Scudder and MacAfee started, and as the two strangers unhanded the cowering and whimpering Tomlinson, Dymphna felt the clammy pile of sick that had trickled down her jeans seeping through the denim.
“Me jeans! Me jeans! I need to get em offa me and all!”
Dymphna stepped feverishly out of her sling-backs and tugged at her zipper. MacAfee and Scudder exchanged a disbelieving look. The three lumpen men in a swiftly-decreasing horseshoe around her couldn’t believe their luck as she peeled the jeans off and panted there before them on the varnished wood of the office floor, her fingernails scrabbling in relief over her bare flesh, her bra and panties and what lay beyond the culmination of all their pervy dreams. Leers broke out all around, and Dymphna was about to explain and apologize and praise the Lord for the quick action to ensure she was disease-free when—
“Dymphna! What the bleeding feck?! Three at once?”
Dymphna looked in alarm past her drooping bra strap. Rory stood at the door, his jaw agape, chemist’s bag clasped in a hand that curled into a fist.
“Me mammy was spot on about ye!”
CHAPTER SIX
WHERE THE NAME OF ALL that’s sacred has that wee girl got to with me fags? Flimmin useless gack, so she is! As lazy as her mother.
Maureen Heggarty, 74, weak with age and nicotine withdrawl, creaked open the door to her grandson Padraig’s bedroom and was knocked back on her cane, stunned, at the air inside.
She had rejoiced a year earlier when her only daughter Fionnuala moved her into the Flood family home in the relative splendor of the Moorside. The two-story semi-detached house, 5 Murphy Crescent, had long been the Flood home until the Barnett’s lotto win three years earlier. Ursula had foolishly bought it from the city council and claimed it as her own, to the uproar of her brothers and sisters, and especially her sister-in-law Fionnuala. Fionnuala had badgered—persecuted—the Barnetts into handing over the house before they escaped to Wisconsin, USA. Maureen had watched the proceedings from afar in her council flat in Creggan Heights with slight disapproval. Now 5 Murphy Crescent was an unsightly mess of loose pebbledash that squatters bypassed with a renewed sense of dignity at their lives, and Maureen had been uprooted to become indentured housekeeper and day carer of the Floods youngest spawn: 5-year-old Seamus, 8-year-old Siofra and 11-year-old Padraig. All the appliances had been sold off to pay bills, and it was less a home and more a warehouse which stored their sleeping bodies at night.
Maureen still hadn’t made her mind up if Ursula handing over the house was righting a misguided indiscretion, extreme generosity, or rewarding bad behavior, but Maureen always thought back to the gift with a sense of admiration. Had Ursula known exactly what she was doing? Maureen wondered at night, saddling Paddy and Fionnuala with two council taxes, two electricity bills, two gas bills, two sets of windows, bathrooms and fireplaces to scrub, two sets of plumbing to fix, and two gardens to tend. Ursula was either a saint walking among the living or a sleekit, sly bitch, and Maureen knew which version she preferred.
A right smelly bastard, that Padraig, Maureen mused now as she forced the tip of her cane through the wild-fox stench and the filth that littered the threadbare carpeting. And years of looking at her second youngest grandson hadn’t made him easier on the eyes: the bright orange hair gene was certainly her son-in-law’s fault, as were the invisible eyelashes, translucent eyebrows and the albino skin. He had lately affected a sarcastic, menacing glint in the eyes that had her fearing for both his sanity and her safety.
Maureen wrenched the window open, and realized that for the odor she was partly to blame. She had fallen behind in the washing; it had to be done by hand in the kitchen sink because there was no washer and dryer. Maureen knew Padraig had run out of fresh underpants the Tuesday before and had been wearing his swimming trunks since. And only Lord knew how long his socks had been plastered to his feet.
She caught sight of curry- and tomato sauce-encrusted plates and bowls scattered beside his bed and was surprised. She thought Fionnuala had sold off all the china the week before.
“For the love of God, wee boy,” Maureen muttered to herself, “ye think ye’d have the strength for to carry yer own dishes down to the scullery!”
She stuck the tip of her cane under the bed, dreading what she might uncover. It clanked against something hard. Leveling herself on the stiff bedcovers with her hand so she wouldn’t topple over, she ran the cane up the length of the item. It was about half a foot tall.
