Ross O’Caroll Kelly: ‘The last time JP had his hand on a breast, it came out of a bucket with Colonel Sanders’ face on it’

My phone rings. The first thing I hear when I answer it is the sound of heavy breathing – like Tony Soprano carrying a wheelie bin up three flights of stairs. After 30 seconds, a voice goes, “Ross . . . Ross, it’s me.”

Me ends up being JP's old man.

I’m there, “Mr Conroy, where are you? I’ve been worried.”

“I’m stuck in this bed,” he goes. “JP and his mother have got me under house arrest – eating lettuce and drinking Complan.”

This is since his hort attack six weeks ago.

He goes, “I need to see you.”

I’m there, “How? JP won’t let me anywhere near the gaff.”

“You’re Ross O’Carroll-Kelly,” he goes. “How many bedrooms have you climbed in and out of over the years?”

I feel instantly proud. It’s nice that people still remember what a complete and utter dirtbag I used to be.

“Okay,” I go, “I’m on the way.”

Twenty minutes later, I'm pulling up outside the gaff on Nutley Road. I spot the copy of The Irish Times property supplement in the window, where he said it would be. I look to the left and there's, like, a wooden wall trellis with ivy growing out of it. I grip it with my hands, then I stort clambering up it, my teenage years coming back to me in a sudden flash of memory.

Did you ever wonder why ivy on the front of houses went out of fashion in the late nineties and early noughties? Now you know.

When I get to the top, I reach across for the window, which is already open a crack. I pull it fully open, then I slip inside.

JP’s old man is sitting up in the bed. The dude looks horrendous. He’s as white as Oscars night and you’d find more meat on an eggbeater.

I’m like, “Mr Conroy?”

“Ross,” he goes, his head turning towards me, “come closer so I can have a look at you.”

The sight of me seems to give him a bit of a lift. I did make millions for him.

“What’s happening with the estate agency?” he goes. “JP won’t tell me anything.”

I'm there, "I don't know if I even should? I don't want to give you another hort attack."

He grabs my hand and he squeezes it hord. “Whatever it is,” he goes, “I need to know.”

I just nod. “Okay,” I go, “he’s changed the name – from Hook, Lyon and Sinker to Bloodless, Human, Good.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was.”

“Bloodless, Human, Good? What kind of a name is that?”

“He wants us to be known as the ethical estate agency.”

He closes his eyes. I think a little bit of him dies in that moment.

I’m there, “I probably shouldn’t say any more than that.”

“No,” he goes, “I want to hear it all. What does an ethical estate agency look like?”

I’m there, “Well, he’s given us each a code of conduct.”

“Jesus!”

"Things we can and can't do? For instance, we're not allowed to sell aportments that are smaller than 55 square metres."

“But Alan Kelly said–”

“It doesn’t matter what Alan Kelly said. JP says that if people want to live in greyhound traps, they can go to another estate agent. The other thing is, well, you might as well know everything . . .”

“Tell me.”

“He’s banned words like compact, bijou and cosy.”

“What? There’s no other way of describing–”

“Small. He wants us to use the word small.”

The dude just shakes his head. He goes, “What happened to the boy? I mean, you two were close.”

I'm there, "Yeah, no, we used to be? But we don't see that much of him anymore. The goys call him Julian Assange, because he never goes out."

“He’s too damn nice. It was always his problem. I said it to his mother. Why can’t he be more like Charles O’Carroll-Kelly’s boy? Completely and utterly bereft of basic human empathy.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as a compliment. It’s why I wanted you, not him, to take over the running of Hook, Lyon and Sinker. Because an estate agent with a conscience can do more damage to a country than a global economic recession. We need to do something about him. What about a woman?”

“A woman?”

“Is he doing it with anyone at the moment?”

I laugh. I’m there, “The last time JP had his hand on a breast, it came out of a bucket with Colonel Sanders’ face on it. No disrespect.”

“Well,” he goes, “you could introduce him to someone. A woman can have a leavening effect on a man. My father used to say, it’s not who rules the roost that counts – it’s who rules the rooster. Do you get me?”

“Not really. I’m famously slow, though.”

“You introduce him to a woman. She gets inside his head. And once she’s in there, we tell her what levers to pull.”

“Okay, I’m beginning to understand you now.”

“But you’ve got to be quick.”

“Quick?”

“Something I didn’t tell you – before I got sick. There’s an estate near Carrickmines. Vulturestown Heights.”

“I know it. We’re the rental agents, aren’t we?”

“That’s right. Well, just before Christmas, all of the developer’s loans were acquired by an investment bank called Pillages, Plunders and Sacks.”

“They sound like good people.”

“They’ve given 370 tenants six months to clear out, then they’re putting the houses on the market. And guess who they want to sell them?”

“Are you going to say Hook, Lyon and Sinker?”

“You better believe I’m going to say Hook, Lyon and Sinker! And not Bloodless, Human, Good.”

“JP might have a few, I don’t know, moral issues with people being thrown out of their homes by an investment bank.”

“That’s why you have to destroy him.”

I just nod.

“Don’t worry,” I go. “I think it was Matt Williams who once said of me: ‘What he lacks in intelligence, he more than makes up for in stupidity.’ I like to think what he meant by that was that Ross O’Carroll- Kelly doesn’t know when to give in. Leave it to me, Mr Conroy. Give me three months and I’ll have the words Hook, Lyon and Sinker over the door again.”

ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE