“Greta-Concepta’s in the kitchen,” said the abashed waitress, “gettin’ ready for this evenin’s teas, she is.”
“Could ye tell her that Rose is here? Now, she knows I’m comin’, so she doz.” And Rose was off like a greyhound out of the trap. “Me and Greta goes back a long way. She used to be married to Tommy Shortt, the breadman. He would-a been a second cousin of me husband’s late sister’s uncle’s mother twice removed, who married one of the Bap McDonalds, don’t ye know.” Rose could trace ancestries back to the Lower Jurassic if time and a pair of captive ears would allow.
“R-right,” said the waitress, trying to keep up. “I’ll tell her ye’re here.” She hugged the tray to her chest by way of repelling old Ned, who was now openly ogling her.
“Chicken sambiches will do me, and a pot-a-tay ye could do a jig on!” he shouted after her.
“Yes, Ned, we’ll get ye tea in a wee minute.” Rose got up. She needed to freshen up. “Now, I’m just gonna go to the ladies, and I’ll take me bag.” She grabbed the shopping bag, “’Cos I wouldn’t like nothing tae happen tae Greta-Concepta’s cake afore she even had a chance tae see it, so I wouldn’t.”
Bessie negotiated the Morris Traveller into a parking space outside the Kelly Arms and cut the engine.
“Och, I thought we were goin’ till the chippie.” In Herkie’s world the grand exterior meant boring food and too many posh big people.
“Ye can have your fish an’ chips in here,” his ma said bluntly. “I need a bloody drink after the day I’ve had. And I’ll not get that in a chippie. This looks like a respectable place. Nobody’ll know us in here.”
She had a lot to think about. A Tullamore Dew would calm her down. Maybe clear her head, for she didn’t have a clue what to do next.
She checked her face in the rearview mirror, daubed some powder over her T-zone, and snapped the handbag shut.
“Right, son, now you behave yourself in here. D’ye hear me?”
“Aye, Ma.”
“Where are ye, Rose?” a voice called from the far reaches of the lounge.
Rose, fizzy orange suspended in midair, turned to see Greta-Concepta Curley at the far end of the lounge. Wearing a butcher’s apron and a chef’s white beanie, she was laboring across the floor on swollen ankles. Her glasses, steamed up from her exertions at the stove, had her heading toward the couple with the toddler.
“Cooee!” cried Rose, getting up. “We’re over here, Greta-Concepta, so we are.” She went to her, grabbed her by the arm, and steered Ms. Curley back on course to their table.
“Wee Carmel tolt me ye’d come in,” said Greta, pushing her condensation-fogged spectacles up on her nose and coming to a breathless halt. Gusty attempted to stand up. “Now don’t stir yerselves on my account.”
Old Ned, loosened by the whiskey, was showing the flustered cook his full set of tawny dentures, a sight that was, mercifully, lost on her.
“I’ll just sit down here,” she said, and to Ned’s unexpected delight she very nearly sat down on his lap.
“Oh, God-blissus, not there!” cried Rose, appalled, pulling her out of harm’s way. “Uncle Ned’s on that chair. You sit here.” She guided her into a seat beside him.
“That nice young lady can sit on my knee if she likes,” said Ned.
The cook beamed in the old man’s general direction. “Oh, heavens above,” she said, taking off her glasses, “I need to give these a wipe.”
“This is me friend Greta-Concepta,” said Rose, stating the obvious. “The one I was telling ye about, Ned. This here is me Uncle Ned. And this here’s me cousin, Gusty.”
“Pleased tae meet yeh,” said the cook, extending a flour-dusted hand first to Gusty, then to Ned. Ned held on to her hand for longer than was necessary, and Rose had to pry it off.
Greta, unused to the attention being lavished upon her—even if only from a pensioner thirty-five years her senior—was breaking out in a sweat. “I’ll not stay long, Rose. I’m in the middle of the evenin’ teas and we just finished with the carvery lunch.”
“Can I get ye a drink or whatever, Greta?” asked Gusty, getting to his feet, embarrassed by the oul’ boy’s antics and itching to get away. There was a poolroom at the rear of the lounge, and he thought he might spend his time more productively knocking colored balls about, instead of sitting there listening to wimmin’s talk and having to look at his crusty uncle.
