Fionnuala grinned her triumph, but Eda wasn’t finished. Her head trundled on its neck and faced Ursula’s square on.
“...and ye know I haven’t been able to trust ye since that night during the Troubles,” she said, milky eyes straining with condemnation.
Even Fionnuala flinched. This was the family secret that dared not speak its name. Even when the Floods were arsified with drink, they never mentioned Ursula’s shameful indiscretion of decades earlier, yet here Eda was, trumpeting it from the rooftops while stone cold sober and with a cruelty that only encroaching senility could account for.
“Ye mind that carry-on with you and that Francine O’Dowd?” Eda barreled on. “The shame ye dragged wer family name through?”
“That was 1973!” Ursula begged. “Ancient history!”
“Even now I kyanny hold me head up in the street,” Eda said, a black hole where her heart should be. “Mortified, we was, absolutely mortified!”
“It’s them new angina tablets making her say such things!” Ursula appealed to Roisin and Fionnuala. Although her sister and sister-in-law felt for her, Eda’s comment well below the belt, they remained silent, arms firmly folded.
“And,” Eda continued, “now ye’ve got them millions bulging outta yer handbag ye think ye own the whole piggin lot of us. Well ye don’t.”
“Mammy!” Ursula implored, tears welling. “Why are ye being so mean to me?”
Eda cast Ursula a look of dismissal. She made for her daughter-in-law's side and stopped just short of wrapping her arm around Fionnuala’s waist.
“I’ve had me say,” Eda concluded. “And that wane’s better off without yer interference.”
“Aye, don’t ye be laying a finger on wer Siofra,” Fionnuala said, although without the gloating one might have expected, her coup now upstaged.
Gutted, Ursula silently made her way to the hall. They heard the front door squeak shut.
“Good on ye, Eda,” Fionnuala said, but half-hardheartedly, while Roisin looked at her mother sideways and wondered what actually was in those new angina tablets.
1973 (PART II)
LANCE CORPORALS IAN Simms and Teddy Platt had spent the week sweating in their riot gear, searching through prams and dodging rocks flung at them by schoolchildren, but now the weekend had come and they were sweating with lust. They had hooked two Derry grots in the Quonset hut that was the Yank Enlisted Men’s Club on the US Military Base, plied them with endless gin and tonics, and victory was soon to be theirs, under the sheets of a rented room in some hotel across the border. Gracie and Una their names were, and the mindless bitches had leaped up as the relentless disco of “Rock The Boat” suddenly blared from the DJ’s speakers.
“Just look at those tarts writhing against each other,” Simms said, nudging his barracks roomie. “Filthy Fenian grots. You think they’d put on a little show for us and the Polaroid?”
“It’ll be brilliant for the grot board!” Platt said, attempting conviction. He felt ashamed about what they were going to do later that evening, but the commander had ordered the men of the barracks to pull the most hideous civilian girls they could—grots—snap photos of them in the most lurid sexual act possible, and hang them on the barracks “grot board.” During a lager-fueled off-duty party every Sunday night, the soldiers voted (Platt and a few others reluctantly) on the most depraved Polaroid, and the most disgusting photographer won a case of lager. Gracie and Una weren’t really in the grot category, but Catholics received triple votes, and if the soldiers could further entice the Fenian bitches into some woman-on-woman action, maybe with a Union Jack draped over their naked Green bodies and some playful use of a light bulb, the case of lager was sure to be theirs.
“You know what these repressed Catholic tarts are like,” Simms said, already feeling the lager. “A lifetime of confessions and communion wafers and they’re up for any bit of perv action, secretly gagging for a stiff Protestant tadger.”
Platt ordered the girls another round of gin and tonics from the bartender.
“All this pansy disco and twangin country Yank shite!” Simms spat. He had been hoping for T-Rex and Slade, fine British groups.
Simms kept his eyes on Una and Gracie through the flailing arms of the dance floor, perverse visions dancing through his mind.
“We’ve to get our hands on their handbags, of course,” Simms said after a while.
Platt sighed inwardly.
“Of course,” he said flatly.
After ravaging the local slappers, after asserting the superiority of their religion or nationality, the soldiers always left them passed out in their drunken Irish stupors, defecated into their handbags, then stole away back to the safety of the barracks. It was the same game with every grot they pulled, Protestant or Catholic.
