Brandishing her umbrella as a weapon, she stepped inside.
And gasped at her sobbing granny crawling, headfirst and crablike, down the stairs. Eda babbled away as the empty chairlift pounded staccato beats above her bare feet. Down the hallway in the scullery a pack of hooligans guzzled down beer and pissed themselves with laughter, practicing their football kicks on a field of overturned chairs and scattered takeout cartons with one of Eda’s rolled up girdles which they had plucked from the sopping laundry pile.
“Clear on off outta here, ye manky fecking stokes!” Moira roared.
“Bean flicker alert! Bean flicker alert!” they called out, knowing the truth when they saw it.
They scattered into the driving rain, and Moira ran to the stairs.
“Granny! Are ye right, there? It’s me, Moira!”
She pried her granny’s fingers from the step, flipped her bones around into an upright position and guided the slippers onto her feet.
“Eoin! Dymphna!” Moira crowed up the stairs.
Eda clamped Moira shoulder and held her tight.
“Moira, wee dote! It’s been ages since I seen ye!” Eda said, struggling to rise from the stairs.
“This morning, actually.”
Moira pursed her lips in anger as she guided her granny into the scullery.
“Where’s wer Eoin?” she demanded.
“Out dealing his drugs.”
“And Dymphna?”
“Have ye found yerself a man in Malta, then?”
Her granny peered at her with great suspicion.
“N-naw,” Moira managed.
Eda sighed.
“Them lads over there is probably all Proddy bastards anyway. Living amongst them must be wile lonely for ye, love.”
Moira didn’t know where to look, so she hurried to the sink and slipped on some rubber gloves.
“I can at least do the washing up for ye,” she said.
“Naw, leave them mingin dishes be,” Eda said. “Sing me a wee song instead, Moira. Ye know how I love them rebel fighting songs of me youth.”
Feeling both a sense of duty and like a right idiot, Moira warbled away as she burrowed into the mountain of dishes, while in the hall, Dymphna snuck out the lad she had picked up the night before, clicked the door shut behind him and smoothed her curls.
“Armored cars and tanks and guns!” Moira sang gamely, Brillo pad in hand.
Eda’s dentures blossomed, and her foot tapped along to the ditty of solidarity for Republicans interned without trial by the Orange Proddy bastards.
“Came to take away wer sons!” Dymphna joined in, padding into the scullery for a tin of lager from the fridge.
They trilled as Moira scrubbed away, then finished the song with a flourish. Moira cast her sister a foul look.
“What do ye think ye’re playing at,” she griped, “leaving me granny at the mercy of a gang of druggies? And this house is a boggin tip! And get that fag outta yer mouth!”
“Ach, not you and all! I had the woman from Child Services by and she told me the same flimmin thing. Is the world turning fecking Yank? Weemin who’s up the scoot has been sucking down the fags and drink for centuries and popping out wanes that is right as rain.”
“So!” Moira said brightly, swiftly changing tact as the plates clattered around her. “Have ye a clue who the father of this wee critter might be?”
Dymphna seemed to struggle, then leaned forward.
“You being a journalist, I know ye had to study all them ethnics and such, so I know ye’ll keep to yerself something if it’s told ye in confidence.”
“Ethics, aye,” Moira corrected, squirting more mild green Fairy liquid into the greasy water.
“He’s Harry O’Toole.”
Moira scrubbed away in silence as Dymphna unloaded the whole sorry story off on her.
“What I kyanny get me head round,” she finished off, “is how I missed me time of month in the first place.”
Moira shot a glance over at her granny, wondering if such a discussion should be unfolding in front of her. But Eda was still sipping her tea and beaming and tapping her foot along to the song that had ended seven plates, a roasting pan and four teacups earlier.
“There’s hysterical pregnancies and such from stress,” Moira explained. “I missed me time of the month when I was revising for me final exams, like. Ye haven’t a clue what’s going on in that womb of yers. What I'm concerned about is what role ye think Mr. O’Toole’s to have in the life of yer bastard wane. I'm sure me daddy would be up for planning some sort of shotgun wedding. If ye were up for it, like.”
