Fionnuala jumped at this peculiar turn in the discussion.
“Aye,” she said, confused. “But that has sweet feck all to do—”
“It clear escaped me mind with Eda’s brush with death and all,” Roisin said, “but that flippin Ursula’s gone and applied to the council to have it taken away from youse. She’s gonny be claiming it herself, thanks to that Francine McDaid at the Foyleside Churches. So ye’re about to be earning £38.50 less a week.”
Of all the disgraces Fionnuala had ever encountered, including Dymphna and Eoin, this latest abuse was the most revolting of all. Fionnuala had borne her wanes, so she was committed to forgiving them their trespasses, even if very belatedly on her deathbed. Ursula, on the other hand, hadn’t an ounce of Heggarty blood in her.
“What’s this fecking world coming to?” Fionnuala seethed. “Never a moment’s peace! Ursula knew sure as feck we've been claiming that care allowance for five years! And her swanning round town in her flash car and fancy Warehouse gear! Grabby for thirty-eight fecking more quid a week!”
“Sure, it wasn't enough that she married a rich Yank,” Paddy bellowed, “and it wasn't even enough that she won the lotto. She went and snatched 5 Murphy from under wer noses, and now she’s nicking the food from wer mouths!”
Fionnuala barreled on: “How did the shameless cunt even get it into her simple mind she’s entitled to one pence piece when it’s me that’s been tortured daily with that doddery aul fool? I trawl round that flimmin corner to shove the Brussels sprouts into that piggin mouth of hers, listening to the aul eejit chuntering on and on about God only knows the feck what!”
“Ursula don't give a cold shite in hell about me granny!” Padraig wailed.
“Right ye are, son,” Fionnuala said, beaming proudly.
“Me auntie better keep in good with themmuns from OsteoCare, cause after I'm finished with her, she’ll be in need of one of their wheelchairs!” Padraig vowed.
“Calm down, calm down the lot of youse!” Roisin finally roared. “As I said, I’ve the solution to all yer problems, three problems solved in wan, the disgrace of them two wanes and the airs and graces of the almighty Ursula.”
They all looked over expectantly at the lady of wisdom with jangling cornrows, battered sausage in her hand.
£ £ £ £
Eda was released with a relatively full bill of health for a woman her age. The angina attack had passed, but the doctors told her to lay off the ready salted crisps and pickled onions as her sodium levels were unhealthily high. Eda had barely settled her arse into the settee of 5 Murphy Crescent when the front door burst wide.
Like a flock of buzzards Paddy and Fionnuala descended, bundling Eda up into an old cardigan, forcing Wellingtons on her feet and shoving her into the pelting downpour without even the dignity of an umbrella. She hadn’t the inclination nor time to protest. She found herself speckled with damp and perched on the leather seat of a minicab. Fear-hearted, Eda squinted around the interior of the back seat. Her rheumy eyes widened.
“Roisin, love? Ach, sure, it gladdens me heart to see ye, so it does. Is that you over from Hawaii, wee dote?”
Her gums registered delight and perhaps a shudder of hallucinogenic fear as she gripped her eldest daughter’s wrist and verified her physical presence beside her.
“Aye, I'm are,” Roisin replied with grim determination. “I'm here to save ye mother.”
Fionnuala clambered into the passenger seat up front and barked an address at the minicab driver. Paddy sidled into the back seat and slammed the door.
“That effin bitch Ursula,” Fionnuala said, “wants to grab the house from under ye before yer body’s even lukewarm in it’s grave, let alone cold!”
“But Ursula?” Genuine shock registered on the lines of Eda’s face. Her mind wavered. It was so difficult with the passage of time to tell the difference between events real and imagined. Her thinking was so muddled as of late. Perhaps Ursula had been giving her grief lately and she had forgotten. She had been forgetting many things lately. “She’s never been a trouble to me.”
“Me hole,” Roisin muttered.
“Aye, she has,” Paddy insisted.
“Where are we away off?” Eda wondered.
“The solicitor’s,” Roisin announced.
“The...?”
“Don’t ye worry yerself, Mammy,” Fionnuala said, her head twisted at the neck in the front seat. “Everything’s to be just grand.”
