The Virtues

What's the craic?

No craic.

What were you doing?

Nothing.

Reading a book? No.

Come on, my mam wants to see you.

All right.

You wrote dog, but I've written dogs.

Why is this wrong? Two is your windpipe or your...

It sounds like a dinosaur.

Or the oesophagus.

It's in your neck.

Hello, there, love. Yeah.

You look gorgeous. Thanks very much.

Right, let's get going.

Doesn't this look professional?

Almost a little too professional.

What would happen if one scratched at the surface, I wonder?

Where did you get that voice from? I'm not going to come back to it.

No, this is my, this is my suspicious Aloysius voice.

Yeah, yeah, I recognise it.

I don't know if I can be arsed, love. I want to put my jammies on.

And... Come on. Honestly, I'm very throaty... Look at that.

If we stay, we're going to ruin this lovely scenario.

I'm not too sure if that's not such a bad thing. All right.

Looks like it's all in hand to me.

Baby, go on, now, I'll get them to bed and everything. Yeah.

Yeah, come on, just, you know, give us a chance to make it up for you.

It hasn't been the best of starts, has it?

Yesterday was a little bit ridiculous,

so just give me a little chance. Yeah. Yeah, listen to your brother.

I'll keep an eye on him.

You'll keep an eye on Angie and Dan for me, Zach?

Liz and Richard, I know you're talking. And Juliet's The Twits...

The Twits? You smartarse. Come on, get back to this.

Right, listen, face, hands, and teeth, go to bed when you're told,

don't stay up too late. Be good, be good, be good. All right.

Be good. Be good, be good.

All right, come on, let's go.

Hey, Zachie. See you later, guys. Come on.

Eyes on you.

All right, see yous later. Be good! Goodnight!

Orange and apple... A kiwi, pear and pineapple...

All right, smartarse, let me see. Smartarse?

Where did you learn to cook?

At my auntie's.

Is that the woman who you lived with when you...

went over to Liverpool? Yeah.

Yeah, she was a great cook.

Shepherd's pies, cottage pies, pea soup.

All the home cooking. Yeah.

Scouse, she makes a great pie scouse.

What is scouse?

It's kind of like Irish stew.

OK. Potatoes.

Yeah, Anna attempted to make a stew one time.

Yeah? Yeah, we all had the shits for about a week.

What? From a stew?

You know the way you leave a stew to sit overnight

to, you know, let it soak?

She left it for about a fucking week, to be honest.

It's always better the day after.

No, yeah, well, she thought

it was going to enhance the flavour by leaving it a week.

It'll go mouldy, won't it?

That is really good. Yeah!

Is that your phone?

I'm going to bet you five euro that is going to be Anna

checking to see if I'm fucking fingering you.

I'm telling you. You... Am I right?

No, it's Shea.

It's my lad, my little lad.

I'm just going to take it out here, is that all right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to tuck into this.

Hello, champ.

Are you OK?

Yeah, no, no, I tried, I tried to Skype you the other day.

You're just getting it connected?

The tinterweb's being put in.

OK.

Yeah.

Two bedrooms?

That's great, really great.

Swimming pool?

That's amazing!

You've got your own swimming pool.

Nice one.

What's his name?

Thomas?

Yeah, that's lovely, isn't it?

No, I'm, um... I'm in Ireland.

Um, yeah, I'm with Bridge.

We're painting a big house.

Yeah, yeah, maybe another week, I think.

Yeah, it shouldn't be too long.

OK, well, I will, I promise. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, as soon as you've...

Yeah, as soon as it's all connected and that, we... we'll do the,

we'll do the, we'll do the Skype, yeah?

OK. Yeah, OK.

I love you too, son.

Yeah, to the moon and back.

Forever.

Yeah, ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra, bye-bye, bye-bye.

Sorry, but, um...

do you want me to cover up your dinner for you,

just to keep it warm or something?

No, you're all right. I'm not hungry now.

Neither am I.

It was lovely, but I'm just not hungry any more.

I didn't mean to, um... overhear your conversation there.

A-Are you all right?

Yeah, I'm fine, yeah.

Yeah? How's your lad?

Yeah, he's got a swimming pool.

Fucking hell. No, you're all right, mate. It's OK, no worries.

It's over. You don't need to...

I'm OK. It's all right.

You don't need to pretend in front of me.

No, I know, yeah.

It's just hard. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I just really miss him.

No, I get it, I honestly do, I know how... how hard it is.

I don't mean to be funny, you know, you just... You know what I mean?

It's my son, isn't it?

No, I get it. Honestly I do, I know.

No, you... you don't get it.

No, I do, actually,

I know, I do get it because I can't see my son either.

No... it's not your fault, you didn't know.

We don't talk about it in this family.

It's a hard one to bring up, you know?

"Joe, this is my sister Dinah."

"She got knocked up when she was 15 and we thought it would be a great"

"idea to give her kid to someone who could, you know, look after it."

"Fuck knows what she wants to do, but..."

I don't know if you know, but abortion is kind of illegal

in this country so it was... you know, it wasn't an option.

Fucking hell.

My Bible-bashing mother wasn't going to let that fucking thing happen

and piss off the hierarchy above.

I'm sorry, but I feel like a tit. No, don't be. It's not your fault,

but just don't judge me on not knowing what it is

that you're going through, it's just I've been going through it

for the past ten years, you know, so...

I'm really sorry about it.

Don't be sorry.

There's me going off like a prick saying you don't know

what I'm talking about, of course you do.

No, it's... it's all right.

Is it a boy or a girl?

A little boy.

Finn.

Finn. Do you get to see him?

No, I don't. I haven't seen him since he was born.

I got to name him, though.

It's means warrior.

It's a Celtic little warrior, little fighter.

Does Michael, and Anna, and everyone know?

Yeah, they actually tried really hard to, to take him in.

But... my mum wasn't going to let that happen.

So that's why, you know, they put up with all my shit

cos instead of taking him in, they took me.

So I try not to piss them off so much.

Dinah, I'm so sorry. No, don't be sorry.

Please stop saying that.

I'm not sorry, I'm not feeling sorry for myself.

I had no idea.

You know you're amazing, aren't you?

No.

No, I'm a fuck-up.

Fucking hell. What are we doing?

No, we shouldn't do that. No, we can't do it.

No.

We promised them, didn't we, that we wouldn't do nothing. No.

The fucking minute they go, we're... Fucking...

No, we shouldn't... we shouldn't do it. You know what I mean?

It's just... it's just too much.

Well, definitely not in that, you know, apron.

It just wouldn't work.

It's just...

it's just, it's not, it's just not the right time.

Do you want me to go or...?

Yeah. Yeah, maybe, no...

We should clean up and that, shouldn't we?

Do the dishes and stuff.

What, you can't clean up too much, otherwise we'll look like, um,

fucking angels, here, in the house,

cooking dinner and all that.

Sorry.

But I really want to.

I haven't been with anyone for ages.

How long is ages?

About two and a half years.

It's all right, we don't have to do anything.

We could just... you know, just sit here.

I hope just to hold you.

Yeah?

Yeah, if that's OK?