“I won’t stand this impudence any longer!”
“It’s flimmin pathetic, so it is!” Ursula slammed the railing of the dock.
“Ms. Murphy, would you please exercise control over your client this moment!”
“Sitting up there all high and mighty,” she shrieked, veins bulging, “swallowing a pack of lies any simpleton can see through! If youse had any judgment at all, you would’ve seen that. And I'm accused of perjury?! Bloody useless, so youse are!”
She turned to the public gallery.
“Youse want me money? Torturing me when I'm trying to peddle ferget-me-nots for the good of St. Eugene’s, yet ye’ve enough cash for a flippin fish fillet for tea?”
The magistrates gawped at the unstable woman in the dock. What on earth was she on about? they wondered.
“Mrs. Barnett! Do not address the public gallery!”
“I'm selling that flimmin 5 Murphy, so!” she roared. “I'm unsaddling meself of that milestone around me neck and kicking that hateful aul woman out into the street! Then youse can collect all the carer’s allowance ye want! Air conditioning, me arse!”
“Mrs. Barnett, I am holding you in contempt of court! Prison officer!”
Jed leaped up in alarm as the dock officer marched over to his wife. The magistrate turned to the lumpen masses in their uniforms.
“Security! Remove this woman!”
Jed sat back down as prison officers circled her.
“Right ye are,” said one, grabbing Ursula’s arm.
Ursula shook him off.
“Don’t ye lay a flimmin finger on me, ye stoke!” she seethed.
“Take this...deranged creature!...down to the holding cell!” Magistrate Hope barked.
They dragged the mother of three down into the darkened pit.
£ £ £ £
“Feckin brilliant!” Fionnuala brayed into her wanes faces. “Justice was done! That slapper got shown up for what she is!”
Paddy had sent Eoin on a quick trip to the off-license across the street, and they were guzzling tins of lager in the court car park amongst the solicitors’ BMWs. The pinstripes passed by, shooting them nervous glances. Paddy had propped Eda against a bumper and shoved a fag between her lips to keep her content. Nobody noticed Siofra teaching Seamus how to pelt pebbles at the windows of the courthouse.
“And banged up in the cells and all!” Paddy roared, wiping the lager foam from his upper lip. “Fairly split me sides at the sight of Ursula struggling down them steps, clawing and kicking at the security!”
“Mammy,” Seamus wondered. “Will Auntie Ursula be visiting wer Lorcan?”
“We can but hope, wane,” Fionnuala laughed, hugging her youngest against her leggings.
“We’re minted now, so we are!” Paddy said.
“What was all that shite about the money being lodged in court, hi?” Eoin wanted to know. They all turned to Moira for clarification.
“They said it would be lodged in the court until the appropriate time,” Moira recited from her notebook.
The joy was snatched from Fionnuala’s eyes.
“Ye kyanny trust them Proddy bastards where money’s concerned,” she said.
“When’s the appropriate time?” Paddy wondered.
“Now!” Fionnuala decided. “With all them bills to be paid! I'm away off to see about getting that check in me mitts.”
“Mammy,” Moira warned weakly. “Go on and let me come with ye.”
But it wasn’t common sense Fionnuala needed. She knew well the power of a shrieking working class mother.
“Naw!” Fionnuala insisted, selecting instead Siofra, Seamus and Padraig to accompany her; if their malnourished faces couldn’t turn the stone heart of a court official, nothing could.
She marched off towards the Information Booth, the wanes trailing behind. The girl behind the counter warily eyed the approaching crew.
“Me wane’s after winning damages of 3000 quid,” Fionnuala announced. “Flood Versus Barnett. We’d like it now, ta.”
“I’ve...we’ve all heard of the case, aye,” the girl said, pecking her keyboard, eyes unable to meet Fionnuala’s. “What age is the wane?”
“The poor wee soul’s but eleven,” Fionnuala said, pushing Padraig forward so the woman could verify his pain, suffering and youth.
“Looks like when all is said and done, you’ll be getting about £6000,” the girl said, her gaze frozen five inches over Fionnuala’s right ear.
