Annyway—

— An' relocate New York to fuckin' Swords.

— Just fuckin' listen. Kenny wants to bring us back to the late '90s.

— Wha'?

— So he says.

— What's he on?

— Somethin' Moroccan, I'd say. But I'll tell yeh, if we are goin' back to the '90s, it's just as well yeh held on to tha' shirt.