Mammy? Had Fionnuala ever called her that before? Eda didn’t think so.
“That Ursula’s never been a daughter to ye,” Paddy said. “She’s been nothing but a disgrace to the Flood name since 1973.”
It was then that Eda detected the faint odor of alcohol on her son’s breath. It explained the wide look in his bloodshot eyes, the crudeness of the abduction from the comfort of her settee. Eda descended into a slightly disapproving silence.
It all passed in a blur, the dispersal from the taxi, being shuttled up the stairs and down endless corridors, the leather of the chairs in the solicitor’s office, your man blathering on and on in strange jargon her mind couldn’t catch, her fingers being urged around a pen. Eda was baffled as to why pens were constantly being forced into her fingers and pushed towards various official-looking documents as of late.
“Sure, I don’t rightly know...” she said in a thin voice, uncertainty and indecision in her hand.
Paddy grappled her fingers, Roisin gently shoved her hand towards the document. She would swan off that evening to Belfast International, damage done, and catch the red-eye to Honolulu International, leaving a legacy of divine vengeance in her wake.
In the corner, Fionnuala lorded over the proceedings with well- folded arms and a self-satisfied smirk of triumph.
£ £ £ £
Later the same day, Ursula was on her way to the Richmond Center on Shipquay Street, selling forget-me-nots for the St. Eugene’s Cathedral fundraiser. She had been cast out of the choir, but wouldn’t believe it until she heard it from Father Hogan’s own lips.
She was alone, wrapped up against the dull drizzle and the cold wind, the box of flowers hanging from a strap around her neck. She trawled through a landscape of broken bottles, ancient IRA graffiti, trails of human piss and dogshit, prams stuffed with screaming brats and bored hooligans on the prowl. Jed waited for her in the car.
“Ferget-me-nots! One pound, just!” Ursula warbled to nobody who was interested, moving through the market at Magazine Gate. “Help us get wer new hymnals! Ferget-me-nots!”
The delinquents selling shifty gear eyed her from their stalls as she traveled over the cobblestones towards Shipquay Street. Ursula pulled her pink slicker around her and forced a spring into her step. Clearing the alley and emerging onto Shipquay Street, she deflated with relief, then felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around, and it was Roisin, leering at her. Ursula felt as if she had been slapped.
“Yer mother wants a wee word with ye,” Roisin announced.
“In her hospital room?” Ursula asked, confused.
“Ach, she’s been out for days,” Roisin snorted.
Nobody had informed Ursula. Panic stricken, she heaved her body after Roisin’s careening cornrows up the street. Eda was clutching for dear life on a lopsided bench outside the swank new café, and pressed up against her side was Fionnuala, cool as one of the packages of frozen fish fingers she priced daily. The breath left Ursula at the sight of Eda’s taut, haggard face.
“Could I have a wee moment alone with me mother?” Ursula demanded.
If only Roisin and Fionnuala would leave Eda’s side, if only she could get her mother alone. If only she could hold her tightly and whisper into her ear how grateful she was she had her health, tell her how much her love for her had grown over the years.
“Naw,” Fionnuala barked. “I'm not leaving her alone with the likes of you!”
If only...
“Okay,” Ursula said. “Cheerio.”
Ursula made
to leave. She wasn’t about to pour her heart out to her mother while dodging the daggers Roisin and Fionnuala launched her way.
Fionnuala screamed into Eda’s face, “Tell her! Tell her now, Mammy!”
Eda stirred uncomfortably on the bench, all eyes on her. It wasn’t quite Sophie’s Choice, but she had a decision to make: should she side with the Barnetts or the Floods? Although Ursula was the disgrace of the family, she had been terrible kind to her the past twenty years. There had been the three years she and her now deceased husband Patrick had spent with the Barnetts in Guam. And then, after the lotto win, Ursula had done up the house for her and installed that chair lift. Of course, Ursula also claimed that house as her own although they had joint ownership, and Ursula knew Eda wouldn’t be on this earth much longer, so her daughter had really done it up for herself, hadn’t she? Eda wasn’t getting much use out of that new flat screen telly, for example, as she couldn’t understand the programs of the day, and her cataracts made it impossible to focus on the massive screen for long, but Ursula never missed an episode of Antiques Roadshow on it. Then there was Paddy and his brood, hardened stokes certainly, but they had always lived around the corner, disrupting her life, but also helping out as best they could with their limited resources.
