“How are they gonny catch wind of it, but? With all them bubbles painted on the front window of the shop, even if they was to walk by, nobody can see in, sure.”
This was true. The amount of times Fionnuala had cursed those bubbles, couldn't see out onto the street, couldn't see the people walking by, the setting of the sun. Spring had turned to summer, and she hadn't seen it.
Fionnuala could hold off no longer. She reached her hand into the packet that Siofra was still offering up to her. Her bloated fingers struggled to fit inside. She drew out three yellow ones, a green one and an orange. It was plain from the look on her face these were her least favorite.
“I see ye've already crammed every last purple one down yer greedy wee throat, and the red ones and all,” Fionnuala complained. She ate them anyway.
An alarm sounded beyond the partition. The final rinse was complete. The load needed to be removed as soon as possible and placed on the various drying machines, and the pressing begun, but Fionnuala wanted to pump her daughter for information about the family.
Still chewing, jaws working like a cow's with cud, she grabbed Siofra's grubby hands and, eyes glinting, asked in a voice laced with as much sweetness as her sour character would allow, “C'mere, Siofra, love, I've heard yer brother Lorcan's finally off to Florida to join our Eoin. Me heart longs for him. Ye know he's me favorite of youse all. Have ye heard from him? What's he doing over there in the States? And yer daddy. I've heard tell the fish plant closed down. What's he doing for work now? Have ye seen him with other women? Has he got himself a fancy woman, hi?”
The door flew open, and old Mrs. Ming forced her walker into the dry cleaners, her skeletal body and her oversized head with wisps of pinky-gray hair following. A garbage bag swung from one of the poles of her walker, and as she made her way towards the counter, a never-before-encountered stench from the bag caused a rising discomfort in Fionnuala's throat. Siofra's eyes began to water. She plugged her little nose with her fingers.
“What about ye, Fionnuala?” Mrs. Ming said, unable to look Fionnuala in the eye. “I'm wile sorry,” wile, wild, very “to do this to ye, love, to bother ye, like, I'm mortified to be asking even, but I'm at me wit's end. I've some things here I hope ye can help me out with.”
Fionnuala and Siofra braced themselves at the edge of the swinging bag, the little girl clutching her mother's elbow for protection. Pulsating from the plastic was a mixture of what might have been decomposing fish, old bleu cheese, stagnant water from a well in India and some gangrenous flesh. Mrs. Ming unwound the bag from her walker and pushed it across the counter. Mother and daughter recoiled.
“God bless us and save us!” Fionnuala gasped, eyes stinging, nose offended. “What've ye got in that sack, woman?”
“We'll get to that in a moment. First and foremost, but, I need for ye to rescue one of me most treasured possessions. What am I after saying? Me only treasured possession!”
Fionnuala and Siofra hadn't noticed a smaller, more carefully tied bag that Mrs. Ming had pushed onto the counter along with the garbage bag. The pensioner now untied this smaller bag slowly, reverently. Fionnuala and Siofra gritted their teeth in suspense. Mrs. Ming's shuddering hand slipped inside.
“Generations, it's been in the family. Passed down from grandmother to granddaughter, mother to daughter, since it was made, handmade by the light of a candle, back when people did that. During them terrible dark times right after the great potato famine. The 1840's, I believe it was.”
Fionnuala gasped. A thrill ran through her, realizing what her eyes would soon be feasting on. If it had to do with needlework, she knew her stuff. “Ye don't mean...an original Irish crochet? Fine linen thread? Separately crocheted motifs on a mesh background?”
Mrs. Ming nodded proudly. “I do, aye. A wee bit of luxury for our table at special teas and dinners throughout the decades, it's been. From the finest, most delicatest linen in the world. Lace.”
Fionnuala caught sight of the first corner the woman gently tugged out of its hiding place. Her eyes still stung, but now also shimmered with disbelief. She couldn't hide her wonder, or her envy.
“Is that...can it actually be...Youghal point?” The best of the best in lace worldwide, made by the nuns, the Presentation Sisters, in County Cork, and, most famously, the design of Queen Mary's train for her trip to India in 1911.
“It is indeed, aye.” Mrs. Ming said it proudly.
