“Aye, me and all,” Padraig replied.
They rounded the aisle, puffing after their mother, Seamus now screaming tearfully, and found themselves in the food department.
“Grab at them goods, wanes!” Fionnuala barked.
They hurried to obey, Siofra running to the chips shelves and grabbing as many as she could. She froze, mid-grab, in horror.
“Och—!” Siofra gasped.
One shelf over, PinkPetals was inspecting the nutritional information on a pack of salt and vinegar potato chips. She looked up in alarm. It dissolved to rage.
“You filthy little creature!” Victoria screamed.
Fionnuala spied Ursula by the pyramid of Spaghetti Hoops, her back to them, head bobbing up and down and back and forth as she searched through the crowd. Fionnuala cackled under her breath and rolled her cart towards her. It rammed against Ursula, who yelped and sailed through the air, hands clawing at nothing. She flew into the Spaghetti Hoops display, cans raining down on her eggplant-colored bob.
Fionnuala knew she should scamper off, but the sight of Ursula under the cans was priceless. She ground her fingers into the handle of her cart and wriggled with laughter. She should buy a camera.
“Look at yer auntie Ursula, wanes!” she said. But the children weren’t at her side, and Fionnuala saw to her disappointment Jed’s cowboy hat winding through the crowd towards them. Spoilsport!
Splayed on the tiles, Ursula pushed her arms through the rolling cans. She tried to lift her head and saw next to her packets of cookie dough piled together under what was left of the pyramid. Even as she simmered with anger over Fionnuala and wondered how long she might struggle to pull herself upright in a field of cans, Ursula wondered why they had placed packs of cookie dough there. Nobody could see them to buy them, hidden under the Spaghetti Hoops as they were. And what drunk shelf-stacker thought cookie dough belonged with Spaghetti Hoops in any event? Shouldn’t it be in the Home Baking section two aisles over? Then she saw the brightly colored wires that decorated the cookie dough. And the wee clock on top. And the numbers counting down: 01:59, 01:58, 01:57.
“There be’s a bomb here!” Ursula roared just as Jed made it to the rolling cans. “A bomb, I tell youse! Clear on outta here! We’ve only one minute fifty-three, fifty-two seconds to live!”
“AARGGHHHH!!”
Panic spiked through the food section and the foliage and beyond. People raced and goods flew and feet trampled those already pushed to the floor. Siofra and Victoria clung to each other as there was nobody else to cling to. Whimpering, Fionnuala pushed Jed towards the bomb.
“Ye’ve military training, sure! Get ye under them cans and fix that bomb before we be’s blown to bits!”
“But I never dismantled a bomb in my life!” Jed gasped.
“Och, didn’t ye attend a course or some such?”
At the front door, people’s bodies were proving more dangerous than the bomb as they clawed and kicked and shoved each other to get through the revolving doors, which seemed to have stuck. Screaming women threw themselves against the windows for escape, but bounced onto the floor, the plexiglass rippling.
“Not much use trying to flee, then,” Fionnuala observed. “May as well meet me maker here by the Spaghetti Hoops.”
She crossed herself quickly.
00:44
“Jed! Pass me me handbag!” Ursula yelled in a hysterical voice, her eyes those of a raccoon from the teary mascara.
“What on Earth—?”
How could she think of touching up her make up with only 48, 47 seconds of life left? Surely God wouldn’t care what she looked like—
“Och, give it to me, just!”
00:36
Brain percolating, fingers quaking, Jed fiddled under the cans and dragged out Ursula’s handbag. He passed it to her and Ursula, having finally hauled herself into a sitting position, grabbed it and scrabbled at the disarray inside.
“I’ll see if I kyanny dismantle this bomb meself,” she said.
00:31
“Honey, I love you.” Jed needed to say the words before they died.
“Aye, and I love ye and all, ye kind, daft creature!” she yelled. “Quit distracting me, but, would ye?”
Fionnuala finished her prayer and yammered strange sounds. Ursula wondered which would be most use: her toenail clippers or the bottom of the cross on her rosary.
00:23
She grappled the rosary and hacked into the bricks of Semtex.
“Och, would ye quit the wailing outta youse?” Ursula yelled into the tearful, keening masses around them. “I’m trying to concentrate here, sure!”
