“Ye’re quite welcome to join them eejits outside if the work’s not to yer liking. The entire country of Poland be’s gagging to work here, sure.” O’Leary skipped down the factory floor, scribbling down temperatures in his clipboard.
Paddy and Aggie slipped their goggles on and trudged to the industrial hoses. Hot sweat clung to their cold flesh as they struggled to unwind them. Aggie grappled the heavy rubber, posed like Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, and turned on the hose. Her body slammed against steel as acids more caustic than her tongue exploded from the nozzle and drenched the factory floor. Paddy’s hose spewed a torrent up the side of a grime-encased wall. The heel of his boot trod on the half-chewed pierogi, and his body skidded forward, the hose slipping from his fingers and writhing on the floor like a boa vomiting toxins. Aggie wailed as she was drenched in acids. Paddy’s body collided with the conveyor belt of an adjacent grinder. His gloved hand caught on a stud of the churning belt.
“Help! Help!” he yelped. A line of overalls turned with interest, and not a few faces broke out with glee. Paddy’s hand stretched closer and closer to the clomping pistons. The safety strap at the wrist held his fingers prisoner. He dug his teeth into his glove to eat it off.
“Pomocy! Pomocy!” Aggie implored, frozen in horror. “Pomocy! Pomocy!” Help!
The women at the conveyor belt folded their arms and widened their smirks. Rooted to the spot in fear and indecision, Aggie noted the cold panic in Paddy’s eyes, the chomping of his teeth on the insulation, the scrabbling of his feet through the fish on the floor, the helplessness of his fingertips inching towards amputation.
She streaked through the line of catatonic workers and banged on the buttons of the control board. Lights flashed and sirens rang out, and the conveyor belt slowed to a halt. Aggie squealed as if she had won free dental checkups for life and ran to Paddy’s shuddering body. She tore the tattered glove from the stud and threw her arms around his neck.
“I save you! I give you a life!” Aggie rejoiced, wiping dewdrops of flesh-eating acid from her forehead. She luxuriated in the glow of a job well done and, glancing at her watch, earning time and a half while she was at it. “Me your hero! Yes!”
As she planted kiss after kiss on his sweaty brow, Paddy realized with a heart sinking more than the Titanic on his wife’s satchel that he now Owed Her One.
CHAPTER 33
“‘POKER FACE’ IS VULGAR,” Miss McClurkin explained. “Filth pure and simple.”
Mrs. Pilkey scanned the page of lyrics the teacher had handed her, and her lips contorted with confusion. She had been bracing herself for F- and A- and B- and C-words, a litany of expletives which described the joys of substance abuse, promiscuity and casual violence; she had heard that was what the pop songs of the day dealt with, as well as being three major pastimes of the city at large, but she could find nothing of the kind on the printed page.
Mrs. Pilkey said, “I must admit I thought the song dealt with tending to a fireplace. I now see that is not the case. But perhaps you could point out to me which words you find offensive?”
“I should think it’s obvious!”
“Not to me. Please point them out.”
“If I must.”
Mrs. Pilkey waited with a look that said she really must. Miss McClurkin took a deep breath and pointed out.
“There’s I’m bluffin with my muffin, and I’m just stunnin with my love-glue-gunnin,..and, most distressingly of all, baby, when it’s love, if it’s not rough, it isn’t fun, fun.”
“Hmm, perhaps you are right,” Mrs. Pilkey said. “They are rather declassé. But I suggest that, as you are the one who has an issue with the lyrics, you deal with Siofra and the girls about this yourself. The entire class is practicing in the gym.”
“With pleasure.”
Miss McClurkin minced down the corridor like a convict enroute to a strip-search with a cellphone lodged up her hole. She bemoaned the flagon of wine which had made her moral compass spin too far in the wrong direction.
Inside the gym, pan pipes and fiddles blared from an army of CD players strewn across a floor in desperate need of a polish. Legs flew, skirts billowed, arms stayed rigid as 4x4s, and in one corner a girl with a recorder was close to hyperventilation. Next to the changing rooms, Grainne and Catherine stood around the CD player blaring Lady Gaga’s electro-pop—“Mum mum mum mah, mum mum mum mah...!”—as Siofra showed them their moves.
