They turned off Magazine Street and into the makeshift market in the damp shadows of the city walls and O’Doherty Tower. Eoin nodded to the shifty-eyed fellas who sold bootleg CDs and DVDs, knock-off football scarves and nicked perfumes from their stalls. He stopped for a pack of fags smuggled in from Romania, and Siofra pretended not to notice the bag bulging with sweets he pulled out of his hooded top and delved into, tossing a few sweeties over as payment. She was biding her time.
“Eoin, I need to take a slash!” she announced, squirming on the cobblestones, as he handed a few sweets to the bootlegger in exchange for the fags. “Take me to the ChipKebab. And I want some TakkoChips and all.”
It was the least he could do. He held her hand as they crossed the square to the fast food joint next to the Top-Yer-Trolly.
Under her purple and green striped cap embroidered with tiny camels, Bridie’s eyes lit up as Dymphna’s wee brother approached her cash register.
“Right, Bridie.”
“Right ye are, Eoin, what can I get for ye?”
He leaned across the counter, avoiding the smeared garlic sauce and stray chip, and whispered:
“Give us some TakkoChips, and me sister needs the use of yer loos. Me and all, for that matter. I scoffed down a chicken vindaloo last night that—”
Bridie’s eyes danced with knowing.
“Vindaloo, me arse! Ye must think I came up the Foyle in a bubble. I know what the likes of youse does in public jacks.”
“I'm dead serious, I'm not here to shoot up or scoff down bangers,” he said, shooting a look over at Siofra. “Ye’ve no idea the pain she’s in!”
Bridie’s face was like stone above the register keys.
“Them jacks is for the staff only, like,” she announced.
“She’s a wane, just,” he pleaded.
“If I could sneak youse in, what’s in it for me?”
Eoin considered.
“Go and play with them ketchup packets for a wee while, you,” he instructed Siofra.
The girl struggled down the counter to do as instructed, the despair rising in her little loins. But she kept a crisp ear on the discussion at the register.
“I’ll give ye ten bangers for half price,” Eoin whispered.
“Five for free, more like. Ye said yer Siofra was bleeding desperate.”
Siofra was, her face misshapen and pink as she arranged the ketchup sachets into an upside down crucifix.
“Ach, ye’re doing me head in, you,” Eoin relented, reaching into his pocket.
Bridie eyed her manager at the chip vat.
“Make sure yer man over there doesn’t see ye sneaking in,” she said, snatching the tablets and slipping Eoin the key to the staff toilets.
“What’s them?” Siofra finally asked. Every young adult in the flipping city seemed obsessed with Eoin’s sweets. Maybe they were those things she had heard all about on the telly.
“Never you mind,” Bridie sang, slipping one into her mouth to add a bit of spice to the shift.
“Is them Viagra?” Siofra asked. She was puzzled by their answering guffaws.
“Sweeties,” Eoin replied. “For discos.”
Siofra licked her lips as she gratefully tottered off to the loo. Eoin’s sweeties didn’t look as tasty as Jelly Babies or Wine Gums, but if the delight on Bridie’s face was anything to go by, they must be magic. She knew better than to ask for one right then and there. When anything was “for adults,” it usually meant she had to wait until she was ten or eleven to experience it. She would have to sneak into the boys’ bedroom when Eoin was passed out and pinch a few then.
Business done, they waved goodbye to a Bridie waiting impatiently for the chemicals to kick in and walked outside. Eoin still felt wheezy, and was about to race back in and borrow the key again when an RUC police cruiser rushed towards them over the cobblestones. The car squealed, almost collided with a post, the doors flew open, and two coppers headed towards him at a steady gait, their rifle green tunics freshly-pressed, faces beaming menacingly under the peaks of their matching caps.
“Take you them,” Eoin hissed, tearing the drugs from his hooded top and stuffing them into Siofra’s handbag. “And pretend ye don’t know me.”
“Ye’re me brother, but,” Siofra said. “Of course I know ye!”
“Do as ye’re told!” he demanded, pushing her towards the Top Yer Trolly display windows.
Siofra scuttled away, feigning interest in the pyramid of mouthwashes, scoffing down her TakkoChips, and all the while her beady eyes strained at the reflection in the window of the scene unfolding behind her.
