“What’re we to do now?” Fionnuala cried. “Them rates is due the tomorrow!”
“What about Roisin? Kyanny she help us out? She’s gonny be in town the tomorrow.”
“I already thought of her. Her plane touches down in the evening, but, after wer electricity’s already to be turned off. And she’s on her holidays, anyroad. I don’t wanny bother her.”
“Call you the wanes down,” Paddy instructed.
“What for?”
“I'm gonny turn their flippin pockets inside out. It’s about time they started to pay their way.”
“Seamus and Siofra? Them has no source of income, but. And Eoin’s out. And as for Padraig—”
“Call you Dymphna and Padraig down,” Paddy instructed.
Fionnuala knew the drink was to blame for her husband making a show of himself and he would regret it in the morning, but she also knew that slipping a few more fivers out of her register and into her handbag at the Sav-U-Mor wasn’t going to help them now. She wiped her hands on her smock, heaved a sigh and, slightly mortified, stepped into the hallway.
Hand on her hip, she hothered with uncharacteristic uncertainty up the landing: “Dymphna! Padraig! Yer daddy wants a wee word!”
By the time they lumbered down the stairs, Paddy was dozing before the telly, lit fag hanging from his fingers, a gardening program blaring. He jerked to life as the offspring lined up before him and Fionnuala turned the telly down. She hovered in the background, passing back and forth before the Bleeding Heart of Jesus above the mantelpiece. Leaves from Palm Sunday—the last time they had all stepped foot into St. Moluag’s together as a family—still poked out from the frame, curled and yellowed with age.
“What do ye want, Daddy?” Dymphna whinged. “I’ve still me hair to wash.”
“And I'm knackered,” Padraig said.
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Padraig screamed as Paddy clipped him around the ear.
“That’s for messing with petrol bombs in the back garden and getting yer mother hurt, ye clarty wee bastard, ye!” he explained to the cowering child. “If I see ye with Declan McDaid again, there’s more where that came from! Now if we don’t get 300 quid round to the NIE and Fuel Services, we’re not to be having the luxury of central heating nor electricity. Spuds’ll be baking in the fireplace for wer tea.”
Their impatience dissolved into nervousness. Parents without money? Who had heard of such a thing?
“Yer mother and me is skint,” Paddy said, “and yer mother’s after asking yer auntie Ursula for some money. The scaldy gee-bag refused.”
Dymphna felt foolish; no wonder Ursula thought she had come to Xpressions to raid her handbag.
“We’ll be grand in a week,” Paddy conceded. “That doesn’t help us now, but, as youse are well aware the electric and gas companies is run by Proddies who has no mercy.”
“What do ye expect us to do?” Dymphna asked.
“Pay wer effin electric and gas!” Paddy bellowed.
“Daddy! I'm but eleven!” Padraig sniffled.
“If ye’re aul enough to fling petrol bombs around the town, ye’re aul enough to pay yer way!”
“That’s me money, but!”
“Aye, and who gave it to ye?”
“You—”
“Get you back up them stairs then and find twenty quid before I clatter ye so’se you be’s talking outta yer arsehole,” Paddy warned.
Padraig scurried off.
“And you, Dymphna, is living the life of Riley, what with them flash wages the Top-Yer-Trolly dishes out!”
“I'm earning bloody minimum wage,” she huffed. “And half me pay packet is handed over to you lot anyroad.”
“I wish I had the income when I was yer age to afford a mobile phone and glossy magazines and a trendy new top from Warehouse every week!” Paddy said.
Dymphna’s face screwed with frustration. Eoin was strangely absent from the house, she noticed, probably stuffing more fifties into his pocket that night than she earned in a month.
“If ye’ve any complaints, ring yer auntie Ursula and spew yer filthy venom down the line!” Paddy barreled on, and, knowing his wanes, they would probably do just that.
“I hate me auntie Ursula!” Padraig seethed as he stomped down the stairs and tossed a handful of five pound notes at his father.
“Aye, don’t we all, son,” Paddy replied, snatching up the bills.
“Now get you back up them stairs and think about all the bother ye’ve put yer poor aul mother through.”
Off Padraig raced.
