“A-aye.”
There was a moment of silence. Then, harsher, suspicious:
“Ma'am, unlock the door and step outside.”
Not a 'please' to be heard. Disgraceful! Fuming, Ursula realized what her mistake had been: 'aye.' The IRA had been decommissioned decades earlier, the Peace Process now a Peace Accomplished, but memories were long and bitter. She should've Americanized her language. Her tongue and vocal chords found it impossible to rid themselves of the accent that caused so much suspicion to the British forces, military or police. Or parking attendants and airport security guards, for that matter. She had noticed their wands lingered longer on her limbs than they had on Jed and Louella's, and her patdown had been particularly invasive. She should have said 'yes' instead of 'aye.' Better, she should've just slid her American passport under the door. They would've left her in peace.
Trembling with rage, Ursula popped her head through the neckline and thrust herself into the gown. Still barefoot, her hair like Einstein's but purple, she unlocked the door like a child about to be reprimanded for stealing from the cookie jar. She yelped again. There a hard-faced member of the British police stood, barely out of Huggies, checked cap on head, whippy-baton thing ready to strike, and behind her two more, men—boys!—with pepper spray aimed at her eyeballs, faces alight with the thrill of capturing an Irish terrorist and receiving a promotion. A third seemed to serve no function, as far as Ursula could tell, except to stand in the distance and look grim.
“I was just changing me outfit. If ye don't mind,” she said in a stilted voice, trying as best she could to keep her anger in check and a shred of dignity in her. She knew if she told this slip of a girl everything she thought about her, she would be hauled in and detained hours for questioning and they would miss their getaway liner.
The WPC peered into the toilet stall, even shone a flashlight in for a few seconds, sweeping it around the interior, though lights were blazing from the ceiling. Who does she think she be's, Ursula wondered narkily, adjusting her bra strap, yer woman outta Prime Suspect, DCI Jane Tennison?
The girl turned to her backup, and they deflated, pepper spray falling to their sides. Ursula was happy to disappoint.
“It's very dangerous, ma'am, to change in the stalls of a public lavatory,” the girl chided.
Ursula's nails dug into her palms and she fought the urge to scream at her she didn't need her advice and where else could she change in a busy port terminal, an aisle of the duty free? They all exchanged a look which said Our Work Is Done Here. Unfortunately. The three men turned and the WPC graced Ursula with a curt nod, apparently giving her the permission to continue her life unhindered.
“As you were,” she said. And then they were gone.
Not even a “Sorry!” As Ursula pounded her feet into the high heels, she wanted to call the WPC back to zip her up in the back. But didn't want to give the jumped up creature the satisfaction of having been of help. She'd have Jed do it when she met the others outside security.
She crammed her leisure suit and sensible traveling shoes into her bag and exited the restroom. As she pushed through the throngs of laughing, chatting, excited vacationers, she was relieved to hear very few nails-on-a-chalkboard British accents around her. England had become even more multicultural since the last time she had been there; in Northern Ireland this was less true. Nobody in England seemed to speak English anymore.
But as she gazed up at a sign, desperate to locate an arrow that pointed her in the direction of Security, two police officers raced purposefully past her, one clipping her elbow, on their way to break up a drunken brawl at the Now Voyager Lounge. Ursula twitched again with worry and grief. She and Louella were racing from the law, but as scary as Scarrey was, Ursula knew he was only a Yank detective. Compared to their British counterparts, she thought of the US police as somewhat bumbling. Not as ruthless, heartless, cold and effective. Heathrow had been teeming with coppers, and Ursula had made a show of clutching her US passport so everyone could view it, grateful she had taken the plunge and converted to Americanism years earlier to pacify Jed. As an older woman, there was none of this The-US-Is-The-World-Aggressor-And-The-UK-Has-Become-Its-51st-State nonsense that annoyed the British youth of the day so. She always had a vision of Reagan and Thatcher exiting a limo together on their way to some international conference or another, wondering if they had spent a night of passion together, always aware of the 'special relationship' between the US and the UK, the world leaders, the benefits and benefits of the doubt they passed to each of their citizens in consulates worldwide. They were one. So, if she kept her mouth shut, she was safe. If she kept her mouth shut.
