Static Cling

by Gerald Hansen

  Zoë had no need whatsoever for the FoodSaver vacuum sealer, not even a special deluxe one. But it had been a free gift with the purchase of her latest Dyson (she always bought a new one for the home housekeeping staff every year; she wanted her floors to be cleaned by the best). It had languished away, unused, in the back of a cupboard. She never saw it, but sometimes late at night she thought of it and wondered about the world at large. Holding the swab with Rory's spittle well away from her cellphone—she had heard they were breeding grounds for all sorts of germs and vermin—she had called the main housekeeper and asked her to come in for a few minutes of overtime. To help her use the bizarre machine.

  If the housekeeper thought vacuum sealing a Q-Tip was odd, she didn't let it show. She knew who signed her checks. Zoë watched from a distance, transfixed between wonder and perplexity, as the housekeeper showed her how the machine worked. Zoë gathered this recherche saving of food with the FoodSaver involved placing an item, presumably leftover food, into a plastic bag, sticking the open part of the bag into the machine, closing a lid, pressing a button, and watching as the air was sucked out of the bag while a horrid noise filled her kitchen. Then the bag was tugged out, magically sealed.

  The woman turned to Zoë, Q-Tip balanced in bright yellow gloves Zoë supposed she wore when cleaning and mopping and things.

  “Ma'am?”

  “Yes?”

  “There be's a special feature with this machine. Dry and moist settings. Would ye like this, er, this item sealed dry or moist?”

  Zoë looked at her in marvel.

  “I wouldn't have thought that an option. I suppose, as it's the spittle we need to preserve, we should use moist.”

  Now, in a compartment of her LV clutch next to a Sephora lipstick sat the vacuum packed, hermetically sealed plastic bag containing a cotton swab. And on that swab were the cells that would reveal all.

  She leaned back in the plush armchair of the plane, took a sip of Hendricks, which she had been happy to see the mini-bar was stocked with, and closed her eyes. Her ears tried to disregard the animal-like sounds of the creatures in the back of the plane. This trip defied logic. And Zoë had always prided herself on being logical. Passionless. Forensic. Android-like, even. And with good reason: it took a robot, more aptly, a robot-woman, to smash her way through the male dominated business world and annihilate the opposition. Of course, she had had her husband Terrence, and theirs hadn't been a passionless pairing per se—there was Rory as proof of at least thirty seconds of passion—but when she was focused, physical desires seemed adolescent, a puerile activity, a mindless pursuit. But something had taken hold of her at the launch a few weeks earlier.

  Paddy Flood had made her feel like a giggly schoolgirl as they had stood there by the photocopier, with him brimming with all his working-class virility, no sign of the soupçon of prissiness that seemed to infect most men in her business world. As this real man stood there rattling off anecdotes in his urban argot of all the horrors that he really shouldn't have been telling her about the Pence-A-Day lockups—a man who had been kicked out by his wife living in one of them like a caveman!—Paddy made her feel like young for the first time in her life, and she had woken up the next morning with the same horror she imagined many of her school mates had when they had snogged a lad in their class. She had always looked down on them from up on high, with slight distaste, but with a bit of clinical interest in the intricacies of human sexual response. Zoë had never giggled as a schoolgirl.

  Women of a certain age make mistakes and want to reinvent themselves. Zoë was a woman of a certain age. Now, she couldn't quench the excitement, the broodiness, this surprise conception made her feel. She felt like a woman for the first time. So, yes, she had the typical male linear logic, but this was now being tempered by the peculiar—to her—circular reasoning most women were born with (at least the non-lesbian ones).

  What would she call the child? This love child? A love child, at her age! She almost tittered into her Hendricks and tonic. She wondered if she would be embarrassed when she asked Vera to conduct a pregnancy test. As Terrence's sister, perhaps Vera would be disapproving. Or maybe, as a woman of a certain age as well, she would understand.

  The alternatives were too sordid to think of. She wouldn't be caught dead going into her preferred chemists and handing a pregnancy test over across the counter to be rung up on the till. The mortification. She felt 18, or perhaps an adventurous 16. Yes, Wellness Valley had already told her she was pregnant, and with certainty, and they were at the forefront of medicine, as so they should be, the amount they charged! But Zoë still wanted a second, independent opinion, even if it was done with her own hand. Certainly not from the chemist's. But there seemed something unseemly about plucking a pregnancy test from at shelf of the Top-Yer-Trolley, placing it in a basket with someone else's wilting lettuce leaves, and the handles having been touched by God alone only knew what types of people, couldn't wear gloves because of the unseasonable heat, carrying it to the till with all of Derry looking on. In fact, it seemed to her there was something unseemly about even walking through the door of Top-Yer-Trolley in any event. No matter how many organic selections they had started offering at their meat and cheese counter and how many Michelin star chefs had designed the new Heat At Your Own Home section. Zoë threw back her head and emptied the rest of the drink down her throat. The ice cubes clinked together in the empty crystal glass.

