“And now, esteemed panel of judges, now, girls from both schools,” Miss McClurkin yelled over the feedback of the microphone, “ I’m proud to present our final act from Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, and it’s a great one. We’ve Miss Siofra Flood, Miss Grainne Donaldson and Miss Catherine McLaughlin and their delightful journey on the Happiness Boat!”
There were a few suspicious claps as the Happiness Boat was rolled onstage by the three girls. Catherine and Grainne propped bricks against the wheels to keep it stationary as Siofra grabbed the microphone from Miss McClurkin. The teacher scurried offstage, clapping gleefully.
“Welcome youse all to the Happiness Boat!” Siofra yelled out at the crowd. The girls and their parents were seated How Great Thou Art on one side of the auditorium, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow on the other. Siofra scanned for PinkPetals, and her heart beat with dread. She couldn’t see her. What if PinkPetals had called in sick?
“We need a volunteer,” Siofra hollered, eyes begging themselves to land upon PinkPetal’s face. “A girl from How Great Thou Art, please, a volunteer...er, with blonde hair! Which of youse would like to ride in the Happiness Boat with us?”
A smattering of hands went up, but Siofra finally zoned in on PinkPetals. How she had missed the Hannah Montana earrings framing Victoria Skivvins’ sneer she didn’t know. Siofra singled her out with a finger.
“You, there!” she insisted. “Come and board the Happiness Boat.”
Victoria was horrified, but her school mates slapped her on the shoulder, and her teacher almost wrenched her arm out of its socket.
“Get you up there now,” the teacher ordered. “And plaster a smile on your miserable face while you’re at it. The school’s reputation for being the friendliest in the North is on the line.”
The smile Victoria plastered on her face would sour milk, but she forced her Jellies to climb the steps of the stage.
“Music, Miss McClurkin,” Siofra instructed. A dancey-techno beat filled the auditorium. After so many fiddles and Irish reels, Mrs. Pilkey nudged Mr. Skivvins and they exchanged a delighted, approving look.
“Grand Prize,” Mrs. Pilkey mouthed, and under the table she massaged his knee.
Mr. Skivvins felt himself stir at her touch and touched back, his free hand making as if he were scribbling a note or two.
The change in music, and something every child in the audience recognized, made them go mental. If the contest were judged on audience reaction, Siofra had won before she had even started. She could see herself curtseying before Hannah, could already taste the hotdog Hannah would offer her. Siofra smiled at Victoria and guided her up the plank of wood that led to the deck of the Happiness Boat.
“I know you,” Victoria hissed, still beaming from ear to ear. “I stole these earrings and this watch from you. What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” Siofra hummed, her own face the picture of ecstasy. “The coming together of the communities, just.”
Victoria gasped as Grainne and Catherine hauled her atop the row of milk crates that was the deck of the boat.
“What am I supposed to do on this,” Victoria sneered. “ridiculous Happiness Boat of yours?”
“Stand and wave,” Siofra instructed. “And look happy.”
“I feel very foolish,” Victoria said.
“Keep yer mouth shut,” Siofra hissed. “If we win, we’ll invite ye along to the concert and all.” As if!
Victoria’s hand shot up in the air, and she waved it from side to side. Siofra, Grainne and Catherine scampered off the boat. Siofra ran to the front, Grainne to the port, Catherine to the starboard. They shimmied and bounced and kicked and flung their arms in syncopation. Then the song began.
“We be’s Green,” Catherine, Grainne and Siofra sang, pointing at their chests, “and youse is Orange”—they pointed at Victoria, who was grinning and smiling and waving away.
“We be’s Coke,” pointing at themselves again
“and youse is Pepsi,” pointing into the audience.
“Take a drink of Coke.
Ugh!
Take a drink of Pepsi.
Yuck!”
Miss McClurkin was alarmed at the vulgar thrust of the hips, and Mrs. Pilkey massaged the nape of her neck in worry. Zoë had already given them 10 out of 10.
“Pop open the tins and pour them together.
Yum, yum, delicious!
What tastes better?
Both together!