“No, thank you, Gusty. Can’t take anything when I’m on duty, ’cos—”
“Ye’re a cook, not a policeman,” Ned cut in.
“A wee mineral maybe,” said Rose.
Ned clapped a hand on Greta’s knee and squeezed it. “Och, ye’ll take a wee sherry, won’t ye, for the day that’s in it?”
A butterfly flapped its wings in Kathmandu and Rose’s heart nearly missed a beat. “Now, Ned!” she cried, realizing with a jolt that her matchmaking venture was in danger of veering wildly off course. “Greta-Concepta is on duty in the kitchen. She just came out tae say hello.”
She’d forgotten how drink affected her uncle. Thought old age might have withered his enthusiasm for the ladies. At her sister Martha’s wedding, he’d danced with every woman in the room before collapsing, inebriated, in an armchair and snoring his head off for the rest of the evening. But that was twenty-five years before, and he’d been more vital then, with a full head of hair and his own teeth.
“I’ll get ye an orange then,” Gusty said, backing away.
“And another one-a them black boys for me,” said Ned, draining the last of the Guinness. Finally free from the confines of his bed, he was determined to enjoy himself.
Gusty knew better than to refuse the old man’s request. If he didn’t get his way he was liable to start gushing swearwords like a burst pipe. Gusty couldn’t risk that in a fancy hotel among strangers.
Bessie and Herkie settled themselves at a table farther up the lounge. She was glad to see that business was slow. Just a scattering of customers, all so engrossed in their own worlds that their entrance had barely registered.
She handed a menu to Herkie. “Now pick something from this that’s under a pound, and be quick.”
Herkie studied the glossy pictures on the menu card in a daze of delight. The last time he’d seen a menu like this was back in Belfast at the Lido. His ma would take him there on the very rare occasions when she was in a good mood, had money to spend and something special to celebrate, like a birthday.
Overcome by the many pictures of delicious desserts on offer, he decided to ditch the fish and chips, and plump for a knickerbocker glory, a trifle, and a Coke.
Bessie lit up and nodded at the waitress who was leaning against the bar, eyeing the torpid hands of the clock on the back wall.
“I’ll have a whiskey and soda,” she said. “Herkie, what’s it to be?”
“D’ye want ice with that?” asked the waitress.
“No thanks. Just neat…Herkie, hurry up!”
“Ah…ahh…a Nicky Bocker’s glory, a trifle, and a Coke.”
“Hold yer horses, son. I didn’t say you could order everything on the menu. Who d’ye think I am, Rocky-feller?”
“Och, Ma, ye said tae keep it under a pound and it comes tae…it comes tae seventy-two pee.”
“A likely story. And since when did ye become a mathymatician? Give that over here.” She snatched the menu from him.
Herkie curled his lower lip, staring up sadly at the waitress. She smiled down at him.
“Accordin’ to my calculations, ye’re out by—”
“I’ll not charge ye for the Coke,” the waitress said, taking pity on the sweet little boy with the cherubic cheeks and blond curls.
Bessie softened. “Well, that’s very nice of you. Say ‘thank you’ to this kind lady, Herkie.”
“Thank you, miss,” Herkie said, smiling. Then, seeing he might be on to a good thing: “Can I have plenty of choclit sauce on me Nicky—”
“Don’t push it, son.”
“It�
�s all right,” said the waitress. “It comes with choclit sauce, but I’ll put a wee bit extra on for ye.” She winked at Herkie, scooped up the menu, and headed off.
“You’re an oul’ charmer, Herkie Halstone.” She reached across and pinched his cheek.
He beamed. “Ma, can I go tae the toilet?”
She scanned the room. The businessman at the bar gave her the glad eye. Bessie simpered. Touched her hair. For a moment allowed herself to forget the real fix she was in. “Go on then. And be quick.”
Herkie climbed down off his chair.
“And don’t talk tae any strange men, d’ye hear me?”
“Aye, Ma—I mean yes, Ma.”
A few minutes later, Herkie returned from the toilet.
“I saw Mr. Grant down there.”
“Nonsense. You’d never see him in a fancy place like this.”
“But I did.”
“Be quiet now, son.”
