Welcome to Ballywood chapter 7: "The lock-in to end all lock-ins"
Three men and a baby's mam descend on Maguire's
It took me four days to find a bus that was less than six months old and had white leather seats and completely tinted windows. Turns out there isn’t much demand for that level of luxury coach travel in the locality. The call time for our Away Day was 9am but at quarter past only Eoin Mac Piaras and a couple of the producers are on the bus. Aubrey was all smiles at Eoin when she checked his name off her iPad. Am I going to have to have a word? I can’t have her in puppy dog love with our leading man, although he seems to be mooning at her too. I might remind them he’s got a leading woman girlfriend and they have a film out in just a few months’ time. Aubrey is a dote but she’s no Stefanie Spielberg. Nobody is.
A black SUV pulls up beside our meeting point at the village pump and Chris Paine hops out, flanked by his entourage of a hair and make-up person, nutritionist, reiki master and personal assistant. They all walk straight past us without so much as a nod. The next car to arrive is Majella and Pablo’s Quashquai with Sadhbh and Don Shields squashed in the back seat beside Baby Aisling. I tried to be firm with Maj but she insisted that as a title cast member, Baby Ais should be included in the Away Day and started throwing around words like “discrimination” and “lawsuit” when I told her it wasn’t exactly going to be child friendly.
“Aisling, can you take this?” She fires her nappy bag at me as she sails past with the baby on her hip. The beep lifts me out of it as Pablo nearly clips AJ Brandin’s Range Rover on his way off.
“Do you think the fame has gone to her head?” Sadhbh laughs as she and Don make their way over to Aubrey.
“What fame? The film isn’t even out til next year,” I call after her.
Ever since Baby Aisling was cast, Majella has been throwing her weight around BGB. She asked Eamon Filan would he consider giving her a reserved parking space outside the shop. He laughed her out of the place. Mikey Maguire did get in some Grey Goose for the pub though, in a bid to be fancy. Dee Ruane was livid when she ordered a vodka with a dash of Diet Coke and it was twice the price of her usual Huzzar.
“What’s on the agenda today?” AJ Brandin is suddenly in front of me, frowning, with Kennedy on one side of him and another assistant holding his coat and two of his three phones.
I consult my iPad. “Good morning Mr Brandin. Our first stop is the local pig farm, Tennysons to learn a bit about butchery and a photo op with piglets, then we’re going to Tessie Daly’s to make traditional brown soda bread. Tessie has taken gold at the National Ploughing Championships brown bread making competition twice and is president of the local guild of the ICA…”
“Am I supposed to know what the ICA is?”
“Well, it’s the Irish Countrywoman’s Association.”
“Wonderful,” he rolls his eyes. “Go on.”
“We’ll get to have tea and sample the bread we make with local jam and butter.”
“Who approved this shit?” He suddenly looks furious. “Nobody in this cast eats carbs.”
“It was signed off days ago,” I stammer. “By the studio. You were cc’d on all the emails?”
He sighs. “Fine. And is that it?”
“Then it’s bog jumping in Rathborris and back to Maguire’s for a private supper catered by Carol Boland of BallyGoBrunch. I think you’re familiar with her work?” When I was booking Carol in, she let slip that AJ is eating an alarming amount of sausages. She’s started to worry about his arteries. The mention of her seems to cheer him up and he stalks off towards the bus with the assistants hot on his heels.
“Who are we waiting on?” I shout over to Aubrey. I know that once AJ is on the bus we can’t be dillydallying. She consults her list. “Just Emilia,” she calls back.
Not a second too soon, a white SUV pulls in to the pump and Emilia gets out wearing yet another puffer coat. She brought a seemingly endless supply of them to help hide the bump.
“Sorry,” she whispers, drawing me in for a hug. “I had a Zoom with my dietician about upping my iron.”
“You could have skipped today,” I whisper back.
“I was already late to set. I need to bed in with the cast. Besides, it’ll be fun!”
She shuffles down the bus and sits in beside Eoin. Aubrey has commandeered the two seats at the front beside the driver and I sink in beside her. He closes the door with a whoosh and then leans down and unclips a microphone from the dashboard in front of him. He hands it to me.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
He shrugs. “It’s not a tour without a tour guide.”
By the time we’ve travelled the short distance to Tennyson’s pig farm I’ve already used the adjectives “proud,” “noble” and “ancient” to describe the stone walls that the Americans are so fascinated by. I know for a fact that Liam Reilly only built the one in his front field last summer so I hope they don’t go snuffling around for actual facts about the age of them. When we arrive I make the split-second decision to nix the butchery demonstration which unfortunately Ivan Tennyson had scheduled for after the photo op with the piglets. Chris Paine tries to buy one off him to take home for his children but Ivan is having none of it, even when he offers to throw in his Rolex. Spirits are high as we’re leaving the farm and on the way to Tessie Daly’s I get a decent Rattlin’ Bog singsong going with Aubrey holding up the words on her iPad. We’re up to the nest on the twig, and the twig on the branch, and the branch on the tree, and the tree in the hole, and hole in the bog when we reach our next destination.