“That woman from Child Services, a right narky specky four-eyed bean flicker, she was—“ Dymphna clasped both hands to her mouth, while Moira pretended she hadn’t heard. “Anyway, she sat too closely to me on me granny’s settee and blathered on endlessly about the rights and dignity of the unwed mother and the responsibilities of the father and here’s a pamphlet for this and a pamphlet for that and this telephone number will come in wile handy and blah blah blah. Bleedin feck off outta here, ye filthy specky gack! I was dying to scream into her bleedin gacky face. Thank feck I kept me mouth shut, as then yer woman started rattling on about Sure Start Maternity Grants, Statutory Maternity Pay, Lone Parents Allowance, child benefits and the like. It was bleedin effin magic, so it was, as if I had won the lotto meself!”
Moira finally hung up the dishrag and regarded her sorry sister.
“Have ye no clue the disgrace of an unwed mother in Derry?” she asked softly. “Ye know what it’s like round here, Dymphna. When we was wanes, ye mind even we would toss rocks at that aul slapper Reeny McCarthy every time she passed wer front garden with her stomach hanging outta her, the proof of her shameful activates bared for all the world to see.”
Dymphna threw her empty tin into the sink and marched to the fridge for another.
“Who needs a father,” she spat, “when me pockets are to be bulging with thousands from the Proddy government! Now I’ve no need for the likes of O’Toole and them Lyrca trousers that display every crevice of his bony wee arse for all the world to see. I’ve hatched a wee plan to get him back, ye see. I'm all prepared and biding me time.”
She marched over to her ChipKebab smock and delved into the pocket.
“Bridie tells me O’Toole has a TakkoKebab for his dinner every Wednesday at the ChipKebab,” Dymphna explained, pulling out a polythene bag with what looked like large sugar crystals.
Moira peered in at the bag. Sea salt? Unrefined sugar? Then she gasped.
“Ye’re not giving him some sorta...hallucinogenics?”
“Ye must think I'm terrible daft, you!”
Moira did, but that wasn’t the issue of the moment.
“So ye’re gonny add some, erm, sugar to his meal?” Moira asked with a sly smile and a nod of understanding. “Aye, that’ll be a quare aul craic right enough.”
Dymphna snorted.
“Sugar, me hole! These particles is ground glass!” she clarified. “I'm gonny be roaring with glee behind me register as they drag him off to hospital!”
“Te his coffin, more like!” Moira gasped.
At the table, Eda’s hand kept tapping her thigh. “That’ll teach the aul poofter!” she said, causing them both to jump.
Moira turned to her sister, knowing too well the malice that could come from a stoke scorned. “What are ye like? They’ll have ye marching up and down the courtyard of Magilligan next to wer Lorcan, so they will!”
“Naw, the female prisoners is let out at a different time, sure,” Dymphna said, wiping a dribble of lager from her chin. “I'm gonny be committing a crime of passion. Weemin is given special treatment if they kill the father of an unwanted wane. I see it on the telly all the time.”
“They’ll still lock ye up.”
“I’ve me plan and I'm sticking to it!” Dymphna insisted, her eyes daring Moira to intervene.
Moira sighed. Her sister would have to learn from her own mistakes
. Dymphna lit another fag.
“Another wee song there, girls,” Eda demanded. “Another martyr for aul Ireland.”
“Another murder for the Crown,” Dymphna and Moira grudgingly chirped.
As she sang, Moira thought of the sorry lot of stokes that was her family. Torturing their granny, trying to raid Ursula’s bank account... Maybe it was living in the sophistication of Malta that did it, but she realized to her shock she was on her auntie Ursula’s side. Before becoming a health and safety inspector, Moira had dabbled in journalism, and she had now decided Ursula Barnett would be the focus of the first investigative report she would do for the Living Large section of the Malta Mail. The readers always lapped up a lotto story, especially one with a tragic ending. If the editor accepted her story, she might even be able to supplement her income on a regular basis with more articles in the future. She would ring up her auntie Ursula, apologize for her family’s behavior and attempt to squeeze a few quotes out of her, maybe even arrange a wee photo. Her family was sure to disown her but, sure, hadn’t they done that already?
“Another martyr for aul Ireland, another murder for the Crown!”
