“Bitches! Filthy Fenian grot bitches!” Simms spat into the car, on his knees on the blacktop, the farm animals braying around him.
“Thank the Lord I came to me senses just in time,” Ursula whispered.
The relief dissolved from Francine’s face: “Themmuns is trying to climb back into the car! On wer way, Tommy!”
She kicked away Platt’s creeping fingers. Simms rose and staggered towards them, his face puce with rage.
“You Green slags!” Simms snarled as Ursula slammed the door into his face.
The taxi lurched across the gravel, Francine’s door slapping against Platt’s skull. Ursula turned and saw them crawling through the sheep, fists raised, faces twisted with anger. Francine gave Ursula a little squeeze as they raced through the rain, then the taxi ground to a halt. Tommy whipped around, glaring through his teeth.
“Traitors to the Cause!” he snarled. “Get yer hateful arses outta this car!”
Francine and Ursula blinked at the dark and the rain and the hedges beyond the windows.
“Ye kyanny drop us off here in the middle of Bogs End! We’re nowhere, sure!” Ursula said.
“Youse’d be nowhere right enough if I had an ounce of sense and pumped a round of bullets into yer gacky skulls! Aborting a mission midway through...” Tommy sputtered with incomprehension. “I’ve never seen the likes of it in me life! Get yerselves outta this car before I kyanny control meself no longer!”
Ursula and Francine pursed their lips, piqued, then reluctantly reached for their handbags. Two hours later, a lorry hauling spuds picked up the bedraggled duo and dropped them back off on the outskirts of Derry.
In the sitting room, Ursula squinted through her tears at the horseshoe of slack jaws, everyone eying her like a stranger. Fionnuala had since recoiled from her platforms.
“...I was afeared of the RUC coming and dragging me away,” Ursula explained through her sobs. “And me wanes been raised without their mother.”
Her father Patrick stood in his straining suspenders and sooty hands, a resigned look on his face. Ursula would’ve preferred a flushed face of anger. He tore across the net curtains and pointed out at the street, where there was never a shortage of British soldiers.
“Would ye have a wee gander out that window?” he said.
“There yer men are, patrolling wer streets with guns and dogs and hatred. Ye think a few hijacked cars can keep em out? We needed ye to do this for us, to free us from their shackles.”
Ursula reached out to coddle his left hand, but her daddy flinched. Her fingers slipped back as if they had been bitten.
“I saw the life shining in their eyes,” she tried to explain in a hoarse voice. “They was living beings. Flesh and blood like us—”
“Murdering Brit bastard pigs, more like!” roared Paddy.
“Ye silly bitch, ye!” Roisin snarled. “Why are ye such an unending disgrace to the family? Ye were given an opportunity the likes of us never had to rid wer homeland of two of them limey Orange scum, and ye spat in its face!”
Ursula squirmed, the roaring fire cooler than her face.
“I'm pure sickened at the sight of ye!” Paddy roared. “Have ye not a clue what madness ye’ve brought upon us all? We’ll have the Provos banging down wer door in the middle of the night, kneecapping all us men and tarring and feathering all the weemin! Tainting the entire lot of us for being traitors to the cause!”
Sudden fear crept into the eyes of the assembled masses. The neighbors inched out of the sitting room, the door sidling shut behind them.
“For the sake of yer own peace of mind, ye’ve put all of us in the line of fire!” Fionnuala brayed. “I’ve half a mind to haul ye into the back garden and tar and feather ye meself!”
Patrick’s quiet voice shuddered with smoldering rage.
“Ye were given a chance to redeem yerself for all the filth ye’ve brought into wer lives!”
“Daddy, naw!” Ursula begged as the tears welled.
“—Entering that beauty pageant when the priest told ye not to, up the scoot without a ring on yer finger at eighteen. Now we kyanny go to sleep at night for fear we won’t wake up the next morning!”
Eda had stood in silent reproof throughout it all, arms a fortress. She finally could hold her tongue no longer.
“This honey trap of yers” Eda began,“I’ve always had me suspicions. The whole slew of fancy men ye paraded up and down them stairs when ye was a wane. Knowing the tarty, slapperish likes of you, I’ve half a mind that honey trap was but an excuse for ye to bed down with an effin Brit soldier instead of murdering the blessed spirit outta him!”
