“Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for all my sins, because they offend Thee...”
She had been happy enough then, but Ursula gazed now upon the dull brown cliff approaching with a sense of resignation. The sight of the island didn't make her want to spring from the boat in excitement.
“I wonder if there's a McDonald's on it,” Slim said. But they could see no buildings or, indeed, signs of human life on the sodden rocks.
The motor of the boat sputtered to a stop at the rocky wall reaching up into the clouds. They craned their necks. How were they ever supposed to get to the top?
“And now,” the tour guide said with a sudden devilish smile. “We climb!”
They stood in shock and silence.
“He's having us on!” Ursula finally scoffed. She appealed to the other with arms open, hoping someone with more muscles than she would overpower the tour guide and make him see sense. “He's having us on!” she repeated.
He wasn't. He pointed to a pile of helmets next to the motor, and then, to their collective horror, delved into a box and pulled out a tangled mass of cords and pulleys and hook-things of many different sizes that Ursula had seen bikers and lesbians hanging their keys from. There were many people who lived on the fringes of society in their little town in Wisconsin, and Ursula had inspected their bricolage, their appropriation of common objects for their own use, with an interested yet disapproving eye. The guide kept reaching into the box, and pushed into their confused hands belt-type items with legs loops and buckles and chest straps and many more of the metal contraption hook things dangling from the waist bands.
“These harnesses. Must put on. One leg through each loop, over the shoulder and around the waist. They help.”
With what, they weren’t sure. They inspected them, turning them around gingerly in their hands in confusion and fear, the hooks clanging.
“Are we properly insured for this?” an elderly woman in a drooping sunhat called out, peering fearfully over the top of her oversized sunglasses at him.
“No panic. Is top roping. Very simple. Only pull yourself upstairs on rope. Rope already there, fixed to top of cliff. Made earlier. We do every month. Very simple. Child can do. Fun. Put on harnesses. I show how.” He turned to Ursula. “You first.”
Terror filled her as he approached with a helmet and a malevolent grin that said ‘stupid tourists.’
“Hey, wait a minute!” Jed protested, squelching across sea detritus in the boat toward his wife. “Do it to me first.”
The guide shook his head vehemently and held Jed at bay with a filthy palm.
“She first I say. Easy for you, hard for her. I must show. You stand back.”
Jed looked on helplessly as Ursula’s bob disappeared under the helmet the guide from Hell thrust on her head. Jed’s fists curled as the guide demanded she sit, legs outstretched, so he could demonstrate the complex harnessing procedure. As she took up the position, Ursula felt Providence slipping away.
The hoops slipped up her calves, and her squeals of protest drowned out, in the distance, the thwak-thwak-thwak of helicopter blades slicing through the air, coming closer and closer...
CHAPTER 15
AS SHE SCUTTLED DOWN the hallways, keeping an eye peeled for Yootha, Fionnuala was relieved Paddy hadn't called her bluff: she hadn't a clue of any of her seven children's birth dates, they always sprang up unannounced, and seemed to be celebrated different days every year, the children choosing dates on a whim.
When she had entered the kitchen, she had a quick look around the staff for a lascivious young thing that might lead her husband astray. She had learned her lesson from the Polish scab at his factory the year before (and was lying in wait to exact her revenge at some stage in the future). She was relieved to see Paddy was working with, as her mind termed it, 'flimmin loads of chinks and pakis and coons.' She was sure he would never touch the likes of any of them. Then, remembering her recent encounter with Aquanetta and how she hoped the woman would be her exotic and exciting new friend, Fionnuala felt guilty about the moniker ‘coons,’ and changed it to ‘darkies.’ She slipped her all-access card key into the lock of cabin 342, shoulders slumped at the thought of the endless scrubbing and scouring that stretched before her until she dragged herself to her bunk and its threadbare bedsheet that evening.
