“Och, ye're talking outta yer backside, you! Where've ye heard all that nonsense from?”
But now Dymphna's eyes were shifting from side to side.
“Aha!” Rory yelled with sardonic glee. “I see it on yer face! The guilt!”
“Naw!” Dymphna gasped. She snatched the butt of her cigarette and relighted it. His face was lost in a cloud of smoke. “I've not a clue what ye're on about. An Italian, ye say? Sure, Greenornge speaks English like we do! How could he if—?”
Rory yelped and jumped up from his chair. Dymphna jerked back in shock.
“Me phone,” he said. “Set to vibrate.”
He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it.
“Unknown number. Who could it be? Maybe one of the fathers of one of them wanes...”
As Dymphna gurgled a noise, Rory answered the phone. Tersely. “Hello? Who's this, hi?...” She saw his face stretch with concern. “The hospital? But...what?!” And shock. “Are ye—aye, okay. Thank feck for that. Aye....aye...aye. I'll come right now...naw.” And a bit of relief. “Aye. Aye? Aye! But ye must be wile afeared— How much? ...and yer wedding band and all?” And rage. “I'll wring the throats of the bloody bastards! Aye, Mammy. Aye...aye. Get yerself better then. Aye. Cheerio.”
Dymphna was agog.
“What was all that about?” she asked as Rory hung up. He was startled to see her at his side. She placed a hand on his shoulder. She felt him tense.
“It was me Mammy.” He seemed shaken. “There was a hold up today in Final Spinz!”
Dymphna gasped.
“Ye're joking!”
“Three masked men with weapons barged in. Made off with the takings. Stripped me mammy of all her bits and bobs. And everyone else in there.” Rory was making his way to the kitchen. “Och, I need a cuppa for to calm me nerves. I'm that shattered about what I heard.” Cuppa , cup of tea.
Dymphna padded after him.
“Wh-what about me mammy?” she asked, her voice pinched with concern. “She has her shift there always on a Wednesday.”
“I-I didn't think to ask. Me mammy didn't say.” He flicked on the kettle. His fingers trembled. “Yer Siofra was there, but.”
“Our Siofra?” Dymphna was reaching for two cups in the cupboard and paused, her face even more pale than it usually was. “Wh-what would she be doing at Final Spinz? Sure, the wee girl's no clothes what need dry cleaning! Maybe that Irish dancing costume of hers, but she gave it up years ago...” She set the cups on the counter with a clatter and opened the fridge for her cream and Rory's soy milk.
“Oh! And there was a death and all.”
“A de...?!” The cartons almost slipped from her hand. She was almost too scared to ask, but she did: “Who perished, hi?”
“I don't know. Me ma didn't say. Somebody did, but, or she thought. She passed out and woke up in the hospital, so she wasn't sure.”
“Died? Killed in the hold up? Murdered? In cold blood?”
“I can only imagine so.” His forehead was wrinkled with sudden worry. “I hope it doesn't affect trade.”
It was as if he had just punched Dymphna in the face.
“Affect...! Have ye not a clue who this murdered 'somebody' might be? Me mammy? Our Siofra?!”
“She didn't say.”
“Didn't care, more like! Why did ye not ask her? Ye see you, yer only concern be's yer mammy and her bank account! And me conquests before we was even married!”
“Och, go on away a that!”
“Yer mammy didn't care who was killed, and that I know, and shall I tell ye why I know that, then?”
Rory sighed like a martyr of any denomination. He plucked teabags out of a box and popped them into the waiting cups. “Go on ahead, love.”
“Ye know as well as I do only Catholics go to Final Spinz. The Proddies all drop their gear off at Shiny Hangers here in the Waterside. Yer mammy didn't care who died because, for all she knew, it was a Catholic what perished, and to yer mammy a Catholic be's only two thirds of a human being, like them freed Yank slaves and the voting and whatnot. Naw, it was three fifths of a person, they was considered.”
“I'm surprised to hear ye say that!”
“That yer mammy sees us Catholics as less than human? Right enough, she—”
Rory scowled. “Naw, that ye knew them facts about the Yank slaves.”
Dymphna exploded. “Thick as them turnips congealing on them plates back there, ye think I am! I'm not, but!” And now she scowled and shoveled scoop after scoop of sugar into her cup, then added half a teaspoon to Rory's.
