CARETAKER’S ALLOWANCE
CHAPTER FOUR
“PUT YOU SOME CLEAN socks on fer yer auntie Roisin’s visit! The almighty stench offa themmuns ye’ve on ye now is causin me grief of all sorts!”
Siofra blinked up in surprise at her mother. Hadn’t Fionnuala battered the shite out of Padraig the week before for dumping his socks in the laundry pile before they were due, screaming something about washing powder not growing on trees? She feared her mother was turning into a right headcase, and perhaps this fear is what made her turn obediently.
As her daughter skirted out of the scullery, Fionnuala reflected that Siofra was indeed a wee angel when the mood hit her. It was a shame Roisin hadn’t planned her trip to coincide with the First Holy Communion celebration the next month, she thought while arranging the French shite around the cheese and pineapple halo on a platter.
She should’ve told Dymphna to lift some crackers as well. Ach, well, Fionnuala thought, Roisin would have to piggin well make do with some crusty loaf or a stale roll.
She moved from the platter to the Flood Holy Communion gown she had dredged up to show Roisin. Moira had proudly marched down the aisle of St. Moluag’s Chapel in that gown in 1991. Two years later, her younger sister Dymphna had followed down the same aisle in the same gown (much less proudly).
It was a wee bit stiff and colored a dingy yellow, Fionnuala noticed, but a quick spin in the Hotpoint and a few strokes on the ironing board and it would be right as rain for wee Siofra.
Fionnuala was removing some dried egg yolk from the collar with a thumbnail when she noticed Siofra at the threshold of the scullery, eyes on the gown. Fionnuala beamed down fondly at the family heirloom.
“Aye, it’s grand and lovely, right enough,” she said.
“Where did ye unearth that from?” Siofra demanded to know, hands on hips.
Fionnuala’s smile dissolved into a threat. Her daughter glared with eight-year-old hatred at the unsightly mass of stained polyester blend.
“Naw, Mammy!” Siofra wailed. “Ye’re off yer bleeding head if ye think I’d disgrace meself in that mingin frock! I’ll be the laughing stock of all the Moorside!”
While Fionnuala convulsed, Siofra raced off and returned seconds later, thrusting the catalog of princess dreams into her mother’s face.
“This is what I'm gonny wear!” she insisted. “The Maria Theresa gown imported from Italy with the matching Andromeda veil on page forty-wan!”
Fionnuala snatched up the catalog, scanned the print, her eyes blazing in disbelief.
“Taffeta? Tulle? Slip and crinoline petticoat? Matching satin gloves, me hole! Wise up, wane!”
“But—“
“One hundred and sixty-seven pounds?! Ye’re off yer bleeding head!”
“Me auntie—“
“And it’s not just the fecking frock!” Fionnuala said, flipping dismissively through the gloss. “There’s the bleeding tiara, the shoes, the missal, the sparkly bag—“
“Mammy!”
“The parasol, the rosary beads, the jewelry, the piggin tights—”
“Auntie Ursula told me Grainne’s mammy’s taking her on a trip to Spain to get her a suntan for the day. And she’s getting her the Royal Princess Gown on page thirty-two.”
“So yer auntie Ursula forced this pile of shite into yer grabby wee paws?”
Siofra nodded haltingly.
“That woman!” Fionnuala quietly seethed. “That’s the end of them fecking lessons! Me and yer father is working all the hours God sends to put a bloody fish finger in yer piggin mouth every Friday, and we still kyanny keep wer heads above water! Ye’re living a fecking dreamworld if ye think we’re throwing away 200 quid on a frock ye’re gonny have on yer flippin bones ten flimmin minutes outta yer life!”
“But Auntie—”
“Yer auntie’s giving ye ideas above yer station! She’s swimming in cash and hasn’t a clue. Yer da’s no famous footballer, and I'm no ex-Spice Girl. We’ve not the money nor the simple minds to waste 500 quid on yer communion. Sure, it’s a holy sacrament, wee girl, not a bloody beauty pageant! Ye’re gonny wear the gown yer sisters wore. It was fine for Dymphna and Moira, so it was, and it’s gonny be fine for you and all.”
Fionnuala marched to the press under the sink, flung open the door and tossed the catalog into a trashcan overflowing with festering potato peels.