“Mammy! Naw!” Ursula implored. “How can ye say such things?”
“Dressed like a painted trollop, ye’ve always been,” Eda continued, “the knockers hanging outta yer halter top and yer knickers on display! Mortified, I'm are, to have ye sitting beside me in the pew at St. Moluag’s more Sundays than not, a right aul tramp reciting the prayers of the Lord without a second thought of the blasphemy of it all!”
“Stop it, Mammy! Please stop it!”
Far from it, Eda hauled Ursula’s protesting body up from the chair and dragged it towards the hallway, the others trailing after.
“Get you out that door and kill them Brit soldiers, ye silly bitch ye!” Eda seethed into her daughter’s face as the others all roared their agreement.
“They’re already away off!” Ursula sobbed. “I kyanny kill em now!”
“Ach, there’s stacks of Brit bastards to choose from out there!” Eda seethed. “Out wer door!”
She clutched the knob and wrenched the door open, heaving Ursula’s struggling body towards the bucketing rain. Ursula scrabbled at the jamb and slammed the door shut, knocking her mother into the hall stand, brollies and rosary beads flying. Roisin and Paddy caught Eda and propped her upright.
“Clattering yer own mother to the floor!” Patrick gasped. “What are ye like, wee girl?”
“Ye see you, Ursula!” Eda heaved, a finger wagging, eyes flashing. “Ye’re a right nasty piece of work! When I'm gasping me last on me deathbed, aul and lonely and begging for a bit of human kindness, ye’re to let me rot in peace, ye filthy bitch!”
“Don’t say such mean things to me, Mammy!” Ursula begged against the door frame.
“Ach, go on away and shite, you!” Eda winced as she rubbed an elbow.
“I'm sickened pure and simple,” Patrick said to Ursula. “I kyanny bear to stare ye in the face no longer. I'm away off to bed.”
“Aye, me and all,” agreed the others.
And, their hopes for a new, Free Derry dashed, they clomped up the stairs to lick their wounds under their bedclothes, all except Fionnuala, who was by Catholic law forbidden from spending the night with Paddy. She slipped out the door with a giggle. Ursula watched their backs parade up to the landing. She clutched the bottom banister and hauled her weary self up the first step. Eda turned, eyes flaring.
“Ye’ve some nerve, wee girl! Ye think any of yer brothers and sisters is up for sharing their space under the bedclothes with the likes of ye?! Ye’re to get yer sniveling arse into the cupboard for the cleaning supplies and clear up that mingin tip of a sitting room!”
As above her hot water bottles were filled and muffled curses were hurled her way, Ursula sobbed, collecting the saucers piled high with fag ends, scrubbing away the sick all down the back of the settee and knowing she would never be maid of honor at Paddy and Fionnuala’s wedding.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SHE SLAMMED THE CAR door and strode up the path to the Barnett’s dream house as purposefully as her orthopedic shoes would allow. Hidden in the hedges, Liam eyeballed her course and nudged Finbar with a grunt.
“Is that yer woman, hi?” he asked, grappling the tire iron.
Finbar hadn’t a clue; Lorcan hadn’t shown them photos, for the love of God.
“Looks like a right crabbit aul bitch,” Finbar said. “I'm up for causing her a bit of misery, anyroad.
”
“Aye, me and all.”
When the recent parolees had visited the house the night before, there hadn’t been any cars to demolish. They had had to make do with the weed killer and scratchitti. This was child’s play for two hard hooligans, but they owed Lorcan for the months in the nick he had poured the Vicodin down their needy throats.
Mrs. Feeney cast a look of disgust at the letters razed in the front garden and rapped on the door, a document clutched in her talons. She set her lips at the filthy words etched into the window. Did the silly beggars not realize Ursula was banged up? She wondered. Not that she didn’t agree with every letter.
There was a hesitation beyond the door, then Jed opened up.
“I can see ye’ve some problems here,” Mrs. Feeney said, with a nod at the front garden and a flinch at the stench of drink from him.