Unless Detective Scarrey really did have friends in the British police service. Or Interpol. Knowing she was Irish, and seeing their house empty, might he think she had gone home to Ireland and contact his foreign friends and set them after her? It was quite easy to do nowadays, what with the Internet and surveillance satellites circling the Earth as they did.
Finally chancing upon security (the arrows had been no help; she relied on female intuition), Jed hurried over to her, the corners of his goatee bent with concern.
“Are you okay?”
“I had trouble fitting into me gown,” Ursula said. “Do me zipper up, would ye?”
“I remember this dress from the Petty Officer's Christmas party in 1987,” Jed said as he zipped. “You look great.”
Ursula suspected she probably didn't, but smiled.
“Where's Slim?” she asked.
Louella barged up.
“Those darn fools in security thought his samples of hot sauce were bomb-making chemicals!” she roared. “They dragged him off somewhere with their dogs sniffing all around him. Why he had to bring them with him—”
“They're all less than 3 ounces,” Jed put in. “We're trying to get customers for our online business—”
“Darn foolish idea!” Louella inspected her watch, willing the seconds to pass more slowly. “We're gonna be stranded here if they don't let him out soon.” Then she inspected Ursula. “What's up with that dress? Your arms are bulging out of the seams like a bodybuilder.”
“I-I must've put on a few pounds since the last time I wore it,” Ursula explained.
Louella marched to their luggage cart and dug through a bag.
“Slip this on, I brought it for me, but it's too darned hot in this terminal.”
Ursula and Jed stared in horror at what Louella was handing her. But Ursula slipped it on nevertheless. They jumped at a disembodied voice.
“...is the final boarding announcement. All passengers for the Queen of Crabs, please make your way to the check-in counter. Now. The ship will embark in forty-five minutes. Those who have not already checked in may be refused boarding. And will not receive a refund. Quickly, please.”
“The Queen of Crabs? Doesn't that be us?” Ursula asked, nibbling nervously on her lip.
“No refund?” screamed Louella, as if someone had just stabbed her in the heart with a rusty implement.
“Aye, did ye not read the—”
“Forget Slim!” Louella said. “We gotta go now—oh! Here he is at last!”
Up he waddled, a man shattered, one hand flapping at lips like those of a bargain bin hustler who had spent the last three hours on his knees. The case of hot sauce now hung unloved at his side.
“Those idiots had me taste every last one of our hot sauces to be sure they weren't chemicals or poisons or some stupid thing,” Slim panted. “Even the Liquid Death triple X. I need milk, water, bread...”
“Later!” Louella barked, grabbing his arm. “Let's go!”
Jed grabbed one cart, Slim found the handle of the other through eyes that still watered and stung, and they stared up at the signs, trying to find the check-in arrow.
“There it is!” Jed said, pointing. They hurried through the masses.
“Och,” Ursula said, “it clear slipped me mind to do me business when I was in the loo. Me bladder's
on the verge of bursting. I'll catch youse up.” She paused a second, thinking of facing another Brit in a uniform at the check-in desk. “Take you me passport with ye, Louella, in case themmuns at the desk needs it.”
She handed it over, a weight off her mind. Louella snatched it, then barked: “We'll meet you at the desk. Make it quick, darnit!”
CHAPTER SIX
WITH EACH THRUST OF the toilet brush, Fionnuala imagined the bowl was Dymphna's throat. She still couldn't believe the cheek—the gall!—of her daughter: refusing to give up her ticket to allow one of her older and more deserving brothers to go. Not that Lorcan or Eoin had seemed particularly bothered or even interested, but that wasn't the point. Fionnuala was the one who loved all things Titanic, so she should be the one to choose who would accompany her on the adventure of her lifetime. And, as Fionnuala had spared no breath letting Dymphna know, if Fionnuala hadn't given birth to her, Dymphna wouldn't even be a human now and wouldn't have the fingers to dial the radio station to win the tickets, nor that which allowed her to claim the prize on the mobile phone: vocal chords. Which brought her back to Dymphna's throat. Fionnuala wielded the brush like a spear and pounded it down the filthy depths.
