“Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day,” Father Kilpatrick intoned.
Under satin and tulle petticoats, under starched button down shirts and clip-on ties, heartbeats galloped,
“In yer mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety.”
blood pounding though wee veins,
“As we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
speckles of sweat breaking out on bright young foreheads.
“For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yers, now and forever,” recited the congregation.
Siofra’s stomach lurched.
“Lord Jesus Christ, you said to yer apostles: ‘I leave you peace, my peace I give you,’”
Grainne clutched at her racing heart, the blood pumping deep in her eardrums, her pulsating blisters aching.
“Look not on our sins, but on the faith of yer Church,”
Wee boys wriggled in their creased polyester slacks, their buckled shoes scraping against the flagstones, chests suddenly swelling, feeling they were the hardest, boldest men of all Derry City,
“and grant us the peace and unity of yer kingdom where you live for ever and ever.”
Jaws clenching and molars grinding, sweat now lashing down their bulging faces, sopping their Sunday finery.
“The peace of the Lord be with you always.”
Fionnuala heaved a sigh.
“And also with ye.”
This was the part of mass she loathed. Like an automaton, she turned to Rory and grappled his hand, grinning from ear to ear with Christian compassion.
“Peace be with ye,” she managed.
“Aye, and with you,” Rory mumbled in return.
Siofra grabbed a bulging-eyed Grainne, woozy grin on her face, and hugged her tight.
“I love ye!” Siofra squealed. “Yer me best effin mate in the world,” while around them their schoolmates squeezed and clutched and cuddled one another and swore lifelong friendships, tears of affection welling in glazed eyes.
Ursula cleared her throat and roared out of her through the voices on either side vying for attention:
“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,”
“I'm floating! I'm floating on a heavenly cloud!” whispered Christine McLaughlin. “Weeee!”
“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,”
Siofra’s cheeks ballooned like a chipmunk’s, her porcelain face suddenly violet.
“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.”
She clicked open her sparkly handbag and retched into it. Then she snapped it shut.
“This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.”
“I'm flying! I'm flying!” Christine hissed.
“Lord, I am not worthy to receive ye, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”
Christine started flapping her hands and then zoomed down the sacristy and out the front door. There was a mortified shuffling as her mother extracted herself from the congregation.
“Christine! Ye daft eejit, ye!” she hissed down the pew. Her heels clacked along the flagstones and out the door, PC McLaughlin following close behind.
Father Kilpatrick’s perplexed face softened. It wasn’t the first time a child had lost their nerve at the prospect of being filled with the body of the Lord. He beamed down at the remaining first communion takers. They seemed to be a remarkably eager lot, chomping at the bit, eyes blazing hungrily at the paten and chalice. He understood well, remembering as a lad when he became one with Jesus for the first time.
Ursula smiled over at the priest, encouraging. The silence was broken only by an assortment of phlegmy coughs and the snickering from the bulletin boards. His parishioners stared up, awaiting his words of wisdom.
“Youse is what youse eat!” Father Kilpatrick boomed to the eaves, even the McDaids jumping in alarm. He pointed a trembling finger at the front row. “You wanes have all learned that when youse scoff down something, whether fish and chips on a Friday or a packet of crisps for yer after school snack, yer body changes the things ye’ve eaten. Today, but, a miracle’s about to happen to youse for the first time. Today, when ye eat, it’s to be the other way around. Yer bodies is to become the body of Christ itself! Ye’ve joined many a club in the school, or maybe even a gang, in yer young lives. But ye’re to join the most blessed gang in yer lives the day. The gang of them what’ve become the body of Christ himself! Dead on, aye?”
Grainne grimaced as she massaged her stomach.
“I’ve no appetite,” she whispered, “for the body of Christ just now.”
Perhaps she shouldn’t have gobbled down three disco sweeties, but they were so cute with their wee dolphins on them.
Siofra glumly regarded her soggy handbag and knew just how Grainne felt. She wondered if she could make it to the loos, but her legs felt terrible bandy, and the toilets were far away at the entrance of the church. Perhaps she could use her parasol as a crutch of some sort and—
But all of a sudden the first row was ushered up from the pews and forced towards the kneeling rail, boys on one side, girls the other, the crowds craning their necks for a glimpse, Polaroids flashing up and down the aisles.