“...and towards the end,” she said to Catherine, “ye join me and Grainne and shake yer bum seven times, then pose with yer hands in the air like this. And then ye smile.”
Catherine was disappointed. Grainne, as well, stood in a strop; she didn’t know much about choreography, but suspected that a group dance should include more than one dancer.
Catherine opened her mouth. “I—I—I...”
“Och, spit out what ye want to say!” Siofra snapped.
“I haven’t many dance moves, have I?” Catherine chanced.
“And I don’t think ye’ve made great use of me talents either,” Grainne slipped in.
Siofra glared at Grainne as if she had just thrust a sharpened screwdriver between her shoulder-blades.
“I’ll give ye more steps, Grainne,” she conceded. “You, but, Catherine, should count yerself lucky to even be seen in wer presence.”
“B-but, b-but...”
“Och, out with it!” Siofra barked.
Catherine took a deep breath. “I stole from me daddy and lied to me mammy, two sins I committed, to get ye that press pass, and seven shakes of me bum and a smile is all I get to do?”
“Getting us the press pass was just to join wer group. If ye want more steps on the stage with us, ye’ve to get us that iPod of yer daddy’s and all!”
Catherine gasped, and Grainne beamed. If she and Siofra had that most sought-after of luxuries, they would be the most popular not only in their class, but also with the older girls. They could share it with six headsets, enough for twelve ears; maneuvering through the playground might be difficult, but every stumble would be worth it.
“That iPod, but...” Catherine sniveled. “Me mammy gave it to me daddy for last Christmas. He’s never without it when he be’s washing the dishes or up in his study or doing the gardening.”
“Yer daddy washes the dishes?” Grainne gasped, moving away from her.
“Me mammy, me mammy...she kyanny, as—”
“Aye, a mad aul bat, we know sure,” Siofra sighed. Her brain cells trundled for a moment. “Okay. Ye’ve no need to nick it from yer daddy forever. Give us a loan of it for a day or two, but, so’s we can walk down the town with it in wer ears so’s everyone thinks it belongs to us.”
Miss McClurkin approached, apology on her face.
“I have a rather delicate matter that I must bring up,” she said. They regarded her in suspicion. “I’m afraid Mrs. Pilkey has decided that the lyrics of this ‘Poker Face’ are not fitting for a Catholic girl’s school. I myself was extremely excited at the prospect of you performing the song. However, we must respect the wishes of the headmistress. What did you say, Siofra?”
“Nothing, Miss,” Siofra scowled, swallowing her muttered obscenities.
“So, what I’d love for you girls to do is engage in an informal brainstorming session, so to speak, and devise an alternate performance piece.”
The girls exchanged a look, perplexed.
“Does that be yer jumped-up way of telling us we’ve to sing something else?” Grainne asked.
Mrs. Pilkey nodded haltingly.
“I suppose it is, yes.”
“Miss?” Grainne again.
“Yes?”
“Why do ye always be saying ‘yes? Doesn’t the word be ‘aye?’”
“That be’s the way wile posh people says ‘aye,’ ye daft gack!” Siofra whispered with a dig in Grainne’s ribs.
“Might I point you girls in the right direction? It should be something the entire family enjoys together. Perhaps something by Abba, or...?”
Grainne jumped up and down, waving her hand wildly under the teacher’s nose.
“Ooh, Miss! I’ve one! I’ve one! It be’s one of me mammy’s favorites.”
Hope sprang eternal on Miss McClurkin’s face.
“Yes, Grainne?”
“It’s that aul one by Destiny’s Child, ‘Bootylicious,’ it be’s called.”
“Absolutely not!”
Siofra thought she should name one of her mammy’s favorites also: “‘Hips Don’t Lie’ by Shakira?”
Miss McClurkin’s face said it all.
“Why not but, Miss? It be’s all about telling the truth, sure!”
Miss McClurkin thought the only truth ‘hips’ could tell would be about fornication.
“The talent show’s not for another fortnight, so you’ve plenty of time. Just ensure you bring me a lyric sheet of whatever song you choose.”
Miss McClurkin scampered off, but Siofra noticed three of the Irish Dancing girls rushing over to block the teacher’s escape. The girls pointed in their direction, and Miss McClurkin had a wild look on her face.