Bam! Bam!
Fionnuala flushed. She wiped her brow, got up off her knees before the aged porcelain and, yellow rubber gloves dripping, moved to the equally squalid sink, where a glance made a well of despair rise in her. It looked like it hadn't seen a spritz of bleach since Margaret Thatcher's reign. And she was another selfish bitch and all, Fionnuala reflected, attacking the porcelain with a filthy rag. In the next room, her 9-year old daughter Siofra was warbling what seemed to be some godawful pop tune of the day, each syllable of which was a like a rusty nail in Fionnuala's cerebral cortex.
“Swagger Jagger, Swagger Jagger...!”
“Shut yer trap, wee girl!” Fionnuala barked, abandoning the rag and reaching into her bucket of cleaning supplies for a pad with scrubby bits to remove the mold and congealed toothpaste and God alone knew what else which clung to the ceramic. As she scrubbed, she eyed the closed shower curtain with dread, wondering what horrors lay beyond.
“Swagger Jagger, Swagger Jagger...!”
“Dear God, give me strength!” Were there no other words to the fecking song? Or was her daughter too soft in the head to remember them? “Och, would ye shut yer flimmin bake or I'll shut it for ye, ye tonedeaf cunt, ye!”
There was silence, and then, “Aye, mammy,” Fionnuala heard. Like butter wouldn't melt. But Fionnuala knew well the dark heart that beat under the sparkles of her daughter's pink top. Siofra'd taken to hanging around with—Fionnuala attacked the sink with fury as she thought about it—that horrid Protestant creature Victoria Skivvins as of late. And with Dymphna engaged to an Orange bastard as well, Fionnuala didn't know where to look when she walked down the streets of the neighborhood any longer, the eyes of Mrs. Connelly and Mrs. Connors and Mrs. O'Connelley inspecting her over the hedges with suspicion. As if it were she herself cavorting with the enemy! The whole world had gone mad, if even those who had entered the world from between her very own spread legs—her own offspring!—were being brainwashed by liberal teachers to believe that they could befriend the Enemy. What was the world coming to when God-fearing Catholics could prance about town, arms linked with Protestants, and not a dot of shame on their faces? What chance did others without a good, moral upbringing like her children have? She feared a knock on the door late one evening, the neighbors all pinched lips and throats bulging with hatred and rage when she opened it, a bucket of tar and a bag of feathers ready to make an example of the entire family in the back garden, tarring and feathering them all next to her rhubarb patch and the broken suntan bed there had been no room for in the sitting room since the arrival of the karaoke machine, now broken as well.
“I'll be inspecting them bedsheets for wrinkles, wee girl!” Fionnuala warned. “Mind ye do em as ye were showed!”
Siofra poked her head into the bathroom. Her usual pale face was pink with exertion, her twiglet arms unable to keep up with the work Fionnuala insisted they do, the purple butterfly barrette clung to her sweaty strands of black hair at an odd angle.
“Mammy?”
“Och, ye've me head cracking, wane. Don't distract me,” Fionnuala warned, sweat prickling her brow from all the scrubbing.
“Me tummy's wile sore, so it is. I try to stop it, but it keeps on grumbling with hunger.”
“I told ye not to bring it up again! Me own stomach thinks me throat’s been cut, I'm hollow with starvation as well, ye don't hear me yammering on about it, but!”
“Yer body be's miles bigger, but, and with all them extra—”
Siofra yelped as the rubber glove sliced through the air and splat against her face, the filth from it dribbling down her cheeks. She scurried for safety out of the bathroom, and Fionnuala was in hot pursuit. Siofra's eyes gurgled with tears as she massaged her smarting cheek, spreading the dinge further into her pores.
“Yer mammy's a fat cow, are ye saying?” Fionnuala gave an imploring look upwards. “Why was wer Siofra chosen, heavenly Father? Why?!” she asked of the Lord, but He had more pressing questions to answer elsewhere. Fionnuala was stuck staring up at a bulb that needed changing. By her.
“Naw, I meant...I meant...What time are we eating, but?” Siofra still wanted to know through the tears.