Jed’s lips parted, his brain unable to comprehend what possible reason this woman had for blackening his doorstep.
“Uh...”
“And I'm only here to add to em, mind,” she said, waving the paper under his nose. “Though it grieves me heart to say it.”
Right, Jed thought.
“I’ve the invoice here for the cost to fix me battered car hood, for the pounds me grandson had to lay out. I'm a pensioner on a miserly state pension, and I kyanny afford to splash the quids around as if I had won the flimmin lotto. And, as yer front garden clearly states, youse is minted.”
Jed sighed, his hangover heavy.
“You’d better come in,” he said, but Mrs. Feeney hadn’t expected anything less and was already halfway down the foyer.
“It was terrible dear to fix me hood. Six hundred quid. Ye’ve not the cash handy, I suppose?”
She scanned the lounge, sniffing out suitable hiding places for money.
“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to give you a check,” Jed said, reaching sorrowfully for his battered checkbook.
The expectation in Mrs. Feeney’s eyes expired. Her claw shot out, however, insatiable, as pen touched paper.
“Could you do me a favor?” Jed asked mid-scribble.
“What’s that?” she asked, brimming with suspicion.
“Don’t deposit it until the third of next month.”
That was when his military pension, his only financial solace, would be wired into his account. He tore out the check. Mrs. Feeney’s look of disbelief was cut short by the thundering screech of metal on metal, the shattering of glass.
“What the...?” Jed gasped.
He raced down the hallway, Mrs. Feeney staggering behind. He wrenched open the door and caught the backs of two shaved skulls slipping around the corner. Mrs. Feeney’s car was a wreck, battered and windshield cracked, and she herself was apparently a DAFT OLD BICTH, if the message sprayed across the body was to be believed.
“Me auto! Me wile dear auto!” she sobbed, as Jed stifled a smile.
“Well, there’s £600 to tide you over at least,” he said, handing over the check more graciously than he would have two minutes earlier.
£ £ £ £
Dymphna stared down her queue and stiffened at the sight of Rory Riddell at the end. She eyed Bridie at the adjacent register, and Bridie swiveled her eyes. Dymphna’s fingers pounded the register keys with increasing fury as Rory inched customer after customer closer to her register until he was finally before her, his smirk over the counter filling her with rage and confusion. She threw a stuffed bag at a hapless customer and glared down her nose.
“What’s yer order?” she snarled.
“I'm not here to order,” he said, pulling a ChipKebab container out of a wrinkled bag festooned with pyramids. “I'm here to lodge a complaint,”
“Ye can lodge yer complaint up yer hole!”
Dymphna peered past his shoulder and motioned to the next customer in line to come hither.
“You, there, wee girl! What’s yer order?”
Rory nudged the girl to Bridie’s line and barreled on regardless, flipping open the container and displaying the congealing mess between the pita.
“Last week I bought this ChipKebab here,” he said, “and me stomach turned at the foreign object I found in it.”
“I’ll foreign object ye, ye mingin—!”
“Would ye have a wee look at what the foreign object is?” he demanded.
The sharpness in his voice compelled her to look down. Among the wilting lettuce, the tomato chunks slick with garlic sauce, wedged between two fat and greasy chips twinkled a diamond engagement ring.
“Ach, would ye catch yerself—” Dymphna began scornfully.
Her scorn was clipped by Bridie’s gasp of delight. She sidled up to Dymphna in her grubby smock, cooing and preening.
“Ye know it makes sense, hi,” Rory said, falling to Dymphna’s horror on bended knee amongst the ketchup packets and trodden chips. “Marry me, Dymphna.”
She peered over her register at the crown of his head as around her the customers and chip-fryers and kebab makers cheered and chanted.
“Say ye will, aye?” he asked.
“Aye, aye, aye!” Bridie roared. “Ye daft cunt, Dymphna! Of course ye’re saying aye! If ye don’t, I’ll grab the ring offa him!”
“Merciful Jesus!” yelled a man at the back of the queue. “Nod yer fecking head, would ye, before the hunger gnaws a hole in me stomach!”
