“C’mere you a wee moment,” Fionnuala said, sidling up to the bald man with the salt-and-pepper goatee behind the counter. “I’ve something here that I think ye might like.”
He looked through his bifocals in alarm as she popped open the buttons of her jacket. He took a step back.
“What are ye gawping at me like that for?” Fionnuala demanded to know, then reeled in her tongue. She plastered a smile on her face, but that seemed to disturb him more. “Och, I must look a right state. Small wonder, the sights me eyes have been subjected to thanks to this.”
The man seemed relieved she was clothed under the buttons, yet looked skeptically at the VCR tape she unearthed from beyond them. Fionnuala looked around the shop, then slid it onto the counter, her fingernails shackling the case. The man smirked.
“It’s all DVDs around here the day, love,” he said.
“Aye, of that I’m well aware. Ye’ve no idea what be’s on this, but.”
She whispered in his ear, then stood back to watch in satisfaction as his face transform into one of shock.
“Ye and me be’s the only two in the world that knows of it,” she said. “And I’m wondering how much ye want to give me for it.”
“Does such a thing really exist?” he sputtered. “Why has it taken this long to surface? And where on God’s green earth did you get it?!”
Fionnuala looked him straight in the eye.
“Me son worked there.”
He moved his hand toward the video, but Fionnuala inched it closer to her body.
“How much are ye prepared to hand over? Or I’m taking it over to yer competitors. It’s now or never.”
He ran his eyes over her, tried to peer through the dark lenses, and his demeanor suddenly changed. Fionnuala couldn’t comprehend what caused the change, but his lips disappeared as if pulled by a string, and it was as if the helmet of a suit of armor clanked over his face. She looked behind her, but saw only a shelf of acoustic guitars with no strings.
“This is indeed a remarkable find,” he said, but there was something strange about his delivery. “And I am certain you will be more than satisfied with the amount I am prepared to pay for it. It is a national treasure, after all, and demands the top price worthy of its historical importance.”
It was as if he were reciting lines somebody had forced him to memorize. He went on: “I just need to check with my partners to see how much money we can get together.”
“Six figures?” Fionnuala barked.
“At least. Could you just wait there a wee moment, love? I’ll give them a call now.”
He flitted through the door to the back of the shop.
Fionnuala stood at the counter, her fingernails clanking nervously on the lacquered veneer. He was certainly a queer old bat but, Fionnuala considered, he was a Protestant. And he was probably stricken with the same amazement and disgust she had been. An unease began to fill her, though she didn’t know why. She briefly considered sneaking up to the door to listen in on his conversation. But then it hit her like a bullet to the sloth-like cells of her brain: he was overcome with thoughts of all the notoriety, the accolades, the TV interviews, maybe even the knighthood, that were sure to come his way as the one who had introduced it to the world. And she had been about to hand it over like a simpleton, just to fund a trip to Malta!
Fionnuala had always felt she was destined for greatness. As the lone daughter in a family of ten, attention was heaped upon her by her brothers, the drunks and hoodlums notorious for cracking beer bottles against heads, torching post offices and other official buildings they didn’t like the look of, trading a cornucopia of drugs and smuggled alcohol and cigarettes and cheap pantyhose. As Fionnuala grew into a repellent teen, however, it became apparent to her brothers she had no special skills save the acidity of her tongue and the speed with which she could down alcohol. The novelty of being a female sibling faded, and she was seen increasingly as a liability.
She had expected, as most her classmates in that battleground of teargas and rubber bullets did, that she would emigrate the moment she turned 16 and become an actress in Hollywood. But then she had met Paddy and settled for Derry; the Troubles were becoming less troublesome and she knew the best pubs and which stall in the market sold the cheapest lipstick, after all.
After popping out all her children, she thought the elusive fame would come to her through one of them, but she had spawned disappointment after disappointment. When the Barnetts won the lottery a year earlier, it was no wonder Fionnuala thought she was the rightful owner of the millions, though she had not selected the numbers, not bought the ticket (the £500,000 Jed had won had ballooned into endless millions in Fionnuala’s mind).