Those handbags were now on the dance floor, purple velour platforms stomping around them, as Francine and Ursula roared as best they could with boozy faux-laughter. They had been putting on a right show of two young Derry girls up for a night of craic for the lance corporals, flashing the young pink flesh below their sequined hot pants. Their minds were heavy with the gravity of their mission, however, as their feminine delights had hit their mark, having baited two young, randy and, most importantly, British soldiers far from their hometown of Manchester. Flaunt a bit of cleavage at a soldier cooped up for months in the barracks in a hostile land, and you soon had his undivided attention; that’s how easy the honey trap was.
“Rock The Boat” ended and Ursula and Francine grimaced as the DJ put the needle on a Buck Owens classic. They scooped up their handbags and swiftly abandoned the floor, making a bee-line for the victims and gin and tonics which awaited them at the bar.
They saw Platt and Simms squint at their approach, hateful Proddy lips curled into smirks of lust. Ursula jumped as Master Chief Jungsten suddenly towered above her, arms outstretched in delighted surprise, a rum and coke planted in his right fist.
“Ain’t you Petty Officer Barnett’s wife? Ursula?” he said through his cigar. “Didn’t I meet you at the fourth of July bar-b-que last year? You sure know how to eat a hotdog, if I recollect rightly.”
Ursula was rigid with fear. If it ever got back to Jed that she had been caught with British soldiers at the Yank club bar, fighting for gin and tonics while he fought for democracy in Saigon...
“Me name’s Gracie,” she snapped up at him in alarm, “and I'm off to the loo.”
She clutched Francine’s elbow and turned abruptly from Master Chief Jungsten’s startled face. With a wink at the Brit soldiers and a finger pointing urgently in the direction of the toilets, Ursula disappeared with Francine into the frugging masses.
“Me heart fairly stopped thumping!” Ursula gasped as she collapsed into the stall. “We’ve to get them Brits outta the club and into Tommy’s cab dead quick. I kyanny risk been recognized by any more of me husband’s mates!”
She glanced at her watch.
“Half ten he said he’d be outside the gate waiting for us. Twenty minutes, so.”
“Them soldiers,” Francine said, “must think we’re off wer heads. Catholic girls teaming up with Proddy paratroopers.”
“If only yer men knew.”
Ursula flushed and left the stall, heading on unsteady feet for the mirror. She pursed her lips, then attacked them with lipstick.
“C’mere till I tell ye, I'm fear-hearted with all wer antics the night,” Francine revealed, joining her girlfriend at the mirror and running the mascara over her false eyelashes. “Snogging the faces offa British soldiers! Wee girls in Belfast have been tarred and feathered for far less.”
“Ach, them girls wasn’t fighting for the Cause,” Ursula said. “They had the cheek to wanny marry Orange soldier cunts! Ye’ve no need to be afeared; Tommy’s gonny be looking after us. Mind yer mouth, but. Ye don’t know who’s listening in.”
She motioned towards the stall doors. Francine was suitably silenced for them to spend a few moments making themselves more allurin
g as the twang of Tammy Wynette crept into the ladies room.
“Platt and Simms seem terrible nice, but,” Francine said wistfully. “I kyanny fathom them raging with hatred as Tommy went on about. Are ye sure we’re meant to be doing this?”
Ursula put down her compact. Francine shrank from her filthy look. Such was the power Ursula had over her girlfriends.
“Don’t ye be backing out on me now. Ye kyanny think of them fellas as human beings. Ye gotta think of em as flimmin Orange beasts, responsible for gunning down wer brothers and sisters and wanes in wer streets!”
Ursula rouged her cheeks with conviction.
“Right ye are,” Francine said, but her eyes showed her doubt.
“Have you yer knock-out drops ready?” Ursula asked.
Francine fiddled through the tissues and matchboxes in her handbag and tugged out the vial filled with colorless liquid Tommy had handed her in the taxi before he dropped them off outside the security hut of the Yank Naval base.
“Two drops, mind, just to make em woozy. We kyanny drag them into the taxi all on wer lonesome if themmuns pass out.”
Ursula extracted a similar vial from her own handbag and hid it in her palm. They adjusted their halter tops one last time, made their way out of the loo and towards their destiny.