He was smiling broadly as he clambered back onto the chair.
Bessie eyed him with suspicion. “What is it now, son?”
“There was this pome on the door of the toilet, Ma.”
“If it was on a toilet door then it wasn’t a pome.”
“But it was funny. Canna say it?”
“Only if it’s clean.”
Herkie took a deep breath. “Here I sit, broken-hearted. Tried till shit, but only farted.”
The businessman looked over and smirked.
“Shush! Wash out yer—”
She didn’t get to finish. Her words were drowned out by an ear-splitting siren. Its wailing seemed to fill the entire building and the street beyond.“Christ! I hope ye didn’t touch anything in that toilet.”
“Didn’t, Ma! I—”
“Bomb scare! Everyone out now!” a man roared. It was Mr. Kelly, the proprietor, charging into the middle of the lounge. “Everyone out! Out now!”
The businessman sprinted out, followed by the couple with the now-screaming toddler. The waitress, halfway to Bessie’s table bearing the whiskey and knickerbocker glory, did a U-turn.
“Oh, no you don’t!” cried Bessie. She dashed after the waitress and, in the blink of an eye, scooped up the drink and downed it.
“God save us, is it you, Mrs. Hailstone?” a female voice called out.
Bessie turned to see Mrs. McFadden, Gusty Grant, and an elderly man staring at her.
“Is that Mrs. Hailstone?” the old man said. “Fine lookin’ wommin.”
“Jesus!” She caught Herkie by the sleeve and made a dash for the exit.
“Ma, what about me Nicky Bocker?”
“Hi, ye haven’t paid for that drink!” cried the waitress.
Outside, army personnel were hastily erecting barriers and ushering people down the street to the town square. Bessie and Herkie joined the jostling throng. She held tight to the boy’s straining hand.
“Ma, what about me Nicky Bocker?”
“Now, son!” She bent down to hammer home the point. “Would you shut up about yer bloody knickeebucker. There could be a bomb in that hotel. And we could be blew into wee bits any minute.”
Not far behind them followed a well-lubricated Ned on the supporting arms of Rose and Gusty. At some point in the commotion they had shed Greta-Concepta, but Rose didn’t much care. She was beginning to dearly regret the venture.
A befuddled Ned, now blinking into the light, was not a little rankled that he’d been torn away from his drink. A staunch supporter of the Republican cause all his life, he had a raging hatred toward all things British. Had been known to chuck his slippers at the TV whenever the Secretary of State, Sir Humphrey Atkins, appeared.
Picture him now catching sight of a platoon of British soldiers erecting barricades and barking orders at the disorderly crowd.
“Feckin’ murderin’ scum!” he roared, waving his stick at a squaddie in a maroon beret. The maroon beret marked the soldier out as a member of the much-reviled Parachute Regiment, fiercely unpopular with the nationalist community since their gunning down of fourteen unarmed civil-rights marchers in Londonderry nine years before.
“Put a sock in it, granddad,” said the squaddie, turning his juvenile, pasty face on the trio.
“God, Ned, don’t say anything more.” Rose tightened her grip on his arm. “You’ll get us all arrested.”
“Aye, shut the fuck up,” Gusty added helpfully, more interested now in Mrs. Hailstone sashaying up ahead. She was wearing a green bias-cut dress that moved nicely about her hips. Lucien-Percy had one similar, but with braiding round the hem.
Rose crossed herself. “There’s no need for that language, Gusty.”
Ned ignored the pair of them and launched into a boisterous rendition of a ballad from the IRA hit parade: a paean to the doomed Republican martyr Roddy McCorley.
“Oh, see the fit-hoof hosts-a men who march with faces on—”
“Jesus, Ned, don’t sing that here!” The sweat was pouring off Rose.
“For young Roddee McCurlee goes tae die on the bridge-a Toome the day.” On a bawling endnote he broke free of Rose’s and Gusty’s grasp and headed toward the nearest army jeep. “I need-a piss.”
“Ye can’t piss here.” Gusty plunged after him.
“I’ll piss anywhere I want in me own yard.”
“This isn’t yer own yard, Uncle Ned,” Rose cried. “Gusty, quick! He’s gonna do it.”
