Her accusing finger pointed down the front row of the public seats which the Floods had annexed.
“That wan’s pushing drugs all over town! And they’ve a wee slapper who’s pregnant outta wedlock with a Proddy at eighteen years of age! And they’ve another brother, the pride of the family, locked up in Magilligan for GBH!”
“Madam—”
“Thieving beasts!” Ursula bellowed into the magistrates’ alarmed faces. “Themmuns isn’t human beings!”
“Madam!”
“Hardened, filthy stokes!” Ursula screamed as security raced at her from all sides.
“Exercise control over yourself, or you will be ejected from the courtroom!” blared a scarlet-faced magistrate.
Ursula shrank from the uniforms which girdled her, and Ms. Murphy’s voice rang out.
“I apologize profusely for my client’s behavior.”
“I should hope so,” muttered one.
“We’ll adjourn the court whilst we arrive at our verdict,” another said.
“Your worships, may I at this time request bail for my client?” Ms. Murphy asked.
They exchanged a look at her impudence, but finally one harrumphed, “Bail is granted, but I really don’t feel we’ll be very long in coming to our verdict.”
“All rise!”
And, once Eda had been kicked awake, they all did.
CHAPTER TEN
ON HER WAY TO THE CRAGLOONER, Dymphna selected a stone and placed it in her handbag between her lipsticks. She would use it as a last resort if her wits couldn’t keep up with the mind games. She knew well enough the conniving ways used by Proddy brains to extract information, the same tricks used by the Special Branch to extract confessions from, for example, Bridie’s father, an upstanding IRA member who never did anybody any harm. They asked leading questions and used the innocent answers as ammunition in a circular, insidious way of circumstantial proof you had strung yourself up in a web of lies. Rory had caught her trying to cause O’Toole harm. Any self-respecting Catholic would have marched up and confronted her directly; Rory had sent her a cryptic text. So like a Proddy bastard.
Entering the pub, she saw him at the video game, blasting away the aliens, not a care in his Orange world. The wane curdled in her womb. Dymphna’s eyes flicked through the wide array of old alkies and druggies on stools; she’d never hear the end of it if somebody she knew eyed her chatting to an Orange bastard while stone-cold sober. Relieved she saw only strangers, she plodded towards Judas with a steady gait and a flick of her curls, the rock heavy in her handbag.
“Right, Rory,” Dymphna said guardedly.
“Dymphna!” Rory said, forgetting the aliens, his face breaking into a smile that put Dymphna on red alert. “Let me get the first pint in.”
Dymphna’s confusion rose, but no way in hell would she refuse a free pint. She plodded after him to the bar, stealing glances at all the nooks.
“Where’s all them mates of yers hiding away?” she asked.
What could have been mistaken for actual shame flashed in Rory’s eyes as he leaned forward to order.
“Ach, I'm wile sorry about that day at the Top-Yer-Trolly. Me mates was winding me up something awful for sleeping with a Fenian. I had to defend meself. At yer expense, I now see. Ye know yerself what this sectarian shite is like, like. Some people is too thick to see the way of the future, the mixing of the religions. If it’s any consolation, them is me mates no more.”
His copper uncle had obviously taught him a thing or two. If Dymphna hadn’t spent a lifetime listening to her elders rabbiting on about the duplicity of Proddies, she would have thought him genuine. He was spewing forth the lies to gain her confidence so she would incriminate herself, then he would race to the peelers, and there would be a fierce banging on the front door later that evening, handcuffs clanking.
“This has nothing to do with me mates, anyroad,” Rory said. “This has to do with you and O’Toole.”
He stared at her pointedly.
“Double scotch, actually...” Dymphna reconsidered.
“Right ye are.” He ordered and paid, and Dymphna guzzled down.
“Why I brought ye here—”
“I never laid a finger on that poofter O’Toole!” Dymphna hissed.
“It’s all over town!”
Already?!
“As God’s me witness, I never laid a finger on him!” Dymphna ventured in increasing desperation, feeling the cage tightening around her.
“If I know, if me mother’s heard tell of it, surely ye must realize the whole town’s in on it! It’s foolish to deny it!”