“Ring her!” Dymphna roared. “Ring Mammy Zoë back now and ask who died.”
“I kyanny. It was an unknown number. Musta been a payphone in the hospital.”
“Are there still payphones?”
“Might be. In hospitals. Enough signs saying no mobile phones.”
The tea was finally ready. Rory took a sip, then almost spit it out. “And...Christ! It happened at dinner time! I was at Final Spinz and all, just outside! Me hand was even on the knob. I thought I heard an odd noise or two.” Rory slapped his forehead. “Why did I not enter? Why did I just stand there with me hand on the knob?”
With all the talk about hands on knobs, one part of Dymphna wanted to blurt out “Is it O'Toole ye're talking about now?” but she burst into tears instead. “Me mammy! I hope she's not the dead one! Och, I know we're not meant to speak to her. I know we're meant to hate her. Sure, she doesn't really like me, anyroad. I mind the day I first found her wee book of lists. Christmas Day, no less! A day meant to be full of happiness, love and cheer. The rest of the family was all sitting around the telly, spitting at it as the Queen's speech was on. It was broadcast between the Top of the Pops end-of-the-year rundown and the holiday special of Downton Abbey, ye understand, and aside from going to the loo, there was nothing for us all to do during them fifteen minutes but to watch it. Anyroad, I was in the scullery, basting the turkey, and maybe I was mashing the spuds and all, I kyanny recall correctly. But I found her wee black book behind the bread bin. I thought it might contain phone numbers of me mammy's fancy men. Not that I could imagine that she had any, but ye know yerself how some can find the most odd things sexually attractive. I had a wee juke inside. It didn't contain phone numbers, but. It contained lists. Weekly lists. Of her favorite wanes every week. Stretched back years, so it did. And there was me brother Lorcan, number one week after week. And sometimes Eoin and even Padraig got to the top spot. And even once the eldest, me sister Moira. Even though she be's a beanflicker, me mammy had her number one for a few weeks in 2012. I mind it was when Moira sent a Titanic Special Edition video to her for her birthday. I flipped through page after page after page. Never once did I get higher than number three. Number three! And there only be's seven of us!”
“That's terrible, Dymphna.”
“That they spit at the Queen? I know ye love her, love how she's never without her handbag, yet never has a penny in it, but—”
“Naw! Yer mammy and her lists. And how ye was never higher than number three.”
Dymphna was grateful. “Ye've no idea how much it hurt. And how much I've done for me mammy, trying to get to number one on her list. But no matter what I do, it seems like it'll never happen. How me heart grieves. But I love her anyroad. And I've to see if she's okay. I've to see if she be's still living. And our Siofra.”
Dymphna marched back into the dining room and picked up her iPhone, which was sitting beside her plate. She had been the first in the family to get one, and it had been celebrated, well, more envied and resented, as much as if she had been the first to graduate college. She was only the first of the family to get one by legal means, though, as Lorcan and Eoin had purchased theirs through money from drug deals, Padraig had shoplifted one, though he could never get it unlocked. Maybe Moira had one, but nobody cared about her; she had left Derry for Malta so long ago that iPhones hadn't even been invented then.
There was no answer from her mammy. The
n she tried her da, but there was no answer from him either. Then she tried the house phone. No answer from any of them.
“Rory!” Dymphna cried, fingers and lips trembling. “I'm heart-scared, so I'm are. Nobody be's answering anywhere! Could they all be dead?”
He finished his tea, and hurried over to her side. “Could we not just call the police and ask them who it was what died? Surely they have the details?”
Dymphna snorted through her tears. “Typical Orangeman's response!” She pushed him away from her. “Naw! Of course we kyanny go the Filth! Are ye a headcase? Me fingers aren't ever gonny dial their number!”
“Let's try to look up the details online.” Rory spoke into his iPhone, to Siri. “Lo—er, Derry, Northern Ireland, Final Spinz, robbery, death.”
They goggled down at the screen, but the connection was too slow. Dymphna could stand it no longer. “Och, that's flimmin useless, so it is! I've to get the information the old-fashioned way. Face to face. From the horse's mouth. I've to get meself into a mini-cab and make me way over to the Moorside.”