No fool her, Fionnuala wasn’t about to let on that her money had magically doubled due to some clerical error. Her eyes jigged, all her Christmases having come at once, the money already spent.
“Ach, that’s grand, sure!” Fionnuala warbled, wrapping a squirming Padraig into her bosom. “Go on and give it to us now!”
The girl faltered, her lips straining to maintain a smile.
“Erm, Mrs...Flood, right now it’s only 3000 quid.”
“Don’t ye be taking the mick outta me, ye sleekit minger!” Fionnuala said, swiftly incensed. “Ye’re after telling me I was to be receiving six thousand!”
“I was including the interest.”
“The interest?!” Fionnuala’s eyes glinted with just that, then she gave an easy shrug. “Ach, ye can pay us that later, sure. Go on and give us the three thousand the day! When are we to get wer hands on the rest?”
The girl fought to contain a smile, and Fionnuala fought to contain a fist in her overbite.
“Well, you see, Mrs. Flood,” she said in a tone best reserved for spastics, “you’ll get it all in one lump sum. Actually, if I have all the facts straight, which I believe I do, you’re not to be receiving the money at all. Your son is. And we will be keeping the money—all the money—in a special fund until he turns of age.”
“And what age’s that?”
“Eighteen.”
“Ye kyanny mean...” Fionnuala calculated the years on her fingers, then her eyes bulged. “Seven years? Seven flippin years we’re meant to wait?”
She fumed for a second.
“Naw!” Fionnuala decided, refusing point blank to accept what her ears had heard. “I want a wee word with yer superior!”
“They’ll tell you the same thing, I’m afraid.”
“Aye, ye’re right to be afraid!” Fionnuala snarled. “What about this £500 Ursula Barnett is meant to pay the court? Do ye expect me to believe youse are to put up with waiting seven years for yer own money as well?”
“That, actually, is none of your business.”
Fionnuala inspected her face with a mounting suspicion, and the girl shrunk from the drunken glare.
“And could ye tell me exactly what part of the Waterside you be’s from?” Fionnuala demanded.
“Excuse me?”
“What do ye call wer town?” Fionnuala pressed.
“Sorry?”
“What do ye call the town we is living in?!”
“L—”
“I knew it!” Fionnuala shrieked. “Londonderry! Ye’re nothing but a thieving Proddy bitch, so ye are! I can see it in yer eyes and yer Sephora mascara! Youse Orange bastards make sure yer own pockets is lined with quids while the likes of us, hard working Catholic families, is expected to make do with a pot of spuds and rummaging through the bargain bins of the January sales for ladder-ridden tights! Same as it ever was!”
“I can assure you, ma’am—“
“Ach, assure me arse!” Fionnuala raged. “We’re all to be dead of hunger in seven flippin years! Let that be on yer cunty Orange conscience!”
And as Fionnuala marched away, dragging Padraig, Siofra and a wailing Seamus behind her, she realized it really wasn’t the Proddy bitch’s fault; it was Ursula’s, promising them money and yet again not able to make good on it. Another windfall snatched from her claws, Fionnuala stomped back into the car park, the weight of the world on her shoulders.
£ £ £ £
Ursula cast a wary eye at the scraggly deadbeat, her arms peppered with weeping sores
, passed out on the only available loo.
“What for the love of God am I doing here,” Ursula sobbed through the bars at her solicitor, “banged up with the common hooligans of Derry City?”
“That, madam, should be painfully obvious,” Ms. Murphy sighed.
The solicitor searched Ursula’s tortured face, then finally asked with a surprising undertone of sympathy, “Would you like me to locate you a cup of tea?”
“Ach, go on away a that with yer cuppa!” Ursula spat with contempt. “Them wardens has been pumping me full of tea since I stepped foot in here! I'm bursting for a wee, if ye must know, but don’t trust meself to lift that junkie offa the loo! This cell’s flimmin boggin, dreary and damp and them pipes keep clanking until I kyanny hear meself think and I'm dead starving with cold! Why is me bed expected to be that concrete slab, how long am I expected to be holed up here, and why won’t themmuns let me husband in to visit me?”
“You’re not serving a life sentence. You should be spending your time here reflecting on your inappropriate behavior in the courtroom, not chatting with your husband.”