She was smacking the dust rag on the nightstand beside the bed with its 1000-thread count sheets when she felt her stomach lurch. It must be the oats. To her horror, she suddenly recalled a phone-in food show on the radio, and she had been chained to the kitchen sink with a mountain of dishes needing to be washed, but even so she couldn't understand why she had been listening in—she must have been desperate for the company—where a caller had said some people might find digesting raw oats more difficult than cooked ones. Although raw oats weren't unhealthy or dangerous, the caller had wittered on, people should avoid eating them if they caused gastrointestinal distress such as constipation, excess gas, stomach cramps, nausea and difficulty passing stool. Fionnuala felt like she had all five. She gripped the nightstand, and the rosary beads and books there clattered to the floor. Woozy, she groaned as she configured her body to pick them up.
Who would bring rosary beads along on a cruise? she wondered, tossing them back on the nightstand. She grabbed the books. Twenty Steps To Winning Every Argument, claimed one, the Bible was the second, and—Fionnuala's fevered brain suddenly froze—Lotto Balls of Shame was the title of the third. This one was well-thumbed. The oats bulldozed a path through Fionnuala's internal organs, but the pain in her frozen brain was more an anguish. Nobody, but nobody had bought eldest daughter and family traitor—and filthy lesbian to boot!—Moira's book. Fionnuala opened the book gingerly and flipped through the pages. To her growing alarm, she saw passages underlined in pencil, adjectives circled.
“To call Nelly Frood an obese layabout would be an understatement. Although she had given birth to nine children in a row, that's where her labor stopped. Her sister-in-law, Una Bartlett, however, couldn't have been cut from a more different cloth. Civic-minded, loyal and industrious, the classy lady of Derry City rightfully deserved the multi-million pound win on the lottery which had given her a swanky new home with a view of the River Foyle, a chauffeur for her BMW, and an upscale nail salon to which she was the sole proprietor.”
The existence of a copy of Moira's family exposé with such marks in this cabin of a ship trundling towards the coast of Northern Africa could only mean one thing. Clutching the distended mass of her rumbling stomach, Fionnuala—Nelly Frood!—made her way on knees that quaked with illness and rage toward the closet. She flung open the doors and rifled through the clothes on the hangers. The aqua pantsuit, the mauve top with the frills down the front, the flowing daisy skirt...something seemed familiar about them all. Fionnuala was thrown a bit by the fox stole, but the leisure suit with the lifesized palm leaves certainly looked like something Ursula Barnett would buy. It was her style, and, as she held it out before her, the girth was appropriate for Ursula's body. Fionnuala had never seen it on that body because, her enraged brain knew, she had never encountered Ursula in any climate other than Derry's relentless cold rain. She seethed at the thought of people who could afford to splash out on special clothing that didn't fit their natural habitat or that didn't fit occasions of a mundane daily life, clothing to be worn on a fancy vacation in strange weather and then hung, unused and forgotten, in the depths of a closet once they got home. It was a waste of good money, and a very Protestant thing to do.
Then Fionnuala thought back to the man in the cowboy hat in the dining room. She had been gripped with unease at the sight of him, yet couldn't understand why as she loved Kenny Rogers. But now it was all too clear.
Ursula and Jed Barnett were on the ship! And she a chambermaid! Their chambermaid! She had just vacuumed Ursula's floor, scraped her toothpaste from the sink, scrubbed out her toilet bowl, for the love of God! Mortification and fury and despair vied for attention in her mind, and she d
idn't know which to attend to first. The obvious thing to do, of course, was take a dump on Ursula's bed; she knew it was what all the kids of the day did when they broke into houses—adding insult to the injury of a robbery—and she knew from the books on the nightstand which side Ursula slept on, but Yootha would know from the cleaning schedule she was responsible.
Fionnuala slammed the closet shut as if doing so would teleport Ursula back to Wisconsin. An inhuman whimper rose from her larynx and exited her lips as an enraged growl. She pressed the upheaval in her bowels to the back of her mind for the moment. She ran for the cabin door, hands clawing the air, caged in her work smock, imprisoned in her ancillary life and nametag, while Ursula swanned around the world in the clothing of the free. She yelped as she slipped and fell. Struggling to lift her rusty limbs, she saw she had slipped on an embossed envelope that had fallen with the books. She tore it open and read. And yowled. An invitation to the captain's table! Was there nothing that wasn't handed to the jammy bitch on a silver platter?