Fionnuala, po-faced, jealous, shot her arms around her chest. “Ye know, many of them so-called heirlooms that look like Youghal point has proved to be made in factories in Japan during the 60s.”
“Not this one,” Mrs. Ming said with conviction. She grunted as she unfurled the entire table cloth in the air for them to lay their eyes on. After a brief flutter, it deflated under the weight of its filth.
Siofra gawped as Mrs. Ming displayed as much of the treasure as she could with arms that shuddered and struggled to remain aloft. It wasn't the fine craftsmanship, or the captivating pattern of little daisies inside circles atop a field of roses, or the leaves and the myriad mazes of little squiggly bits, or the dainty sheen of the mesh background, that had the girl gawping, but what was on the tablecloth.
“How the bloody hell,” Fionnuala sputtered, a tic in her left eye as both shot expertly from one side of the table cloth to the other, taking stock of the damage, “did ye manage in one stroke to get black wax, red wine, blue ink, mustard, grass, blood, egg, and...is that rust, on the one item? On the one antique, priceless, delicate item ye own? Could ye tell me that, woman?”
It didn't quite explain the smell, however. Fionnuala now eyed the bag on the counter, her mind having moved on to wondering what horrors might lurk there, soon be revealed from its depths.
“That's the tragedy of it all. One antique, priceless, delicate item. Ruined beyond all repair.” Mrs. Ming seemed close to tears. “Unless...unless...” She eagerly eyed the partition behind Fionnuala and Siofra, and her eyes seeming to say that that was where fantastical wonders of rejuvenation were concealed. “Ye've wee tricks back there beyond that partition ye can make use of. Haven't ye? It wasn't in one stroke, but. It happened in bits and bobs. First off, there was our Keeva's séance on the Tuesday evening. I know the Church frowns upon it, but it's a bit of harmless fun, now really, isn't it, don't ye think? As long as I don't tell the Father, I figure we're still up for heaven. That explains the wax. From the candles, ye understand. And the wine and all. We was in the dark and needed something for the steel our nerves. As for the mustard and the grass...”
As Mrs. Ming roiled through the list of mishaps and misfortunes and 'ye-had-to be-there-to-see-it's that had led to the sorry state of the table cloth today, Fionnuala wondered about the state of the woman's life in general, then about the contents of the mystery bag, still spilling out its noxious odors, and all the while a different part of her brain was clicking, brain cells churning, running through then discarding all the options of rescue the dry cleaners had at its disposal. She feared the secret solvents in the washing machine in the back would dissolve the lace. When Mrs. Ming got to the mud and rust section (her grand nephew Joe had tried to clean some mud off a rusty spanner with the table cloth, while paladic, of course), Fionnuala realized she didn't need or, more, didn't want to know, the how. She wanted to know the why. She cut the woman off, and peered at her with suspicion.
“They've not sent ye from that Kreases-N-Klean Kollars Galore up the Strand, have they? Are ye working for them undercover, like? For to test our premises and our expertise?”
“As God's me witness, naw.”
That settled it, then. Fionnuala could do nothing but trust the woman, bringing God into it like that. Fionnuala gently pried the table cloth from the woman's fingers and placed it on the counter. She cleared her throat.
“I fear there's something terrible I must reveal to ye. We're not magicians. How can I explain to ye that what ye once considered the most priceless item ye own now be's the most useles—”
“Naw, Mammy!” Siofra wailed. “Don't say it!” She turned to Mrs. Ming and said kindly, “Give us it here. Leave it with us. We'll take good care of it. We'll see what we can do. Won't we, Mammy?”
Fionnuala flashed the girl a look of betrayal. How dare she undermine her mother!
Mrs. Ming looked up in surprise at the girl, and she did have to look up. “Do ye work here and all then, wee girl?”
“And now,” Fionnuala said, clamping her fingers into the back of Siofra's left upper arm and twisting the flesh tightly. Siofra winced as her mother continued, “would ye care to explain what in the name of God be's responsible for that stench? What's in that bag ye've hauled in here?”