We are better together,
Green and Orange together,
Orange and Green.
The best two colors Ireland’s ever seen!
Yum, yum, delicious!
Pour them together,
Coke and Pepsi,
Pepsi and Coke.
The two best sodas Ireland’s ever seen! What tastes better?
Both together!
We’re better together, better together...
La di dum dum,
la la,
dum de dum!
Mrs. Pilkey squeezed Mr. Skivvins’ arm, and even Miss McClurkin, having gotten over the filthy thrust of the bodies during the Ugh! and the Yuck!, was caught up in the excitement, her right foot trying in vain to find the beat and tap along to the devil’s music, her hands clapping haltingly.
Siofra pointed to her classmates’ side of the audience.
“What color is youse?” she hollered.
“Green!” they bellowed.
“And youse?” she demanded of the alien side.
“Orange!”
“What do youse drink?”
“Coke!”
“And youse?”
“Pepsi!”
“And what tastes better?”
“Both together!”
Siofra, Grainne and Catherine erupted into dance and song again: “We be’s green, and youse is orange...”
Stood atop the Hapyness Boat, Victoria’s smile blossomed at the roars and claps erupting in the auditorium and,
“We be’s Coke and youse is Pepsi...”
as she squinted through the harsh spotlights, she saw the dancing in the rows and then the aisles of the two rival schoolchildren,
“What tastes better?
BOTH TOGETHER!”
felt the coming together of the communities, the bridging of the religious, brimmed with pride at the youth of the day showing their elders the way, casting aside generations of segregation and mistrust and what in the name of God was that smell of artichoke and urine, that slimy glop she felt trickling down her back?
Victoria was aware of fingers in the audience pointing at her. Padraig’s aim, with his laser-sharp new vision, was spot on. The glutinous, rank glop from the cans spilled from the catwalk onto Victoria’s well-conditioned locks, upon her designer dress—
Siofra stared in delight at the mass of filth spewing from above. She had no idea Padraig had hovered over the cauldron and emptied his bladder and bowels into the mix to up the wow-factor. He had even stuck his finger down his throat in an attempt to add some vomit, but there was no food in his stomach.
Victoria’s pert blonde flips sagged under the weight. She clamped her eyes shut in terror, and felt the offal weighing down her eyelids, oozing over the bridge of her nose and plopping from her chin to her neck and from there down her favorite yellow dress.
“What on Earth!?” Victoria roared, forcing her eyes down to look upon her fingers, which were covered with things that looked like cauliflowers, but her horror-stricken eyes realized weren’t. And then the screaming started, first from her mouth, then from the mouths of the scrabbling audience.
The stench attacked Victoria’s little nose, an alien half-human, half-animal stench of decay and repulsion. She gagged and gagged and finally gave up gagging and heaved the contents of her stomach down the side of the Happiness Boat.
Mrs. Pilkey raced forward, only to stop in her tracks as the odor hit her and the closer sight of the viscous mess made her think twice about saving the girl. She had her heels to con
sider.
“My Vicky! My petal!” Mr. Skivvins gasped, rushing across the stage where all feared to tread.
Above their bobbing heads, Padraig wiped his lips with delight, and dragged his granny’s cigarettes and her lighter from his pocket. He lit one, puffed away, coughed, and held the burning ash up to the sprinklers. Torrents of water poured from the ceiling.
Through the downpour, Mr. Skivvins spied two of the Happiness Boat girls skipping off, just made out their cackles under the shrieking from the audience and the screaming of his little girl and the spraying from the ceiling. He thought he heard the skinnier, more evil-looking one cackle, “Pepsi-slurping bitch!” before she disappeared.
Fionnuala saw Padraig scurry down the ladder and across the stage. She raced up the aisle, shoving through the stampede of sopping, screaming children heading for the exits. As she reached the steps, she saw Mrs. Pilkey’s hand on her ex-boss’ shoulder as he wiped the slop off his daughter’s face and tried to quell her shrieking. Zoë stood by them, wringing her hands, horror beneath her Burberry frames.