Eoin made to saunter around the corner to the Strand Road, but the two RUC peelers stopped him: a skinny bastard and a fat cunt.
“Just a minute there, mate.”
“Where are you on your way to, mate?”
They crowded closer.
“I'm aren’t yer mate,” Eoin scowled, the green of their uniforms blinding him and forcing his eyes into the pink of their faces.
“None of the sarky lip,” smirked one, stepping forward.
Eoin felt the cold expanse of the ChipKebab window against his shoulder blades. Their patent leather Oxfords were inches from his trainers.
“You don’t want to assist the RUC with their enquiries?”
The police presence in the city were used to sarcastic, spotty rowdies proudly displaying the chips on their shoulders, but that had never been Eoin’s nature.
“I-I'm after coming from the Richmond Center,” he lied.
The fat cunt raised an eyebrow, then they exchanged a nodding glance between themselves as Siofra licked the spicy sauce off her fingers, eyes glued to the reflection.
“That’s highly irregular,” the fat cunt said, “as we’ve just received intelligence that you’ve come from the Craglooner.”
“Empty your pockets,” said the skinny bastard.
Bookended by their lime green shirts, Eoin hastened to obey. He pulled out a wad of notes from his right pocket. From his left pocket he pulled out the pack of fags, a box of matches. The skinny bastard grabbed the cigarettes.
“Themmun’s is mines!” Eoin protested.
“Hmm...contraband here,” the skinny bastard said, struggling to read the health warning in Romanian. “Very serious offense, buying fags smuggled in from Eastern Europe. I’m afraid a search is going to be necessary.”
“Mate,” added the fat cunt.
“Your wallet?”
Eoin hesitated until an extendable baton appeared from behind one back, and a pair of speedcuffs from the other. He did as instructed, and the skinny bastard flipped through his wallet.
“And I’ll take this.”
The fat cunt plucked the mobile phone out of Eoin’s hand.
“Give us that back, you!” Eoin wailed.
The fat cunt wagged a bloated finger at him, pig eyes twinkling, baton twitching.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk!”
He inspected Eoin’s mobile—the last number he had dialed was the McDaid’s—flipped open a mobile of his own and pressed a number. The fat cunt moved off around the corner. Eoin heard him muttering to someone on the phone, but couldn’t make anything out.
Siofra gasped into the window as a black car sped into the city square, shoppers scattering, and squealed to a halt inches from Eoin. Out came a hulking behemoth with cropped gray hair, who grabbed Eoin and hauled him into the car. The bastard inside forced his skull down into the seat as it bolted off for points unknown. The constables high-stepped back to their patrol car, whooping in celebration. The car roared away down the cobblestones.
At the mouthwash display, Siofra finally turned around, blinking through the cloud of dust. It had been straight from an episode of Cops! She thought excitedly.
She stared down in suspicion at the handbag clutched tightly in her sweaty palm. It bulged with Eoin’s sweeties. She knew she should probably phone her parents and let them know what had happened, but her mammy had always said she was too young for
a mobile, so they could rot in Hell. She briefly considered going back into the ChipKebab and asking Bridie what she should do, or at least cajoling another TakkoChips out of her. She looked across the square at the market beyond the city walls. Then her lips curled with sudden connivance, and she skipped towards Magazine Gate.
CHAPTER FIVE
ROISIN CLUNG TO THE arm rests in mild terror as branches flung themselves at the window to her side.
“Mind where ye’re going, Ursula!” she implored.
Although a ceasefire had been called the day before, for two women bound by a childhood of imagined slights, lies of omission, filthy looks and perennial fallouts, there was still an understandable tension in Ursula’s Lexus that was exacerbated by both her driving skill and the showy display of the air conditioning. In the heat of Hawaii, air conditioning in the Doyle family car was a necessity. In the Derry joke of a summer, the hum of the AC was something else entirely.
Ursula pulled into the parking lot of Foyleside Churches Advice Center and flicked off the air conditioning with a touch of studied nonchalance. Roisin turned to the back seat. Eda sat there, strapped to the Coach leather in her seat belt.