Tears stinging her eyes, Fionnuala wrenched open the door and leaned against the evacuation procedures poster. The frame dug into her skull. She heaved deep breaths. Her stomach told her to find a bathroom fast. She would never use Ursula's toilet, even as desperate as the need was. She slipped her card key into the next cabin, did what she needed to as she sobbed anguished tears, dried her eyes with some toilet paper, then exited.
In the hallway, Aquanetta ran towards her. Still shaken, Fionnuala fashioned her lips into what for her was a smile. Aquanetta's face was as stricken as Fionnuala's had been moments earlier. Alarmed, Fionnuala looked behind her in the hallway. There was nothing there. Her heart fell. She hadn't found a friend after all. Aquanetta was racing towards her with something like rage on her face.
“That dinosaur with wings!” Aquanetta barked.
Fionnuala pointed at herself in confusion. Aquanetta snorted.
“I mean, that jewelry you snatched from 432.”
“I think it's meant to be a pel—”
“Whatever the damn thing is! Dump that shit! Now!”
Suspicion trickled through Fionnuala's brain.
“Am I right in thinking ye're expecting me to hand it over to ye?” she demanded, hand on hip. She snorted. “I know the scam. We've it in Ireland and all, ye know.”
But Aquanetta appeared to be capable of out-hand-on-hipping her, and while she was doing it, muttered something inaudible about a crazy assed white bitch.
“I was taking a break in the broom closet, and I overheard Yootha talking bout some old fart went on the last cruise and left it in her cabin. Called up to complain to EconoLux. Yelled some shit on a phone bout a lawsuit if she don't get it back. Heard something bout her taking it to Judge Joe Brown if need be. Yootha mad as shit. Gonna go through all our lockers till she find it. Gotta go to my locker now and hide my gear, my pipe. Fell off the wagon a bit. And you better dump that nasty piece of shit overboard if you know what's good for you.”
Fionnuala looked down and was surprised to see her arms were folded. It wasn't the correct stance for inviting friendship. She couldn't just whip her arms down, so she made as if she were swatting away a fantasy fly or mosquito.
“Ta for thinking of me, like.” She did her best to smile in gratitude, reminding herself that smiling was just like riding a bike, and even reached out and touched the black woman's elbow. Aquanetta grunted.
“Guess you got no shit to clear outta your locker?”
Fionnuala shook her head, and Aquanetta was down the hallway and around the corner. As she bathed in the glow of a newfound friendship, Fionnuala's brain cells trundled. She was now only too aware of the weight of the pelican brooch in the pocket of her work smock First she cursed Siofra for having found it, second she blamed her daughter for giving it to her, and then she thought of the chocolates she herself placed every day on the pillows in each cabin she cleaned. She thought of the five days until Ursula sat herself down at the splendor of the captain's table. And finally she entered the Barnett's cabin again.
She ripped a blank sheet from the back of the Arguments book, felt in her pockets for a writing tool, but realized she had never had any use for them. She went to the vanity, found Ursula's eyebrow pencil and scrawled on the paper, “Please wear the special gifts we will place on your pillouw every night instead of the choklites to the captains table.”
She propped the note against the books, placed the pelican on the pillow, popped the Ferrero Rocher in her mouth and scuttled out of the cabin with a giggle much younger than her years.
CHAPTER 16
THEIR HEADS ROCKED from side to side in a semi-circle around Ursula. She smacked away the guide’s dirty hands which sought to force the increasingly strained elastic of the hoops around her pelvis. “God bless us and save us, naw! Violated, ye’re making me feel.”
“And you ain’t shoving one of those things up my netherregions, neither,” Louella fumed, arms crossed. “And you ain’t getting me up that mountain. I wanna see my grandkids again.”
A chorus of agreement arose from the others. The guide’s patience had long since fled.
“Don't fret! Is only six meters tall!”
They didn't know what that meant, but their eyes could gauge that the wall was about twenty feet high. Twenty vertical feet of wilting sprigs of plants sticking out of very hard rock. The cougar smiled and raised her hand like she was trying to get a teacher’s attention.
