They trudged down to the remains of the kitchen. Paddy sat atop something crusty and black (he wasn’t quite sure what it had been), and Seamus whimpered at his side. Seamus had located his shapeless thing, and it was now a singed shapeless thing.
“This was me childhood home,” Paddy said in a voice that cracked. “All the days spent, the nights spent with me mammy and daddy and brothers and sisters. All the craic we had, the...”
He openly wept. His family didn’t know where to look. They had been taught to treat the sight of man crying with contempt. Fionnuala hurried over to his side to place a restraining hand on his shoulder, while Dymphna felt the guilt gnaw at her.
“I see them tins have gone unscathed,” Maureen noted, nodding to the corner where the fridge used to be.
“Och, wise up, ye daft cunt, ye, Paddy,” Fionnuala said softly. “We’ve got through worse, sure. Ye mind the time in the 80’s when there was a riot on wer street and a rubber bullet shattered the front bay window, and tear gas poured into wer home and the wanes was screaming outta them?”
“This be’s a time of peace, but. What the feck do ye think Ursula’s going to make of all this?”
Fionnuala’s fingers dug into his shoulder blade. The sound of the name was like fingernails scraping a chalkboard, chewing tinfoil and the whirr of a dentist’s drill combined.
“She give it us,” Paddy continued, the tears rolling down his face. “Outta the kindness of her heart. And didn’t ye say she be’s on her way here for a visit soon? What she’s to make of this, I kyanny imagine.”
Fionnuala set her lips. It must be that Polish bitch giving her husband a heart, she thought.
By the innards of the exploded stove, Dymphna inched her hand into the pocket of her jeans and felt the folded newsprint still. She had forgotten about the article, but when she had spied an absinthe bottle during their search, it had all flooded back. That was something she hadn’t hallucinated.
She saw her mother’s hand on her father’s back, the look of tenderness trying to force itself on Fionnuala’s face, and Dymphna felt a rage swell in her. Her mother had shagged a hated British soldier, and her father was none the wiser. He didn’t even have a clue that his second eldest daughter wasn’t his! She was furious at her mother, who had a secret worse than burning down the family house on her conscience. It took every ounce of restraint—and she didn’t possess restraint as a natural personality characteristic, so it was very, very difficult—to stop herself from blurting out the sordid, sinful secret then and there in the soot.
“Och, well, at least there’s sure to be the insurance money,” Paddy said with a sigh.
“If them insurance gits find no sign of foul play, that is!” Maureen harrumphed.
“The investigation will take care of that,” Paddy said.
“Investigation?” Dymphna froze. She thought the police only did one of those when somebody was murdered.
“Aye, signs of arson, they’ll be looking for,” Maureen said.
“It was the gas pipes, I tell youse,” Dymphna insisted as unease filled her. “I smelled a terrible whiff of gas the past few nights.”
“Would ye for the love of God quit chuntering on about flimmin gas pipes, wane?” Maureen roared. “This house stood for decades, and the moment ye stepped foot in it, it burned to the ground. I find that highly suspect.”
Paddy’s head whipped up.
“If I find out,” Paddy seethed, “that ye were lollygagging about with lit fags dangling from yer mouth...”
Fionnuala eyes glistened with suspicion.
“Or making chips in the chip pan fryer when ye was gee-eyed with drink!”
“Where did ye say ye was last night?”
“At Bridie’s!” Dymphna wailed. They had formed a semi-circle around her. “It was a leak in the gas, I tell youse!”
Every creak of the wounded house could be heard as six pairs of eyes scrutinized her.
“Let’s shift this lot, shall we?” Paddy finally said, resigned.
“And scoop up all them leftover cans,” Fionnuala said. “We can dust them off and sell them still. Every penny counts, ye know.”
CHAPTER 54
DYMPHNA KEPT SCRUTINIZING the picture of the slag on the soldier’s knee until the dots of the pixels drove her mental. Why was there a black bar covering her face? Dymphna had tried to remove it time and again through scratching, and the page was now tattered mulch in her desperate fingers. She peered through the rain attacking the bus window and pressed the button. After almost a year spent at the Riddells on the Waterside, she still felt uncomfortable, an alien, in the mostly Protestant neighborhood, but she had a mission to perform. She exited the bus and searched the numbers of the well-kept houses of Connolly Lane for 23.