“And give us one hundred, you,” Paddy instructed Dymphna.
“I...I’ve only fifty, like.”
“Me hole!”
Dymphna stole into the front hall, grabbed her handbag and reluctantly reached into it, realizing with a sinking heart the moment she handed over the £100, a termination—were she to choose it—would be that much further from her reach. She counted out the twenties with a sob.
“That reminds me,” Fionnuala said with a nod at Dymphna’s handbag. “Ye got the sausingers for yer father’s tea the night?”
“Aye,” Dymphna said, the tears still fresh on her face as she delved dutifully into her handbag again. “And them bog rolls from the staff jacks ye was asking for and all.”
Ignoring Dymphna’s grief, Fionnuala snatched the toilet paper her daughter had lifted from the staff toilets and plopped them on the hall stand. As Dymphna tugged out the sausages, Fionnuala glared down, a twitch of irritation in her left eye.
“I'm wile sorry, Mammy,” Dymphna said apologetically. “The sausingers is skinless budget, just. That aul bitch Fidelma wouldn’t leave me a moment’s peace. I had to lift what I could.”
“Ye think ye can dredge up the intelligence somewhere within that thick skull of yours to pinch some of them wile dear French cheeses from the counter the tomorrow?” Fionnuala asked. “To serve Roisin for her arrival? I’d be mortified to have to serve her up a packet of pickled onion crisps.”
“I’ll see what I can do, aye,” Dymphna said through her tears.
“What about Eoin?”
“Ach, sure, he doesn’t be interested in boggin aul cheeses,” her mother said.
“Naw, what I meant was, is he to give up some money as well, like?”
“Yer brother’s drawing the brew, ye daft wee bitch.”
How her dullard of a daughter expected Eoin to have money when he was collecting unemployment, Fionnuala was at a loss to comprehend.
Dymphna could take it no longer.
“Eoin’s dealing wingers down the Craglooner, sure!” she wailed.
“He must be raking in loads!”
Dymphna actually gasped after she blurt it out and clasped both hands over her open mouth. Common sense had never been one of her stronger traits.
Now it was time for the parents to stare.
“Ach...” Fionnuala began, a sneer and scorn ready. But it all made sense, she suddenly thought, Eoin’s new mobile, his trainers, his good moods and bleary eyes, the shifty mates in hooded tops she had seen him with down the town.
And, as if the Virgin Mary herself were damning Dymphna for being a right old slapper, the front door opened, and who staggered in but the man himself—Eoin. Dymphna shrank against the mantelpiece, terrified Eoin would reveal her sordid secret, feeling the shame of every Orange ounce of embryonic fluid blatant in her womb.
Fionnuala gave Eoin the once over as if she were seeing him for the first time. She would never feel the same way about her second oldest boy again.
“What’s the craic, hi?” he asked, staring in some concern at the odd way they were all looking at him.
“I hear ye’ve been dealing wingers in the Craglooner,” Paddy roared.
Eoin glared daggers over at Dymphna, who pleaded “naw, naw, naw” with her eyes.
“A-aye,” he admitted.
He flinched as his father’s massive palms swooped through the air—
—and grabbed him b
y the shoulders, hugging him tight, pride aglow.
“Right man ye are!” Paddy said.
“Aye, good on ye, like,” Fionnuala twittered around him, a pat on the head.
Their son, the resourceful entrepreneur.
“If only I’d had the chance to deal drugs when I was yer age!” Paddy sighed. “Dealers was steering clear of Derry twenty years ago, but, with all the bombs and Proddy soldiers crawling through the streets and all.”
“And mind, Paddy, Ecstasy wasn’t even invented back in them days,” Fionnuala nodded.
Eoin and Dymphna regarded their parents in a new light.
“We need 180 quid for the gas and electric,” Paddy said. “Could ye help us out there, son?”
All sorts of relief crossed Eoin’s face.
“Aye, surely,” he said, reaching into his pocket and counting out the notes on the coffee table, problem solved.
Paddy added them to the quickly growing pile.
“Thank bleeding feck,” Fionnuala said, snatching the notes up and fondling them. “Ye don’t know what this means to us, lad.”