Francine gratefully grabbed the drink Platt proffered as she pecked his cheek and wrapped her arm around his shoulder.
“We was bursting for a slash,” Francine said, her voice high with the forced frivolity of it all. “Terrible sorry, like.”
Ursula perched herself on Simms’s lap and giggled into his neck, repulsed at the feel of his Proddy aggressor flesh as she covered it in tiny kisses.
“The sight of you two birds on the floor got us thinking what it might be like if...” Simms raised his eyebrows suggestively.
“Ye filthy perv, ye!” Francine squealed with laughter, all the while her stomach churning.
“We’re good Catholic girls, us!” Ursula said through a tight smile. She squirmed her buttocks well away from an alarming protrusion that was blossoming in Simms’s lap.
“We’ll see about that!” Simms said, his lips assailing the cringing skin of Ursula’s neck. He grappled his lager and made to guzzle it down.
Ursula grabbed the glass and held it fast. She let her fingers creep over his thigh towards the warmth of his crotch.
“Why don’t youse take one last trip to the gents?” Ursula whispered into his ear, with a quick nip on his earlobe. “Then we’ll be on wer way?”
She winked at his hateful Proddy face, her stomach lurching.
Simms and Platt exchanged a glance, adjusted themselves and beat it to the toilets. Francine gnawed on her lower lip as her eyes met Ursula’s over the two empty bar stools The soldiers’ almost empty pint glasses awaited their treachery. Ursula gazed around the crowd to be sure the shrieking Yanks and off duty Brits were oblivious to them. Master Chief Jungsten was nowhere in sight. Francine pleaded silently with her eyes. Are we doing the right thing? Ursula nodded barely perceptibly. Her hand reached towards Simms’s pint glass, her thumb and forefingers trembling as they twisted off the top of the vial. Francine made similar moves towards Platt’s glass. As a team, they slipped two droplets of chloral hydrate into the dregs of beer as “Knock Three Times” broke out around them.
Ursula’s heart thumped against her ribcage as Simms and Platt swaggered towards them, slapping each other on the back.
“Drink up, lads!” Ursula urged. “And let’s hit the sheets!”
Simms and Platt guzzled down. They collected their jackets and were out the door, the girls clutching the men’s arms for support, staggering and giggling with girlish glee as they stumbled past the rows of Quonset huts. Ursula waved goodnight to the guard at the security hut.
“Ach, here’s a taxi, sure!” Francine said, hoping her voice sounded sufficiently delighted.
“Ach, luck’s with us the night, fellas!” Ursula said. “The Lord must be all for the mixing of the religions.”
“Yeah, right,” Simms snorted, shoving Ursula forcefully into the back seat. Ursula was grateful Tommy was at the wheel, all denim and white-man afro and lamb chop sideburns.
“Right, lads?” Tommy said from the front seat.
“None of your gob,” Simms snapped. “Just do what we’re paying you for and drive.”
Francine and Platt shoved into the leather beside them. Francine and Ursula’s thighs pressed against each other, their platform heels tight in collusion. Simms flashed Platt a sly smile over the bangs of Francine’s shag wig, his finger kneading the Polaroid camera in his jacket pocket. Ursula and Francine were exchanging the same glance, if only in their minds. Platt stifled a sudden yawn.
“Where was that hotel?” Simms barked into Ursula’s face even as his eyes drooped.
“We’re for Muff,” Ursula said to Tommy in the front seat, as if he didn’t know. “The Starlight Hotel.”
“Right youse are,” Tommy said, revving up the car with a secret smile. “The Starlight Hotel it is.”
The little town of Muff, one mile across the border into the Republic, had no Starlight Hotel. It did, however, have an IRA safe house with a sagging thatched roof and boarded windows, and three soldiers for the Nationalist Cause waiting for the lance corporals with ski masks and AK-47s, ready to tie their drugged bodies to chairs, beat them awake, engage in some playful torture and taunting, and blast away their hateful Brit faces.
Ursula and Francine squealed with forced laughter as the taxi sped off into the night.
£ £ £ £
As expected, Jed wasn’t home when Ursula arrived at her empty trophy house, so she sat alone with her handbag at the dining room table, grieving.