Now, however, the video still clenched in her fingers, Fionnuala realized fate worked in meandering ways, and this was how her date with immortality was to be played out. Already selecting her TV interviewers and which tasks she would get her PA to perform, Fionnuala crept around the counter and peered through the door. The man was hissing into his cell phone, hand clutching where his heart was, eyes crazed.
Effin Christ our Lord! The Filth! The hateful Proddy bastard’s calling in the coppers! Fionnuala thought.
She hightailed it out of the shop, her heart and feet pumping quicker than they had that night in the ‘80’s she and Paddy had tried amphetamines. She arrived, wheezing, at the bus stop.
“Never trust a Proddy bastard,” she hissed to herself, then yelped as her phone vibrated against her thigh. “Aye?!”
“Get yerself to Altnagelvin now,” Paddy said. “Wer Dymphna was attacked and tossed in the Foyle. She be’s laid up with two broken ankles.”
“Och, Paddy, I’ve something to tell ye about what I found the other—”
“I kyanny speak. The orderlies and such be’s shooting daggers at me for using me mobile in the corridor, sure. She’ll be outta the doctor’s soon, I expect. See ye at Altnagelvin.”
Fionnuala hung up and saw the mini-bus rolling towards her. She slipped the video next to her bosom and buttoned up, cursing her stupidity at even leaving the house with it. The video could have been wrenched from her by thugs, like her Titanic bag. She would have to make a pit-stop at the house to safeguard it, then she’d make her way to the hospital.
If that wee bitch Dymphna be’s expecting grapes...! she thought as she heaved herself up the steps of the bus.
CHAPTER 60
DYMPHNA CRANKED HER eyes open, then wished she hadn’t. Eyes of concern and relief peered down at her, haloed by scalding fluorescent light. It hurt to look and it hurt to think.
“Are ye right there, love?” asked a nurse.
“Och, go on away and lemme sleep.”
Dymphna tried to roll over and block them out, but discovered it was a physiological impossibility. Her right leg was weighed down by a monstrous cast, her left leg, also in a cast, was suspended above her in a pulley. Dread invaded her. “What the bleeding feck happened to me legs?”
The other nurse answered:
“It’s not yer legs. Ye suffered a...fall into the River Foyle somehow and have sustained bimalleolar fractures both left and right.”
“What in the name of Christ be’s a bimalleolar when it’s at home?”
“Yer ankles, dear,” put in the first nurse.
Dymphna’s lower lip trembled.
“B-but...I need me ankles for dancing!” she sobbed.
“Och, ye won’t be able to walk for six weeks.”
“And I’d give it another month or two before ye attend any raves.”
Dymphna’s nails dug frantically at her stomach.
“And what about me wane? How’s me wane?” Dymphna begged to know, dreading what the answer might be. “How’s me wee...” She had heard it bad luck to utter the name of an unborn child, so she spelled it out: “...me wee B-E-E-O-N-S-A-Y?”
The nurses swapped a startled look.
“But, surely that doesn’t be the way it be’s spel—”
“Yer wan
e be’s fine,” the other nurse cut in, tenderly mopping Dymphna’s forehead.
It was the wrong answer.
Paddy and Fionnuala burst into the room and shoved through the nurses as if there were a two-for-one sale on lager under the mattress. Padraig trailed in behind them, and at the sight of him the nurses made a mental inventory of all the items not bolted down.
“I’ll wring the life outta the bastard that did this!” Paddy fumed.
“Me poor wee girl!” Fionnuala sobbed, then whipped around to the nurses and glared accusingly. “Why’ve ye her toenail fungus exposed for all the world to see?”
“What in the name of feck happened?” Paddy wanted to know. “Who caused ye harm?”
“The pain! The pain!” Dymphna sobbed, her eyes begging either nurse for morphine.
It wasn’t needed for the pain, rather to knock her out and clear her family out of the room. Dymphna needed time to get her story straight. She didn’t know how she could explain being dumped in the river, but it certainly wouldn’t be the truth. And she knew from a lifetime of living under Fionnuala’s “care” the crafty workings of her mother’s mind. Her story was going to have to be detailed and airtight if it was to fool her mother.
“When can we take her home?” Paddy asked.
“We’d like to keep her in overnight for observation, like.”
