Mrs. Sooth looked up from the test results, and she was eying Zoë with a look midway between surprise and shock.
Zoë answered with a look of alarm. She placed a hand on her naked throat.
“What? What is it?”
Tendrils of fear crept up her spine.
Mrs. Sooth, eyebrows raised, said in a soothing, calm voice, “Something unexpected to me in the test results. Hopefully not to you, though.”
“What is it?!”
“Were you aware, Mrs. Riddell, that you were pregnant?”
Abject horror seeped into Zoë's eyes. And now she had a heartbeat both irregular and pounding, and also a fear of loss of bladder and bowel control. Enough for two people, in fact. A mother and the child she was suddenly carrying. She brought a fist up to her mouth to quell the scream.
“I'm...?!”
“Unexpected to you also, I gather. Three weeks, in fact. One more week, I suppose, and you would have discovered it for yourself.”
“But...that's impossible! I've not...not...!”
Zoë's mind shrieked, and it echoed into all the chambers of her brain. Mrs. Sooth smiled down at her, and now the smile grated.
“I'm sure you realize,” Mrs. Sooth said, “that that's only happened once in the history of mankind.”
Fifteen minutes later, Inspector McLaughlin and D'Arcy, wowed and slightly intimidated by their surroundings, flashed their badges at Wellness Valley reception. D'Arcy felt like she was clothed in a tattered garbage bag as she asked the receptionist to speak to Zoë Riddell.
“I'm afraid you'll have to come back later,” the supermodel-type girl told them. “She's passed out again.”
* * *
CHAPTER 10
The cold front moved in as darkness fell. Paddy clocked off, handing over the reins of the night shift to the young pimpled lad with the oversized specs who seemed to have no mates. He should have been spending his late teens drinking and dancing, Paddy thought, but sat night after night in the hut instead. Masturbating furiously, if the smell of the hut and the mound of crumpled tissues in the waste basket when Paddy arrived every morning were anything to go by.
Paddy spent half an hour at the bus stop hopping up and down to fend off the cold, plumes of breath shooting from his chattering teeth. His Queen's Greatest Hits denim jacket was too slight for the change in the weather. Two buses pulled up together. He waited to board the second, as he had spied a pack of drunk teens in the first. Heading from the outskirts into the city for the pubs, and already fueled up on their own cheap supermarket cider, with a few Es no doubt thrown down their throats, he suspected. He and the bus driver, who had taken him on this journey many times, exchanged a few good-natured moans about the weather. The heaters in the bus were blazing. When Paddy pushed aside some stuffing and sat on the slashed seat, he was grateful for the heat, but soon the sweat was lashing down him. He shrugged out of his jacket.
The fields turned to rows of houses and corner shops, mostly Sav-U-Mors, and eventually the bus trundled through the graffitied walls of the Moorside, the sketchy neighborhood where he and Fionnuala had eked out a living.
Fionnuala. Now that Paddy had sobered up somewhat, had regained a modicum of reason, he was shocked he had even considered letting her step foot back into the family home. It struck him as typical of her not to answer his call. She was usually her own worst enemy. She probably had some deluded notion that she had done nothing wrong, and the family had betrayed her by casting her out. Let her stew on her own, let her stew to death. He didn't care. He just hoped Maureen hadn't managed to get in touch with her and invite her back home. He'd have to have a private word with his mother-in-law and tell her he had changed his mind. After the Mings.
Paddy said cheerio to the bus driver and hopped off the bus two stops from his own. Tommy Sheerin had told him (over their berries) that he had gotten a call from Bill Ming, and they were holding a pre-wake celebration of sorts for his mother, Eibhleann (pronounced Eve-linn) Ming. She had apparently died that afternoon. Paddy had been saddened. Once, he had sung the Kenny Rogers' part of “Islands In The Stream” with the pensioner at the karaoke when her partner, Mrs. McLaughlin, had been too drunk to get the words out. And Bill Ming was a good mate of his. They had gone to school together, worked the same conveyor belt at the fish packing plant for a few months in 1989, and even been on the same Pub Quiz team, the Know-Not-Muches, a few years back. He had to go pay his respects. And there was sure to be free booze. The Mings lived two streets away from the Floods.