“C’mere now, Mammy,” Roisin said. “Let’s get ye out of the car.”
“Ach, sure, there’s no need,” Ursula said. “By the time we get her outta that safety belt and up them steps and back down again, ye’ll have already been in yer grave for years and have no need for yer pension. She’s grand sat there as she is.”
Ursula flung open her door and stood on the asphalt, flicking her keys with slight impatience.
“Get yer legs in gear, Roisin. I’ve a pensioner from OsteoCare expecting me at half three.”
“Are ye right there, mother?” Roisin wondered, hesitant. She searched for some sign of annoyance or discomfort amidst Eda’s wrinkles. She saw no sign of any emotion at all.
“Aye, I'm grand, so I'm are,” Eda said flatly.
Roisin reluctantly left the car.
“That’s not on,” she said as Ursula marched her through the parking lot. “Leaving me mother locked in the car like a manky aul dog.”
“Aye, it’s far worse than forgetting her in her chair lift, right enough,” Ursula sniped. “I’ve been taking care of me mother for years now. Don’t ye be telling me what’s best for her. A wee outing in the car does her the world of good, so her doctor says. To force her to run a flimmin obstacle course is bad for her angina and her brittle bones.”
Ursula led Roisin into the inner sanctum of the Foyleside Churches Advice Center. Francine O’Dowd sat before a computer, punctuating each peck of the keyboard with a crunch of tomato and sausage flavored crisps, a bargain bag of which sat on her desk. Ursula knocked on the door and greeted her partner in crime all those years ago.
“Right there, Francine.”
“Ursula!” Francine O’Dowd beamed, wiping a crumb from her chin, her withered face creasing into a smile. “What about ye? Long time no see!”
She struggled to heave her poundage up from her chair and pecked Ursula on the cheek, shooting the obviously well-cared-for stranger at her friend’s side a glare of mistrust. Francine’s eyes flashed from the gently swinging beads of Roisin’s cornrows to her 18 carat wedding ring, up to the suspiciously oversized breasts straining the palm leaf print of her halter top, back to the wedding ring, up to the erect eyebrows that screamed Botox, down to her pink leggings and virgin white Nikes and finally rested back on the symbol of wealth and Yankee imperialism wrapped around the carefree finger bronzed from luxuriant Hawaii sunshine. Everything about her roared privilege and devil-may-care and stomach stapling. A Yank, no doubt. How they plagued Francine. A sour smile fell across her face.
“I’d like for ye to meet me sister Roisin,” Ursula said quickly.
“Yer sister?” Francine gaped.
Roisin grimaced and offered a half-hearted hand.
“She’s over from America, aye,” Ursula explained.
“I'm here to see about the pension I'm owed,” Roisin said, pushing herself up to the desk.
So that explained it. Francine had seen them troop into her office through the decades: Yankee brides living the life and still greedy for handouts from the British government. And although Francine was quite aware that, as part of the United Kingdom, the money was coming from Proddy bastards who deserved their coffers raided, she still felt protective.
“Ye look well-mended to me, but, woman,” Francine admonished. “Ye kyanny tell me yer Yank husband’s not provided well for ye?”
“That’s not the point, sure,” Roisin said with a snap of impatience. “I'm an Irish citizen. I should be allowed me pension!”
Francine returned to her computer with a mutter.
“Let me look up yer case. Roisin Flood, aye?”
“Aye.”
Roisin carefully spelled out her name as if Francine was touched in the head, then supplied her birth date with a twinge of embarrassment. Francine looked doubtfully through Roisin’s files and shoveled another handful of crisps into her mouth.
“Ye haven’t been back to town much since ye discovered America, missus,” she said, accusation in her tone. “According to me records, ye worked as a seamstress at the Foyle shirt factory for two years when ye was a wane.”
She could barely conceal the disbelief rising in her voice. She did a few quick calculations on a scrap of paper and finally looked up at Roisin, a glimmer of triumph on her face.
“Ye’ll be getting £3.72 a week.”
Roisin might have felt a part of Derry lingered forever in her soul, but Derry seemed to have cast her aside and was now treating her like the stranger to her hometown she really was. She was crestfallen.
“Might there be some mistake?” Roisin asked hopefully.