Fionnuala found herself clutching Jed for support. Jed hoped Ursula wouldn’t see him clutching back. They shuddered in fear over Ursula’s bobbing purple bob. Her rosary didn’t seem to be doing much; the clock was still counting down. Now it was on 00:11. She reached for her toenail clippers, her head racing, and tried to figure out which wire she should cut. There was the green one
00:10
the red one
00:09
the yellow one
00:08
the bluish-sort of-purple one
00:07
“I kyanny make the decision!”
00:06
“Och, Jed, och, even ye, Fionnuala, help me, would youse! Which one should I cut, then? Och, it’s worse than choosing lotto numbers, this!”
Jed and Fionnuala whimpered and trembled and hugged above her. The toenail clippers shuddered in Ursula’s aging hand. She would never look down upon that hand again. Ursula inched the clippers closer and closer to the bluish-purple wire...
00:02
Snip!
00:01
00:00
Even in the screaming, there seemed to be silence. They waited for the blast
and waited
and waited some more.
The seconds really do stretch out when death is imminent Jed thought, teeth digging into Fionnuala’s shoulder. It seems like we’ve been waiting forever to be blown to bits!
Ursula finally pried her eyes open and looked down at the bomb. It just sat there. Scudder had bought the wires from the Mountains of Mourne Gate market.
As her mother dragged her past the electronics department on the way out, Siofra slipped three iPods in her pocket. Victoria giggled and swiped three as well.
The Floods sat outside around Dymphna’s wheelchair, drugged to the eyeballs and wrapped in those foil capes they always seemed to place around the shoulders of accident victims; nobody was sure what their function was. Police milled around. Jed was calming Ursula over by the public toilets.
“Och, dearie me, aye,” Paddy said. “What a day!”
Dymphna struggled around in her wheelchair and spied her uncle and auntie.
“Don’t youse think we should invite—”
Her jaw dropped. Rory was making his way through the fleet of ambulances and the rocks being thrown at them, but that was not what had caught her attention.
“It was themmuns! Themmuns!” Dymphna screamed, jumping up and down, her mother’s handbag jumping off the handle. “Coppers! There be’s the culprits! Sneaking into that van there! They rented the lockup from me, so themmuns did! Here to see their handiwork, so themmuns is!”
Police raced to Scudder and MacAfee, and as they struggled, Bridie materialized from the crowd and pointed at Dymphna.
“Traitor!” Bridie roared. “Grassing to the Filth! A shame to the nation! And I know why, youse! Yer woman in the wheelchair there be’s preggers with a Proddy bastard’s bastard!”
The crowd stared, and Paddy and Fionnuala buried their heads in shame. Rory looked sadly at Bridie.
“Aye,” Dymphna said to all the accusing eyes. She would have stood if she could. “Persecute and crucify me all youse want with them gacky eyes of yers! I’m grassing up the culprits to the Filth! I’m a traitor, I’m well aware, so tar and feather me if youse must! Themmuns almost blew youse to bits, but! And if youse
must know, I’ve a half-Proddy wane, a demi-Orange bastard, growing inside of me and excuse me youse if I want that wane to have a world to grow up and get drunk in!”
Rory was suddenly at her feet, massaging her casts.
“I never knew ye had it in ye, Dymphna,” he said.
“Ye mean, the courage to say what most doesn’t dare? I was happy to do it, sure.”
“Er, aye, that and all. I meant a new wane from me in ye, but.”
Dymphna blushed.
“Och.”
“A wane I’m happy to be the father of.”
“I’m gonny spew,” Fionnuala said, burying her head in the foil in shame.
After the police had hauled MacAfee and Scudder away and taken a statement from Dymphna (Fionnuala glared with every traitorous word that exited her lips), Fionnuala cursed under her breath as Ursula approached slowly over the cobbles.
“Am I now expected to apologize to this jumped up cunt for trying to save wer lives?” she hissed, but the family had no answer for her, and post-near-death-event Fionnuala was even starting to tire of her relentless hatred toward Ursula.
“Would youse mind if I had a wee word with Fionnuala?” Ursula asked. “Alone, like?”
Confusion and curiosity brimmed in their drugged eyes, but nobody minded. Paddy nudged Fionnuala away from him and towards Ursula.