“Don't ask me again, ye simple gack! Ye were telt the rules same as me, sure, we kyanny eat until them what has paid has had their fill and what does that be sticking outta yer pocket, wee girl?”
“N-nothing,” Siofra lied through the waterworks, lower lip trembling. She backed against the wall as her mother approached.
“I seen the glint of gems and gold coming from yer pocket! Have ye been thieving? Thieving?!”
“Naw, Mammy, naw!”
Fionnuala towered over her and tugged off the glove; she hadn't been proud of the previous slap. She needed the satisfaction of flesh on flesh.
Smack! Smack!
As Siofra reeled from the force of the blows, there was a boom of thunder, and lightning cackled through the sky outside the window. Siofra eyed the bolts as if she didn't know what was worse: Mammy or Mammy Nature. Fionnuala pinned her daughter's fighting arms against the wall with one hand, and dug with the other into the pocket of the girl's mini-jeans embroidered with unicorns and dolphins.
“I was gonny give it ye!” Siofra squealed as she squirmed against the evacuation notice. “I was gonny give it ye!”
As she wound her fingers around the jewelry in Siofra's pocket, it seemed to Fionnuala the floor beneath them began to shift and wobble, like that House of Fun she went through at the seashore in Buncrana every summer, the one with the mirrors that made her look odd. Lightning spat more angrily through the air outside. Around them, the room started to tremble and sway.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph and a wee donkey!” Fionnuala screamed over a new roar of thunder.
The thing in Siofra's pocket flew from her, and Fionnuala clawed at the fringes of the lampshade for support. They weren't much use, slipping through her grasping fingers. Siofra scooped up the brooch and screamed in fear as her little legs buckled. Her body lurched into her mother's legs. She clung on tightly, yelping into the meaty thighs that bulged under the white stockings. Siora's fear angered Fionnuala, and the weight of the girl against her meant Fionnuala toppled toward the bed. The corner pounded into her spine. She screamed in pain. They tumbled to the carpet as the floor gave way under them, the room slanting and gravity no longer a friend. Brochures slid from the desk, bottles of cologne toppled over and the suits in the wardrobe swung like vines in a tropical storm. The minibar door flew open and little bottles rolled down the slanting carpet Siofra had just vacuumed. And then rolled up the carpet as they were pitched in the opposite direction. Fionnuala's head cracked against a leg of the bed, and Siofra flew up her mother's body.
“We're capsizing, Mammy! Capsizing!” Siofra whimpered into her mo
ther's ear, now inches from her mouth.
As Fionnuala fought for balance and to get the girl off her, one part of her brain wanted to smack her again for using such big language. But Siofra was right: they were capsizing! Until the next peal of thunder seemed knots away, lightning crackled weakly, the floor suddenly settled and it was obvious they weren't. It had been a tiny flash storm and a big wave, was all. In the abrupt stillness, they heard whoops of passengers from the hallway, excited they had survived their first bout of sea turbulence.
“God bless us and save us! Me life flashed before me eyes! I saw meself all the way to yer daddy and mines wedding! The state of me hair then! Disgraceful! C'mere, are we meant to endure eleven more days of being tossed about like that?” Fionnuala clamped a cigarette between her trembling lips, lit up and puffed away.
Siofra crossed her arms.
“Mammy, ye were telt the rules and all. There's to be no smoking inside the ship.”
Fionnuala blew smoke in her face just to annoy her. Calamity over, she motioned to Siofra.
“Lemme see what ye've nicked!”
Siofra, still shaken, unfurled her fist. In her sticky little palm sat a golden brooch. Fionnuala pried it loose and inspected it. She suspected the craftsman who had fashioned it wanted it to be a pelican, but its body was so misshapen it resembled more a dodo, with eyes that sparkled with ruby rhinestones, and little purple, green and orange gems that ran up and down its feathers. Its webbed feet were covered in amber.
“I'm all for thieving, ye know that. Ye want us thrown overboard, but? Ye spastic! That Yootha telt us there’s to be surprise inspections of wer living quarters for things what we might’ve nicked from the passengers’ cabins, and wer lockers and all. Where did ye get it, ye wee thug?”
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