Static Cling

by Gerald Hansen

  Now he passed White, the swanky cafe at the bottom of Shipquay Street. Also his mother's. Also packed. A line outside, for the love of God! He hurried past.

  As embarrassed as he was about being the son of one of Derry's most powerful businesswomen, Rory was just as proud of his acting abilities. Brigitta from the office was mistaken: Rory had heard the rumors about a sordid tryst between Dymphna and Henry O'Toole. He had even confronted Dymphna about it at the time. He hadn't dared admit this to Susan and Brigitta, had pretended to be shocked. He had his reputation to think of. And in that city of twitching net curtains, where everyone was desperate to know the secrets of everybody else, reputation was everything. If he had revealed he knew all about the rumors, he could only imagine what they would think: how could he have married a slapper with another man's bastard (and a perv at that) and still have a shred of dignity?

  Who exactly was Keanu's father? He was. He was sure. As far as Rory was concerned, Keanu was the product of a barely-recalled one night stand after six pints of lager at Starzz, a drunken romp on Dymphna's granny's spare bedroom. Granny Eda Flood had long since passed away, the house long since burned down; the scene of the crime, the lumpy mattress, long since hauled down to the rubbish dump as a charred mess. But still, all these years later, the rumor persisted: Henry O'Toole was the father of Dymphna's first child. Wishful thinking, Rory suspected, to most of Dymphna's staunchly Catholic and particularly close-minded family and friends.

  When Rory had confronted Dymphna years ago, she had sworn up and down that he wasn't Keanu's father. She had insisted Henry O'Toole was. Rory knew—as much as he could know—that her vehemence had only been because he, Rory, was Protestant. When lasses were drunk, the religion of the sweat, Catholic or Protestant, dripping off the rumping, grunting body atop them was the last thing on their minds. More, how long the rapture would last and if they would like the song on the radio playing when the orgasm came. Many Catholic lasses and many Protestant lads, and vice versa, had woken up horrified when a glance at the matted hair on the pillow next to them revealed someone from the wrong side of the River Foyle. He hadn't cared. He had fallen for Dymphna. And hard.

  He now passed through Magazine Gate, and stepped out onto the slippery slabs of concrete that had once been the cobblestones of the city center. Derry's city center, simultaneously an everyman's and a no-man's land. Both Catholics and Protestants had to buy things, after all. And at night, maybe the pubs were a bit segregated, but on the streets outside after last orders, it was an any-and-all-religions free-for-all. Everybody knew who everybody was, and taunts and jeers were exchanged, “Orange bastard!” “Fenian bitch!” and the occasional sharpened screwdriver and well-aimed stiletto heel put to use and the ambulance called. Or else nobody knew who anybody was, and nobody cared. Their paired up in the lines of the taxi stand, down the alleys of the city walls, atop the cannons, in the parking lot of the bus station with the River Foyle gurgling softly nearby. The amount of the drink and the phase of the moon seemed to decide which way the night went.

  Rory passed the fish and chip van parked in front of the Guildhall. It was doing a roaring trade and was surely the most inoffensive part of the Riddell empire. And where, until their marriage the year before, Dymphna had worked. Rory had helped her out when he could, and smiled as he thought back to frying chips and building burgers with Keanu and Beeyonsay shoved into the one stroller in the van with them, the kisses they had exchanged, and more, as the chip oil spat up at them.

  After Beeyonsay had been born, and Dymphna had Rory's engagement ring around her finger, Dymphna had come clean about O'Toole. It had been mortifying for her, she had told him, to admit to her family and Derry at large that she was carrying a half-Green, half-Orange bastard. It had been easier to lure her boss at the time into the stock room and force him to have sex with her so she could claim O'Toole, a good Catholic, was the father of her already-forming fetus. As far as Rory knew, this was where the rumor had started. That and Keanu's odd red hair. But he knew what strange things genes could do.

  This Italian from the cruise ship that the office girls had mentioned was a new one to him, though, as was the possibility that Eamonn might be Greenornge's father. The latter seemed unlikely. Dymphna had insisted on calling the third child the cringe-worthy Greenornge, after all. The strange name she had made up to symbolize the fact that the child was indeed one half Catholic, Green, and one half Protestant, Orange. As if she were finally proud of the fact that such children could exist, and that she, she and Rory, had created one. Setting herself up for ridicule.