Tessie has a fresh blow-dry and a brown bread production line going in her converted garage, as well as a vat of Irish coffee manned by Titch Maguire’s little sister Aoife who I’m pretty sure is wearing her debs dress. AJ Brandin makes a big show of forcing everyone to take a hefty mug but I ask Tessie on the sly for a cup of tea. I swiftly pass it to Emilia who swaps me her coffee. I’m not usually a fan but the cream makes it. And maybe the whiskey. I’m sure if I just sip it I’ll be fine. Aubrey also has a mug and I hope she’s exercising the same caution as me. The way this lot are sinking the booze already it’s going to be a long day. Majella is raging that she can’t get locked while she’s on parenting duties and I catch her ringing Pablo to meet us at the next crossroads to collect Baby Aisling.
“I’m not sure you can continue the tour if your accompanying cast member is leaving,” I slag her. She takes me by both shoulders and looks me dead in the eyes.
“If you take away my chance to go day drinking with Eoin Mac Piaras, Chris Paine and Emilia Coburn I will never forgive you, Ais.”
“As if I would. I’m just glad we’re not taking an infant bog jumping”.
Tessie is unexpectedly charming as a baking demonstrator and she has the cast eating out of her hand, literally. Eoin Mac Piaras poses good-naturedly for a photo of her feeding him a slice of her brown bread. “For my calendar,” she announces before asking Sadhbh to email her a copy ASAP. Maybe she has her eye on being the next Ballymaloe.
We have to drag everyone away from the Irish coffee vat to be on time for our next activity in Rathborris, about 15 minutes away. Simon Shinckle has been in touch via his assistant’s assistant to say he and a VIP executive producer will be meeting us there so I have to immediately get on to Mad Tom who is on the ground to source two extra pairs of wellies. It’s all go.
But not only does Simon arrive with a glamorous woman named Melanie DiScala, he also brings a hamper of champagne and spirits. Melanie is wearing Chanel and I only know this because of the gasp Sadhbh lets out when she launches herself into the muddy bog after two glasses of Cristal, which seems to have unleashed her inner bog witch. AJ Brandin is following her around like a lapdog so I guess she must be important. Emilia skips the activity, claiming she wants to watch and drink from the sidelines but again I have to take her champagne while she sips my apple juice. My head is definitely fuzzy by the time the tractor arrives to haul the director of photography and Majella out of the mire.
Carol Boland rings to let me know she’s setting up the bain maries for the sausage roll station at Maguire’s. “Mikey is wearing a bow tie,” she adds. It’s a raucous bunch that board the bus back to Ballygobbard and Don takes over the aux cord so people will stop playing Peigs songs. He sticks on some U2 to keep everyone happy and turns it up to drown out any “Bono is a pox” sentiments because the Americans just won’t get it. In the back row, Eoin Mac Piaras, Sadhbh and Chris Paine are roaring along to Beautiful Day, which I take as a good sign. Chris said this morning he wouldn’t be drinking because he’s on a seven-month full-body detox but that appears to have gone out the window because he’s swigging from a bottle of Buckfast. Simon Shinckle definitely didn’t bring that in his hamper. Aubrey is down there too, sandwiched between Eoin and the window and frantically catching up on admin on her phone. Every now and then Eoin elbows her and offers her the bottle and she takes a polite sip. I can’t really chastise her for drinking though, I’m three sheets to the wind myself.
It's the lock-in to end all lock-ins at Maguire’s. The karaoke machine is going and some of the extras have been invited along to join us. The Americans are using the pool table to teach the locals how to play beer pong properly with varying results. I take all of Emilia’s shots and cover for her when she leaves around midnight, claiming to be “too drunk”. I stumble out with her to her waiting SUV and driver, wishing I could leave myself. But duty calls. When I return, Eoin Mac Piaras is singing The Whole of the Moon and Aubrey and Majella are dancing like lunatics. I lean against the closed door of the snug trying to remember how many of Emilia’s drinks I had to throw back. I’m up to double digits when I hear AJ Brandin’s unmistakable voice from inside. But he isn’t giving out for a change.
“I’m so glad you like the idea, Mel,” he purrs. I peep my head around and he and Melanie DiScala are in there with a tray of Baby Guinnesses. “I know the ghost from the original Three Men and a Baby is a great urban myth story so I just had to bring it back for the remake.”
“It’s inspired, AJ,” Melanie coos. “The studio loves it. I’ll make sure you get that bonus.”
Oh my god. Using Shane Filan’s cardboard cutout as the little dead ghost boy was my idea, not his! Even in my plastered state, I know one thing and one thing for sure: AJ Brandin is a snake.
Coming next week: DeuxMoi gets an Eoin Mac Piaras exclusive, and it’s big
SNAKE!!!such a man!