He hurried past a group of hooded teens eying him menacingly through a cloud of marijuana smoke. A stray dog which looked more like an undernourished wolf nipped at his heels, and he kicked it away. He realized he should call the house to invite his mother-in-law. And maybe Padraig and even Seamus. And to tell Siofra to have the fire blazing for when they all returned. He reached into his pocket and pressed his cell phone on. He cursed. His phone was out of power. Och, well, they'd miss the knees-up.
When he rounded the corner, he knew immediately the party was in full swing. The windows were open, to let Mrs. Ming's spirit leave the house, and sounds of a badly-played fiddle, tin whistle, accordion and uilleann pipes blasted down the street. “Danny Boy” segued into “The Last Waltz.” Paddy smiled. He had heard Mrs. Ming sing that as well. It was her signature tune. Fitting now, he thought.
Paddy stepped through the open door into the madness beyond. He knew the Ming's house was packed with people on a normal day. In addition to Mrs. Ming herself, Bill lived there with his wife Greta, Eibhleann's spinster sister Keeva, and Bill's children, son Nollaig and daughters Aednat and Gormla, and the wife and the husbands (Viona, Culkin and Mannix), and all their children, aged eighteen years to six months, Malachi, Keela (and Keela's fella Eddie), Odhran, Nessa, Proinsias, Saoirse, Darragh, Ealga, Blathnaid, Tommy and others; Bill's uncle Aodh, and Mrs. Ming's grand nephew Joe, who was just staying a few months until he 'got himself together.' Now that there was a celebration, the three-bedroom two-story house was like a nightclub. That was violating occupancy laws.
Paddy saw how loved Mrs. Ming was, or had been, the moment he managed to force his way inside. Kisses were planted over his face, a shot of something was thrust in one of his hands, a can of beer in the other, a vol-au-vent in the first hand, and through the throngs of laughing, crying faces—he seemed to have arrived, thankfully, after any keening, had there been any in the first place—through the arms and elbows and screeching children running amok through his legs and the fogs of cigarette smoke and the can cans and weeping, shuddering bodies, he spied Bill keeping control over one area of the sitting room next to where the band were sat squeezed into a corner, their knees touching, a space empty of the teeming masses in front of the non-functional fireplace and between the television and the china cabinet where, Paddy supposed, the coffin should be sitting, with Mrs. Ming's body in it. He was confused. Where was the coffin? Where was the star of the party, Mrs. Ming herself?
“Paddy!” Bill called out over the music. He waved Paddy over, and it was clear even at this distance the man was out of his mind with grief and drink.
Paddy made his way through a field of cleavage and crotches towards his friend.
“Och, I'm wile sorry to hear—”
“Enough! Enough!” Bill sobbed. “Just drink up and enjoy the craic!”
“Where...where, but, does the body of yer mother be?”
“In the morgue.” Bill's voice shuddered with misery. “We've to wait until it be's released by the PSNI and the funds have been secured for to buy a coffin, so if truth be told, the longer they keep her, the more funds we can raise and the nicer the coffin will be. And then everyone can say their last goodbyes.”
“The PSNI?”
“Have ye not heard?” Bill's wife Greta was suddenly at his side, eyes like a panda. “Has yer Fionnuala not filled ye in?”
Paddy didn't know whether to nod his head or shake it, so he just let it sit there on his neck. The
family still hadn't let it be officially known about town that Fionnuala was banished. Paddy wasn't a fool. He figured tongues had wagged all over the Moorside when Fionnuala had been kicked out of the house. Paddy blamed lines, queues. In the lines at the supermarket till, the lines of the post office, the Chinese takeaway and the mini-cabs. What else were people meant to do but gossip? It made the time seem less wasted, the prawn fried rice more delicious. So he figured most of Derry already knew. But it was an open secret, one that the family still had to own up to.
“A hold up! In Final Spinz!” Bill wailed. “That's where me mother met her maker.”
“Terrible heart-scared, so the poor aul woman musta been,” Greta put in. “And I've heard yer wee Siofra was there and all.”
Paddy flinched as if he had been electrocuted.
“She went in there for to get her table cloth seen to, just,” Bill said. “Her most prized possession.”
“Our Siofra?” Paddy sputtered.
“Me mammy!” Bill clarified, as if no other people in the world existed at that moment. Fair play to him, Paddy thought. He'd thought like that as well when his own mammy had died. And his daddy.