Mrs. Ming, her eyes still on the table cloth, waved her hand dismissively. “Och, that. Only our Joe's. He's me grand nephew and is staying with me for a while, and them is his overalls. Five pairs. One for each day of the work week. Did ye not know he got a new job fitting that swanky new sodium lighting in all Derry's sewers? Them ladders they have him perched on be's terrible slippery, and sometimes he falls in. Into the, well, have ye any idea what be's in them sewers? Fece—”
“No need for ye to reel off a list, woman. Them we can take care of, aye. I might need to swallow down a gin or two before I touch them, but.”
“I think most have underarm stains for ye to get out and all. Like lakes, they are. It be's terrible hot down there in them sewers, ye know. I have trust in ye. Ye can make them like brand spanking new. I hope ye can retrieve me beloved table cloth and all. And I've a wee coupon with me someplace,” her face burned with shame as she made to click open the handbag which swung from her elbow to locate it, “ten percent off, I believe it is. I wouldn't bother ye with that, but the prices ye charge here, and me being a pensioner and all...”
“God bless us and save us!” Fionnuala roared. “Ye kyanny be serious, woman!”
Mrs. Ming sniffed. “And I kyanny believe ye don't want to give me a discount! All them times I babysat ye, like!”
Fionnuala blanched. How could she have ever forgotten? It was as if she were ashamed she had ever been that young, that vulnerable. Back then, in Creggan Heights, in the Moorside, with each child born having up to seven or eight older brothers and sisters, there wasn't much call for babysitters. It was an American concept, like Halloween. Watching children for money? Never in the Moorside! It was the community looking out for itself, even while some of the community—Fionnuala's brothers—were robbing another part blind.
Fionnuala's heart suddenly went out to the old woman, but that didn't mean she would give her the friends and family discount.
As the seconds passed and the smell grew and the pensioner's trembling fingers continued their search through the depths of the handbag, Siofra finally skipped around the counter.
“I'll help ye find it, Mrs. Ming,” she offered.
“Get yer thieving hands away from me handbag!” Mrs. Ming snarled with a rage at odds with her frailty.
Fair dues, thought Fionnuala. The amount of times she had sent Siofra to the corner store to shoplift fags and tights for her; the girl was a pro.
Then the door flew open again, and Nurse Scadden from the Health Clinic marched in. She was a fat disgrace of a woman with piggish eyes.
“I'm here for me gear,” she announced in her strident foghorn tones, heedless of Mrs. Ming before her in the queue. Her large left arm elbowed the woman to the side. Mrs. Ming clutched the counter corner so she wouldn't topple over, and her handbag spilled its contents onto the floor. Siofra bent to retrieve the lipsticks and tissues and mints and the bits and pieces of religious paraphernalia she always carted around for protection, but Mrs. Ming smacked her head.
“Away! Away from me belongings, wane!”
Fionnuala's face seemed to fume between its swinging ponytails. Bloody typical, the face seemed to say: she spent 78 percent of her time behind that counter without a customer, bored to distraction, and now, when she wanted to pump her daughter for info about the family, all the juicy tidbits of information, they were flocking in in their droves.
“Can ye not see I've a customer before ye?” Fionnuala sniped to Nurse Scadden as Mrs. Ming began the long process of lowering her body to the floor to scoop up her belongings.
“I've to be at the Health Clinic in,” the nurse checked her watch, “twenty minutes. Bejesus! What's in that bag next to the till? Body parts? The stench rising from it be's overpowering, so it does!”
“What do ye want?”
“World peace!” Nurse Scadden snapped. “And now that ye mention it, a smile on that crabbit face on yers and a civil tongue to go with it wouldn't go amiss either. Naw. I'm here for me uniforms. I dropped them off last night.”
“Aye, I mind now.” Mind, remember. “Five minutes before closing. That's practically today, so it is. They're not done yet. Do ye think we toil away all hours of the night when punters can't be arsed to bring their clothes to us in a timely manner?”
“The prices I have to pay here, aye. I'll be taking me custom elsewhere in the future. That Palace of Sudz down Rosemount Way. Or that Rinkle-B-Gone up the Diamond. What am I meant to do now, but? I need me uniforms. The one I've on me now be's splattered with blood.”
“Aye, as was all them ye dropped off last night. Have ye any idea the special care it takes to remove blood from polyester?”
“If ye don't give me me uniforms sharpish, I'll be on to the Citizen's Advice Bureau. Compensation, I'll be demanding!”