Dymphna knew that if she could see the original photograph, a glance would let her know if the scarlet Green woman with the Orange fancy man was indeed her mother. The byline under the picture read Photo By William Chesterton, and the day before she realized one of Zoë’s bridge partners was Poppy Chesterton. Poppy had gone on and on one afternoon between rubbers and sips of Earl Grey (Dymphna had been hovering outside the door, wondering what Protestants talked about when they thought no Catholics were around) about her uncle William, who was a photographer for the Northern Ireland division of the Guardian. Dymphna had looked for his address in the White Pages (the Floods did still use them) and found it was 23 Connolly Lane. Dymphna hoped he was the right William Chesterton, and that he kept all his old photographs.
The rain battered her face as she walked up the lane to the front door and knocked frantically on it. A woman in an Yves St. Laurent bathrobe and a mudpack answered.
“It’s yer fella I’m after,” Dymphna stated.
Mrs. Chesterton’s hand flew to her neck in fear.
“I’ve a photo here he took yonks ago that I need to discuss with him, like.”
Dymphna held the mulch to the woman’s face.
“My husband’s not here. He’s away off to the Amazon for a story, freelance. He’ll be gone a fortnight.”
She tried to slam the door, but Dymphna’s foot was already inside. As the chain lock flew time and again at Mrs. Chesterton’s mudpack, she stared further at Dymphna’s face. Her eyes squinted with recognition. The door was still.
“You’re that horrid little creature from the meat and cheese counter of the Top-Yer-Trolley.”
Dymphna gave a halting nod. Long and winding was the list of disgruntled customers she had abused; that had been one of many reasons she had been fired.
“You short-changed me on half a kilo of Brin d’Amor last year.”
“Aye, and what of it? Let me in, would ye, woman! I’m catching me death out here in the pelting rain!”
She burst into tears on the doorstep.
“I need to know if I’m the love child of me mammy and a paratrooper,” Dymphna sobbed.
A tenderness and thirst for hot gossip crinkled the mudpack, and Mrs. Chesterton bid Dymphna enter. Over two cups of tea and a biscuit, the newspaper photo displayed on the coffee table, Dymphna told her the story. Mrs. Chesterton marveled at it all.
“You people seem to lead such exciting lives! I don’t know what to tell you, however, dear. William moved all his old negatives and prints to our lockup. We needed the space, you see, as our first grandchild is set to arrive in eight months, and we turned his office into a nursery for when our daughter Gwyneth and her husband Trevor visit with their young one.”
This evidence of planned parenthood gave Dymphna a wistful glimpse into a life she would never have, the babies popping unannounced out of her womb as they were. She stirred her tea sadly. Then a thought hit her.
“Yer lockup? That wouldn’t be the Pence-A-Day, would it?”
Mrs. Chesterton seemed surprised that someone from the Moorside would know of its existence.
“Why, yes!” she exclaimed. “A member of the family is friends with the owner. But how...?”
“I used to
work there. Not a word to her, mind, but Zoë Riddell be’s me soon-to-be mother-in-law, and I know yer Poppy plays bridge with her every Thursday, like.”
Mrs. Chesterton squealed in delight and grappled Dymphna’s startled hand with brute strength.
“Why didn’t you say so from the beginning, dear? It’s so refreshing to hear of a mixed-denominational couple. Surely this is the Peace Process at work, a peek into the future of Ireland. A refreshing change from this sensationalist tat.” She indicated the newspaper article with a lip curled with distaste. “‘Green lace and Orange camouflage,’ indeed! My William should be ashamed of himself for taking part in such nonsense. Pouring fuel on the fire. Still, it’s a time long gone now, I suppose.”