Fionnuala nudged Paddy.
“Get yourself up there and snap a wee photo of wer Siofra with her tongue hanging out, waiting for the body of Christ,” she hissed.
Paddy did as instructed, hunched over and scuttering sheepishly up the aisle to join the other fathers snapping away.
Outside in the car park, Dymphna tried to make out what Bridie was saying over the laughing and shrieking erupting from the side of a Capri, and Eda, puffing away at her side, nudged her granddaughter.
“Simple in the head, that wee girl over there,” Eda pointed out.
The wee girl in question was propped against the bumper of the car, blubbering and sobs pouring from her lolling head, her eyes like two raisins, as her parents hovered over her.
“Who gave it to ye? Who gave it to ye?” PC McLaughlin demanded, shaking Christine so that her eyeballs fairly clattered in their sockets.
“Siofra Flood gave it to me!” Christine sobbed. “Siofra Flood gave us all loads of wingers to celebrate wer first holy communion!”
“The feck—!”
As Mrs. Laughlin’s hysterical wails filled the car park, PC McLaughlin whipped out his radio and barked into it.
Dymphna snapped her mobile shut in alarm. What the bleedin feck is me wee sister playing at? She wondered.
“Stay you put, granny, I’ve to alert the others.”
As Dymphna skittered down the aisle, however, she realized she was too late. The exorcist-girl, wee palms forming a chapel, tongue tip pointed up at Father Kilpatrick, suddenly let out a wail. Her fingers unclasped and clawed the air.
“Me veins! Me veins!” Grainne wailed as the congregation gasped in unison.
Father Kilpatrick, wafer in hand, recoiled at the convulsing mass of frilly tulle, and Grainne collapsed to the flagstones, eyeballs rolling, limbs jittering. The wanes next to her, their own hearts streaking, their brains about to erupt, gasped and sobbed and guffawed and pointed.
Siofra felt the wafer catch in her throat as she jumped up from the kneeling rail and inspected her mate in wonder, her fingers firmly clutched in prayer, the dainty handbag swinging from her elbow. The wee boys milled around, yammering and roaring. The chalice fell from the minister’s hand, and wine splattered in a huge pool across the sacristy.
“Feck! Feck! Fecking Feck!” Eoin hissed, racing from the pew and pushing through a hip-high tangle of taffeta and contorting limbs. He slid across the splattered wine and tugged at Siofra’s handbag.
“Naw!” Siofra wailed, clutching it tight. “Them pounds is mines!”
The handbag burst, sending pound coins, E’s, tenners and the meager contents of Siofra’s stomach s
cattering across the hallowed ground. Grainne’s mammy burst through the yapping youngsters and crunched across the pill-strewn blood of Christ, tears streaming.
“Call the fecking ambulance, will someone?!” she roared into Father Kilpatrick’s startled face, bounding down and scooping her daughter’s jittery limbs into her breast.
Ursula threw down her hymnal and clawed her way past the choir members and pointed an accusing finger.
“Me niece Siofra’s been shoving the drugs down themmuns’ throats!” Ursula roared. “That’s her mate Grainne with an overdose!”
“Keep yer fecking bake shut, ye hateful bitch!” Fionnuala roared, scrambling to make her way out of the pew, Rory dragging her back down. She knocked Rory’s hands from her. “Get yer Proddy mitts offa me!”
“Me brother gave em to me!” Siofra wailed.
“Where’s the fecking ambulance?!” screamed Grainne’s mammy above the palaver.
The McDaid brothers bolted like the hammers of hell out of their pew, suddenly retreating as the doors flew open, and PC McLaughlin galloped up the aisle.
“Filthy, hardened stokes!” Ursula roared as the copper pushed through the horde of swarming, squealing wanes. “Dealing drugs in the house of the Lord! I shoulda known! Themmuns sent hooligans to terrorize me! All to get their grabby paws on 5 Murphy Crescent!”
