“That’ll pale in comparison to the wrath I’m to unleash on that ungrateful wee cunt-slurper Moira when I see her. The holiday’s to be yer birthday gift to me, so I’m not taking naw for an answer, and so help me Jesus, ye better be right there with me in the front line when I descend upon her undeserving bones and give her the lashing of her life with all the bodily force the Lord will allow, bless Him. And maybe next year ye won’t forget yer wife’s bloody birthday, ye demented cunt!”
CHAPTER 15
STRUGGLING UP SHIPQUAY Street with Keanu strapped to her breasts, Padraig glowering at her side, and clutching Maureen’s shoulder to haul her up the steep incline, Dymphna felt a freedom she had long been denied as the indentured servant of the Riddell household. Her depression in the tub of the day before seemed to have passed.
“Them beans from yer mammy’s party is repeating on me,” Maureen moaned. “The shite’s been spewing from me body ever since. Dehydrated for two days, I’ve been.”
Dymphna giggled to herself over Keanu’s shrieks and smiled to a gang of hooded teens on the corner, rolled cigarettes hanging from their scowls. The fact that the sun was blazing in the sky yet they were being pelted with horizontal rain seemed to cause her no ill will to the world at large. At long last she was free!
They rounded the corner of the city walls, pushing past shopping bags coming at them from all directions and strollers thronged with screaming children, and shuffled through the discarded Styrofoam containers and vintage vomit which was the fast food joint’s panorama. Dymphna stopped and looked up and down the cobblestoned street in surprise.
“The ChipKebab’s missing!” she gasped.
“Och, did I not tell ye? A multinational corporation bought it the other month,” Maureen explained. “I mind during the Troubles of the ‘70s and ‘80s,” (here Dymphna and Padraig tensed; how the doddery old ones could whine on and on about the city’s violent ancient history which had nothing, they thought, to do with their modern lives) “all them foreign corporations was terrified of setting up shops on wer streets for fear they’d be blown to bits the moment they were erected. The whole of us stranded by the world here in Northern Ireland heard about McDonald’s and Burger King for decades; never set eyes on a BigMac, let alone bite into one. Ye had to take the ferry to England for to get yer fill of PizzaHut and Colonel Sanders and whatnot. Loads of shameless slappers with unwanted wanes...” she stared pointedly at Dymphna, “...had to traipse to Liverpool for both their terminations and ChickenMcNuggets. Came back with empty wombs and enough Big Macs to store in their freezers for months. If they had had freezers back in them days, which none of us did. Youse wanes the day have not a clue how good youse have it.”
Padraig couldn’t help but ask: “Granny, but...what did youse eat back then, hi?”
“There was one fish and chip van on the Lecky Road and a café on the Strand,” Maureen sniffed. “Did a marvelous shepherd’s pie, so they did, the spuds lovely and moist with crunchy bits on top. Blown up by the UFC in 1976, it was. The ChipKebab now be’s called Kebabalicious. Fecking goofy name. Same hooligan service, but. I’m parched, the tongue be’s hanging outta me with hunger, and I’m gagging for a slash all at the same time. Let’s get werselves inside so’s I can perch meself on that swanky new loo of theirs. They’ve still got a mirror inside it and all, would ye believe?”
Dymphna was impressed; she’d have to have a look at the mirror. They parted as a drunk with garlic sauce rolling down his chin barreled out the door and waved hello. The trio and a half entered. Maureen and Padraig raced for the restroom. Dymphna felt the zits forming on her face as she pushed through air sodden with grease.
Same old grease, but this certainly wasn’t the ChipKebab of old. Dymphna marveled at the new cleanish surroundings, the shiny purple and orange tiles (especially those on the ceiling) with little graffiti so far, yet she was comforted by the sight of the disheveled teens with badly-bitten fingernails and ludicrous caps slouching at the tills. Some things hadn't changed during her six month exile on the Waterside.
Beside every girl at a till was an unemployed boyfriend with a soccer jersey and cold sores who stood babbling on about nothing of interest, and glared with menace at any male whose eyes rested on their girlfriends’ breasts longer than necessary, and whose only use outside Kebabalicious seemed to be siphoning down food from the girls’ home fridges, snatching their paychecks at the end of every week, spending it all on lager and drugs, and, in return, giving them a jolly good rogering when they needed it. All except Bridie’s till.