Mrs. Chesterton considered for a moment, while the usually dormant neurons of Dymphna’s brain fired. She still had that copy of the Pence-A-Day office key, and, now that she thought of it, she remembered from the accounts that the name on Unit 13B was Chesterton. It was right beside Unit 12B, which she had rented out to the two layabouts who had saved her from Mr. Tomlinson’s diseases, and caused Rory and her such estrangement. And Zoë had told her that, in case of an emergency in the storage units of row B—strange smells or noises or such—there was a secret crawlspace that could be entered through the ceiling of the men’s room of the office to gain access into the units without cutting the lock. Also, as ex-office manager, Dymphna knew Pence-A-Day was closed for lunch from 1 to 2 PM, and whoever had taken over her position probably had the same schedule. She tried to look down at her watch, but her hand was still being choked under Mrs. Chesterton’s squelching fingers.
“You know, dear,” Mrs. Chesterton said. “Having a Protestant father doesn’t make you the Frankenstein monster it might have decades ago. Today, it’s all about multiculturalism and the bridging of the communities. Isn’t there that Fingers Across the Foyle talent show going on in a few days? Whoever came up with such a delightful idea?! I’ll be there myself, actually, cheering on the city to a brighter future. I wish I could help you with your current plight. Please feel free to contact my husband when he returns home, you’re quite welcome to, but I really am of the mind that being a child of two religions is a blessing, not a disgrace.”
Dymphna pried her fingers free.
“I think I’ve taken up enough of yer time,” she said. “Ye’ve been wile civil, and for that I thank ye. I’ve to be on me way now, but. Cheerio, now.”
The moment she was out the door, Dymphna saw it was 11:20. Pence-A-Day was a fifteen minute walk away. She looked up at ricocheting raindrops and thanked the Lord in His heavenly home. Perhaps He was finally smiling down on her for the week she had spent singing in St. Molaug’s choir as a schoolgirl. She hurried off through the rain.
Dymphna grabbed the flashlight, locked the door to the office and ran to the gent’s lavatory. She climbed the toilet tank and stared up, gnawing on her lower lip. The suspended ceiling was a t-grid of rectangular gypsum board panels held in place by beams of light steel.
She reached up and pushed the panel above the toilet tank to the side. Grasping the top of the stall for support, she hauled herself up and poked her head into the darkness beyond. She flicked on the flashlight and shone it into the space. Electrical wires, various odd piping and ductwork revealed itself through the cobwebs and dust. Dymphna glanced at her watch. In forty-five minutes the manager would be back. She had to work fast.
Grunting, she hauled herself into the space, her bloated stomach straining to pass the beam of steel. Each panel was two feet long, and Dymphna knew she would have to clear ten panels at least before reaching Unit 13B. She tenderly pressed against the beams, testing their strength and cursing herself for carrying the extra weight of a child, as the beams seemed flimsy. The drop space between the ceiling tiles and the real ceiling was only two feet tall, so she would have to crawl.
Balancing her elbows and knees on the beams, Dymphna propelled her body further into the darkness. She thrust aside the wires and breathed in the dust, her spasm of sneezes sending spiders and ants and God only knew what other types of insects scurrying. Beads of sweat blinded her as she pushed forward. She felt the beams straining under her. She shoved herself the length of one panel, three, seven, ten...
And froze at the sound of half the panel ripping under her legs.
And shrieked as it gave way under her, a chunk clattering to the floor below. Her legs fell into space. She heaved her chest atop the panel, cursing the weight of her breasts for once in her life, and her fingers scrabbled towards the side support, her legs flailing wildly in the air. She clung at the pole, her knuckles white, her palms aching. Her overgrown abdomen swung below the edge of the panel. Her hands scrabbled the length of the pole towards the left. If she could get a hold of that, she could haul herself back up to the next panel. Sweat trickled down her brow and she gnawed on her lower lip. She inched her fingers across the pole, aware of the gaping darkness of the storage unit below, a ten foot plunge into the unknown.
This new panel creaked and moaned as she inched atop it, shoving her stomach and the baby inside onto the panel and heaving her hips over. The panel creaked and moaned under the weight. She thrust her right leg through the air, her knee latching onto the vertical surface. Her lower leg slipped to safety. Her right leg shot up, and the panel gave way. Dymphna screamed as she plummeted to the floor of Unit 12B, thudding atop the mass of MacAfee and Scudder’s weapons of destruction.