Eoin made to race up the altar and out the back door, but PC McLaughlin was swift, knocking him to the floor, shoving his arms behind his back and clanking on the handcuffs. He hauled Eoin up and grappled Siofra with his free hand. Siofra squealed and kicked and bit, the tiara sailing off her head and clattering to the apse. Paddy kept snapping away the photos, and Rory watched it all with shining eyes, thinking the Protestant services at St. Columbines had never been as exciting as this! The McDaid brothers slunk out the doors seconds before they banged open again, and a stream of police and paramedics raced down the aisle.
In minutes, Eoin and Siofra were being led through the gasping congregation, ringed by coppers, with the Floods trailing behind, Fionnuala roaring abuse. As they all passed Jed, he realized with a sobering nod that he had made the right decision; these people were lunatics, and he wanted nothing more to do with them.
Fionnuala paused at the door, allowed the contorted wane on the stretcher and the paramedics and the sobbing mother pass, then her voice rent the air in an awful blast that boomed down the narthex: “You’re never to hear the end of this, Ursula Barnett! It’s the depths of hell for ye, ye mingin geebag! 1973 me arse! Now ye’ve a greater disgrace on yer soul, mark me words!”
Ursula made her way with ginger steps over the spilled wine, her face shuddering with conviction and rage.
“Ach, shut yer cake hole, miseryguts! I'm free of the whole flimmin lot of youse now!”
Outside, Eda stared with disbelieving eyes at the sight of her granddaughter and grandson being paraded around the car park, heavy with handcuffs and fury and shame, flanked by peelers and shoved into a waiting copper car. She puffed furiously on her fag and felt her heart jolt within her ribcage. She clutched at her breast as Fionnuala knocked her to the side.
“Outta me way, aul woman!” Fionnuala bleated, racing to free her wanes from the peelers’ grasp.
“Me heart!” Eda gasped under the cacophony of wailing sirens, her ancient limbs all quivers and tremors, her lungs begging for breaths of air.
“Where’s me angina tablets?”
Her body toppled against the wall. Her knees buckled, and she crumpled to the ground.
“Keep youse that ambulance there, hi!” someone called out. “This pensioner’s collapsed!”
The ambulance was revving up, heading for Altnagelvin under a hail of rocks from Seamus and Padraig’s hands. Halfway to the copper car, Fionnuala whipped around, saw the calamity that was her mother-in-law, cursed under her breath and ran up to the ambulance, banging on the door.
Appearing through the church doors, Ursula stared agog at the crowd around her mother.
“Mammy!” she wailed.
Ursula pushed though a throng of bodies and raced to wrap her arms around her mother’s shuddering body, stopping only to unplug the fag lodged between Eda’s lips. The ambulance backed up through the parked cars, and Paddy emerged from the church.
“Mam!” he gasped. “What’s up with ye?”
Ursula held him at bay with a hand, then turned to Eda. “Mammy! It’s me, Ursula! Don’t leave me, mammy, don’t leave me yet!”
“Ursula...” Eda moaned. “Ursula...I always...!”
As her mother’s body heaved and Ursula motioned for the paramedics, Eda muttered something incomprehensible.
“What is it, Mammy?” Ursula held the trembling limbs tight and pressed her ear close to Eda’s mouth. “One moment!” she warned the paramedics.
“Ursula, I always....” Eda grunted.
Through the tremors, through the spittle, Ursula couldn’t understand.
“What are ye after saying?” Ursula said, her voice now laced with impatience.
Eda’s eyes rolled, guttural sounds gurgling up her throat and spilling out her mouth.
“Tell me, Mammy!” Ursula wailed. “Tell me again!”
Eda sputtered and was dead. Ursula shook the lifeless body, willing her mammy back to life. The paramedics tried to pry her hands from Eda’s limbs. Ursula knocked them away and whipped her head around, appealing to the thugs and peelers and wee brides of Christ towering over her.
“What’s she after saying?” Ursula begged to know.
Fionnuala pushed through the crowd as if she were first in line at the Top-Yer-Trolly January sale.