CHAPTER NINE
MRS. MCDAID’S HAGGARD eyes widened in alarm at the two wee creatures on her doorstep, one with a Power Puff Girls handbag, the other sticky from head to toe from the lollipop he was sucking.
“Is Eamonn in, hi?” Siofra demanded, reeling Seamus in with a tug of the arm.
The hardened woman was taken aback.
“Surely ye mean wer Declan?” she asked. “He’s banged up at the Youthful Offenders—”
“Naw. Caoilte, then. Or Fergal, I don’t give a flying feck. One of them lads of yers who pushes them disco sweeties all over town.”
“Disco...?”
Mrs. McDaid’s eyes flickered with apprehension.
“Get yerselves away from wer door before the peelers catch sight of ye, for feck’s sake!” she hissed, flinging open the door and dragging Siofra and Seamus by their twiglet arms into the drug den. She marched them into the front room.
“Ye’ve some visitors,” Mrs. McDaid said, then closed the door on the sorry scene. She could always cry ignorance when the coppers hauled her in at some stage for aiding and abetting.
Fergal, Eamonn and Caoilte turned as a unit, slight alarm in their eyes. Seamus wobbled brightly to the table, eyes drinking in the sweeties displayed in mounds.
“Right, boys?” Siofra asked, hands on hips.
“What are youse here for, wanes?” Fergal asked.
“I'm Eoin’s sister,” Siofra announced.
“Are you the wee girl who was selling wer stash all over town?” Eamonn asked.
“Aye, I'm are. Got picked up by the Filth and all,” she said proudly. “Thirty eight quid I made! Me manky brother snatched it all back, but.”
“C’mere a wee moment. Yer brother was here the other day spouting all sorts of claptrap about the Cause. He wouldn’t be trying to grass us up to the peelers, would he?”
“Ye must be joking!” Siofra scoffed.
“Me mammy says all peelers is right Orange bastards!” Seamus said.
This didn’t seem to satisfy them, but they chuckled as Seamus held his hand out towards the coffee table strewn with polythene bags and Ecstasy tablets of all shapes and sizes.
“Ach, themmuns is for adults, wee fella,” Caoilte said.
Seamus’ lip trembled.
“What I'm here for, actually...” Siofra announced, pushing Seamus into a corner. She hauled out the well-tattered catalog and spread it amongst the stimulants.
“...is to get youse to pay for me communion gown.”
“And why in the name of flimmin feck would we do that?” Caoilte asked in shock.
“Me auntie Ursula who won the lotto’s a tight-fisted cunt and won’t buy it for me, and me mammy and daddy kyanny afford it, and me brother never lets up about how youse is rollin in it. Minted, he says youse are. Anyroad, I’ve me heart set on the Maria Theresa on page forty-one —” She flipped furiously through the pages, her wee finger jabbing excitedly at the photos. “—and this Andromeda veil, and this sparkly handbag, and these effin brilliant white shoes with silver angel buckles, and these Heart of the Conception tights; they’ve a special red heart for the private part which only Jesus can see, like. This wee parasol’s optional; Grainne’s mammy’s to be getting her wan, but, and I don’t want that foul bitch showing me up at St. Moluag’s Chapel. So if youse wouldn’t mind...?”
She eyed them expectantly, finger on the photo of the parasol. There was a startled silence broken only by Seamus sucking on his Sherbet Dip. A wide range of looks were exchanged between them. Then Caoilte threw back his head and roared with laughter, and his brothers joined in.
“Dead on!” Caoilte said. “Reach into yer pocket, Eamonn, and give the wane what she needs.”
Siofra nodded righteously; she hadn’t expected anything less. Eamonn pulled out a wad of banknotes. Siofra’s eyes bulged as he counted them out. Never before in her young life had she seen so much money in one hand. And there were even those hundred pound notes, which she had long doubted the existence of, now revealed in all their glory inches from her trembling fingers.
“Six hundred quid do ye?” Eamonn asked. “Will that cover the parasol and all?”
“We kyanny have that foul bitch Grainne showing ye up, like,” Caoilte said with an understanding nod and a nudge into Fergal’s ribs.
Siofra tsked and stamped a foot. The brothers roared with laughter, and Caoilte motioned to Eamonn to dig into his pocket again.