Dymphna’s jaw dropped, the rock in her handbag growing steadily more useless.
“Yer mother?” she snorted. “Ye must think I'm quare and soft!”
“I'm telling ye the God’s honest truth!”
He steered her to a seat and placed her gently on the edge. Her head swam, the thoughts struggling to connect in her brain. Perhaps she shouldn’t have guzzled down that double scotch.
“Ye might not believe it,” Rory said, “I'm here to lend me support, but!”
She eyed him warily, searching his eyes for a flicker of connivance. She found none. No Proddy could be that well trained, even a copper’s nephew.
“I swear I'm are!” Rory insisted, reaching out and touching her with kindness.
Dymphna startled herself by believing him, the waterworks abruptly spewing down her face, genuine or to gain his sympathy or from the double scotch she hadn’t a clue.
“I kyanny keep it secret no longer!” she sobbed.
“So ye’re finally letting on ye did it?”
Dymphna nodded gently into a tissue. Rory lips disappeared with an air of finality. So she had given herself to Henry O’Toole while pregnant with his wane after all! He quelled his rage, the pride of his impending fatherhood overwhelming his anger.
“Why did ye do it, Dymphna?” he pleaded to know.
She shifted gingerly, the sniffles disappearing into her tissue as she thought back to the scene at the ChipKebab.
“It was a harrowing experience, if ye must know,” she admitted in a barely audible whisper.
He nodded with quick understanding and not a little anger, knowing how traumatic sexual relations between the floor staff and upper management could be.
“It’s revolting, so it is!” Rory spat. “A full grown man taking advantage like that!”
Dymphna nodded bravely as the tears continued to flow.
“I was shameless, but,” she revealed with a mournful wail. “I just didn’t give a flying feck about meself nor anyone else! I gave it to him right there at the counter, bold as brass, with all the customers looking on!”
Rory started, his eyes ballooning with shock. His fingers slipped weakly from her curls. Dymphna turned to Rory and revealed in a conspiratorial whisper: “At first, I had terrible trouble fitting it all in. It took flimmin ages.”
Rory blinked, and Dymphna grasped his knuckles and peered into his eyes, the tearful need to reveal her sordid deed all too evident.
“I had to try to shove it in a few times on the sly, as yer man from the chip vat kept giving us the eye. Once it was finally all in, but, and tightly wrapped, ach, the power I felt! Nothing could stop me! Not the customers, not fear of reprisals, not even fear of the sack! I knew it was something I needed to do right then and there!”
Rory attempted a nod.
“And after it was done and over with,” Dymphna continued, “Bridie told me to go over and get it from him again. I really wasn’t up for it, but the silly cow forced me!”
He tried to locate a vestige of sympathy.
“So I just marched out from behind the counter and did as she demanded right there at the table in the middle of the ChipKebab dinner rush!”
Rory scrutinized her with renewed horror.
“Ach, Bridie was egging me on, practically panting down me back! And that Fidelma shoulda kept her nose well out, but she couldn’t help it, the no
sy effin parker! Couldn’t keep her eyes off the silly thing clutched in O’Toole’s hands with the mess oozing outta it! Well, she was staring at us from the very same table...!”
Rory no longer clung to a hope. Heaven help him, he knew the creature sat beside him was nothing but a filthy fecking slapper.
“I was mortified, right enough, when O’Toole couldn’t hack it no more and spat up all over me. I kyanny blame yer man, but. It was a right manky mess by that stage.”
Rory regarded her sadly. He was silent for much longer than a while, trying to get his head around the whole sorry event.
“I’ll tell ye me only regret,” Dymphna sniffed.
“Aye?” Rory asked with eager hope. “And what was that?”
“I just raced out for the courtroom afterwards, like, and left poor Bridie to clean up the mess. Splattered all over the floor and the table, it was. And all down me work smock, I might add. Some I just licked off. I quite like the taste of it, ye know.”
Rory inspected a beer mat, feeling cheap, vulgar and soiled for having had her himself. What base perversions could be hidden behind a slash of lipstick from Boots the Chemist and a few barrettes!