“I’ll bet ye anything themmuns is switching over to a pop song,” Siofra said. “They’ve seen the teacher was paying their jigging no mind, and knows they won’t be winning. We’ve to step up wer game.”
Grainne and Catherine were scared and turned to Siofra for instruction.
“Och, I kyanny think that quickly and,” She looked down at her wrist, but her watch was long gone. She looked at the clock on the wall. “And I’ve to meet me mammy down the town. We’ve pick up me brother Padraig and then pay me...me third granny a visit.”
Grainne and Catherine stared; who had heard of anyone having a third grandmother? Siofra pointed to Catherine.
“You, but, have yer homework to do,” she warned. “Get us that iPod or not only will ye not meet Hannah Montana, Grainne and me’ll take great pleasure in dumping ye off in the playground of How Great Thou Art tied up in ropes.”
As she ran off, Catherine looked over at Grainne for verification that this was the plan. Grainne nodded her head gravely, though this was news to her. She snapped off ‘Poker Face’ mid-chorus.
CHAPTER 34
“PLEASE READ THESE LETTERS aloud for me,” Derry’s most overworked optician said.
Padraig stewed in the chair.
“Aye, surely,” he scowled. “P-I-S-S-O-F-F.”
“Come, come,” Dr. Chattopadhyay chided. “Look at the chart and tell me what you see.”
“I see I’m not gonny wear specs!”
Padraig’s little fists beat upon the optician’s white coat. Dr. Chattopadhyay took a step back so the boy was left punching air. The optician calmly polished his pupilometer. He was used to this reaction; the entire town seemed to have decided that corrective lenses had less to do with aiding sight and more to do with outing homosexuals. Years in the future, the optician suspected, when his youthful patients were bigger and stronger, they would probably thank him for his help to see the world by attacking him with a sharpened screwdriver and snatching his wallet when he was a doddery pensioner. He hoped he’d be practicing elsewhere. Years of occupation by British paratroopers seemed to have left even the children of these people with a hatred of authority. It had degenerated, bizarrely in Dr. Chattopadhyay’s opinion, into distrust of uniforms of any type, from firemen to bakers. And he was wearing a white coat.
He completed the examination as quickly as the abuse would allow, and, as he had already heard from the boy’s mother, instructed Padraig to choose a pair of government-subsidized frames from the National Health scheme. Dr. Chattopadhyay pulled open the drawer of embarrassment to reveal the selections, and when the boy peered inside, Padraig’s fury and tears began for real.
Padraig shuffled into the waiting room with the specs perched on the tip of his nose. Fionnuala threw back her head and roared with bawdy laughter.
“Look at yer brother!” she urged Siofra and Seamus. “A right gack, he looks! An arse-bandit poofter! Point at him, youse, point at him and laugh like yer mammy!”
“Och—” Padraig spat, fists curled.
“Specky four-eyes, specky four-eyes!” his mother sang in a taunt, grabbing the younger children’s arms so they could dance around him ring-a-rosies style. Siofra and Seamus were reluctant to join in the fun, letting the horrified receptionist know of their shame with their eyes. “Spoilsports, party poopers! Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited youse! Och, youse is miserable, so youse is, no sense of fun.”
Still, Fionnuala choked with laughter as she turned again to face her sudden disgrace of a son.
“Soon ye’re gonny be prancing round town dressed in pink with yer nose buried inside the pages of a flimmin book! Ha, ha, ha! Oh, me stomach!”
“Aye,” Padraig seethed, “and me first choice’ll be Lotto Balls of Shame.”
For once he could see his mother’s hand whipping though the air towards him. Smack! Siofra, Seamus and the receptionist flinched.
“Never utter them filthy words again, ye vile cunt!” Fionnuala had swiftly sobered. “And I kyanny understand the abuse flying in me direction. It was yer daddy insisted I drag ye down here. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, so blame him for the road of misery yer life’s about to take.”
Fionnuala glanced at the clock on the wall, collected her Celine Dion satchel and thrust Siofra’s PowerPuff Girls bag into the girl’s fingers. She inspected Padraig with a sorrowful shake of the head.
“Och, I’m scundered, pure red in the face, to be seen on the street with ye, but I need every pair of hands available for to shift all the gear we’re to clear outta that aul cunt Mrs. Gee’s loft. Is yer hands big enough, or should we stop by the market and get a frilly wee handbag for ye, tee hee hee?”