“What’s there to observe?” Fionnuala barked. “Ye can see her now, sure!”
“How can we take her home?” Paddy wondered. “She kyanny walk, sure.”
“The hospital’ll give youse a lend of a wheelchair.”
“A wheelchair?” Dymphna wailed. “Och, the mortification! Two broken ankles and two months up the duff!”
Dymphna clamped her hands around her mouth. Fionnuala’s handbag clattered to the floor. Paddy gawped, and Padraig giggled. One nurse inspected the stitching of her shirt sleeve, the other the path to the door. They all screamed as Paddy’s mobile erupted with the chorus of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
“Ye kyanny use a mobile—”
The other nurse cut her off again with a grip to the wrist. “I do believe we should make werselves scarce. I’m of the mind themmuns has a few wee things to discuss as a family unit.”
The nurses hurried out as Paddy answered the phone.
“Aye?”
“Why the bloody feck hasn’t Fionnuala got around to purchasing her own mobile?” Maureen snapped at him. Paddy was surprised at the panic beyond the rage. “Put her on, Paddy, would ye?”
“We’ve a bit of a—”
“Put yer wife on now! It be’s a matter of life and death!”
Paddy handed the phone over and stared in dismay at his newly-pregnant daughter, who was sobbing uncontrollably into the axle of the pulley.
“What are ye after, Mammy?” Fionnuala snapped.
“I don’t know what shenanigans ye’ve been playing at,” Maureen harrumphed. “I’ve just received a tip-off from me friend in the Filth, but. The inspector’s got ye and some of the wanes bang to rights on some sort of crime or another, and the troops be’s getting a search warrant issued even as I speak so’s they can swoop down on the home and clamp handcuffs on the lot of youse. Must have some wane-sized ones, I’m thinking, and what the neighbors is gonny make of it I haven’t a clue! Pure red, so I’m are!”
“What are ye on about, Mammy? What crimes? The wanes...? Padraig?” Fionnuala seethed at him across the room.
“Och, I hadn’t the time to give yer man an in-depth investigative interview, so I hadn’t. He was hissing down the phone to me in the loos of the precinct. All I know, but, be’s youse’re to get yerselves over here sharpish, like, fling some frocks and socks in a bag and we’ve to catch the next ferry to Malta, or it’ll be the inside of a cell youse’ll be writing postcards from!”
“Malta? We haven’t the money yet, but—”
“Never you mind about that. Leave you that to me. I’ve a wee errand to run to gather together enough hard cash to transport us most of the way. I’ll meet youse at the house at half-four. Hours, it takes, for the coppers to get their fingers outta their lazy arses and cobble a search warrant together. Youse’ve got to get yer running shoes on, but. Splurge for a taxi, sure.”
As much as Fionnuala wanted Dymphna to rot in the hospital bed, she was afraid of the police interrogating her and what the silly cunt might reveal without knowing.
“Get up! Get yer lazy arse outta the bed now!” she screamed, tugging at the sheets while Dymphna shrieked in pain. “Och, how do I dismantle this pulley? And youse, search the corridor for a wheelchair! We’re away off to Malta! Yippee!”
CHAPTER 61
HALF AN HOUR EARLIER
Fionnuala had raced in and flung the video on the sofa, hissing: “Don’t let that video outta yer site, Mammy. Millions, it be’s worth. And wer ticket to a better life—in the sun of Florida, if I’ve anything to do with it. If hooligans burst in and demand that video or the wane, hand ye Keanu over with a smile on yer face.”
“What...?”
But her daughter was already out the door. Maureen sat alone before a blank TV screen, Keanu gurgling in the corner. She got up and made a cup of tea, milky and sweet, then unearthed Fionnuala’s secret stash of luxury Belgian chocolates. She popped one in her mouth and stuck the video in the player. She wanted to see for herself what all the fuss was about. She hoped it was a romantic comedy.
Maureen heaved herself back onto the groaning couch, located the remote somehow, and rewound the video. She pressed Play.
It was the panorama of a large city, buildings reaching up to a hazy sky; London, if she wasn’t mistaken. The camera panned across the skyline, and Maureen bemoaned the lack of music or words on the screen to tell her what the title was and who the actors were. She wondered with a sinking heart if there were no actors. Nothing set her dentures on edge like a documentary.