  The LearJet began its descent.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 23

  St. Fintan's was located in the city center, sandwiched between the betting shop and the homeless center. As such, it was particularly vulnerable to down-and-out non-parishioners dropping in seeking, they claimed at first, spiritual guidance and advice, but it was soon revealed they were only after alms, a punch-up, or perhaps the key to the cabinet that held the holy blood of Christ. As undesirable as these walk-ins from next door right and next door left were—and they were, very—there was one walk-in recently that had become even more so to parish secretary Yootha McFleming. And she spied the vulgarian now. With a snarl, Yootha scuttered away from her desk and poked her head through the rectory door.

  “Eh! Father!”

  “Yootha!”

  Father Steele hid the scratch card under his hand and tried to make it appear he was looking up from a sermon he was writing.

  “I'm sorry to spoil yer evening, but that woman is here again.” Yootha's voice was laced with disapproval. “I told her ye was busy. But ye know what the madwoman's like.”

  Father Steele did indeed. He sighed, made a show of 'saving his file,' then steeled himself for what would soon be clomping through the door.

  “Let her in, Yootha.”

  “If ye've pressing business ye need to attend to, and I'm sure ye have, I can always—”

  “Matthew 5:42, Yootha. 'Give to those who ask.' And I fear she's not gonny take no for an answer, anyroad.”

  “Aye, but ye've been doing nothing but giving and giving and giving to that aul misery guts lately. She's not even from our parish, sure!” Yootha protested. “Not only that, isn't she one of them who is meant to come for that 'counseling' tomorrow and all?” Her eyes flashed their disgust.

  “I think she's from no parish, Yootha. Not now. Yer woman has loads of problems. Her family tossed her out and are forcing her to live in the caravan park up the Colraine Road. The middle of nowhere. No church for miles. She works at Final Spinz, so our church is the closest. And I did marry her daughter, so there's that. In a butcher's shop, to be sure, but—”

  “Aye. Married that wench to a non-believer. And not here at St. Fintan's!” Father Steele opened his mouth, but Yootha barreled on. “If ye don't mind me saying, Father, I have a sneaking suspicion as to what yer woman out there be's up to in here. Spiritual guidance, me arse! Forgive me foul language, Father, but I'm spitting with rage! That's what the sight of her does to me! Ye don't understand what be's going on, Father. Aye, ye may be the incarnation of Go
d on Earth, but ye're a man. Definitely a man. And there are some ways of women that might pass ye by. It's not yer fault, Father. Only us women knows about these things, and I'm a woman, so I am, so I know what I'm on about. Yer woman only comes banging on yer door, not to seek spiritual enlightenment, like, but to feast her eyes on yer...lovely face.”

  Father Steele frequently damned his good looks. If the Bible hadn't told him his body was a temple, he would've poured acid on his high cheekbones and full-bodied lips, torn out his shock of blue-black hair, gouged out his deep blue eyes. Then stood there in the pulpit preaching the gospel in that hideous state without wondering if there were ulterior motives amongst the female members of his flock for attending Sunday mass.

  He waved away Yootha's comment and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “A bit less of that, if you don't mind, Yootha. Please send yer woman in.”

  “If ye're certain, Father. If she's gonny cause ye no misery.”

  “I'm certain. Bring her here. Ta for being so, er, faithful to me, Yootha.”

  Yootha scurried away, half narked, half beaming.

  Moments later, the door banged open and Fionnuala Flood clomped with an air of urgency and much self-importance across the flagstones of the rectory floor. She collapsed in the seat across from Father Steele's desk, waving a newspaper.

  “Father! Have ye read this article? A disgrace, so it is! A national disgrace! It's got the blood pure percolating throughout me veins, so it does!”

  With the air of a kindly father, though he was barely older than some of her children, Father Steele told Fionnuala to calm down and to explain why she was there.

  “First of all, Father, before it slips me mind, I've got some more information to reveal to ye about one of the neighbors. Ye know that Eibhleann Ming? Not in yer parish, I know, but perhaps ye can send me information on to Father Flannery at St. Moulag's. If I don't see him first.”