“I’d quite like to have a go up the cliff. It looks great fun! I can’t understand this reluctance everyone seems to be feeling. Surely we’re on this cruise for new and exciting experiences? You can do me up first.”
The guide turned to face the woman, grateful. Ursula trailed the hoops out of his palms.
“Ye told me I was to be first!” she barked as if betrayed, squelching her flesh through the mesh and forcing it around her pelvic bone. She thrust the straps over her shoulders, stood, and snapped the belt around her waist. She stuck a pose for all as she wavered from side to side, hooks clanking around her hips. “Does that be how ye want us all?”
The guide nodded, and there was much clunking of belts and buckles and hooks as everyone harnessed up, shooting daggers at Miss Gung-Ho Brit. But as terrifying as everyone thought clawing at vertical rock would be for their own brittle bones and long-dormant muscles, each was secretly more concerned about how Slim would hoist his tonnage up the cliff before them. The guide put their minds at rest. He singled Slim out with a filthy finger.
“No harness for you. You are belayer. Your job, sit in boat, hold rope, keep straight. Very important job.”
Slim seemed disappointed, stood there in his plaid shirt paired with checkered shorts as he was, ready for action. He slid out of the hoops he had struggled to get past even his ankles.
“My hair!” Louella complained as she struggled into her helmet.
“It'll be great fun,” Ursula countered. “And,” she said to the guide, “I want to be the first to go up and all and Jed I’m not taking naw for an answer.” She eyed the cougar as she said it.
“Then I’m going second,” Louella said, suddenly resolute.
Ursula looked at her in surprise.
The guide nodded, his eagerness increasing. “I show you all how. You follow me.”
He now had his own harness on, ropes threaded through the pulley around his waist. He instructed Slim to sit at the back of the boat and hold the main rope tight with both hands. He explained that his great weight was perfect leverage, and that everyone should have no trouble getting to the top as long as Slim remained committed to the task at hand. But he didn’t use that vocabulary. Slim scowled as he slouched next to the bilge pump and grappled the rope. The guide pranced over the glass bottom towards Ursula. “You will see I pull on bottom rope only. Pull on top rope, you crash and die.”
He tugged at the bottom rope. His skinny butt shimmied up the cliff like Lionel Richie in the Dancing On The Ceiling video. In seconds, he had scrabbl
ed to the top. He stuck his head over the cliff, cackled, and motioned to Ursula.
“Come! Climb!”
Ursula wound her frail hands around the girth of the rope attached to the pulley which disappeared over the top of the cliff. The others’ brains were more concerned with Ursula’s life-or-death climb to give much thought to the sound of the helicopter blades steadily approaching. Ursula wiped the fear from her face and replaced it with a steely resolve. Jed put a hand on her shoulder harness.
“You don’t have to do this, you know, honey.”
She shrugged his hand off.
“Aye, dear,” Her eyes flashed, “I do.”
A groan erupted from deep within her as she tugged on the rope. Her feet lifted from the safety of the boat floor. She hauled herself further and further up the rope. Already her wrists, fingers and shoulders ached. But she wouldn’t give Louella and British Adventure Woman the satisfaction of seeing any discomfort. Especially the Brit.
She let out a fun-filled “Wheeee!” when all she wanted was to scream. Her body spun in the air above their heads. She squealed as her eyelashes prickled dangerously close to the slate wall before them. Her feet scrabbled for little bits of rock to attach themselves to, her ankles ached, her heart raced with fear, her eyes welled with tears, and her mind offered feverish prayers of safety to the Lord, His Son, the Virgin Mary and she threw in another to the Holy Ghost for good measure. This here be’s me true penance for me sins, she whimpered in her brain as she inched up the rock, and if I plummet to me death, that’s as the Lord wants it. So be it.
Those in the boat craned their necks up at Ursula’s spinning rump, the harness straps prisoner in the crevices of her bulging, stretching pants suit slacks, the effects of potato pancakes painfully evident. Her handbag swung from her right elbow. It was a sight their brains would never be able to erase.
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