Maureen’s brow wrinkled with suspicion. She calculated the time and effort it would take to configure her brittle bones into a crouch to look under the bed, and decided to unearth the items with her cane. She nudged out a black plastic box with a big X on it. Confused, she scratched her cane under the bed for more. She uncovered another plastic box, this one white and sleeker than the first. A minute later, they were joined by what looked like those new shiny videos, (DVDs, she thought they were called) Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, and 50 Cent: Bulletproof.
She stopped there. The further her cane dared, the more serious her crime as an accomplice would be when the police came calling. Maureen couldn’t be bothered sitting down just to get back up again, so she stood there on her cane, inspecting the peeling wallpaper, until the bathroom door finally opened and Padraig bounded into the room, wrapped in the remnants of a towel.
“What in the name of all that’s sacred be’s themmuns?” she demanded.
“I found em!” Padraig brayed with an ease that only a lifetime of lies could affect.
“Ye must think I was born yesterday!”
For Padraig, nothing was further from the truth. He looked at a smattering of gray wisps of hair atop a pink scalp like melted plastic, skeletal arms and legs which clattered inside a fluorescent green track suit like poles in a tent, blood red frames circling a death’s head of a face, accentuated, even at this early hour, by a slash of red lipstick. He didn’t even have to look “up;” Maureen was barely as tall as the 11-year-old himself.
“I didn’t ask ye where ye got em from, anyroad, I asked ye what the bloody hell they be’s.”
“That be’s an X-Box, and—”
Maureen froze at the ‘X,’ visions of tits and arses dancing in her mind. “What in the name of all that’s blessed be’s an X-Box when it’s at home?” she chanced.
“For video games, Granny.”
“Is that what themmuns be’se?” She pointed her cane at the covers celebrating blood and gore.
He nodded.
“And what be’s this white contraption, would ye mind telling us?”
“It be’s a Wii, Granny.”
“Don’t ye get sarky with me! Tell me what it be’s!”
“It’s a Wii,” Padraig insisted.
“Wee? Ye mean like ‘little’ wee or ‘toilet’ wee?”
“Naw, Granny, it’s W-I-I.”
“Ye’re having me on!”
“It says right there on the side of it, like. It’s for games and all. Ye’ve got to stand for them ones, but.”
“X-Box, Wii, no mind, both be’s foolish, goofy names. Dreamed up, I’ve no doubt, by some silly Yank corporation with more money than sense. Cost a pretty penny, making them with more money than sense prise open their wallets and all. High-priced luxuries posing as must-haves for every family, me arse! Why are ye looking at me like that, wee boy? I’ll clatter ye round the skull! Ye’re not getting much use outta them games, hidden under yer bed as they be. Up to no bleeding good, so ye are! Just because yer mammy lets ye run riot is no reason why I kyanny clatter the shite outta ye, ye thieving spastic!”
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Padraig yelped as the cane beat on his head. Now that she had done what was expected as a grandmother with a good moral compass, Maureen turned with a secret smile. Wee Padraig was indeed a treasure, she thought (physical attributes aside): he had started off with casual violence against pensioners, graduated to petrol bombs, and was now migrating to petty crime at the tender age of e
leven; it was obvious to her the nefarious Heggarty blood flowed through his veins.
Five year old Seamus, a collection of black curls perched atop wobbly legs, padded into the bedroom, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and clutching a shapeless thing that had at some stage been fluffy and an animal, but which one nobody could now recall.
“Is Padraig after doing a boo boo?” he asked.
Maureen was about to put on the pretense that Padraig had indeed done something wrong, and berate him further to heighten the youngest child’s sense of morality, when they jumped as a unit at the front door flying open and Siofra’s tortured wails.
“Granny! Granny!”
“Me fags!” Maureen put the chairlift on the quickest speed.
Siofra was at the bottom of the stairs. She was drenched to the bone, her lips puffy, her eyes watery. Maureen pried herself out of the chairlift and demanded: “Where’s me fags?”
“Me Hannah Montana watch has been nicked, and the matching earrings and all!” Siofra wailed. “A thieving Proddy cunt beat the living shite outta me and grabbed them offa me!”