“Youghal point,” Greta breathed with pride. “The treasure of her life. We're gonny get it back, once it's been cleaned, of course, and wrap poor Eibhleann in it for her journey to the Pearly Gates. What a lovely way to go.”
“Evidence!” Bill roared. “The fecking Filth has hauled away me mother's only luxury in this life. As evidence! Just like they done to me mammy's body itself! Me mammy's body be's helping the bloody Filth with their inquiries! How are we meant to grieve for her when her body be's being poked and prodded and...and sliced into by some over-educated intellectual git the Filth has shipped over from London? Or, worse, Pakistan!”
“It's shocking!” slurred one passing man.
“Disgraceful!” breathed a woman.
“I'm raging, so I'm are!” Bill ranted. “When I get me hands on them hooligans what robbed the dry cleaners...! Manslaughter, I've no doubt they'll be calling it in their nancy boy courtroom, but murder be's what it is! Murder pure and simple! I'll throttle the necks of them, rip them to bits!” Bill threatened, his fist shaking menacingly towards the ceiling.
Paddy glugged down. A six-year old, who knew who she belonged to, vomited at his feet. Even the children were drunk. He had to catch up. He did. And the next few hours were a blur, except for one exchange he couldn't forget no matter how hard he tried.
He had just left the toilet and was pressed against the door to the airing cupboard in the upstairs landing, trying to catch his breath before braving the crowds on the stairs again. Beyond the bobbing heads, through the cloud of cigarette smoke, he was surprised to see a pair of spears with thin iron blades crossing each other on the wall, and above them, something made of wood that looked like a black man's face stretched in anger. What on earth? They looked like artifacts from a museum, a museum of traditional African art Paddy would never want to venture into even if the entrance was free and there was a free buffet in the café.
He jerked back in alarm as a real face, a white one, appeared before him all of the sudden. A scraggly goatee, John Lennon glasses and a nose ring. It was one of those faces so ravaged from a lifetime of drink, it could've belonged to someone aged anywhere from 26 to 40. The man was wearing a leather vest with no shirt underneath, and his pale, scrawny chest was tattooed with a mermaid. Nipple-length brown hair flowed either side of his unsightly face like corrugated iron. A faint aroma like curdled milk mixed with a backed up toilet rose from him.
“C'mere, are ye not Paddy Flood?”
“Aye.” Paddy weaved before the vulgarian, trying to focus on him and succeeding, just. The creature placed an arm Paddy wanted no part of on his shoulder and lowered his voice conspiratorially.
“Yer Dymphna,” the man slurred into Paddy's nostrils, pressing his finger into Paddy's chest, “yer Dymphna...she's yer daughter, is she not...? Yer Dymphna? That wee girl what used to work down the fish and chip van next to the Guildhall? What sells them bacon and mushroom pies?”
Paddy finally had the presence of mind to be wary. Was this yet another in a long line of shoddy males that his daughter had somehow bedded?
“Aww,” Paddy moaned. His body slumped in defeat. “Don't tell me she spread her—”
“Chance'd be a fine thing!” The man's eyes were goggling. “Naw, but. But, but...Maybe the wee girl needs me to get me leg over her. Or any lad. Desperate for a right manly shag, she must be.”
“C'mere a wee moment—!” Rage filled Paddy, but he was too drunk to form his hands into fists. They stayed wrapped around the cups of alcohol.
“Calm yerself down. Hypothetical, I'm speaking about now. Did ye, did ye not know... did ye not hear her fella, that poncy minted Orange feck, had it off today with that bleedin pervy nancy boy from the Top-Yer-Trolley? That O'Toole poofter? Fingers up arses, huge wads of steaming jip shooting up and down the length of his Armani suit, all sorts they got up to. In the arse bandit's office during dinner time today. Did ye not hear?”
Paddy was reeling in horror. “Naw!”