Dymphna watched Bridie scratch her fat arse before she handed over a portion of chips to a customer, and she fought the urge to dry retch.
I’m gonny boke, she thought, but “Bridie! Bridie!” she said, waving eagerly.
Bridie looked up from the till. Dymphna whipped her head around, looking for the cause of sudden distress on Bridie’s face. She saw nothing but a torn promotional poster for weekly line-dancing sessions at the Leisure Center taped to the front window. Perhaps a horde of lager louts had passed and gone to the upmarket McDonald’s next door instead. Dymphna balanced Keanu on the table next to the choking victim poster and made her way to the counter.
“What about ye, Bridie?” Dymphna asked (the typical Derry ‘how are you?’).
“Bout ye, Dymphna.”
Dymphna reached across the purple counter sheen and hugged her best mate. Bridie didn’t press back. Dymphna wondered briefly about this but, seeing the size of Bridie now, she wouldn’t want anyone touching her either.
“Ye're looking wile...healthy, hi,” Dymphna managed.
“I’m on a diet,” Bridie said through a fixed grin. “Small portions. What’s yer order? It’s grand and lovely to be seeing ye after such a long time, there be’s a line forming behind ye, but.”
“Shift yer arse to yer woman’s till there, boyo,” Dymphna demanded of the youngster behind her. She leaned in conspiratorially across the straw dispenser. “Did ye not get me voicemail? I haven’t seen ye in ages, holed up in that Proddy Hell as I was. Up the scoot, so I’m are, and kicked outta the family home. I’ve nothing on at the moment as I’ve been sacked from the lockups job and all. Are there any jobs going here? It would be a wile craic if we was working together again, like. Don’t ye think?”
The expressions on Bridie’s face didn’t seem to follow logically from what Dymphna was saying. For example, a look of horror was now disfiguring Bridie’s face, while Dymphna could think of no reason why that should be. She continued.
“I mind when I was carrying Keanu the thought of going off with lads made me ill. This new wane’s got me feeling randy, but. I’m gagging for a shag. How about you and me meet at the Craiglooner after yer shift? We can down a few pints there, then head off to that new club Starzzz for a twirl on the dancefloor, maybe pop a winger or two. It’ll be just like old times, hi!”
“Me shift here starts the morrow morning at nine.”
“O’clock?”
Bridie’s eyes shifted helplessly from side to side.
“Shall we see how it plays out, just? What’s yer order?”
Dymphna hadn’t had time to peruse the new menu, and she was still waiting for Padraig and her granny to come back from the restroom to tell her what they wanted.
“Och, it’s been a terrible wile trial for me, lately. Rory was of the mind I was giving me hole up to three aul ones at once in the Pence-A-Day office. It’s all down to me looks, ye know. It wouldn’t be in all this trouble had I a face like a busted cabbage. Good looks be’s a wile awful curse, Bridie. Ye should count yerself lucky, so ye should,” Dymphna said earnestly, flicking her orange curls.
“For feck’s sake!”
Dymphna was taken aback, thinking Bridie’s rage was directed at her. But Bridie wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at the restroom, where a mob of angry, desperate punters were banging on the door, Maureen moaning and twisting on her cane on the outskirts.
“Would ye hurry up
in there,” Padraig roared, fists pummeling the door. “There’s an aul one out here ready to flood her knickers!”
“Virgin Mary mother of God!” Bridie huffed. “Not more of them junkies passed out in the jacks! Ye should see state of the new tiles after themmuns use it as a shooting gallery, hours it takes to scrub and sanitize. Had to call the ambulance twice this month so far due to overdoses. Go on and help me prise em out, Dymphna.”
Bridie got the master key from the hook, pulled on latex gloves and raced over, Dymphna reluctantly in tow. They pushed through the crowd, and the door rattled with the force of Bridie’s substantial blows. Maureen battered the door with her cane.
“Hi!” Bridie yelled. “You in there! Rouse yerself now! Clear on off outta wer jacks or I’m ringing the peelers on ye!”
The key flicked in the lock, and Bridie tugged open the door.
“Filthy, mingin beast!” Bridie’s contempt was all-consuming.