“Ye’re a right wee chancer, aren’t ye?” Eamonn said. “Seven, then.”
Siofra tore the note from his fingers.
“Wile civil of ye,” she said. “Ta, like.”
“That money’s yers, but,” Caoilte warned. “Ye’re not to be giving yer brother any part of it.”
Siofra snorted. “I'm not fecking daft, sure!”
“Just you let that wee fella know we’re keeping wer eyes peeled for that 300 quid he owes us.”
“Right ye are,” Siofra said, knowing she would do no such thing and stuffing the pound notes into her pink handbag.
£ £ £ £
The Greek Revival-style courthouse on Bishop Street had been largely destroyed by an IRA bomb in the late ‘80s. Perhaps the Derry Council was proud of the swank new renovation, but Ursula couldn’t stand it. The ultra-modern interior was more akin to a shopping mall, where people should be reveling in conspicuous consumption, not spitting out their sins to the public.
Intimidated by the luxury and authority of her surroundings, Ursula peered over the railing of the dock in her aqua pantsuit, the sick begging to be set free from her stomach. There the Floods were, thronging the courtroom and casting their foul looks into every corner. Only Dymphna seemed to be missing. A drug-addled Eoin was leading his granny to the public seats, Eda staring around as if unsure of her whereabouts. Moira’s appearance grieved Ursula the most; she was the only one of the lot who had paid the price of an airline ticket to sit and gloat.
The Flood’s solicitor—a hard-faced Protestant-looking bitch in a black pants suit Ursula had seen on the racks of Next for upwards of £100—scurried up to the family, looking professional with her Mark Cross briefcase. Padraig’s eyes danced, and he beamed charmingly at her.
They had that wane well-rehearsed, no doubt, Ursula thought, given him a personality transplant and prepared him to spew out a pack of lies by rote before the magistrates.
The magistrates filed into the courtroom in a flurry of dark robes, and Ursula braced herself.
As Miss O’Donnell cleared her throat, Ursula clung to the last vestiges of dignity.
“My Lords!”
They all flinched as Miss O’Donnell slammed her briefcase shut and impelled her thunderous voice through the courtroom. Her arms flailed with dramatic flourishes, lies transplanted from the Floods now accusations flying from her mouth, her eyes casting glares of outr
age at the miscreant in the dock. Ursula was aware of the blood pumping though each of her many veins, her face ablaze with the mortification of the packs of lies posing as home truths. The magistrates leaned forward as a team, riveted.
Moira had sat herself emphatically on the press bench. She now flipped open her notebook and, after a moment’s thought, scribbled Woman Wronged. She looked up and tried to illustrate to Ursula with her eyes that she felt sorry for her, that she was on her side and a traitor to her own family for it, and that she was even at that moment running through headline alternatives for the story which would vindicate her persecuted aunt. Her eyelids soon tired.
The peculiar foul looks Moira was shooting her across the courtroom, Ursula thought, and her checking out Ms. Murphy’s legs while she was at it! Ursula had always held Moira to a higher standard as she was the only one of the Flood pack who could write in cursive. Now, though, with the press card displayed around her neck and the smarter- than-thou attitude that went with the pen poised over her notebook, her intelligence and lesbianism sickened Ursula’s stomach. Ursula whipped her head around as Miss O’Donnell wrapped up her character assassination, and Ms. Murphy addressed the magistrates.
“Accidents,” Ms. Murphy said with all the passion of a hooker turning her twelfth trick of the evening, “will happen. Have your honors never had an accident? Have you never left the iron on when you went on holiday?”
They all gave her a look that implied that, no, they never had.
“Similarly, my client can’t help it that she was standing on the pavement at the precise moment the plaintiff went flying into the street. It’s not her fault that Mrs. Feeney happened to be driving down the street at the same moment. Accidents, as I have said, will happen, and one happened to my client.”
She smiled and returned to her seat, opening argument over. Ursula whipped around to Jed, her eyes bulging circles. Jed peeped back, his eyes vacant of hope. Miss O’Donnell marched to the wide screen telly to the magistrate’s left and flicked it on. Padraig’s tearful face tugged at the strings of every mother’s heart in the courtroom except Ursula’s.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 22