Eoin beamed proudly while Dymphna scowled. She didn’t recall one word of thanks when she had handed over the equivalent of forty hours of slicing black pudding and stacking Gorgonzola with a silly grin glued on her face.
“Just watch ye don’t get yerself caught, Eoin,” Paddy said. “Now the Peace Process has calmed things down, the Special Branch of the RUC the day has nothing to do with their time but go after enterprising spirits like yerself.”
“Ach, it’s no bother,” Eoin said. “A spastic could steer clear of the Special Branch. Is that it, then? I'm shattered and ready for bed.”
“Aye, that’s it, son,” Fionnuala said fondly. “Night night.”
“Night.”
Dymphna followed the prodigal son out of the sitting room like an afterthought. His head whipped around and, with every step, he inflicted her with an ever more menacing glare.
“I'm wile sorry, Eoin,” she whispered meekly. “They forced it outta me. I had to tell em ye were flush. They needed the money, like. I had to hand over 100 quid as well, and that was meant to be me termination money. Still, they took the news about your drug sales well enough.”
She smiled with a tense eagerness at his drug-addled face in the light of the landing.
“Aye, right enough. Ye’ve still only one week to sort yerself out, but,” he hissed.
As Dymphna snuggled in next to Siofra’s sleeping limbs, she realized finding a lad to claim as the father was useless. She would have to take that ferry. Where would she get the money for the termination, though?
£ £ £ £
David the shelf stacker slunk up the meat and cheese counter with a sneer aimed at Dymphna.
“O’Toole wants a word with ye,” he said. “In his office, like.”
Fidelma sniggered at the summons—never a good sign for any employee—as David slouched off. Dymphna checked out David’s arse as she suspected Mr. O’Toole had done minutes earlier. David was well fit.
She wondered if he lived in the Waterside.
“Wipe that smirk offa yer face,” Dymphna warned Fidelma. “Or I'm gonny wipe it off meself when I come back from the aul poofter’s lair.”
“If ye come back,” her co-worker sang.
Dymphna plodded down the battery and light bulb aisle, up past the staff lounge and loos, and paused at Mr. O’Toole’s door. She pulled her name tag out of her pocket and pinned it on, thankful she still didn’t have the Doux de Montagne, Crème de St. Agur and the Cheese and Pineapple Halo in her smock; they had been safely hidden in her locker. She rapped on the door.
“Come in.”
She always envisioned Mr. O’Toole in his office busy at work on his fingernails, emery board flying, sighing over glossy photos of Keanu Reeves, but there he was, sat at a desk, pecking away on his computer. Her stomach turned at the sight of the outstretched pinkie finger hovering over the keyboard.
His beady eyes, normally frisky when a stock boy was in the area, seemed to be dulled as they suffered the sight of her scowling femininity.
“Ye wanted to see me?” she asked.
“I did, aye.”
Dymphna examined her nails and straightened her smock. Finally he looked up at her, and he wasn’t happy. When was he ever, Dymphna thought grimly; a strange disposition for one of them they called gay.
“This,” he said, reaching into a file, “was discovered by the cleaner on the wall of the ladies’ staff jacks above the soap dispenser.”
He produced a Polaroid of a vulgarity scrawled in bright pink lipstick:
MR. HENRY O’TOLLE IS A FUCKIN NANCY-BOY POOF!
Dymphna curled her lips inward and struggled to hide her lipstick and her guffaws. She could almost feel her wane tittering along with her. Mr. O’Toole stared pointedly at her mouth.
“The shade of lipstick used for this message seems remarkably similar to the one ye’ve on ye now,” he said.
When the merriment finally quelled, she trusted herself to ask, “Are ye accusing me, like?”
“It’s yer shade, if I'm not mistaken. Sheer Temptation from Boots the Chemist, is it not? If it weren’t for wer admission into the EU and all their touchy-feely liberal shite, I could accuse ye of all sorts. Now I kyanny, more’s the pity.”
“What do ye expect me to do with that photo, then? Pin it on the bulletin board in the staff lounge so’se all the stock fellas can read it and get ye a date?”
Mr. O’Toole did not dignify this comment with a response. He reached into his drawer, pulled out a dog-eared file and swiftly shifted into third gear.