Dymphna wrinkled her nose in disgust at the unconscious figure inside and followed Bridie in. Maureen noticed the mirror was gone. The figure was not a junkie, but an archetype of the ruin that too much alcohol could breed: a young man looking older than his years, clothing rumpled and stained, scabs on his knuckles from where he had bumped into walls while out of his mind with drink. The skeletal limbs looked familiar, however, and unease crept though Dymphna as Bridie approached him with her latex gloves. When the unfortunate’s face was revealed, she grabbed Bridie’s arm. Bridie shook it free.
“Bridie, but!” Dymphna gasped. “That’s me Rory, so it is!”
CHAPTER 16
EDNA GEE HAD BEEN TO the Health Clinic for her annual shingles vaccine, and was fuming over that new Pakistani doctor refusing to inject it in her arm. She opened the Sav-U-Mor door and hobbled in, each step a chore.
“About time,” Skivvins snipped, rattling his Rolex under her nose.
“If ye would get a replacement for that Flood creature—” Edna huffed, heaving her handbag onto the counter.
“No time to chat. Things to do.”
Skivvins threw her the keys and pranced out. Behind the counter, Edna struggled into her work smock and winced. She didn’t trust that Dr. Khudiadadzai or her ability with a hypodermic needle; the pain in her backside was torturous. What sort of injury had the doctor done to her? She rummaged through her handbag and found her compact. She had her plaid skirt pulled up, her floral knickers down on one side, straining to view the injection in the compact mirror, when the door flew open.
Two men with ski-masks barged in. Edna screamed, unsure what they were after, the till or her virtue. They went straight for the canned carrots. Edna watched in puzzlement. They glanced at the labels one after the other, tossed the cans to the floor, then rifled through the mushrooms and parsnips.
“What in God’s name—?”
“Silence, aul one!” growled the taller thug.
Edna’s arms snapped around her chest, and she bristled at the affront. Aul one, indeed! Anger and frustration rising, the intruders made their way with increasing violence through the beans, peas, carrots and sweet corn, cans clunking to the floor and rolling through the aisles.
Edna boiled. She had spent hours fixing up that canned vegetable shelf after her fight with the Flood woman a few days before. And they needn’t have bothered disguising themselves, the foolish gacks, Edna thought, as at a closer look at their jackets—the Thin Lizzie one and the New Wave one—she knew exactly who they were: the two layabouts who huddled together in the nook of the Rocking Seamaid where Edna met her Pub Quiz team on a Tuesday night.
Edna didn’t know these eejits’ names, but Thin Lizzie was the uncle of the girl behind the meat and cheese counter of the Top-Yer-Trolley who had left her husband for a drunk, New Wave the cousin of the man who did the karaoke down at the TenderHorse before he was banged up for drug dealing. Edna had heard gossip they were resurrecting an offshoot of the IRA, and irritation rankled the pride Edna felt for their activity: certainly Britain should give up its hold on Northern Ireland, and the four counties should be reunited with the South, but at what price, what bloodshed? Her uncle’s left leg had been paralyzed by a rubber bullet in ‘74, and Edna still couldn’t get over it.
“If youse would tell me what ye’re looking for...” Edna chanced.
Thin Lizzie reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. Edna shrieked as he waved it menacingly at her, and New Wave followed suit, a second gun materializing from the side of the brownish-pink leather.
New Wave snorted under his ski mask.
“The fecking eejit of a cunt we get wer...goods from down the market accidentally sold cases of cans meant for us to ye. Took hours of beating to get it outta him. Yer man be’s laid up in intensive care at Altnagelvin now for his foolishness.”
“The same can be arranged for ye and all,” Thin Lizzie put in, the room receding from Edna in her mind as he verged upon her with the barrel of the gun pointed at her forehead. She blessed herself and whimpered a quick prayer beside the Jelly Babies. “Where the bloody feck be’s wer cans? Have ye put em in the back?”
“Naw, them cans doesn’t be in the back,” Edna sniveled, cold steel inching towards her nose. “I’ve no part in this! Ye’ve me fear-hearted! Leave me be!”
“Ye’re the Flood woman, aye?” New Wave asked.
The insults never stopped.
“God bless us and save us, naw.”