Fionnuala tiptoed up to the drenched trio around the little bitch (a glance and she could tell). She squelched through the pigs’ blood and seal brain fritters and vomit and urine and child feces in the relentless downpour and confusion, and all it took was a simple shove from Fionnuala on the smug bastard’s shoulder to send Mr. Skivvins tumbling over the stage and into the orchestra pit. Mrs. Pilkey and Zoe Riddell soon followed. Fionnuala giggled with victory as she scampered off.
The paramedics saw to them, after restraining Concepta McLaughlin and her now even more fragile mind.
CHAPTER 70
FOR THIS SALE, FIONNUALA was especially chomping at the bit to shove through the Top-Yer-Trolley’s revolving doors (she hoped they had fixed the malfunction which made them stick the year before; it had been a trial maneuvering through them laden with bargains). This year, she had decided, it was out with the chain-link belts, the flowered tights and the skimpy stripy tops. She had lain awake in bed the night before, tossing and turning fitfully, as she imagined snapping up pants-suits and anti-wrinkle creams and sensible loafers for pennies on the pound, things that would transform her into a sophisticated woman aging with dignity and grace, as befitted a player on the world media stage.
The annual sale was a family event, if only because Paddy and the children all had hands which could carry. The Floods had dragged themselves out of bed at 5 AM, Fionnuala hovering impatiently over them, so she could bag her place in the front row. Maureen had cried illness, and Fionnuala was enraged, but she allowed her mother to stay in bed as long as she looked after Keanu; the old woman had languished hours in the holding cell, after all. Even Dymphna had been rolled towards the superstore’s front doors. She would be useless in the crowds inside with her wheelchair, but Fionnuala could use it to haul the purchases back to the Moorside and save on a taxi.
They parked Dymphna next to the drinking fountain. The rest of the family were pressed against the shatterproof plexiglass window (real glass hadn’t been used since 1980; the Top-Yer-Trolley had been blown up and rebuilt three times during the Troubles before they got the message). Seamus’ snot and tears smeared the window, Padraig was hacking into it with a pocket knife, Siofra banging her headless Barbie against it so they would let the doll in. Paddy was transported back to the smoking section of the ferry as the body parts of rabid shoppers shoved into his back, his neck, his arse, his heels. Fionnuala’s feet pawed the cobblestones before the window like a bull preparing to charge, her elbows gouging into anyone who looked like they had more credit on their cards. The only good thing about their truncated trip to Malta was that Fionnuala now had hundreds of pounds to shove eagerly into the Top-Yer-Trolley tills.
“The annual sale has now begun!” said a voice from a loudspeaker somewhere, and a roar went up from the churning, desperate masses.
The doors were unlocked, and the employees scampered to their places, fear in their eyes. The hordes erupted through the doors, elbowing and kicking their way through the aisles, eyes shimmering with deranged delight, claws shooting out for dented cans and battered boxes.
“Grab it! Grab it, wanes!” Fionnuala hollered through the screams and flailing limbs.
“Grab what, mammy?” Seamus asked, tears of fear rolling down his face as he dodged the legs and knees and feet that threatened to trample his young form.
“Aye, what?” Siofra echoed.
“Och, for the love of—!” Were her children mentally challenged? Hadn’t they gone through this last year, and the year before, and the year before that?
“Anything!” Fionnuala barked. “We can sort out what be’s the best buy after everything be’s in wer trolley! Possession be’s nine-tenths of the law, don’t youse forget!”
The children scattered into the screaming masses, hands reaching for anything they could. Paddy had only been inside for less than a minute but already had to escape. He jettisoned himself upstream of the frenzied bodies, catching glimpses from eyes shooting by that told him he was mad to be making his way out. Paddy thrust himself through the doors of the din and collapsed, hair tousled, nerves begging for a cigarette. Puffing away, he went to Dymphna, and was shocked to see her talking to Jed.
“It’s wile lovely to have ye back in Derry, Uncle Jed,” Dymphna nattered on. “And, aye, me mammy be’s as mental as ever. Had the Filth chasing us on wer way to Liverpool. We was banged up the lot of us all night long, then she drags us outta bed at the crack of dawn to traipse down to this pigging sale!”