“I said get back in line, granddad!” The young paratrooper, fingers drumming on the stock of his self-loading rifle, was growing impatient with the old man’s antics. He had more pressing concerns. His gaze alternated between the crowd and the rooftops. The threat of sniper fire was an ever-present danger. Wouldn’t be the first time the IRA had used a bomb scare to lure them out, only to pick them off like ducks in a shooting gallery.
Gusty nodded sheepishly at the soldier while steering Ned toward the public toilets.
On finally gaining the square, Bessie sat down on a sunseat and lit up. The quick shot of whiskey had done her a power of good. She felt calm and happy; didn’t much care how long she’d be detained. She’d been caught up in so many bomb scares in Belfast that she considered them to be a part of everyday city life.
Herkie, still smarting from the knickerbocker glory that never was, stood staring up at a soldier’s gun, wondering what it would be like to hold it and peer down the barrel.
Rose, in the meantime, exhausted from old Ned’s antics and the unexpected nature of the evening’s events, needed urgently to sit down and get her breath back. She spotted a vacant space on one of the sunseats and made a beeline for it. It was only when she’d settled herself and the person next to her turned round that she realized it was her nemesis.
“God, Mrs. Hailstone, is it you?”
“Oh, Mrs. Mc…”
“Fadden. I’ll just sit down here beside you tae get me breath back.” Rose’s fingers fluttered at her necklace, face red as a radish.
Bessie smiled and made more room for her. Her sudden change in circumstances, her recent turmoil, was inclining her to kindness rather than her usual knee-jerk hostility.
“Is Mr. Grant all right?” she asked, having seen Gusty frog-march the elderly man out of the square moments earlier.
“Oh, Gusty just took him to the toilet over there. Ye know what these old men are like. They’re like cars, truth be told. The more miles on the clock, the more chance that sartin things don’t work proper, or God-blissus-and-savus, stop workin’ altogether.”
Bessie, unaware of Rose’s propensity for verbosity, didn’t know what to say. Then, recalling what Herkie had told her about seeing Ned Grant being stretchered out to the ambulance, she said, “But he’s out of hospital now. That’s good. It was very good of him to give Herkie a bit of work. Keeps him out of mischief. You know what young boys are like.”
Rose mopped her brow with a hankie, looking puzzled. “Oh, but he was never in the hospital, Mrs. Hailstone. Ye could hardly get him tae go tae a doctor’s surgery, never mind a
hospital.”
Snatches of a shortwave radio exchange could be heard in the background. “Roger, over…suspect package…location…ladies’ Kelly…arms…backup…”
Bessie looked over at Herkie. A soldier was hunkering down beside him, showing him his machine gun.
“That’s a lovely wee boy ye have there.”
All at once, the mystery of Ned’s missing pension money and the telltale evidence of the Milky Way wrapper she’d found on the doorstep was becoming clear to Rose. But tactfully she decided to spare Herkie’s embarrassment—for the time being anyway—and his mother’s certain blushes.
“He must miss Belfast,” she went on. “Big change for him, coming here. But I suppose it’s better for him to be away from all that bother in the city. Must be hard for him without his father…hard for you, too, Mrs. Hailstone, truth be told. Taken sudd—”
“Y’know, I had a slice of that lovely fruit loaf you made Father Cassidy,” said Bessie, slamming shut the closet door that Rose was trying to pry open. Those skeletons were not for her to see. “It was very good. You’re an excellent cook.”
The trick worked a treat. Rose blossomed. “God, d’ye think so, Mrs. Hailstone? Well, d’ye know I must show ye something I made this morning.” She reached down for the bag. “It’s a sticky-toffee layer cake I made—”
Her hand grasped empty air.
She quested about, shock and disbelief tensing her normally jolly features.
“What is it, Mrs. McFadden?”
Herkie ran over to them. “Can I hold the soldier’s gun, Ma?”
Normally she would have said no, but Mrs. McFadden appeared very distressed. Bessie glanced over at the soldier. He smiled and nodded.
“Go on, son. But be careful, you hear?”
“Aye, Ma.”
Bessie turned, to find a horror-stricken Rose clasping her face in her hands.
“What is it, Mrs. McFadden? Are you ill?”
Rose’s mouth moved, but the words would not come.
The Disenchanted Widow Page 27