“Aye, go ahead and try, love. Troops of lawyers, we've got. There's no way on God's green Earth—”
The bell tinkled, and in swanned Zoë Riddell, the owner of Final Spinz.
Fionnaula's heart fell. There were that many people thronging around her counter, it was beginning to resemble a pub at last orders. All the Moorside be's jammed in here, and now it's the Waterside invading and all! she thought, contorting her lips into something resembling a welcoming smile for the boss.
And her new sister-in-law. Or that's what Fionnuala thought Zoë was, in any event. Fionnuala's daughter had married Zoë's son, so in Fionnuala's mind, Zoë was her new, minted, Protestant sister-in-law. It was an unlikely pairing, both the in-laws and the newlyweds. But love knew no bounds, financial or religious, and Fionnuala's 24-year-old daughter Dymphna was indeed married to Zoë's only son, Rory. Dymphna's three children, Keanu, Beeyonsay and Greenornge, were Zoë's grandchildren, if only by default. Their provenance was murky.
Zoë Riddell, Derry's Second Best Businesswoman of the year last year and the year before that, was the owner of a wide array of Derry enterprises in addition to her takeover the month before of the dry cleaners, from the Pence-A-Day lockups to the fish and chip van in the city center, to the butcher's on Shipquay Street where her son and Dymphna had been married. Zoë was wearing, Fionnuala saw, a new Chanel suit in navy, a classic, thought Fionnuala, and her boss was eying her with suspicion.
“Goodness!” Zoë said, her eyes shooting around the scenes playing out before her, and struggling to make sense of them: the old woman on the ground, smacking away the hands of the little girl who seemed to be trying to help her, the big-boned nurse's face stretched with rage, and Fionnuala's mechanical grin across the counter from it. “What's all this noise? This talk of compensation? I was just passing on my way to the office, and thought I'd collect the takings from the hotel contract when...” She whipped out a two-ply tissue with little daffodils printed on it from her Louis Vuitton bowler bag and pressed it to her nose. “Wh-what's that...odor?” She peered in alarm at the bag on the counter.
“I'll never forgive our Joe for putting me through this mortification,” Mrs. Ming moaned, struggling to upright herself.
“Serendipity!” Nurse Scadden cried, and Fionnuala wondered what new language the nurse was suddenly speaking. “Are ye not Zoë Riddell? The owner of this tip?” Tip, dump. “I demand ye get me me uniforms this very moment or there'll be a tribunal!”
Zoë looked taken aback.
“I wouldn't have said tip. We remodeled when I bought the place.” She stepped confidently towards the counter, but faltered the closer she got to the bag on it. “I'm sure we'll be able to make right whatever wrong you think might have been done to you. It's our mission to make you happy. What, Mrs. Flood, seems to be the problem here?”
Fionnuala opened her mouth to reply, but was cut short as Nurse Scadden barked out: “Och, sure, the entire town knows the two of youse is in cahoots! Disgraceful, so it is! A Catholic betraying the community and pairing up with an Orange Proddy bitch! The best of mates, the two of youse is! Sure, everyone's seen the two of youse together in restaurants! That marriage, that...unseemly, vulgar pairing between yer offspring...it makes me stomach churn to think of it! What is the world coming to when a Catholic girl and a Proddy bastard can make a mockery of the holy institution of matrimony? There's no way, between the two of youse, youse can ever make me hap—”
They all yelped and heads turned as something, they each presumed a rock, clattered against the window and bounced off it. The door was wrenched open and Bridie McFee staggered in, eyes swiveling and shoulders swaying from the affects of drink.
“You! Fionnuala Flood!” Bridie slurred, an accusing finger pointed somewhere in the general direction behind the counter. Fionnuala barely recognized her without the cold sores. They seemed to have cleared up, though a stye was now pustulating under her left eye. “Ye've some bold-faced nerve! First yer Dymphna stole Rory from me, and now ye've stole me Damien's job here! I'll have ye for that! Gone from Derry for four weeks he was, I know, aye, and without giving notice. He had to, but. The telly program, ye know. That Safari Millionaire. It wasn't Damien's fault he was picked up for the program, shipped away to that land of Amazonia. Now the filming's over and he be's back, but. And his job is gone. To you!”
Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4) Page 44