“Broadcast all over the Tannoy, so it was. Me bird, Kyra was in the, in the, what do ye all it, off by the frozen foods, her hands on a packet of fish fingers, when she heard it. She told me all about it. About, about the grunts and moans and I dunno what else sick-inducing noises of sinful perversions. She flung the fish fingers back into the freezer and raced out, so she did. Lost her appetite. I would've and all. I did, actually. Felt the sick shooting straight up me throat, so I did. Had to swallow it back down. Skipped me dinner, so I did. Yer Dymphna, but, what's she doing, doing, shacked up with a fella what kyanny pleasure her? A lad what would bend over, grip his arse cheeks, pry them apart and—”
“Bejeus, man!” Paddy roared, knocking him away, but there wasn't much room for the wretch's body to travel, so many revelers were pressed against them. “Me ears kyanny unhear what ye've just told them! Ye've no idea the images I've now in me mind that can never be erased! Stop now! Stop it!”
The man weaved back and forth, shrugging his shoulders and licking his lips. “I'm just the messenger, hi. Just thought ye ought to know. The whole town be's buzzing about it, like. Forewarned be's forearmed.”
Even with the current state of his mind, Paddy could see from the man's face there was no malice in what he was saying. Just information a father should know. And now he realized the somewhat guarded look some in the party that night had been giving him. He'd thought he was turning paranoid. He was repulsed at what he had just heard, but he was grateful.
“Who did ye say ye were, anyroad?” Paddy asked.
“Joe O'Day.” Joe extended a hand somewhat, but Paddy wouldn't touch it. “Eibhleann's me great aunt, hi. Me mammy be's the daughter of Eibhleann's other sister, Biddy. She died on the Zeebrugge ferry back in '87, so she did. Off on her holidays to Belgium, so she was. She loved them fancy chocolates. Don't love them no more, but.”
Feeling soiled, Paddy realized he had to get home. He nodded a goodbye to the peculiar Joe and forced his way down the stairs. As the band (which had been getting progressively less tuneful as more whiskey passed their singing lips) broke into “Four Green Fields,” Paddy pushed his way through the masses shrieking both with laughter and misery down the stairs, through the hordes in the hallway, and the droves around the front door. The hall stand had been knocked over, its drawers slung onto the threadbare carpeting, and drunken toddlers were chewing on the variety of missals and Bibles and rosary beads and some hymnals that had been lifted from St. Moulag's. They had spilled out and were scattered everywhere his feet tread. He stepped into the frigid air and screamed as an alien astronaut appeared before him.
Though it wasn't an alien astronaut. It was a courier in a black motorcycle helmet and padded clothing. The visor was up, barely.
“This is for the aul one in there,” he said, pressing a brown envelope into Paddy's hands. Paddy was sur
prised. What shady courier company would deliver at that bizarre hour of the evening? He tried to call out, but the man was gone through the overgrown weeds that were the front garden. Paddy didn't even see a motorcycle.
He made his way back over the children and through the hallway, poked his head into the sitting room, couldn't see Bill's distinctive bald head in the crowd there, and so made his way to the kitchen, where all the best parties ended up. Bill was propped against the stove, Proinsias in one arm, Blathnaid in the other, Proseco in one hand, Jameson in the other, and all three were singing a wince-inducing and mournful “Mountains of Mourne.”
“A delivery for ye, mucker,” Paddy said. Mucker , friend.
Bill's eyes widened with surprise.
“At this hour?”
“Och, actually, but, it was for yer mammy.”
“Nawwww!” Heads turned from all four corners at the wail that erupted from deep within Bill's throat, and the cries of dread that arose from his sisters on either side. Their grief drowned out both the band and the dance music that was blasting from the radio atop the refrigerator. “The Royal Mail did this deliberately!” Bill caterwauled.
“It was a courier, but,” Paddy said.
Bill fell to his knees on the floor, and all the laughter and babbling and music from the band in the sitting room ground to a stop. The only sound was the intro to Rizzle Kicks' “Mama Do The Hump.” Someone snapped the radio off. A crowd of people, all of them clutching cigarettes and drinks, was forming around Bill. His sisters either side had burst into tears and were staring down at the envelope clutched in Bill's reddened fists.
“It's me mammy's delivery!” he moaned, his face stretched with rage and dismay.
As a collective gasp rang out around him, Paddy wondered what this delivery might be. Unable to look any of the suddenly grieved mourners in the eye, he stared at a tile next to Bill's left knee. He wasn't too drunk to realize he was in the middle of a private family tragedy. On the tile was a mushed vol-au-vent next to a crushed plastic cup with a few droplets of rose wine left in it.
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