CHAPTER 35
IN THE SPARTAN FILTH of her cell/bedroom at 5 Murphy, Dymphna took careful aim with her weapons: blush brush, eyelash curlers and tweezers. Usually she just slapped the makeup on; she realized at sixteen she could have lipstick carving a path down her chin and would still attract a lad for the evening. But she was now on a mission to get what passed as her man back, those freshly-gleaming lips taut with resolve around the cigarette plunged between them.
Face perfect, she opened another can of beer and disengaged the old pair of tights holding her hair at bay. She shook her red curls free and attacked them with the blow dryer. Keanu erupted with shrieks from his stroller in the corner—he was always in his stroller as there was no other place to put him—and Dymphna turned up the radio to drown him out.
Singing along with Beyoncé, “Cause if you liked it, then you shoulda put a ring on it,” Dymphna envisioned Rory waiting for her at the Craiglooner. It was Dymphna’s former local pub and scene of many acts of alcohol-fueled bloodshed. Scrubbed up, Rory would be, and maybe wearing the black track suit with the white stripes Dymphna had shoplifted for his last birthday. It was the only birthday they had celebrated as a couple. He was sure to be a bundle of nerves, unable to look at any of the glasses that surrounded him, the alcohol in them demanding to be drunk, and equally unable to look any of the patrons in the eye for fear they would discover he was Protestant.
“Woah, oh oh, oh, oh, oh...!”
Somehow through Beyoncé and Keanu and the blow dryer, Dymphna heard her cellphone ring. It was Bridie.
“Bout ye, Dymphna?”
“Ye’ve a bold-faced cheek!”
“Eh?!”
“How dare ye ring me up!”
“What are ye on abou—?”
“Don’t come the innocent with me, Bridie McFee! Monica from Pricecutters told me she saw ye with me Rory at the line-dancing Wednesday last. Arms like an octopus, she said ye had, and that ye could barely do the steps with yer eyes boring into his arse on the floor! I kyanny erase from me mind the sight of yer eyes bulging at the size of the diamond on the engagement ring when ye saw it, and I kyanny forget the way ye’ve been treating me ever since I was forced back to the Moorside.
”
“Och, Dymphna, naw, but! Yer man Rory was in such a state when he woke up after ye left the Kebabalicious. Blubbering on and on about his life descending into drink, and he didn’t know what to do with himself after yer breakup and the like. I was extending the hand of friendship, just, offering him a change from getting legless in the pubs. Trying me best to get youse back together, so I was. Does that be Beyoncé I’m hearing in the background, hi?”
Dymphna fiddled with the cord of the blow dryer as she struggled to understand if she should believe Bridie or not.
Bridie went on: “And ye know that Monica from Pricecutters be’s one narky jealous cow. Always happy to spread the gossip and stir up the trouble, her. Sure, she lives for nothing but delighting in the misery of others, pure and simple.”
In fact, Dymphna thought Monica friendly and trustworthy and pleasant, if she overlooked the teeth, but Bridie was always Dymphna’s number one best mate. Was? Had been? Was? Dymphna finished the beer in one gulp and lit another cigarette.
“Ye know I’ve his wane growing inside me,” she said carefully down the phone. “I’ve not told anyone else, Bridie, not me mammy nor me daddy nor even Rory, for that matter. I’ve always thought I could trust ye. Now, but, I feel I trust ye about as far as I could throw ye, and given the size of ye now, that doesn’t be very far.”
Dymphna shook her phone at the silence. Finally, Bridie replied: “Ye’ve got to trust me, Dymphna. And, wane growing inside ye or not, ye’d do best to steer clear of Rory Riddell.”
“Ha! Fat chance, miseryguts, as I’m on me way to the Craiglooner now to patch things up with him. Took a week of phone calls to arrange. He finally agreed, but. And feck his new-found aversion to drinking. I’ll be pouring the shots of whiskey down his gullet to make sure I end up back at his mammy’s house. If only to keep him away from the claws of desperate ones the likes of you!”
“He doesn’t be mentally fit!”
“Och, catch yerself on!”
“It’s true, but, Dymphna! He revealed to me at the line-dancing that his da and his mammy and even his granny be’s pervy shirt-lifters!”
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 49