“Fionnuala,” Ursula said, wiping a smear of Semtex from her forehead, “I see even the drama of the day hasn’t softened yer anthracite heart. Anthracite, just so’s ye know, be’s a very, very hard type of coal. I looked it up after it was in one of me word search puzzles. Anyroad, as I say, ye’ve still not got a civil word to say to me, so me and Jed will steer clear of ye wer last few days of wer visit to Derry. I’ve something to give ye, but.”
Fionnuala tensed as Ursula delved into her handbag. To her relief, Ursula pulled out only a brightly-wrapped box.
“I’ve crocheted a wee onesie for me new...”
Ursula got lost in the family tree as to exactly what relative Keanu was to her.
“...family member,” she settled on. “I want ye to wait until I leave the city before ye open it.”
“Could ye not give it to wer Dymphna?” Fionnuala asked in a stilted voice. “The bastard be’s hers, after all.”
“Ah, but I want ye to open it. Promise me ye’ll not toss it in the bin. And that ye’ll open it after I leave.”
“Och, that I will do, Ursula. That's wile civil of ye,” Fionnuala said, managing an upward configuration of her lips.
Ursula took this as a smile.
“Make sure ye open it,” Ursula repeated.
Fionnuala's ‘smile’ faltered.
“I’ve said I would, haven't I?” she snapped.
She took the gift, and Ursula walked back through the crowd.
She should just throw it in the garbage. The old Fionnuala would have. But the old Fionnuala had bleached pony tails and wore chain-link belts and...had a husband who loved her?
The new Fionnuala tossed it over to Dymphna.
“From yer auntie, traitors the two of youse,” she said.
Dymphna tore it open, held up the onesie, and the check fluttered out.
“Mammy!” Dymphna gasped. “Would ye look at all them zeroes?”
The Floods huddled around the check and marveled.
“What a daft eejit that Ursula Barnett be’s!” Fionnuala snorted. “Imagine, handing over a sum of money like that to us, after all the persecution we put her through. Mind you, it doesn’t half rankle, knowing her Ladyship there has this much money in her account to hand over just so’s she can make herself feel superior. Never youse mind, but, as we can now fly to Malta as the Lord intended. More money than sense, that foolish cunt Ursula Barnett.”
She looked around at her family for the nodding heads she was used to, but their heads weren’t nodding. Eyes inspected cobblestones and cuticles, wheelchair wheels and the stitching of pockets.
“Och, whose funeral did I just miss?” Fionnuala sneered. “Have them boyos gone and planted another bomb I’m not aware of, hi? What be’s up with youse?”
When Paddy’s head rose to meet hers, his eyes bored into hers and a peculiar expression was on his face. Fionnuala hadn’t seen it since that night in the ‘80s when he caught her in the nook of the Rocking Seamaid with her hand up the coal delivery man’s chunky sweater. It was anger.
“Get ye over there now,” Paddy said with quiet rage, “and thank the woman.”
“Och, catch yerself—” Fionnuala was cut off mid-scoff.
“What the feck am I after saying? Naw, not ‘the woman,’ me sister.”
Paddy’s eyes promised all sorts of menace if she didn’t comply. The children stared in wonder. Had Maureen been there, she would’ve clapped. There was silence as they all looked at her. Fionnuala, one part of her brain alerting her to a free-floating anxiety, another part projecting a scene on the back of her eyelids where Paddy lived in Warsaw and she sat alone in a house empty of offspring, nodded haltingly.
“If ye insist,” she said stiffly.
Running fingers self-consciously through her brown flip, Fionnuala hurried off through the crowd. Behind her scurrying back, the children smiled. Paddy tried to place his hands on their shoulders, but there were too many.
“Ursula! Ursula!” Fionnuala called into the foil capes and bobbing heads. Her voice croaked, and she felt quite anxious about the new Paddy.
But Ursula was gone, looking forward to the next cribbage game with Slim and Louella in her new home of Wisconsin. The old Fionnuala was now part of Ursula’s past as well, and Ursula would never again care if Louella cheated. At least she was friendly while she did it.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT CONFESSION AT ST. MOLAUG’S
FATHER HOGAN SAT IN the dark stillness awaiting the next confessor. He loved this game, trying to match the voices with the faces he saw every week in the congregation. The door opened and a wee one sidled inside.