“Wait just one minute!” Dymphna said, her tear-strained eyes flashing with suspicion. “I thought ye saw it all yerself!”
And here Rory’s rage finally made itself known.
“Naw,” he said through tight lips. “I didn’t see it. But from what I'm hearing, if I had been looking on with all the others, that woulda gotten ye even more randy. And I think ye’re having a right laugh at me by revealing all this filth to me. Ye’ve some cheek, blathering on about yer sick-making pervy sexual exploits with another man when ye know full well I'm the father of that wane ye’re carrying! And making a show of yerself in the ChipKebab in yer state, making a mockery of the sacred institution of motherhood, fairly makes me wanny spew! I invited ye here today to offer to make an honest woman outta ye, but after all this revolting palaver, I kyanny even bear to look ye in the eye! I'm mortified to have ye as the mother of me first wane! There’s many a name for what ye are, Dymphna Flood. The most civil that comes to mind, but, is a desperate mingin exhibitionist slapper!”
Dymphna slowly took in his purple-veined rage, his lancelike contempt, with a horrified disbelief. Then she threw back her head and exploded with mirth, the empty glasses jingling as she pounded the table. Rory shuddered with the agony of restraint, his nails lacerating his balled palms, resisting every urge to dislocate her eyeballs.
“Ye headbin!” Dymphna finally managed, her stomach weak with laughter. “I was talking about the ground glass I put in O’Toole’s TakkoKebab to cause him harm! And all the time, ye thought, ye thought...!”
Her roars heaved anew. Rory lurched back, aghast. And then she saw the realization dawn, and he looked up at her with a sheepish grimace.
“Ach, I’ve made a right show of meself, aye?” he asked.
Dymphna’s brow wrinkled.
“What was all this palaver, then, about yer uncle been a copper?” she asked. “Ye had me shitein meself with fear!”
“Just to let ye know what a good family ye’d be marrying into, like,” Rory said, cheeks ablaze.
“Marrying into?!?”
Dymphna’s merriment swiftly dissolved, while Rory’s face settled into seriousness.
“I'm here to do the civil thing and ask for yer hand in holy matrimony. Marry me, Dymphna!” Rory begged.
Her arms were a fortress, and her eyes glared with the hatred of centuries of oppression. Her curls shimmered.
“Are ye a fecking gee-eyed eejit?! Me set up home in the effin Waterside?! With the likes of you and yer whole clan of fecking Orange- loving bastards?! Ye can take that hand and shove it up yer filthy Proddy arse!”
“Are ye still denying I'm the father of that wane growing in yer stomach?”
“Why do ye keep harping on about being the father? Youse Proddies don’t own everything, ye know!”
Rory cleared his throat delicately.
“Me auntie works at the Health Clinic. She told me all about you thinking ye had two wanes of different ages growing inside ye, one six weeks aul and the other two weeks aul. I just put two and two together.”
Nurse Sheila Bryant! Rory’s auntie!
“That flimmin cunt—!” Dymphna seethed.
The glasses jangled as she thrust herself up from the table. “I was mistaken! Henry O’Toole’s the father of this wane! This green Moorside wane!”
Rory jumped up and reached for her stomach.
“Lemme have a quick feel, hi!”
“Get yer hands offa me wane!” Dymphna screamed, smacking him in the shoulder with her handbag.
Rory yelped as the stone cracked against his shoulder blade, and Dymphna beat a retreat with shuddering knees. Outside the pub, she heaved against the brick wall, her limbs trembling, tears welling anew.
Henry O’Toole couldn’t give a toss about her; to him she was just a pathetic laugh. Someone had just begged her to marry him, happy to claim the bastard as his own, and she had just turned him down.
Was it the hormones making her a raving lunatic? What the feck had she just done?
£ £ £ £
“The defendant will stand.
Ursula did as instructed, her heart giddy with hope. She suspected the magistrates would realize only someone wrongly accused would descend into such desperate displays of outrage. She adjusted the collar of her pantsuit and smiled down at Ms. Murphy. When all was said and done and the ludicrous charges dropped, Ursula wouldn’t hold her solicitor’s uselessness against her.