Rory tried to caress her shoulders, but she knocked his hands away. She dialed a mini-cab firm and barked the address down the line. She slipped her phone into her pocket.
“Let me outta here. I need to see Siofra's wee smiling face, make sure the wee dote be's alright. I'm never gonny make it out to that caravan where me mammy's holed up, a mini-cab there will cost a bomb, but hopefully someone in the family knows if she be's dead or not. I'm away off. How I want ye to come with me. Somebody, but, needs to stay here to look after the wanes.”
She gripped his arms and looked deep into his eyes.
“Rory, do ye think everything's gonny be alright? Tell me ye think everything's gonny be alright.”
It seemed Rory didn't know which 'everything' she was talking about. The lives of her family? Their relationship? Greenornge's father? But he nodded and brushed some curls from her face.
“Aye, Dymphna. Everything's gonny be alright.”
She ran to the door, but tripped over a bulky package in the hallway.
“What the bleedin hell?” she moaned, massaging her shin. “What the feck be's that?”
“Och, it was delivered this afternoon. Did ye not see it? It's a wee present for the wanes from me mammy.”
Dymphna stared.
“Did I miss one of their birthdays?”
“Naw. A wee present for...nothing.”
“What does it be, but?”
“An ionizer. For the nursery. It'll make the wanes' air cleaner.”
As she forced herself into a parka, Dymphna wailed anew. “How much cleaner does that woman want to make the air? Soon there won't even be air in the air! A vacuum, she has them growing up in! We've that flimmin alien humidifier, that flippin useless vaporizer and now a...a...what did ye call it?”
“Ionizer.”
“A laboratory, yer mammy's changing that nursery into! We've more gadgets and machines up there now than they do in that tunnel in Sweden what smashes the atoms together! What the bloody hell does this new Proddy monstrosity be for? To make me wanes fluent in Arsehole before they're six? Control their minds so's they fear the sign of the cross? Make them grow up to be Proddy bastards? I'll not have another machine in that nursery! I won't stand for it, ye hear me? In the rubbish!”
She grabbed the box and trailed it through the hallway, opened the door, dragged it through the front garden, around the corner and shoved it in the wheelie bin.
Rory stood at the front door and wondered. “Aye,” he muttered. “Ye said it right yerself, Dymphna. Yer wanes. And that tunnel be's in Switzerland.”
Maybe everything wasn't going to be alright after all.
* * *
CHAPTER 13
Miles away, many miles away, the howl of a stray dog echoed through the deep, cold, black night. Out here, it was even darker than in Derry. There was no yellow glow from sodium lamp posts, and not because children had flung rocks at them and put them out. There were no lamp posts out here. No light at all.
Fionnuala snapped shut the new pay-as-you-go phone she had shoplifted from the Sav-U-Mor around the corner from Final Spinz. Her previous attempts had been less than stellar recently, but desperation had put her back in the groove, improved her thieving skill to those of ten years earlier, when the stock of no shop in Derry had been safe from her and the seemingly endless depths of her Celine Dion “My Heart Will Go On” Tour Titanic satchel. She threw the phone on the warped piece of wood balanced on four stacks of canned vegetables for legs that was her dining table. Her only table. The only piece of furniture in the dump except the milk crate she sat on as a chair, and the plank of less warped wood that was her bed. At least that had a mattress. Thin, lumpy, littered with stains from Fionnuala dared not wonder what, but a mattress. With a real sheet and blanket.
The tiny window of the caravan looked out at nothing. Fionnuala snapped shut the 'curtain,' a washcloth-sized piece of rag that looked like it had once been a bib. There was a faded drawing of a cherry-cheeked baby smiling on it. The 'curtain rod' was a piece of string, wound around a screw on one side of the window and a bent nail on the other.
She looked at the newspaper before her with some trepidation. The new copy she had bought with the Filth's pound coin. She had spent the remaining fifty pee on a packet of salt and vinegar potato chips. She turned to page seven and read the article again. Each word still stunned her. Well, not 'the' or 'a,' but what the words said together. What they meant. For mankind.