Padraig sneered, Seamus was still making his way down the stairs, and Maureen set her lips even as she puffed away on the cigarette.
“Is this yer way of trying to let on you’ve no change from that ten pound note I gave ye?” she asked.
Siofra released some coins into the outstretched hand. Maureen inspected them; she wouldn’t put it past her granddaughter to orchestrate some torn tights and a roll in the muck for the sake of slipping some cash into her PowerPuff Girls handbag. Which, Maureen suddenly noticed, did seem to be battered, the strap torn. Still, she said:
“There’s fifty pence missing.”
“It...it must’ve fallen outta me top in the fight. It be’s the God’s honest truth, but!” Siofra sobbed.
“Where’s the bin liner?” Maureen asked. “How many of them cans did ye collect on yer way to the shops? Yer mammy needs twenty more for the Sav-U-Mor shelves the morrow, and if ye haven’t got em she’ll clatter the living shite outta ye.”
Siofra looked at her empty hands in confusion.
“I’m wile sorry, Granny. I must’ve tossed the bag away in me haste to get to safety.”
“Are ye telling me ye kyanny look after yerself on the streets?” Maureen finally asked, bewildered. “What if wee Seamus had been with ye? Ye would’ve been putting yer younger brother at risk from all sorts.”
“What’s up with Siofra?” Seamus asked, finally reaching the bottom of the stairs.
Siofra cursed. Now they were in a semi-circle surrounding and inspecting her. The looks in their eyes branded her a victim.
“I’m mortified, Granny, aye, I am. The toerag was twice the size of a boat, but. She must be one of them what eats three whole meals a day. A giant Proddy beast, so she was,” she insisted.
Calmed by the tobacco intake, Maureen could now check her granddaughter out. Siofra might be a heinous little beast, but the grandmother in Maureen felt her heart swell at the laceration on her young flesh and the bloody lip, and the gash on the foot which Siofra felt compelled to display. Siofra’s sobs of anguish reached near hysteria. Taken aback, Maureen wasn’t sure where to put her eyes, so she chose an empty corner over the girl’s left shoulder where a hall stand had once been. Victims of violence was one thing the Heggartys traditionally were not, and although Maureen knew sending an elementary school child out into the wasteland of the estate with cold cash on her was madness, she thought all Fionnuala’s litter had popped out of her womb with street smarts intact.
The anger eventually reached Maureen’s brain. “What’s the wee stoke’s name? I’ll set me sons round to their house on the Fountain Estate to beat the shite outta the wee cunt’s mother!”
Siofra and Padraig stared at their grandmother through the cloud of smoke; all their uncles on their mother’s side had rigged the green card lottery years ago and abandoned the dreary town, having long ago emigrated to America, Australia and South Africa, where they worked as bartenders in Irish pubs.
Padraig vowed: “Go on you and point her out to me when we’re out down the town together, Siofra. I’ll clatter the shite outta her.”
Siofra looked at him with gratitude.
“That’s that settled, then,” Maureen said with a note of relief. She jerked with sudden shock. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Is that the time? Late for to get me ears syringed at the Health Clinic, I’m going to be, and youse wanes is going to be tardy for school and all! Throw them uniforms on and get yerselves off. You, Padraig, clutch the hand of yer delicate rose of a sister there on her way to school. That one kyanny fend for herself on the streets. And mind youse scrounge up something for yer mammy’s birthday celebration the night. She’s given me the key to their house so’s we can make her favorite for tea. She told me to pick her up after her shift so’s I can escort her around the corner and youse can all scream and act the fool when she walks through the door, like. How in the name of God that’s meant to be a surprise, I haven’t a clue; them is her instructions, but.”
In five minutes, Siofra and Padraig had flung their uniforms on and launched themselves down the street towards their respective schools, Siofra staring down gleefully at the fifty pence piece still clutched in her sticky palm. Maureen was wrapping Seamus up to fend the rain off of him when the letter box clanked, a version of knocking on the door.
“Of all the times!” she muttered, forcing herself to the door.