CHAPTER 55
FIONNUALA CREPT UP to the sitting room door and propped her ear against it. She routinely performed these checks on her children to see if they were talking shite about her, but hadn’t been able to since their exile in 5 Murphy. Now the children were back, and Heaven help them if she overheard whining about toothbrushes. For once, though, their mother, her bad temper and beatings seemed not to be the topic of conversation. Siofra was babbling on, to Padraig, Fionnuala guessed:
“Then ye take these wee circles of paper and glue them together, and ye’ve got yer daisy. Och, it’s wile civil of ye to help me out, as I’ve two hundred more to make for the Happiness Boat. Friday be’s only a few days away ye know. And, Padraig, ye understand what ye’re meant to do on the day? Ye want me to go through it again? I’m wile happy them tins survived the fire, as...”
Fionnuala nodded righteously and was about to head off to do a load of laundry when Siofra wailed in fascinated horror behind the door.
“Eewww! What in God’s green earth be’s that? It’s wile disgusting, so it is!”
“Lookit the bones stickin out!” Padraig gasped. “Effin magic!”
Fionnuala heard Seamus’ muffled sobs, so she barged into the sitting room to investigate. Siofra and Padraig jumped, pipe cleaners in their hands, guilt in their eyes.
Forgotten were the paper flowers on the floor; they were transfixed before the television screen. Seamus cowered behind the couch, tears pouring down his face. The gore erupting from the screen hurt even Fionnuala’s hardened eyes.
“What the flimmin feck—!” Fionnuala gasped, hand to her chest.
Them flimmin eejit Hollywood film people! she seethed, running to the VCR to wrench out the tape before any more of her children’s innocence was swiped from them. It had happened many times during family trips to the movie theater in the past, Fionnuala hiding her eyes, horrified of the filth spewing from the projector, while around her the pre-teen audience squealed with glee. Her children would leave the cinema years older, and Fionnuala wouldn’t eat for a day.
“Where did youse get that video from?” she demanded. “Down the market, I’ve no doubt, them eejits peddling X-rated slasher films from Japan to wanes...”
“Naw, Mammy!” Siofra protested. “We found it between the cushions of the settee.”
Fionnuala didn’t need to ask what her daughter had been doing poking around there; that was where the loose change fell. Siofra held up the case, and Fionnuala’s face burned pink with mortification. It was Ab Fab Abs and Boulder Buns.<
br />
Fionnuala’s eyes flickered from the case back to the TV screen. It looked like a movie in a Blair Witch Project vein, all shaking hand-held camera and shoestring production values, some independent piece of filth celebrating violence, viscera and offal and bucketloads of blood spilling and spattering out of human beings.
“What is that?” she screamed, dreading the answer. “A flimmin operating table?”
“Och, catch yerself on, Mammy,” Padraig said with a lick of the lips. “I saw worse on the telly last night, sure.”
The camera jerkily panned around the stark whiteness of the room, and Fionnuala’s slow-trundling brain cells came closer to understanding what her eyes were witnessing. Those eyes bulged with equal parts repulsion and awe. She wished she could erase the images burned in her retinas forever, yet felt her chest heaving with joy.
“Can it be...is it...it kyanny be...”
It was.
“I’m sickened! Pure revolted!”
She raced to the broken karaoke machine in the corner and heaved the contents of her stomach on top of it. Seamus’ wails grew more fervent. Siofra and Padraig were mortified at their mother’s weakness.
“Virgin Mary Mother of God!” Fionnuala gasped, torn between nausea, outrage, horror and excitement. “Do youse wanes have any clue what this be’s?”
“Aye, a video nasty,” Siofra said, nodding sagely.
“Naw...naw...it’s...”
Fionnuala wiped the sick from her lips and ripped the video cassette from the VCR. She held it to her breast with epileptic fingers. Her mind raced, desperately trying to make sense of what she was clutching. How did it exist? Why did it exist? It was similar to homosexuals, Fionnuala thought. They existed, didn’t they, and they made no sense either. More troubling, what had the video been doing in old Mrs. Ming’s attic? No matter; Fionnuala, pound signs flashing, knew she was holding the holy grail of the media industry the world over.
“We’re set for life, wanes,” she squealed. “We’re to be flying to Malta first class!”
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