Sensing safety in numbers, Eda’s took a deep breath and finally replied.
“Well, Ursula dear, they have been getting that allowance for years, ye know.”
It wasn’t much, but more didn’t need to be said; the words scalded Ursula as the forget-me-nots bristled under her chin. The way Fionnuala sat there, tilted, with her hand on her mother’s back, it was as if Eda were the dummy and Fionnuala the ventriloquist, in charge of springing open and clamping shut Eda’s jaw, forcing the words of Judas Iscariot from her mouth.
“For some reason, Mammy,” Ursula said slowly and carefully, “ye kyanny get it into yer thick skull that ye’ve no say in the matter. It’s for the government to decide. A Proddy government, aye, but a government all the same. It’s a carer's allowance. Ye don't have to sign anything, ye just have to sit there in wer house and reap the benefits of me care.”
There was a definitive silence during which Roisin flashed Fionnuala a look which clearly said I told ye so. In her sister and sister-in law’s slight change, Ursula seemed to have breached a point, a singularity beyond which there was no return. It was as if, had Ursula suddenly relinquished the £38.50 a week, the entire extended family would have welcomed her back into the fold. As if, indeed.
“Ye never learn, do ye, Ursula?” Roisin said in wonder. “Ye kyanny stop torturing that family and me mother, can ye? Isn’t them million ye won enough to support yer lifestyle, ye sanctimonious cow, ye?”
Sanctimonious, the only five syllable word Roisin used with any frequency.
Ursula hated her sister for the pleasure she was deriving from the situation. Roisin had just come back for a wee holiday after ten years away; she should have been seen as the one who had turned her back. Any decent person in her position would have struggled to work their way back in and earn the right to have an opinion. Any decent person.
“The lotto money’s all gone,” Ursula finally revealed.
“Aye, and I'm a Proddy bastard,” Roisin sneered.
“I'm turning in that piggin allowance book so’se were not hauled off to the court by the city council,” Fionnuala said. “Ye can kiss yer mother cheerio, but.”
“We thought ye’d be too pig-headed to listen to sense,” Roisin said with menace, “so we’ve already put the wheels in motion to stop ye from persecuting me mammy any longer.”
“What’s that meant to mean?” Ursula asked.
“It’s called making yer own bed and laying in it,” Fionnuala said with a smile.
“Maybe the bed in yer...what do ye call it?” Roisin flicked a petal of one of the forget-me-nots. “...yer blue room?”
She whipped her head away, Ursula ducking quickly to avoid an eye being taken out by the cornrows which sliced the air.
“We’ve no need to tell ye anything now,” Fionnuala said, waving Ursula away dismissively. “Ye’re to be finding out soon enough, like. Go on away off and sell yer flowers, like.”
Ursula could stand there in the drizzle no longer, mortified and hurt and confused as she was. She stared at her mother as if it were the last look she would ever pass Eda’s way, then turned and plummeted tearfully back through the passageway to Jed in his Lexus. At the archway to the gate she barreled into Mrs. Feeney. Mindful of her public reputation, Mrs. Feeney forced a delighted look onto her face.
“Ach, Ursula, lovely to see ye—”
“I kyanny speak now!” Ursula shrieked through her tears, pushing the old woman to the side.
She clomped down the cobblestones. Mrs. Feeney pulled her cardigan around her and sniffed after Ursula, “Ignorant, jumped-up pig!” She set her lips and wondered what could be done about that ostentatious bitch just to knock her down a few notches more.
£ £ £ £
Dymphna scoured the Top-Yer-Trolly staff manual for the benefits that would soon be hers. Maternity Allowance! Statutory Maternity Leave! Statutory Maternity Pay! Time Off For Antenatal Care! Top-Yer-Trolly’s fecking brilliant! she thought.
Fidelma cleared her throat, pulling Dymphna from her dreams.
“Ye’re dressed to the nines,” she said, eying Dymphna’s skimpy outfit under her smock. “Have ye found yerself a new fancy man?”