  Now he was 24 and he was an adult. He was on the first rung of the ladder of Riddell Enterprises management. He had to stop these rumors. Keanu was the oldest son, and when Rory and Dymphna were tottery old pensioners, Keanu would be running Riddell Enterprises. If Rory didn't quash these rumors here and now, he was setting himself up for a lifetime of ridicule. And perhaps even some sort of court battle. Maybe O'Toole would seek to gain control of Keanu's birthright?

  So lost in thought was Rory, he was startled to see he had passed the Top-Yer-Trolley and was on the Lecky Road. Right in front of Final Spinz. His mother's latest purchase.

  Her BMW was parked outside. Rory wondered why. He tried to peer through the window, but there were huge brightly painted bubbles covering it. Rory had always thought the bubbles were a strange design for a dry cleaning establishment. Dry cleaning was dry, wasn't it? Why would there be bubbles? His mother had recently renovated the inside, he knew. He had read a report on it in the office. He would tell his mother she should replace the bubbles with something more appropriate. A row of starched collars, or something. His mother might appreciate his initiative. Finally growing up.

  He thought he heard something inside. Almost like yelling. But how could that be? What was there to yell about in a dry cleaners? He had his hand on the knob and was about to walk in when he spied his old school mate Jim Flannery coming down the street. Jim was clutching the hands of his two daughters. His own real two daughters. Rory took his hand off the knob and went to greet him.

  “Right, Rory?” Jim said. He seemed slightly cagy. Rory was used to this. There were some who didn't approve of his marriage to Catholic Dymphna. Rory's soccer mates of old, his school mates, had given him grief about pairing up with her. Not for shagging her. Almost everyone in town under the age of fifty (and perhaps a few over) had done that. But for actually marrying her. Making a decent woman of someone who didn't understand the word decency because it had three syllables and was difficult to spell.

  “What about ye, Jim?” Rory said with a genuine smile. He ruffled the curls of the two girls, who were about five or six or seven. “And how are youse? Er...”

  “This here's Emily, and this wee one is Charlotte.”

  The girls squirmed shyly in their father's hands, black buckled shoes twisting on the pavement. One was sucking on a stick of licorice, the other on her hair, though in her hand she held a perfectly good lollipop.

  “Married life seems to suit ye,” Rory said. Although Jim's football jersey was bulging from his beer belly, he did indeed look happy, his black hair freshly washed. “How's yer...er...”

  “Margaret, ye call her.”

  “Aye, how's yer Margaret?”

  “Off on a training course for the RAF,” he said. “I've taken time off work to watch over the wanes.”

  “C'mere, Jim,” Rory said in a low voice. “Now that I've run into ye, I've something to ask ye. I don't know, but, if it be's suitable for wee ears to hear.”

  “Och, I'm sure they've heard worse on the radio. The lyrics of the pop songs the day!”

  “Anyroad, I'm wondering recently about some things of the past.”

  “Aye?”

  “Ye mind all the talk back when we was in school? About me and Dymphna? And me first wane? Keanu?”

  Jim snorted, and Rory's heart fell.

  “Ye mean that she shagged that arse bandit? That the wane doesn't be yer wane at
all? That she got ye to the altar, and a Catholic one at that, under false pretenses?”

  Rory was stricken with grief.

  “People doesn't still believe that, do they?”

  “Och, sure, that's ancient history, so it is. Who gives a toss nowadays, I would say. Mind, I always did think it was the most peculiar situation. How could that O'Toole have ever shagged yer Dymphna?”

  “Aye, but he's a wife and wanes himself now.”

  Jim shrugged.

  “I don't think ye've much to worry about. No smoke without fire, aye. I think, but, that the flame that be's burning brighter, and that continues to burn until today, be's about yer man's sexual perversions. Not about some ancient dalliance with yer Dymphna.”

  “Ta for that.”

  “Not that I'm giving me blessing to yer marriage, mind. I think youse are traveling down the road to Hell. Mixing the religions like ye have. A disgrace. What yer man O'Toole probably does under the sheets at night, but...” Jim shuddered visibly. “A hotter, more miserable Hell he's gonny find himself in.”

  “So...och, I know I've been busy these past few years. I've barely set eyes on ye, and I'm wile sorry about that. But I really need to understand what I think ye're telling me. Does the word on the street today still be that me wee Keanu kyanny be O'Toole's? Because yer man is a nancy boy?”