“A package for Dymphna Flood,” the courier said from the depths of his motorcycle helmet. Maureen remembered when every merchant clattering the letter box, from the postman to the milkman to the coal man to the rag-and-bone man, had been the son of a nephew or the uncle of a cousin. Maureen hadn’t a clue where the new companies shipped their employees in from nowadays, but the fact that this courier was a stranger made her task now so much easier.
“That be’s me,” she said.
Seamus looked up in alarm. “Granny, but ye’re not—”
She nudged the child to the side with her cane, then signed for the package and slammed the door on the unknown bastard’s face.
Maureen inspected the brown paper with suspicion. It was addressed to her shameless slapper of a granddaughter, Dymphna, who had moved out of 5 Murphy to cavort with the Enemy, and it had a peculiar postmark in a language Maureen didn’t understand. But the stamp was of a sunset and said Malta, and she certainly knew the return addressee: Moira Flood. Maureen let out a squeal as if they had just called the final number on her bingo card at the St. Molaug’s senior center. Seamus waved his shapeless thing happily and gurgled along with her.
“Mary mother of God!” Maureen gasped with wonder. “It’s been a long time coming, but it’s actually seen the light of day! As God’s me witness, I kyanny believe I’m holding it in me hand.”
“What does it be, Granny?” Seamus asked.
“Poison, wee boy!” she said as her eyes danced with glee. “Poison pure and simple from the pen of yer oldest sister, Moira!”
Although her body shivered with delight, she felt queasy even uttering Moira’s name.
“The filthy bean-flicking perv?” the little boy quoted, eyes beaming in recognition.
“I should take a bar of soap to yer mouth for uttering the words of yer elders and betters, but, aye, the filthy bean-flicking perv,” Maureen confirmed, patting him on the head; he had been taught well. “I kyanny wait to see the look on yer mammy’s face when I show her. Priceless, it’s gonna be!”
She hugged the package to the clunky buttons of her duffle coat, grappled Seamus’ hand and hobbled out of the house toward the mini-bus stop as quickly as her osteoporosis could take her. A smile played on the slit of lipstick. For once, standing in the queue for the mini-bus in the horizontal rain, the ride through the panorama of bludgeoned mattresses and mutts copulating in mud, the drunken roars of abuse at the nape of her neck from the back seats, the endless wait on the unsightly and uncomfortable orange plastic c
hair of the Health Clinic, all would be a delight. Dr. Khudiadadzai could take her time calling her into the room to get her ears syringed; Maureen would be drinking in every word of every page, and she couldn’t wait to claim a seat in the front row of the performance of tears and outrage that would be unleashed once Fionnuala set eyes on the book about the Floods.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PADDY FLOOD’S ELBOW was shoved from behind, and his tikka masala Cup-O-Noodles splattered up his overalls, down the still-steaming kettle and over the staff room floor.
“Och, for the love of—!”
“Sorry, mate,” Paddy heard in his left ear. It was not the voice of a friend. As the culprit slipped away with a snigger, Paddy imagined his steel-tipped boot sailing through the air and cracking against the fat bastard’s jaw, cracked teeth spilling out of a mouth that poured blood. He settled for mopping up the scalding ochre noodles with a stiff dishrag and a hand that trembled with repressed rage. Paddy, the wrong side of 45, youthful brawn a memory that sagged like his stomach, slicked black hair graying, was too exhausted after four hours of slopping up fish guts and scales to stick up for himself. And it had proved useless in the past.
Behind his clenched shoulders, the oily overall-clad workers of the Fillets-O-Joy fish packing plant were bunched around the tables, oversized rubber gloves cast to the floor beside clunky boots, tearing at sopping paper that held fish and doner kebabs and battered sausages and chips, digging into foil containers of curry chips and mushy peas, their loud still-boozy voices ringing out. The acid stench of vinegar and sweat stabbed the air, the gnashing of teeth and slurping of lips as they tore at the carbohydrates and flesh. Paddy peered sadly at the remains in his styrofoam cup, then, dodging the daggers and sneers aimed at him from under the hairnets and grimy peaked caps, made his way to the lone chair at the empty table next to the stench of the staff lavatories that was reserved for him.
“Fecking lord of the manor,” he thought he heard through teeth that held sausage batter captive at the next table.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 35