Paddy felt no betrayal to the Flood family from Dymphna; he felt the same. He walked over and stuck his hand out.
“Jed! Right man ye are!” he said. “Welcome back to Derry, hi!”
Suspicion glinted in Jed’s eyes, but the friendliness pouring from Paddy’s—Jed could detect it even through the bloody veins—put him at ease. They threw their arms around each other and hugged. Dymphna nodded in satisfaction.
Her wheelchair was turned the wrong way, Jed’s cowboy hat had fallen over his eyes, and Paddy had closed his during the hug. The three of them couldn’t see Scudder and MacAfee sneaking out of their van and lurking behind a tree next to the public toilets. Their faces were bright with booze and excitement, turned towards the Top-Yer-Trolley doors and all the victims shoving through them to their early graves.
“Not a word to Fionnuala about this, mind,” Paddy said. “She’d have me bollocks in a vise.”
“And Ursula?” Jed asked.
Paddy and Dymphna exchanged an uncomfortable glance. Jed was a foreigner and didn’t really count as a person, so he could easily be forgiven. Ursula was another matter. Paddy twiddled his cigarette, Dymphna inspected a crack in a cast.
“I guess I better get inside,” Jed said, “and find her.”
“Them shoppers be’s deranged,” Paddy said. “Good luck to ye in there, mucker.”
“I think I already found it out here.”
Jed removed his hat, took a deep breath and forced himself through the doors.
Against her plans and better judgment, Fionnuala found herself fending off fingernails and elbows at the deep discount bargain bin selections, scrabbling through returned toothbrushes and defective toilet bowl scrubbers. Her shopping cart already held a three-tier document organizer, an extendible snow broom, an elevated toilet seat with arms, a bruised cabbage and a case of pâté de foie gras past the sell-by date.
“Mammy!” Seamus said, rushing towards her with the fear still in his eyes. “I’ve me hands full!”
“Right ye are, wane. Dump it all in mammy’s trolley and off ye go for more.”
As the child struggled to throw his loot into the very high cart, Fionnuala was aware of Siofra and Padraig approaching, but couldn’t face them as she had just spied at the bottom of the bin a cracked bottle of Liz Taylor’s White Diamonds for 70% off. Her hand shot out—
—and was clawed into by another hungry shopper, fingernails gouging into Fionnuala’
s flesh to snatch the perfect bargain.
“That be’s mines! Mines!” Fionnuala snarled. “Ye grabby, hateful cunt—!”
Fionnuala gawped.
“Fionnuala!” Ursula gasped, White Diamonds clutched to her chest.
At the sight of his auntie Ursula, Seamus held his hand out, Pavlovian-like, for a gift. Was it Ursula’s generosity or Seamus’ greed?
The children jumped up and down excitedly.
“Auntie Ur—!”
“Don’t youse take one step towards that woman,” Fionnuala warned, the spittle spraying from her lips.
Like automatons, their faces became blank and their outstretched arms collapsed to their sides. But it was too late. Ursula had detected the glint of recognition in their eyes and the glee that had followed. It only registered for a second amidst the melee of shrieking shoppers, but it would have to suffice. She could go to her grave knowing that, secretly, she was missed and loved. She held out the perfume to Fionnuala.
“That’s all I bloody well need!” Fionnuala seethed. “The Lady of the Manor swanning back into town, her nose so high in the air it’s a wonder she doesn’t drown from the rain. Feck this!” She grabbed Siofra and Seamus by their heads, lunged for her shopping cart of treasures, snatched the perfume out of Ursula’s hand, and headed through the foliage department. Ursula shoved through the crowd to follow.
“Mammy, but—” Padraig began.
“C’mon, c’mon, wanes,” Fionnuala said, snapping her fingers and picking up speed. “That madwoman’s after us all!”
As they hurried through the dying trees and ferns, Siofra turned to Padraig, swerving the bodies and carts barreling towards them.
“I wish Auntie Ursula was wer mammy,” Siofra said.
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