Atop the seatless loo, the druggie stirred and Ursula let out a mournful wail.
“Deloused, I'm gonny haveta be! A good Christian woman like me! Would ye credit it?”
Ms. Murphy inspected the disheveled woman in her aqua pantsuit with a sympathy that tightened Ursula’s throat.
“Do you not see that you could have spared yerself this indignity— and I daresay many more in yer life besides—had you only been able to control these outbursts of yours?”
“Ye cheeky wee...!” Ursula began halfheartedly.
Ms. Murphy hesitated, then, hoping she wouldn’t live to regret it, reached between the bars and stroked Ursula’s aubergine bob.
“Do you not understand,” Ms. Murphy said softly, “that when you react with anger—no matter how justified—you look the fool? With the glinty eyes and bulging veins in the neck and the roars pouring out of your mouth? There’s something to be said for keeping a civil tongue in your head, for maintaining a shred of self-respect befitting your age when those you love and who have loved you have turned their backs.”
Ursula couldn’t believe she was being lectured in anger management by a Proddy one-third her age, but considering the wads of cash they had lavished upon her, she supposed it was only right.
“You may find this difficult to believe,” Ms. Murphy continued, “but my heart goes out to you. I understand how difficult it is to control yourself. If you must know,” and here she glanced over at the junkie and lowered her voice, “my own family disowned me when I married a Catholic lad, and I felt all the anger and betrayal you displayed in court. There was flying crockery and slamming doors for months round ours. I understand, I really do. But the closing arguments of a personal injury case in Her Majesty’s Court is neither the time nor the place to unburden yerself.”
Ms. Murphy turned gratefully at the sound of keys clanking down the damp corridor.
“Here comes the warden now. For the sake of us both—don’t forget I’ve just lost a case because of you—you must keep your anger in check. You must go back into the court and you must apologize to the magistrates,” Ms. Murphy begged. “Say you’re sorry for abusing the court, or you won’t be going home! Do you promise me?”
“A-aye,” Ursula agreed.
As they led her through the cells, Ursula, still reeling from her discovery that Ms. Murphy possessed a history and a heart, cast reproving glances at the stokes within and adjusted the buttons of her pantsuit. She was so much better than all of them.
They entered the courtroom. Ms. Murphy read Ursula’s face as her client marched past the assembled Floods. Ursula paid Fionnuala no mind. Ms. Murphy was relieved.
The magistrates filed in and sat down, seemingly enduring a second glance at the guilty woman in the dock purely out of their best graces.
“As magistrates,” the worst of them said, “we feel it is vital to protect and foster a basic respect for the authority of the law.”
“My client wishes to apologize unreservedly for her outburst,” Ms. Murphy quickly ventured. “Now if your honors would be so kind as—”
“With the greatest of respect, we’d prefer to hear all this from Mrs. Barnett herself.”
They eyed Ursula expectantly. Ursula clasped her hands together in a close approximation of demureness, but her fingernails bit into the brass. She counted to ten as Ms. Murphy had instructed, then spoke.
“When I think, me lords,” Ursula began in a reedy voice that soon picked up speed, “about why I behaved as I did, all I could see in me mind’s eye was me family prancing outta the court with 3000 quid of mines clutched in their grabby fists! I haven’t a clue where we’re meant to conjure up such a sum from. It sickens me heart to say it, but we’ve no money left in that piggin bank account of wer’s! I kyanny blame me family for their pig ignorance; they’ve never stepped foot outta the Moorside in their lives and doesn’t know no better. Falsifying hospital records and cajoling Mrs. Feeney to spew out lies to further their own agenda—”
“We are not here to retry your case, Mrs. Barnett!”
Ursula jumped, and the magistrates watched a variety of emotions cross her face. Then her lips curled with contempt as she singled them out with one trembling finger.
“Youse, but, have years of training and have yer licenses and such, allowing youse to tell truth from fiction. If yer reaction to me case is anything to go by, youse need to get yerself down to the job center for some retraining, the whole sorry lot of youse!”