“The bin’s the only place for overpriced shite!” she bellowed at Siofra’s whimpering face.
Siofra’s eyes finally welled with tears.
“That manky dress is a pile of shite!” she wailed, racing from the scullery into the front hallway.
Fionnuala was in hot pursuit. She clutched a handful of brown envelopes from the hall stand and shoved them into the wane’s face.
“Ye see themmuns?” Fionnuala asked. Siofra recoiled against the wallpaper from her mother’s wrath. “Ye know what themmuns is? Bills, ye silly wee gack! Bills and bills and bills! I'm just after forcing yer brothers and sister to empty their pockets to pay the last round, and now here’s another round of em demanding to be paid! Catch! Yerself! On! Wee girl! Naw means naw!””
Siofra blinked, uncomprehending.
“Bills?” she asked, wide-eyed innocence. “I thought wer Auntie Ursula bought wer house, but!”
Fionnuala’s outstretched palm shot into her face.
Stunned, Siofra’s eyes bulged as her hand shot to her cheek. And then the tears flowed.
“See if I ever, ever catch ye saying that again,” Fionnuala seethed into her tender face, index finger menacingly close to her nose. “I’ll clatter the living shite outta ye, ye jumped-up wee bitch!”
“Just wait till me daddy comes home, so!” Siofra sobbed, turning and fleeing up the stairs to safety.
“Aye, and maybe he’ll clatter some sense into yer gacky skull!” Fionnuala yelled up the landing. “I'm warning ye, ye stay away from that madwoman! And don’t ye be trying anything on! Any harm comes to that gown, and ye’ll be marching down the aisle of St. Moluag’s in a bloody fecking bin liner!”
After a moment’s seething, she stepped back to the bin under the sink, flicked aside some potato peels and gingerly removed the catalog. She needed it handy to fling at Ursula’s face the next time she saw the bitch.
£ £ £ £
The jewel on the Foyle was preparing for another sickly summer with vague pockets of sunshine and the barest hint of heat. Roisin Doyle, however, was delighted for a reprieve from the humidity of Hawaii.
Skin oddly taut and bronze, the brightly colored beads of her Bo Derek-style cornrows clanking, she sailed into town with all the fanfare of an old warhorse galloping triumphantly back to its stables. She peered with a frantic intensity out the windscreen of the taxi she had taken all the way from Belfast International Airport, marveling at the transformation of her beloved town on the River Foyle.
The brassy-green spire of the twice-bombed Guildhall now towered with pride over the fiercely-scrubbed cobblestones. Derry City had arisen like a luxury liner from the ocean depths, splendor restored thanks to millions of Euros from the EU.
The overabundance of new red brick threatened to mar Roisin’s optical nerves, but she cooed at the sight of the new Ulster Bank, the new library, the new bus depot, and her credit cards squirmed in anticipation of the new shopping center, Foyleside. Gone were the trails of razor wire and the paratroopers, the checkpoints and the pram searches. Even a spanking new McDonald’s had arisen from the grimy ashes of the past.
Derry had become a most handsome city, marred perhaps only by the menacing gangs of hooded teens who loitered on every corner. The taxi pulled into the smattering of historical political graffiti that gave the Moorside its tourist charm, and Roisin started the rabble-rousing at 5 Murphy Crescent even before her bags were unpacked.
“What’s all this bloody caper about that bitch Ursula snatching the house from under wer noses?” she berated her mother, revving up to spread home truths that were nothing but
a pack of lies. “It sickens the heart outta me!”
Eda wrapped her cardigan around her.
“I'm wile cold. Stoke the fire, would ye, love? I think the damper’s out.”
Roisin stared at the blazing electric fire, and her heart went out to the pensioner, Eda’s head of platinum curls perfectly coiffed and colored, her mind a madhouse.
Changes had been made to 5 Murphy since Roisin’s last visit. After the lotto win, Ursula had had the heating switched over to oil, redone the bay windows and installed a chairlift for Eda.
The scabby bitch hadn’t seen fit to change the furniture, though, Roisin thought, the same she remembered from the ‘70s: purple carpeting now frayed with scuff marks, white pleather sofa and matching loveseat peppered with fag burns, once bright orange cushions now dulled with the passage of the years and sagging from the weight of a thousand arses, all at odds with the old world charm of the lace doilies Eda had strewn on every vertical surface in a vain attempt at claiming the décor as her own.