Fionnuala lowered her head into her arms. A strange, strangled sound rose from her withered lips. She didn't know what it was. It seemed to have never been formed by her vocal chords before. Droplets of water landed on her arms. She cursed. The fecking ceiling? Leaking again? She raised her head an inch. It seemed too heavy to lift it any higher. And she was surprised. The ceiling wasn't leaking. She was crying.
Everything was a misery. She had been the victim of a crime. And she had witnessed the death of her babysitter. And the Filth had put her through the wringer, or tried to, in any event, with their snide, prying questions and knowing secret nods and the sneers on their hateful intellectual smart arse faces.
Bless wee Siofra for reaching out. The little girl had never risen to number one in Fionnuala's lists of her favorite children (she had peaked at number two for seven weeks in early 2011), and she was a bit too smart for her own good, and she needed to do something with that hair of hers, and her voice sometimes grated on Fionnuala's nerves, and sometimes Fionnuala smacked her for clacking her teeth, especially at the dinner table, as it was like nails on a chalkboard to Fionnuala, and she wanted to smack her even more when the girl looked up at her as if she thought her mother were dim-witted, and recently she had refused to go to any of the corner shops to shoplift Fionnuala's tights for her, but Siofra had reached out. Thank bloody Christ!
But that sparkle of hope had dwindled within her now. Why hadn't Paddy answered her call? Maybe the unknown number had scared him. He probably thought it was a bill collector. But what bill collector would call at...she looked at her watch...it was broken. What bill collector would call at such a late hour?
And she was an outcast. All over some little misunderstanding. How could her family all have turned against her, circled the wagons as she and they together had always loved to do to everyone else, the Flood family's default mode. Padraig, she could understand. He had no heart. But Paddy? Her mother? Seamus?
Fionnuala hadn't wanted to kill her oldest son, Lorcan, when she started slipping a few toxins into his mashed potatoes, a little oven cleaner in his slice of Dymphna's wedding cake. She had only wanted to make him too weak to flee the city, flee her beloved country. Why had he wanted to emigrate to the Yanks in Florida and their ice cubes and air conditioning? And why couldn't her husband, Paddy, see it? Her own mother Maureen? Dymphna she could understand not understanding, the girl was as dense as a brick, and Seamus was only six and still couldn't talk. But now she couldn't
understand Padraig. He enjoyed a bit of violence, a bit of criminal activity. If what Fionnuala had done was a crime, and she still wasn't sure it was—rather, it had been to her an attestation of a mother's love for her son, and one Fionnuala thought every good mother would do well to replicate—Padraig should surely understand. She should be one of his biggest heroes. Or so she thought.
That left only Moira, but she lived in Malta and was a lesbian. Though that of course was also a crime, the Bible said so, regardless of how they were trying to change the laws and make it a crime no more. It had been a crime for centuries, and now they suddenly wanted to make it legal, respectable: gay and lesbian characters were popping up in all the soaps Fionnuala used to love so much but now couldn't stomach, couldn't trust, because nowadays the gay and lesbian characters, the arse bandits and bean flickers, were introduced not as villains or monsters but as regular people of the neighborhood, criminals that the telly wanted viewers to believe should be able to buy their tea bags at the corner shop unfettered! That would not happen in the perfect town of Fionnuala's mind, never in the town of Fionnuala's mind. Give her a shocking, brutal and well-deserved queer bashing any day. It made for better drama.
The outcast. She suddenly realized she blamed Ursula Barnett, her husband's—ex-husband's?—sister. Her sister-in-law. If Ursula hadn't flown over from the States for Dymphna's wedding, the holier-than-thou minted cunt would've never found the oven cleaner in Fionnuala's handbag, would have never realized what was going on, never discovered she had planned to add a bit to Lorcan's slice of wedding cake. Fionnuala would've never been banished to the caravan, and she would've never had to take the job at the dry cleaners. She wouldn't even have been there on the day. Yet she had been. And the Filth now had her under their microscope. They would torture her in that all-too-familiar interrogation room at five o'clock the next day.
Aye! Ursula Barnett was to blame! Fionnuala dried her tears. She didn't know Ursula's number, it was Yank and had too many numbers. It hadn't even been on her old phone—she had deleted it years ago—so Fionnuala wouldn't even have been able to call the bitch to roar abuse down the line at her. Place blame where blame needed to be placed.
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