“Are youse all after hearing me mammy’s last words?” Ursula begged the assembled masses. Her eyes stared at those which hadn’t turned away in pity and tried to read them. She played and replayed the muttered sounds in her head, and it finally came to her. Her ravaged face lit up.
“She loves me!” Ursula proclaimed triumphantly. “Me mother’s after telling me she always loved me!”
“Ye daft bitch, ye!” Fionnuala snapped. “Ye kyanny hear yer ears, sure! She’s after saying Ursula I always loathed ye! And now that the aul wan’s finally gone and met her maker, when are ye signing 5 Murphy over to us as ye promised in the court?”
And all this while Eda’s body was still warm, Fionnuala eying her mother-in-law’s fags. The paramedics placed her body on the stretcher as Ursula collapsed on the ground in a pool of tears. Jed and Molly rushed to her side with pained expressions and not much else.
Useless, Ursula thought, the two of them were. As usual.
The copper car had slipped out in the melee, and Fionnuala cursed her mother-in-law’s death.
“Had that aul one not kicked it, I mighta been able to talk some sense into them peelers,” she said to Paddy. “Stop them wanes from flinging rocks at the ambulance, would ye, now that their granny’s inside it.”
Paddy, still shell-shocked at the sight of his mother passing, just stood there thinking of Ursula’s hoarding Eda’s death for her own. He was still Ursula’s wee brother, sitting on the sidelines as the family dramas unfolded before him. Well, that was one funeral invite that wouldn’t make it into the post, he decided.
Fionnuala gasped in horror.
“Wer Siofra’s tiara! The gacky cunt left it in the chapel.”
“It’s no odds, sure,” Paddy said. “We can retrieve it later.”
“Retrieve it me arse!” she raged. “Twenty-five quid that tiara cost! The silly bitch had it on her head ten bloody minutes!”
In she marched through the church and down the aisle.
“You! Wee stoke!” she roared through the church. “Hands offa me wane’s property!”
The altar boy jumped in alarm and dropped the now rayless tiara.
At the sight of the enraged creature bearing down on him, pound signs dancing in her eyes, he scuttled off into the sacristy. Fionnuala ran to collect her property and clutched it to her breast, right beside the pocket wh
ich held Eda’s last pack of fags.
“Get a move on, woman!” Paddy called to her from the holy water font.
“Right ye are,” Fionnuala said.
If she didn’t have to use the money to bail her simpleton eejit wanes out of the nick, she would buy herself—
She screamed as her stiletto heels skid on the blood of Christ spattered on the slick flagstones. The feathered nightmare jumped from her head as she toppled over, her skull cracking against the baptismal font. Dim, dimmer, dimmer yet...
Her body shuddered and was still.
“Hi, call that ambulance back, youse!” Paddy yelled out in alarm to the crowd in the car park. It was to be a very full ride back to Altnagelvin.
£ £ £ £
Having ensured Ursula was safely tucked in bed and properly sedated, Jed reached under the bed and dredged up his tackle box. Years in the Navy had given him a dark view of humanity. Not that he had actually stepped a boot on a battlefield, but while at his desk in a Quonset hut on the outskirts of DaNang he had heard over the clacking of his typewriter keys acts of depravity and cruelty; base, desperate tales that had laid bare a grotesqueness of human nature. None of it had prepared him for Ursula’s family.
When word of Eda’s passing spread to the four corners of the globe, those who had decades before run screaming from Derry for a quick buck had charged back into Belfast International Airport, hankies brandished, the dutiful sons and daughters only when it suited them, Stephen from New Zealand, Cait from Gibraltar, Moira from Malta and, of course, Roisin and her architect husband and their four wanes from Hawaii, all with vowels stretched or clipped in their odd adopted accents, marveling at the transformation of their beloved hometown on the Foyle, dressed to the nines in strange foreign finery that Paddy and Fionnuala couldn’t understand, and all happy to point an outraged finger at Ursula for Eda’s fatal heart attack. Roisin had even had the bold faced nerve to ring Ursula and inform her of the sad fact: Ursula would be allowed to attend the funeral of the woman who had given birth to them all and who she had just murdered when hell froze over.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 30