“Have the Floods round the corner been taking good care of ye?” Roisin asked softly, taking her mother’s frail claws into her hands.
“Ursula’s been looking after me. She’s a wee dote, her. Got me a new flat screen telly just the other day.”
“Mammy, ye mean Fionnuala, surely?”
“Naw. Ursula.”
“Hasn’t Ursula been torturing the life outta ye?” Roisin prompted. “Making yer time left here on Earth a misery?”
Eda seemed to consider, then her eyes flashed at some past annoyance, and Roisin pressed her fingers, urging her on.
“Aye, Mammy? Aye?”
“Now that ye mention it, Ursula forgot to give me me dinner the other day. Weak with hunger, so I was, and all she finally brought yesterday was two skinless budget sausingers and a dollop of hardened turnips. I think she had them sitting out for days!”
Roisin nodded, satisfied. Just the ammunition she had been searching for.
“Don’t ye worry anymore,” Roisin said. “I'm here to save ye.”
As the stranger before her continued chattering away, Eda eyed her waveringly, wondering who she was.
Half an hour later, the letterbox clacked, and Fionnuala and her two youngest filed in. She had scrubbed them well, and had even forced clean socks onto Seamus.
“Ach, Roisin, it’s lovely to see ye, sure,” Fionnuala twittered, fairly ripping the carton of duty free fags from her sister-in-law’s fingers and shoving Seamus and Siofra towards her. “Say hello to yer auntie,” she demanded.
Roisin beamed down at her niece and nephew. Siofra shoved the platter of cheeses up, while Seamus cowered behind his plate of stale baps. Roisin grimaced at the meager spread, her eyes unable to avoid the car-accident pull of the cheese and pineapple halo.
“Themmuns looks wile lovely,” she managed.
“Ach, just a wee something to welcome ye back to Derry.”
“Ye shouldn’t have, Fionnuala,” Roisin said, and she meant it.
She took a nibble out of common civility, then made to hand over the Smirnoff she had bought for Paddy, but Fionnuala already had it sitting at her feet. Roisin reached into a bag and shoved gifts at the wanes. Siofra dubiously inspected some cheap bauble her aunt had snatched up from the newsstand at Honolulu International.
The swank new McDonalds on the Strand has better gifts in their Happy Meals, sure! Siofra thought. Auntie Ursula’s gifts is always wile clever and wile dear. This strange new aunt is a wile scaldy cunt!
Seamus tossed his trinket aside and began to play with his shoelaces.
“So how does it feel, lodging here in the servants’ quarters of her majesty’s holdings?” Fionnuala began, with a nod over at the framed photo of Ursula and Jed grudgingly displayed on a remote corner of an end table.
“That Ursula!” Roisin grunted, revving herself up for a go. Siofra’s and Seamus’s heads shot up. Fionnuala noticed the attentiveness shining in their little eyes.
“You wanes! Go and play with yer granny!” she ordered.
Even Siofra seemed slightly fearful of this prospect, but they obediently left the sitting room and left the adults to their private natter.
“Ursula’s been off her head ever since she won the lotto,” Fionnuala fumed.
“Aye, only thinking of herself, the self-centered cow! Ye know she gave me mammy her dinner late yesterday? The poor aul one was perishing for day!”
Fionnuala wasn’t sure where to look. Roisin set her lips and prepared to let loose a string of insults when Seamus padded back into the sitting room.
“Where’s me granny?” he asked.
Roisin and Fionnuala’s eyes swiveled around the room in bewilderment.
“Where’s Eda?” Fionnuala wondered.
“I kyanny for the life of me mind where I left her!” Roisin said.
Fionnuala pressed Roisin’s arm as they leaned in together and stifled their giggles.
“Not in front of the wanes,” Fionnuala admonished.
They had half-raised their arses from the cushions to go search when they heard the sound of a key in the front door. They froze, sharing a grimace. Although conventional Flood wisdom was that, her being a lotto millionairess, the dreary neighborhood of Ursula’s childhood was somehow beneath a journey in her new Lexus, in reality Ursula visited her mother with a frequency that bordered on stalking. It could only be the lady of leisure herself.
“Roisin?” they heard Ursula warble. Then—
“God bless us and save us! What’s me mother doing stuck on the stairs?”