“Och, Father, I’ve wile terrible sins to reveal,” Catherine began. “I’m scundered, so I am, with all the sinful shenanigans I’ve been part of. I’ve an excuse, like, but I know that doesn’t make any difference to the Lord. I must tell ye, but, as I haven’t been able to sleep nights. There be’s this horrible beast of a girl at me school, a grabby, mouthy monster, so she be’s. And she and her wee mate embarked on a campaign to torture and persecute me, so they did. They forced me to steal from me mammy and daddy. I had to lie and all to get them me mammy’s press pass. Nights, I couldn’t sleep, thinking of all the commandments them hooligans demanded I break. I wised up one day, but. I decided to get me own back and I devised a plan. The horrible wee creature insisted I get me iPod for her. I lied again and told her it was me daddy’s. As if me daddy would have use for an iPod! I told her as well that me daddy beats the shite outta me all the time, and that he’d beat me bottom with his belt if I lost his iPod. Ach, I feel so ashamed now, me poor aul kind daddy, and there I was telling awful stories about him! Anyroad, I deleted all me own songs from the iPod and put in horrid aul ones that me daddy might like so’s she wouldn’t catch on the iPod belonged to me. Then I paid Tommy Coyle a visit. He’s me cousin Brendan’s best mate and he lives across the road from her. I paid him a pound to round the corner and smack the iPod outta wer hands and jump up and down on it. He was happy to do it even without the pound as he hates her and all. He took the pound from me, but. I don’t mind, as he did as I asked and smacked me iPod outta her hand. Then, but, car rolled over it, and it was really broke. The look of shock on her face was priceless, so it was. But I feel bad about that now. Anyroad, the wee girl scrimped and scrimped and saved for weeks and weeks, and finally she gave me me new iPod. I’m happy to have it; I feel bad, but. What’s me penance?”
“That’s quite a story, wee girl. Tell me, but, are ye heartfully sorry for all these many sins of yers?”
“Aye,” Catherine lied. She was adding another sin—and to a man of the cloth!—to her long and windin
g list, but she could easily get it erased next Wednesday in the confessional.
“Three Hail Marys, in that event,” Father Hogan said.
Catherine couldn’t help but stifle a giggle as she skipped towards the pew to rattle off the few prayers. Her soul would soon be shiny and clean again. Her father always sat her down at night and told her of the many scams run by criminals. Many were fascinating to Catherine, but how she really loved the long con!
MANY MONTHS LATER
“MAMMY, WOULD YE PLEASE shop in another aisle for a wee moment?”
Maureen eyed her daughter with suspicion, but took her body and cane to visit the pyramid of dented cans of pigeon peas that was the manager’s special.
Fionnuala had spied Mrs. Ming at the frozen foods section. The old woman dropped the chicken tikka pizza in alarm as Fionnuala raced towards her.
“Why are ye smiling at me like that?” Mrs. Ming asked.
“Och, how are ye, Mrs. Ming? Terrible bad weather we’ve been having, aye? C’mere a wee moment, say if ye had an aul video round yers, a strange aul film with blood and guts on it, where do ye think it might have come from?”
The police had given Fionnuala back the video tape two weeks before; forensics had shown it was made in the mid-2000s. Fionnuala's hopes for fame were dashed. It couldn’t have been Princess Diana’s autopsy. But what was it? She had stared night after night at the ceiling of her bedroom as Paddy dozed at her side, wondering how she could bring it up to Mrs. Ming without incriminating herself. The police trail on the Flood family had grown cold, and she didn’t want to start anything up again.
Mrs. Ming gave her an odd look as she rifled through the frozen peas.
“What are ye on about?” she asked.
“Ye’ve many questions, haven’t ye? I’m only asking, like, as, I don’t know if ye recall, I was yer OsteoCare provider once.”
“Aye, the night I passed out. I mind.”
She looked suspiciously at Fionnuala, then inspected a steak and kidney pie.
“Before ye passed out, but, ye had me look through yer videos, and we sat and watched this one, a blank one, it was, no case and no information on it, like. It put the fear of the lord into the wanes, I don’t mind telling ye. Perhaps, but, ye kyanny remember as then ye blacked out.”
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