“Ye were twenty minutes late for yer shift the day.”
“Aye, I—“
“—and ye took seventy-five minutes for yer lunch break—”
“The queue at the ChipKebab was flimmin desp—”
“—and ye were half an hour late yesterday and all.”
“Me brother was pelting rocks at pensioners! I had to protect em.”
“The likes of common Moorside muck like you coming to the aid of aul ones? That’s likely, aye,” he said with a roll of the eye. He heaved up the hefty folder and flipped through it, scanning the many incident sheets written up about Dymphna Flood.
“According to these, ye be stroppy with the customers, yer fag breaks stretch for hours, ye never lift a finger to help with the deliveries, ye slipped some budget pork into Mrs. Laughlin’s order when ye knew she’s the only Jew who’s living in Derry. Ye almost had us in court over that wan, you.”
He placed down the folder and glowered frankly at her.
“Have ye anything to say for yerself?”
She stood naked under his gaze, simmering, as her tongue revved up for a lashing.
“C’mere till I tell ye! Ye see you, O’Toole? Ye sit on yer fat arse in this boggin office week in and week out, dreaming up grievances to throw in wer faces like the fanny-hating arse-bandit ye are! How many grievances does that David from the stockroom have in his file? Not a wan, I'm betting, for you be’s hungering to bugger the arse offa him!”
Mr. O’Toole’s eyes devoured her with disbelief. He snatched up a pencil and scribbled furiously in her file.
“That’s yer first written warning,” he said.
“Shove yer written warning up yer hole, ye fecking aul poofter!”
Scribble.
“And that’s yer second.”
“But...!”
“One more grievance, and then ye’re outta here, drawing the brew.”
If she lost her job, how would she ever get together enough for the ferry to Liverpool? She fumed at him for a few seconds, her hands curled into fists, nails biting into her flesh. Gradually she relented and, shockingly, willed a smile to her lips.
“Was there anything more ye wanted to say?” Mr. O’Toole wondered.
Dymphna took a deep breath.
“Aye,” she admitted.
Mr. O’Toole looked up wearily.
<
br /> “Go on and advance us some of next week’s wages, aye? I'm skint.”
His eyes widened. Then he said with a reluctant chuckle and a shake of the head, “Ye’ve a bold-faced cheek. You wee girls from the Moorside always have, but. I had this girlfriend from the Lecky Road once, Magella Feeney ye called her, and I mind one day she asked... ”
The laughter within Dymphna pleaded to be set free. Did he really expect her to believe he was heterosexual? Oh, the hilarity!
She let on she was all ears and politeness as he blathered on. She just wanted to grab £50 and escape from the office, her two written warnings under her belt, and race to the ferry pier.
“Would ye go on and sub me the fifty quid or not?” she finally asked through her grin-arranged teeth.
“I'm under no obligation, even under the laws of the EU.”
He leaned back and took stock of her, his eyes drinking her in.
“I kyanny help but admire ye,” he said. “Fair play to ye, Dymphna.
Bold-faced cheek deserves to be rewarded. Not to the customers, mind, but between us...”
Dymphna’s brain struggled in confusion. Was he being sarcastic? She found sarcasm so difficult to detect. Mr. Toole reached into a drawer and pulled out a little metal box.
“Here’s yer sub,” he said, tugging out a fifty pound note.
She snatched the money. Was it her imagination, or did his manicured fingers rest a second too long on her own? Was that beady little glare in her direction one of...could it be...?
She shoved the money into her smock, flustered.
“Am I free to go?” she asked.
“Aye, get you back to work. I’ve taken up enough of yer time. The good Lord knows ye spend little enough of it behind that meat and cheese counter as it is.”
She closed the office door, lost in thought. She had seen the swanky car he drove. As area manager, he was sure to be raking in the cash! And she had noticed the impressive package in the crotch of those skintight slacks he favored; how could anyone not? She and the checkout girls had made themselves ill over the thought of that thing poking at boys’ arses. But if it were for her own pleasure...? A greedy smile graced her lips, and she was magically a woman reborn.
Would Mr. O’Toole be the father of her wee unborn nadger?
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 9