Just as Maureen began to fidget with boredom, the camera pointed down and focused on a newspaper in the foreground. It was held in someone’s hand; it seemed like the hand belonged to whoever was shooting the ‘film.’ She could tell the person filming was standing on a balcony of some sort looking over the city. The camera ran over the newspaper, but Maureen’s elderly eyes couldn’t make out the headline or the date, as she was sure they wanted her to see, like one of those videotapes of prisoners captured by the Taliban to verify the date.
She wiped the fingerprints off her lenses with the bottom of her track suit top and squinted at the screen, but there were a few squiggles of static as the camera was turned off, and the newspaper was gone. The framing was now fuzzy, and it seemed the person was filming from the hip. Maureen had once suffered through an exposé on flight attendants working for Ryanair, so she knew undercover filming when she saw it. The camera must be hidden under the person’s clothing. She took a sip of tea and saw a sidewalk and the building the person was walking towards. The camera flashed on the name Hammersmith and Fulham M— She couldn’t make out the last word, as it was obscured by the whipping branches of a tree. There were the squiggles again, the scene changed, and then they were inside, that building Maureen supposed, and the person with the camera (she would hardly call him a cinematographer) focused on the long hallway he was walking down.
“The shite that passes for entertainment the day!” she muttered to herself.
Maureen slurped cherry juice out of a chocolate and licked her fingers. She caught a glimpse of a water cooler, a potted plant, and there isn’t much of a story, is there? she wondered. The squiggles again, and the camera panned awkwardly around the stark white tiles that formed the walls of a room. The camera jerked upwards, as if it had been hit by mistake, and the ceiling flashed onto the screen, massive lights hanging. She heard muffled voices, and saw the hips of people passing back and forth, doctors or some sort of medical staff; she had seen enough episodes of ER to know the hems of scrubs when she saw them.
Maureen leaned forward, her interest growing, but unease a
lso creeping up the curvature of her spine. Maureen strained her ears to make sense of the voices.
“Is the mic on?”
“Not yet. Hold on one moment, would you please?” The male voices had upper-class British accents.
“We have here a...”
The camera zoomed in and Maureen saw cloth and flashes of steel, strange mechanical tools, blood and offal. Maureen wished her lenses weren’t covered with so many scratches.
“...internal hemorrhaging...right lung and heart...”
Maureen nibbled on a Coconut Eclair
“...single lesion, a partial rupture...”
and on a Caramel Swirl
“...left pulmonary vein...contact with the left atrium...”
on a chewy berry-type thing
“...sutured...due to...major chest trauma...”
and a Hazelnut Cracknell, her favorite.
“...phenomenon of deceleration...”
Maureen screamed as her cellphone rang.
“Maureen,” PC Lynch whispered. “What about ye?”
“Och, watching a shite video. Ready to flick it off after ten minutes, so I am. No bloody story, and I kyanny make head nor tail of what they be’s blathering on about. More difficult hospital words than a seasons-worth of ER! Not me cup of tea.”
Lynch cut her off, which she thought very rude, but when she heard what he had to say, she forgave his lack of manners.
“Ta very much for yer help,” Maureen said.
She hung up, realizing the family had to flee the city, and she lunged for her handbag, never far from her elbow. She counted all the money she had been saving from her bingo wins for the past few years. £964.12. And surely Fionnuala and Paddy had managed to secure a few hundred pounds more.
But they would need more for the bus to Belfast, the ferry to Liverpool, the bus to London, the EuroStar through the Chunnel to the bottom of France, and whatever sort of transportation would get them from there to Malta. Maureen had to pay a visit to someone she had been itching to for the past few days, ever since Padraig had come to her, his ugly and tear-stained face looking up at her as he told her about his father’s infidelities in the fish factory. Maureen’s fingers were like tendrils through every part of the city, even extending to the management of the Fillet-O-Fish. She had phoned up Lois, who she knew passed out uniforms to the new temporary workers, and had Lois’ niece Fiona give her the slattern’s name and address from the employee records.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 59