“None of yer fecking business.”
Dymphna snapped the manual shut and made a show of fiddling with the tubs of tuna and sweetcorn cottage cheese, all the while wondering when she should approach Mr. O’Toole for a raise. Now he was going to be revealed as the father of her wane, it was only fair he help move her up a tax bracket from abject poverty. She was taken aback to see her wee brother Padraig struggling to their counter under the weight of an overflowing shopping basket.
“Could ye ring these up for us, hi?” he asked, heaving his spoils over the counter.
Dymphna glanced at his haul: three bottles of fizzy lemonade, a package of dishcloths, a gallon of rubbing alcohol and a box of Swan’s matches.
Her eyes widened. Her mammy had told her Padraig had progressed from paint bombs, and here was evidence aplenty. Well, it was a free country. Dymphna had tried to defend Mrs. Feeney from his rocks, and where had it gotten her? A kick in the shins and a “ye Heggarty bitch!” in her face. If Padraig had the money, he could buy whatever he wanted at the Top-Yer-Trolly, and whatever he did with it after that was someone else’s problem.
“We kyanny ring up household items here at the meat and cheese counter,” Fidelma sniffed.
“Get stuffed, ye four-eyed gack!” Padraig said.
“Go on away off and play with yer acne, Fidelma,” Dymphna said, plucking out the bottles and ringing them up.
“What’s them matches for?” Fidelma said, voice laced with disapproval. “Ye’ve not taken up fags, have ye? Not at yer age?”
Dymphna heaved a sigh and turned to face her. “Would ye not unpack them Thai lemongrass and chili sausages and leave us heart’s peace?”
“And we kyanny serve family members and all. It’s all laid out in that staff manual ye’re after having yer nose in.”
“Never you mind.”
“There’ll be hell to pay for all these infractions of the guidelines.”
“Really?” Dymphna trilled. “And I hear O’Toole’s considering me for a promotion.”
“That’s likely, aye.”
With Fidelma watching every click of her fingernails on the register, Dymphna couldn’t give Padraig the staff discount she usually did, and she tried to tell him this with her eyes.
“That’ll be £8.98,” Dymphna recited.
“Where’s me staff discount?” he demanded.
David from the stockroom approached.
“O’Toole wants a word with ye,” David said. “In his office, like.”
“I told ye,” Fidelma rejoiced. “H
e’s after seeing ye on the CCTV ringing up household items at the meat and cheese counter for a family member. And selling matches to a wane and all.”
“I’ll household items yer arse!” Dymphna snapped, shoving the provisions in a plastic carrier bag and handing them over to Padraig.
She was thrilled at the summons. O’Toole must be a randy old git; he had to be after another go in the stockroom. He might behave like a mincing queen, but he sure knew how to spread the seed. And once she offered herself to him again, there was no way in hell he’d turn down her demand for a raise. Things were finally falling into place. That night of desperation in the Craglooner seemed lifetimes away. She was a Moorside girl, not used to getting what she wanted in her harsh world, so could hardly believe her continued good luck.
She marched through the housewares aisle, checking her lipstick in the shiny surface of a 28cm roasting dish and mulling over if she should ask for £1 or £1.50 more an hour.
Mr. O’Toole was waiting for her behind his desk. She wondered with a quick flick of the lips if he was trouserless beneath the prefab oak.
“Ye wanted to see me?” she asked, then clasped her hands in delight at a bouquet of posies next to his “in” box, knowing at the sight of them that she had reeled him in good and tight, even if she would have hoped for a more expensive display of his affection than six wilting posies.
“For me?” she twittered.
“They was meant to be, aye.”
He was so stern it sent a thrill down her spine. How she wanted him to take masterful advantage of her, with perhaps a few sharp spanks on her behind thrown in for good measure. Well, she supposed, that’s what desks were for. Those piles of requisition forms would have to be shoved to the floor first, though.
“What,” Mr. O’Toole asked, “are these?”
He reached under the desk, tugged open a drawer and exposed a sodden package of half-thawed sausages. Dymphna tingled. Kinky old bugger! Well, she could play along with his little sex game, sultry stock floor girl versus masterful management.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 16