A finger scooped up the welling tear in the corner of her eye. She thought of the rock bouncing against her stomach, and the many more it would receive when she started to show. Rory’s uncle was a copper; he could protect her and her wane.
Her mammy would be black with rage if she raced to the altar with an Orange bastard, but feck her mammy, she thought. Fionnuala didn’t give a cold shite in hell about her. Her mother still had her nicking curry chips and BaconNCheese Dippers for the family tea, for the love of God. Dymphna suddenly understood why Moira had fled to Malta.
She thought she felt her wane leap eagerly in her womb, egging her on to a halting nod of a face which burned with equal parts mortification and excitement. She plucked the ring out and gave it a quick wipe with a napkin before plunging it on her finger.
“Aye, Rory,” she agreed. “Aye, surely!”
£ £ £ £
There was much unlocking and relocking of doors as Ursula was led to freedom. She had only been banged up five days but had aged a decade, her bob a fright.
“I’ll bet ye kyanny wait to put yer feet up with a wee cuppa and an Agatha Christie back at yers,” the warden said over the jangle of his keys as he led her through a perplexing maze of corridors.
She had thought of nothing but, dreaming of the two shower heads in their ensuite bathroom blazing full-force on her flesh. They finally reached a counter lorded over by a hard-faced cow, and upon which were splayed Ursula’s belongings: her handbag, car keys and plastic rain cap. How she had missed them. Ursula reached out a hand, which was smacked lightly by the cow, who apparently wore her RUC epaulets with pride.
“I hope to high heaven you’ve now learned yer lesson,” sniffed the cow. “The magistrates is to be treated with the respect their years of education has earned em.”
Ursula did Meryl Streep proud as she managed a docile nod and smile and signed for her belongings.
Beyond a glass pane she saw Jed under his cowboy hat, holding out one of those reflective thermal blankets in which to wrap her, as if she were suffering from hypothermia. Which, she supposed, she was: hypothermia of the heart.
Ursula pecked the warden on the cheek, collected her belongings and found herself enveloped in Jed’s arms. That was what husbands were for.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Jed seemed to have aged ten years as well, and Ursula was saddened when she saw he couldn’t meet her eye. Had her custodial sentence brought him so much shame?
“Aye, their cavity searches is thankfully far and few between,” she said.
Jed swaddled Ursula in the tinfoil-looking wrap and led her down the steps, dreadi
ng her first sight of their dream house. She was sweltering inside the cape, the sweat lashing down her, but couldn’t let on. She was so relieved to be let free, to sniff the exhaust fumes from the Ford Escorts, hear the muttered obscenities of the passing wanes and feel the horizontal rain lacerating her flesh. All that and the kindness of a human touch.
Through the thundering downpour, Ursula’s Lexus was barely visible in the court car park. Jed stared at it forlornly through the bouncing raindrops. It was still as resplendent as the day after the lotto.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her about the damage that had been done to his own car, to their house. He didn’t want her racing back to the holding cell for safety; she would see it all soon enough herself.
“I’ll drive you home,” Jed said. “You got your car keys?”
Ursula blinked.
“In me own auto? Where’s yer car, but?”
Sitting before the garage, its tires slashed, its locks glued and labeling him a HATFUL BICTH, that’s where.
“I took a cab,” Jed said.
Ursula opened her mouth to jammer that they didn’t have the money to throw away on wild dear luxuries like cabs, not with £3500 owed the court, but stifled herself. Jed guided her into the passenger seat, and she had to duck so the automatic seat belt didn’t slice her head off.
Jed steered through the bucketing rain and the scattering prams, his fingers digging into the wheel with a sense of impending doom. He had expected her to have plenty to say, and none of it cheery, but Ursula was strangely subdued.
“The prison serves a wile lovely chicken curry roll on a Thursday,” she said. “I asked yer man the warden for the recipe; they get them sent in, but.”
Jed prayed to God almighty Ursula would be unable to see the damage done to their house in the lashing rain and the approaching dusk; Lord knew he could barely make out the curves of the blacktop before him. But as they pulled up to the house, he saw with a glance and a sinking heart the blight was only too evident in the sodium glow of the streetlamps.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 28