  “Aye. Ye know yerself what it's like. Any time a George Michael song—”

  Jim's head whipped towards the door of Final Spinz.

  “C'mere, did ye not hear something? Doesn't that be yer mammy's dry cleaners, like?”

  “Aye,” Rory said impatiently. “Ye were about to tell me, but. What about a George Michael song?”

  “Anytime one comes on down the pub, not that it happens much nowadays, mind, or one of the lasses chooses that 'Karma Chameleon' at the karaoke, which happens more often, out come the jokes and jeers about O'Toole and where he might have put his todger, and what his bedsheets must smell like on a Sunday morning. Nobody talks about yer Keanu being his. How could he be? Yer man's wee man would've never stayed stiff long enough for—”

  “Aye, I understand. Ta, like.” Rory glanced at his watch. “Och, sure me dinner break's almost over, and I've not yet done what I set out to do. Maybe we'll catch a match sometime soon?”

  “Right ye are.” As if that would happen! “Are ye not concerned, but, about...” Jim stared at the bubbles, and then one of his girls said she had to wee, and the other said she had to do a number two. “Musta been me imagination,” he decided.

  “Aye. I'm away off now. Cheerio.”

  “Aye, cheerio.”

  “Me regards to yer Margaret.”

  As Rory rounded the corner, he heaved a sigh of relief. So, the rumor in the Catholic part of town might be that Keanu's was Henry O'Toole's, but over on the Waterside, the Protestant rumor seemed to be that O'Toole was a perversion of the laws of nature. Rory himself had seen the graffiti on the cannons of the city walls and in the public lavatories that were the centerpiece of the city center, O'Tolle is a poofter! Arse Bandit! And though Rory suspected it wasn't true, every time he had come upon such graffiti, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Rory pushed through the revolving doors of the Top-Yer-Trolley, wondering if Gossip were one of the seven deadly sins. He didn't think it was, but it should be added. Though then it would be the eight deadly sins. However, he thought as he tensed at the stench of ammonia from the red-and-white checkered linoleum and the whiff of a child in need of a diaper change from a passing stroller, Pride and Envy had always seemed to him to be two sides of the same coin, so perhaps they could be combined, Pride/Envy, then Gossip added, and it would still be the seven deadly sins, though new and improved.

  Rory weaved his way through the shoppers and their carts and the aisles, the lipsticks and mascaras, the house plants, the pots and pans, the 36 varieties of potato chips, the abandoned book and CD section, the circular saws and duct tape, the mouthwashes and the displays of bra, panties, y-fronts and briefs.

  Catcalls and sexual invites rang out from the two spotty girls behind the meat and cheese counter as he passed. Rory grinned at them and waved, a sudden spring in his step as he rounded the pyramid of baked beans, though there might have been less of a stir in his pants if he knew it had less to do with how fit he was and more with how bored they were.

  A slight unease coursed through him as he headed down the long, dark corridor beyond the lavatories that led to Mr. O'Toole's office. As rumor had it, the poofter's lair. No smoke without fire? No, Rory couldn't think that way. He himself was on the receiving end of wanton gossip. He had to be better than those scandalmongers.

  He rapped on the door.

  “Enter!” O'Toole trilled, and Rory had to rise above the sudden gulp of nervousness in his throat.

  He opened the door and stepped inside. He left the door open.

  Mr. O'Toole looked up from the majesty of his mahogany desk, feathered hair parted in the middle, that reddish tinge to it that had the tongues wagging, a too tightly-fitting suit, and a fandango one at that, with a black velvet collar, a beam of pleasure on an over-moisturized face that shined in the glow from the indirect lighting of his desk lamp. Fight or flight screamed Rory's straight male instincts, alarm bells ringing and red flags waving in his crotch. But the gayer Mr. O'Toole was, the better for Rory and Keanu and the future of Riddell Enterprises. Rory tried to relax. He took a step inside. Mr. O'Toole was beaming at him with excitement. Rory took a step back. The air was heavy with some sickly sweet scent.

  “I thought you were that dreary Mrs. O'George with the monthly quota report for the strawberries. We've been having problems with it, you see. But I see you aren't her. To my extreme delight. What can I do for you, young man? Come in! Come in!” Rory trudged reluctantly towards him. “How may I be of assistance? Are you having problems with a return?”