Ms. Murphy hurried over to Ursula’s side and tugged her sleeve in alarm, all her personal revelations for naught.
“When yer man there called out guilty,” Ursula seethed, “I just couldn’t contain meself! Youse’ve landed me with a criminal record, youse’ve had me banged up in the cell with a druggie who couldn’t keep her eyes offa me cleavage. I kyanny blame me family for their greed; the ones at fault is the three pig-ignorant simpletons wearing daft robes!”
The magistrates exchanged looks of abject disbelief.
“We’ve given you a fair hearing, madam! We went over the evidence and—”
“Fair hearing, me arse! I was on oath when I told youse about that wane and his petrol bombs—”
“Not these fantasy petrol bombs yet again!” sputtered one.
“Ach, lemme get a word in edgewise! Are youse not sick of the sounds of yer own judgmental whinging?!”
“Madam, we are giving you final warning!”
“Ye know well enough where ye can shove yer effin mingin final warning, ye clarty wee gee-bag!”
“You are in contempt of court again!” one sputtered with barely concealed rage.
“Me solicitor told me raging people make fools of themselves, and one look at yer purple face and I can see she was dead right! A right aul eejit ye look! All three of youse!”
“You will be remanded in custody for five days!” he barked. “Security! Take this woman down again!”
Fionnuala actually felt sorry for Ursula as the guards dragged her, howling, into the pit. She was raging they wouldn’t be receiving the compensation money for seven years, but she also knew the court would demand the Barnetts write the check before sundown. Between Ursula or the laws of the oppressors, Fionnuala knew which her hatred was greater for. She did her best to mask her pity behind a grin of triumph as Ursula’s shrieks were smothered; she didn’t want her family to see her weak.
As the masses rose with a smattering of applause, all Jed could think of, heaven help him, was five days of unrestricted access to all the bookies and off-licenses in town. Little did he realize, however, that Ursula would be much safer in that cell than he would be alone in their dream house.
SIOFRA’S FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SIOFRA BEAMED PROUDLY into the mirror between the curling S Club 7 posters at the gown of her dreams, purchased with IRA gun-running, drug-pushing, midnight-house
search, kneecapping, headjob bullet-in-the-skull money.
The bodice of her Maria Theresa gown caressed her undeveloped chest as the layers of tulle skimmed sleekly over her bony hips and rippled to the floor. Her mother had relented and gotten her the battery- operated flashing tiara. It jagged into her scalp, but twinkling atop her brow, it transformed her life from one of raw spuds and cheese and onion crisps into her very own wonderworld. She did a wee shimmy at her reflection and giggled.
“It’s effin class, aye, Eoin?”
On his sister’s Power Puff Girls bedspread, Eoin opened the sparkly white handbag which held My First Missal, twenty pence and a strawberry lip gloss He shoved 100 tablets of Ecstasy inside and nodded with a grimace.
“Effin class woulda been had them McDaid brothers canceled me debt instead of handing it over to you,” he sighed. “That’s life, but.”
Eoin understood how the shining eyes of a wee bride of Jesus hungering for her first communion wafer had softened a trio of concrete McDaid hearts. It didn’t matter, as soon he would have the £300 he owed anyway. The wanes in their communion best would be banging on all the doors of the Moorside, scrubbed palms outstretched for hard cash. They’d be minted, and would gladly hand over a fiver for a winger. Even after giving Siofra her ten percent, he’d still have £100 left over after he paid the McDaid brothers off. Then he could continue his surveillance to be sure he wouldn’t have to grass on his auntie Ursula, and could get himself a new pair of trainers into the bargain.
“Ye know what you’re to do?” Eoin asked his sister.
“Aye,” she hummed vaguely, adjusting some frill on her hem. “Do ye think Mammy’ll be up for me wearing me frock to school the tomorrow?”
“Ye headbin!”
“Grainne’s sure to go effin mad when she latches eyes on me. The silly spastic passed out from the strength of the sun on the beach in Spain, and her face’s covered with wile ugly blisters. I'm gonny be princess of St. Moluag’s after all!”
Eoin grabbed her and twirled her from the mirror, her head a searchlight.
“How much are ye to ask for them wingers?”
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