“Ach, catch yerself on, woman! Ye kyanny expect the government to subsidize ye for the rest of yer days lollygagging around in the sunshine of Hawaii for a few flimmin weeks ye spent playing with a bobbin and a needle clamp some thirty-odd years back!”
Francine selected a few forms and tossed them across her desk. “Fill themmuns out and post em, and ye’ll get what ye’re owed.”
Roisin eyed the papers dubiously. Ursula sidled eagerly up to the desk. She suddenly realized why, subconsciously, she had felt the pull of the town on the River Foyle all her adult life. Family, friends and subsidized health care, and a hefty pension to help her in her twilight years.
“I’ve been back living here for seven years now, so I have,” she said in a breathless rush she could no longer contain. “And I’ve never had any pension stamps put on my account!”
Francine’s eyes widened with interest, and Roisin flashed them both a foul glare.
“Sure, Ursula, I know ye’ve always been an upstanding member of wer community,” Francine wittered on as she pounded on the keyboard and stole glances at Roisin to make sure her point was being driven home. “And I know ye take care of yer aul ailing mother, like.”
“Aye, aye, ach aye,” Ursula said.
Francine stared in puzzlement at her computer screen. Her hand snaked into the crisp packet.
“Sure, I’ve no record here of yer work for yer mammy. Ye shoulda been getting an Invalidity Carer’s Allowance. How many hours a week do ye take care of the aul wan?”
“Twenty, thirty...”
“Eda Flood?” Francine asked.
“That’s her, aye,” Ursula said with an eager nod.
Francine searched through the databank, and her brow creased.
“That’s wile odd.”
A few more clicks, then Francine asked, “Sure, nobody else takes care of yer mammy, do they?”
“Naw,” Ursula said, suddenly uneasy.
There was always some aul stoke desperate to move in where handouts from the government were concerned. She remembered the weeks after her mammy and daddy got back from visiting her and Jed while they were stationed in Guam, and a mob of squatters had taken up residence at 5 Murphy Crescent. It had ta
ken an injunction to rid the house of them, and the stench took weeks to clear. Ursula shuddered at the thought of the peeled wallpaper, the state of the fridge and the used condoms that had littered the bedroom floors.
“Ye know a Paddy and Fionnuala Flood?” Francine asked.
Ursula tensed at the sound of their names.
“It says here that a Paddy and Fionnuala Flood’s been claiming the caretaker’s allowance on yer mammy for the past five years! They get £35.80 a week.”
Ursula turned to Roisin, jaw slack.
“I kyanny—I kyanny get me head around this!” Ursula said.
“Right!” Francine announced. “There’s only one thing to do.”
She pressed some forms into Ursula’s hands.
“Ye’ve got to apply for the caretaker’s allowance yerself,” she said.
“But them—”
“Has been nicking money that’s rightfully yers.”
“Paddy and Fionnuala won’t have the city council on their back for pinching the money?”
“If ye don’t make a fuss, naw,” Francine said. “Unless ye wanny claim all five years they already doled out. Then ye gotta take em to court to get the money that was yers.”
She felt Roisin staring daggers, stone cold silent at her side, but Roisin needn’t have worried; the mere thought of confronting Paddy and Fionnuala before a trio of magistrates filled Ursula with dread. Plus, she had lived the past few months in the lap of lotto luxury.
“Naw,” Ursula said. “We’ll let the past lie.”
They gathered their respective forms and made to leave. Ursula and Francine exchanged a kiss on the cheek and, when Roisin was on her way out, the secret handshake that meant “never mention the shame of ’73.” Once on the gravel of the parking lot, Roisin whipped around and lashed into her sister with a fury.
“Ye flippin cow, ye! Ye know Fionnuala’s taking care of me mother!”
“One dinner a week she makes the poor aul soul! And she’s been collecting forty quid for the hassle! That’s fine talk from one whose been shacked up in Hawaii for the past thirty years. Ye see you, Roisin, ye ran screaming from Derry the minute ye got the ring on yer finger, and haven’t been back since! Ye’ve not a clue what goes on in this flimmin town! Me fingers is bloody from all the messages I do for me mammy week in, week out!”
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