Some doubt niggled Ursula, to be sure, but the magistrates seemed to be beaming at her, secretly revealing with their eyes that her innocence was assured, that, once she was vindicated, she would be free to file her counterclaim for wrongful prosecution in an office on the next floor. Jed nodded his support. A magistrate cleared his throat.
“Mrs. Barnett, ladies and gentlemen of the court, we have given careful consideration to the evidence and sworn witness testimony presented before us today. After reviewing the facts of the case, it did not take us long to reach a unanimous verdict. We find the case proved...”— and here he actually winked at Ursula and flashed her a kindly smile— “...not guilty!”
Ursula squealed in triumph as she bounded from the dock and flung her arms around a gasping Ms. Murphy. The solicitor almost crashed against her desk. Knees shuddering, Ursula made her way to Jed, his strong hands shielding her from the Floods’ glares, his lips caressing her eyelids with kisses. She tore from him and sidestepped towards Fionnuala. Fionnuala flinched at her approach, but she needn’t have.
“Don’t ye worry yerself, Fionnuala,” Ursula said with neighborly grace. “I forgive ye. I’ll even help ye pay them hospital bills if ye want!”
Fionnuala couldn’t meet the eye of one who was so much her moral superior, but she made her gratefulness known with an imperceptible nod.
“Th-that’s terrible civil of ye, Ursula,” Fionnuala said. She eventually forced her eyes into those of her wronged sister-in-law. “It makes me almost sick to me stomach to say it, but I'm sorry for all the persecution we’ve tortured ye with. Ye were nothing but kind to us all them years.”
“Ach, go on away a that,” Ursula waved her off kindly, so relieved of her win in court that she could forgive her sister-in-law, her mother, her brother, indeed even Molly, any trespasses, no matter how malicious. “Kiss and make up, shall we?”
The wanes horseshoed the two old backbiters, cheering and pointing in delighted shock as Fionnuala and Ursula did indeed wrap their arms around their suddenly unburdened shoulders and exchanged a wee kiss. Paddy marched up to Jed and extended a greasy hand. They shook in a manly fashion.
“The best man won, hi,” Paddy said, wrapping his arm around Jed’s back. “I'm no sore loser, me. Darts next week?”
And even the magistrates approached and surrounded the happy party, clapping in their gowns and beaming proudl
y at the power of reconciliation of the Northern Irish justice system.
Then Ursula stirred with a jolt. What in the name of all that was sacred was she doing still enslaved in the dock, with the magistrates glaring their reproof from above? She’d have to lay off those tablets to calm her nerves she gobbled as of late, she thought, plummeting back from her flight of fancy, registering the sniggers that had been coming from the gallery, the look of concern that clouded Ms. Murphy’s face at her side.
“Mrs. Barnett?” a magistrate repeated. “Are you listening?”
Ursula stared in confusion.
“Wh-what are ye after saying?” she asked.
“I said we have found your case proved guilty.”
Ursula collapsed against the railing as the magistrate rabbited on.
“In view of your hitherto unblemished record and, indeed, your age, we don’t believe there is any necessity for a custodial sentence. However, the court takes a dim view of maliciously abusing children, in addition to the fact that your obvious perjury must be discouraged. Therefore, we have come to the decision that you must pay the court a fine of £500, and you are ordered to pay compensation to your victim in the sum of £3000, the award of which shall be lodged in court, invested and managed by the Court Funds Office and released to the minor at the appropriate time. Do you wish to ask for time to pay these amounts?”
Still reeling, Ursula hadn’t a clue exactly what he was blathering on about, let alone how she and Jed were meant to propagate £3500, but she shook her head vehemently. She wasn’t going to give Fionnuala the satisfaction of hearing her plead poverty.
“No, I don’t,” she said. Then an edge crept into her voice as she peered up at them, her lips disappearing, anger simmering. “But what I do wish is that youse lot sat up there would catch yerselves on! Youse are away in the head, so youse are—”
“I’d advise you to think carefully about your comments, madam!” Magistrate Hope warned.
“Advise me hole! Youse sit up there laying down the law and ye’ve not an ounce of common sense between the three of youse!”
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 25