For a moment, it seemed the pause button had been pressed, then New Wave motioned to Thin Lizzie.
“Enough,” he said. “She doesn’t be the one we’re after.”
Thin Lizzie lowered the gun, and Edna deflated in relief against the laxatives.
“Och, youse put the fear of the Lord into me, right enough,” Edna said, her body still shuddering. “All ye had to do was open yer mouths and ask me, sure. Yer woman was sacked for her silly game with them cans the other day. Dragged em all home with her. Fionnuala Flood be’s her full name. Her husband works down the Fillets-O-Joy. From the Moorside, so they are.”
“Och, that we know, sure. Which house exactly, but.”
Edna trawled through her frenzied mind for some memory; Fionnuala’s lair was the last place she would ever visit.
“She never shuts her bake about 5 Murphy Crescent. Youse’re sure to find her or some sign of her there.”
The two exchanged a look through the eye holes of their ski masks.
“Let’s clear outta here,” New Wave said.
Thin Lizzie hesitated, seemingly on the verge of giving one of Edna’s breasts a quick fondle, but sanity prevailed and they raced out the door.
Now that the adrenaline was fleeing her shaken-up system, Edna felt the dull throb flooding into her backside again. She shuffled over to the sea of cans littering the linoleum and grimaced as she bent down to pick them up. A good neighbor would’ve been on the phone immediately to alert Fionnuala of the danger she was now in. A good neighbor. Wiping dirt off a can of new potatoes, Edna smiled through her pain.
CHAPTER 17
BRIDIE AND DYMPHNA pried the empty cider bottle from Rory fingers, tugged his floppy limbs from the toilet seat and, as Maureen pushed inside past them, they dragged what was left of him through the crowd and into the stockroom. Bridie was relieved the manager was ‘making a deposit at the bank;’ usually he chose that excuse to get his leg over his best mate’s wife down the docks—he’d be gone a while.
She stole glances at Rory’s glazed, swiveling eyes as Dymphna tried to slap some sense into him, and Bridie’s heart secretly fell. Getting so wasted showed Rory was devastated by the breakup; he must really care for Dymphna.
“Wake up, ye daft eejit, ye! Wake up!” Dymphna implored as she clattered him about the head. It lolled against a carton of urinal splash guards.
“Perhaps some black coffee would be more beneficial than battering the shite outta him, hi,” Bridie said stiffly. “I’m away off to get some.”
“Ta,” Dymphna said, looking up gratefull
y. She didn’t have a clue what to do on her own.
Waiting for the coffee dispenser behind the counter to fill a jumbo cup, Bridie knew it would now be more difficult for her to get her claws into Rory, but she was a woman on a mission, with the mental resources to help her get what she wanted, which is precisely what her former best mate Dymphna lacked. She wanted to ensure Dymphna’s engagement ring eventually found its way to a more deserving finger, hers.
Bridie reentered the stockroom and smiled as she handed Dymphna the coffee. Rory was still unconscious.
“Och, the poor aul soul,” Dymphna said, affectionately wiping drool from Rory’s chin with her sleeve. “It’s breaking up with me that got him into this state. Ye know, Bridie, I was scundered when he asked me to marry him. Especially as he’s a Proddy and wee Keanu isn’t even his. Now, but... I’ve been wile lonely sleeping on me tod.”
Bridie sought the Lord’s help to maintain the composure of a concerned friend, then jumped as Maureen’s body blackened the doorway.
“The hunger’s gnawing a hole in me stomach,” she complained. “Did we not come here to fill wer throats? Though the stench of yer man there be’s putting me off the thought of food.”
“Can ye not see we’ve more important things going on at the moment, granny?” Dymphna griped. She reached impatiently into her purse and shoved Zoë’s credit card at her. “Get yerself and the wane what youse want. I’ll take a burger of sorts.” She turned to Bridie. “Have they something like that on the menu here, hi?”
“Aye, the Cowalicious-On-A-Bun.” Bridie felt a fool uttering the name.
“Get me one of them. And a small mineral, diet,” Dymphna said, arching her eyebrows at Bridie as if to say, ‘ye see, there’s no shame in it.’
Maureen was looking at the platinum Amex in revulsion. “There be’s something unseemly about using a Proddy bitch’s credit card.”
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 41