  O'Toole's beady little eyes were shining eagerly. Rory felt violated, his manhood taken advantage of. Now he understood why one rumor refused to die, at least. He folded his arms across his chest and shuffled a bit to the left to hide his crotch behind the silver art deco frame on the desk that held a photo of Mr. O'Toole and his smiling wife and children. What sort of woman was his wife? What red-blooded woman would pair up with him? Could lie next to him in bed? Pleasure her husband...Without wondering...? The photo of her gave him no clue as to what might be going on in the woman's naïve brain.

  “Actually, naw. Ye see, I'm Rory Riddell, and I—”

  Henry O'Toole clapped his well-manicured hands together with glee.

  “Ah, heir to the Riddell throne, are you not?

  “Aye, I am. C'mere, what's wrong with me voice? It's all echoey at times.”

  “Och, we've a short-circuit somewhere in the PA system. Sometimes what we're saying be's broadcast all over the shop. That's when you hear the echoey bits. Don't mind about that, but. What a pleasure to meet! Has your mother finally come to her senses and decided to join Top-Yer-Trolley in some sort of business venture? I've been trying to convince the fabulous woman for years.”

  “Naw. I'm afraid I'm here about a personal matter.”

  “A personal matter, did you say?” O'Toole's eyes shot everywhere in their sockets, as if rooting through his brain, his memories, to discover... He gasped, then seemed to deflate. Wariness replaced the excitement in his eyes. It was as if he had aged ten years. He clucked his tongue in annoyance and smacked his hands on the desk. “I suppose this is about...I long suspected this moment might come to pass.” He said it with a sigh of the inevitable. “Well, close the door, silly boy!”

  Rory reluctantly did as he was told. He took heavy steps towards the desk,

  “Sit down, young man,” O'Toole intoned with the weight of the next in line for the guillotine, “and let's get this sorted out once and for all.”

  He motioned to the green plastic chair that sat before the desk. As Rory perched there, O'Toole sank back into theMCexquisite brown leather of his executive s
wivel tilt chair.

  “What personal matter are you here about?” The question seemed rhetorical. “What can I do for you?”

  Rory plunged in. “I've been getting stick from me colleagues at Riddell Enterprises. Something odd's been in the air there, and so I'm digging around in the past. I'm here about you and me wife Dymphna, specifically. They've been saying ye're the real father of our eldest, Keanu.”

  Mr. O'Toole's arms were now a fortress. He puckered his lips and made a sucking noise.

  “I've rules against talking about my past,” he tutted.

  “Me arse!”

  Mr O'Toole eyed Rory, one plucked eyebrow raised as if to tell him his office was vulgar-street-argot-free zone. Rory lowered his eyes in shame.

  “Say ye have, but,” Rory went on, more politely, “could I not have ye just bend them rules over yer past for a wee moment and tell me what went on between youse? Or have ye the desire for me to drag it out of ye? I can feel, somewhere deep within me, that they these rumors might be true. That ye're the father of the heir to the Riddell estate.”

  “I am the...!” O'Toole sputtered in incomprehension. “Not in a million years! That's not to say the child is yours, however. You're deluded if you think your wife Dymphna is anything but a randy wee slapper who would bugger any lad with a pulse who happened within ten feet of her. Are you not cognizant that the whole town knows of her sexual proclivities? I've been the target of malicious gossip as well, as I'm sure you're aware, so I'm a professional in these matters. Let me tell you my position on all this. Aye, I had her. Here in the stock room of the Top-Yer-Trolley, as a matter of fact. It was a moment of weakness. It was yonks ago, before you two were wed, you must surely realize. I thought myself for a few horror-filled minutes, all those years ago, that I might be the father also. Incorrectly, as it happens, and thank feck for that. I can only imagine what road I'd be traveling now if I had been the real father. The silly mistakes of my, well, youth, though I wasn't so young. I'm married to a wonderful woman, we're so much in love, that's her in the photo there, and now we've lovely wanes and all. I shudder to think where I'd be if Keanu were mine and I was shackled to that...harlot! But I'm not.” He proudly ran his fingers over the picture frame. “Thank the heavenly father my wife is from Strabane. You know what it's like yourself, the poor woman will be celebrating her sixtieth birthday and she'll still be seen as an outsider by all in Derry. They've never let her in on the town's gossip. And, the Lord willing, she'll never hear anything.”