They all rushed out to see Ursula halfway up the stairs, Eda clutching at the banister with a whimper, struggling to pry herself from the chairlift stalled at the top of the landing.
The silly aul bitch! Roisin thought as she climbed the stairs after Ursula. Where the feck had the aul eejit been on her way to in the first place? Roisin had waited an intercontinental jet flight to tell Ursula off, let her sister know what a hard-faced bitch she was, but she could hardly do that now, when it looked like she and Fionnuala had just left Eda to roam the house, unhinged and unattended.
“I’ve told ye time and time again, Mammy,” Ursula admonished. “The green button means go, the red means stop.”
They inserted Eda back into her chair lift and calmed her down with pats and coos. Ursula pressed the appropriate button, and they waited at the bottom of the stairs for her journey to complete, exchanging gruff hellos.
“Long time no see, Roisin,” Ursula said.
“Aye.”
The trio guided Eda into the living room, each vying to be the most caring, gentle relative.
“Watch yer step.”
“There ye go, Mammy.”
Once in the living room, Eda settled on the settee under the portrait of the Blessed Virgin, and Siofra scampered up to Ursula as if she loved her and fit her little arms around as much of her waist as she could, just to annoy her mother. Fionnuala could put up with the charade of happy families no longer.
“Away from that woman, you!” she warned Siofra.
“What—?” Ursula gasped.
Siofra scampered out of the sitting room with a cackle, Seamus in tow. Roisin’s eyes danced at the shock on Ursula’s face. She settled happily into a white and orange armchair and let the commotion unfold.
“A wee word, Ursula?” Fionnuala’s smile was chilling. She reached into her handbag and pulled out the catalog. “What in the name of feck’s this pile of shite ye’ve been shoveling down wer Siofra’s throat?”
Ursula blinked.
“It’s for her communion gown, sure.”
“Ye’ve spent the last three months splashing yer money around like ye was Richard flippin Branson! And now ye’re poisoning the mind of a wee one too young to know the difference, turning her into a jumped-up start like yerself!”
“There’s budget gowns in the back pages, sure!”
“I’ll budget gowns ye!” Fionnuala seethed. “Ye fancy yerself as the lady of t
he manor, better than the likes of us, prancing around with yer nose so high in the air ye’d drown in the flimmin rain. C’mere till I tell ye, Ursula, ye kyanny take the Moorside rowdie outta ye, no matter how many lottos ye win, ye fecking cunt!”
Ursula was affronted, hearing language like that under the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, Eda inspecting them in thin-lipped silence.
“That’s just the kind of talk I expect from a Heggarty! Youse Heggarty’s have always been a scourge on the good name of Creggan, and why wer Paddy married one of you lot I’ll never know!”
Roisin guffawed silently. It was a common Moorside row, the likes of which she never saw in Hawaii. How she loved Derry City!
“Me great-uncle is a bishop!” Fionnuala pointed out.
A bitter laugh shot out of Ursula. Fionnuala was always pulling this none-too-hidden ace out of the sleeve of her bargain bin jumper. Ursula knew better.
“Yer uncle kyanny make up for the sins of the rest of youse. In and outta the jails for torching post boxes and slashings and bottlings in pub brawls! The men hard, the weemin harder. C’mere till I tell ye, Fionnuala, thank the Lord I'm looking out for that wee Siofra of yers, for she’d be well on her way to the gates of hell with only a mother the likes of you to show her the way! The best thing ye ever did in yer miserable life was to make me that one's godmother. That poor wane needs all the help she can get from—”
“Siofra’s not to get yer ‘help’ any longer!”
Ursula twitched. “I'm gonny teach her about the church and—” she said.
“Naw, ye’re to teach her sweet feck all!”
“But—”
“Ye see if ye so much as whisper one prayer into her ear, ye’ll get the heel of me shoe up the crack of yer arse, mark me words!”
“I'm her godmother!” Ursula gasped.
Ursula was raging, but still had the presence of mind to wonder why her mother wasn’t jumping to her defense. Roisin she could understand, but why was Eda just sitting there like she was, not a thought of her own in her head?
“Mammy! Help me!”
Eda appeared to be either considering or dozing. Finally, she whispered, “Well, she is Fionnuala’s daughter, ye know.”
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 10