She had nobody to turn to. Molly and Francine were busy at work. Ursula herself had Mrs. Feeney from OsteoCare to visit in half an hour, but she couldn’t face it. Home visits were supposed to be cheery affairs, and she couldn’t plaster a smile on her face as Mrs. Feeney babbled on about the price of Brussels sprouts when Ursula’s own mother had just all but disowned her. The OsteoCare client only used her as a glorified taxi service every week, anyway, forcing Ursula to drive her down the town so she could collect her frozen steak and kidney pies from the Top-Yer- Trolly.
Ursula turned to the phone and dialed, guilty at leaving the old woman wanting. Then again, Mrs. Feeney always seemed to be wanting.
Always.
“Mrs. Feeney? It’s Ursula.”
“Aye, love, I’ve me list of needs already written out. I'm sitting here waiting for ye now.”
In the front hall with her duffel coat already on, doubtlessly.
“Could I see ye the tomorrow instead?” Ursula asked.
There was a martyred exhalation of breath on the end of the line.
“I'm rationing me spuds as it is,” Mrs. Feeney said.
“I'm terrible sorry, something came up,” Ursula said. “If ye’re low on food, ye can always go to the Sav-U-Mor round the corner, sure. I’ll see ye the tomorrow at half three.”
There was a silence. Mrs. Feeney finally spat out: “If ye must.”
The moment Ursula hung up, the phone rang, and she eyed it with fear, dreading who might be on the other end, roaring abuse at her. But eager to not miss a call from Jed—as unlikely as him phoning her might be—she picked up.
“Ye know I kyanny abide ye,” Roisin began. “That with me mother wasn’t on, but. I felt for ye, Ursula, I truly did. That palaver with you and Francine O’Dowd’s the buried past, as well it should be. And, ye know, Fionnuala’s after telling me that that Francine’s working now at the Foyleside Churches Advice Center. If ye want, ye can take me there the tomorrow and help me see about me pension. As you two is mates, who knows, maybe she can tack on a few extra quid for me. Then maybe after we can have a cappuccino and a wee natter at that new café on Shipquay Street.”
Gratefully snatching any tidbit of kindness, not caring that Roisin was using her as a complimentary taxi
service the way Mrs. Feeney did, Ursula eagerly agreed.
“Ach, Roisin,” she said. “That’s wile civil of ye.”
“Me mother wants a word with ye now.”
“Naw!” Ursula begged. “I kyanny speak to her! She’ll have another mouthful of abuse for me!”
“It’s alright,” Roisin said. “I’ve spoken to her, and she’s sorry for what she said.”
Ursula froze as Roisin handed over the receiver.
“I'm affronted, Ursula,” Eda said down the line, “I haven’t a clue what came over me. Pay me no mind, sure. Ye know I love ye as only a mother can.”
Ursula’s heart ballooned.
“Ye’ve been cooped up in that house for too long now,” Ursula said. “When was the last time ye saw the sunshine? Ye wanny come with me and Roisin to the Waterside Churches the tomorrow? A wee outing would do ye the world of good.”
“Sounds right lovely.”
Ursula hung up a new woman, dismissing her heartache as completely as it had consumed her one phone call earlier, and suddenly realizing with tight lips that Roisin would probably expect her to splash out for the cappuccinos. For once Ursula wouldn’t care.
£ £ £ £
Siofra stood outside the Craglooner in a brattish strop, stewing under the cheap headphones of her cassette Walkman as S Club 7 blared into her ear canals. It was the third pub Eoin had dragged her to so far this afternoon, ostensibly to talk to his mates. He either had very many mates or loads to discuss, given the length of time she had been stood outside bored out of her skull. She was sick of examining the pavements for cracks as her mammy demanded she always do when walking around town, something to do with orchestrating a fall and collecting loads from the city council.
Eoin finally emerged from the pub, and Siofra whinged, “Why’ve ye dragged me down to the city center with ye anyroad?”
“Because ye’re me sister, and I love ye,” he said. “Only one more pub, and then we’ll head back to the Moorside.”
His little sister, in her pink dance skirt and denim jacket embroidered with flowers, the purple Power Puff Girls handbag sauntering at her side, was, Eoin hoped, a clever decoy to put off any meandering members of the undercover narcotic squad and the Special Branch.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 11