  “What about her?” Father Steele asked with some surprise. “Hasn't she passed away? In fact, tomorrow, I'm meant to—”

  “Aye. Dead as a doormat, or a doornail, or a doorknob, or whatever it is, the poor dear. A door-something, in any event. The aul one was terrible kind, terrible Christian to me when I was a wane. Perhaps if she was still living, I wouldn't bring this up to ye, but there's others what's not dead that be's involved. And that ye and the bishop and whoever all else ought to be having a close look at. Before Mrs. Ming died—I was there in the dry cleaner's, ye know...”

  “Aye, when I heard, I thought—”

  “Anyroad, she brought in a lovely Youghal point tablecloth she claimed be's original, though I've me doubts. Brought it in to be cleaned, like.”

  “And?”

  “And ye shoulda seen the state of it! Never in me life have I set eyes on such filth. Never, Father! And ye'd never believe what yer woman told me!”

  “I'm sure I wouldn't, no.”

  “She told me she and her sister Keeva were...were...” Fionnuala looked around the office to ensure nobody was listening in. She leaned her head forward and hissed across the desk, barely perceptibly, “...dabbling in the black arts! And the age of them both! Well, I don't mind telling ye, I've always wondered how that Keeva still manages to be breathing. Close to a hundred and ten, she must be. Fit as a fiddle, but. Looks not a day over eighty-five and all. Now I understand, but, if she's signed a pact with, well...ye know...”

  Father Steele was still gawping at Fionnuala.

  “B-but...” he sputtered. “What sort of black arts are ye on about?”

  “Séances!” She said it as if it were genocide. “And I think I heard her mentioning one of them Ouija boards and all. And, Father, I got all that outta yer woman as she had gotten wax from the séance on the tablecloth. Black wax.” Fionnuala peered at him meaningfully. She was strangling the newspaper with her fists. “I ask ye, who nowadays would buy a black candle? Aye, maybe them Goth teens, but when ye're a woman with one foot in the grave...”

  Fionnuala seemed disappointed Father Steele wasn't shocked or outraged. He was sitting calmly at his desk still. She unclenched the newspaper in her lap, cleared her throat, and adjusted herself in her chair, now in a pose she had learned in the book How To Be A Lady, with one ankle crossed behind the other.

  “I just thought ye should know,” she finally said in a voice that tried but failed to be carefree. “Anyroad. I've done me duty and given ye the information. What ye choose to do with it be's up to you. My conscience, at least, be's clear.” Father Steele seemed unaffected by the little barb, the jibe. He kept smiling at her. Fionnuala wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The face underneath seemed to be saying she hadn't expect a pat on the head or a merit badge, but a thank you at least would have been nice. So he gave her one.

  “Ta, Mrs. Flood. I'll see what I can do with this...information of yers. I'm wile grateful, so I'm are.”

  Fionnuala relaxed perceptibly. Eyes fluttering, head a bit bent, she muttered something he couldn't catch. Then she uncrumpled the newspaper and held it aloft, pushing it through the air across the desk at him.

  “This be's what I'm here for, but. That other about the witches in our midst was just a wee extra, like. Would ye look at that, Father? Would ye read it?”

  Father Steele did.

  CHURCH ATTENDANCE IN SOUTH AT ALL-TIME LOW

  His eyes did not grow wide with shock. “Aye,” he agreed with a sorrowful shake of the head. “A terrible tragedy, indeed. And one, which I'm sure ye must be aware of, I know all about meself. We can only—”

  “Shocking, so the numbers are, Father! In 1984, so it says, ninety percent—that's ninety percent!—” spittle sprayed from her lips “of all them down in the Republic went to mass on a Sunday. Just like us up here. In 2011, but, it was, och! I'm disgraced to say out loud, even. I've to whisper it.” Father Steele leaned over as she whispered a mournful “Eighteen percent” across his desk. “And now,” she said, in a louder and much more strident tone, “it's gone even lower! They don't know by how much, but, I ask ye, Father, how much lower can it have gone? Into the single digits?”

  Father Steele sighed. “I'll ask ye to calm yerself, Mrs. Flood, if ye can.”

  It looked like the last thing the woman across the desk was at that moment capable of. Her face was stretched with outrage, the tendons of her neck popping out like cables, her cheeks seeping with red blotches, her eyes glinty. “I've spent the nights tossing and turning in that slab of wood that functions as me bed, I told ye about that before. Me bed, I mean. I kyanny get me head around it, Father. And now...now...with this weather, when it be's like darkest Africa here in Derry, I think it be's a sign. Armageddon is coming, Father.”

  “Och, Mrs. Flood, that be's only global warming, sure. And some says the reason for the decline in church attendance in the South be's due to the allegations of—”

  “Naw! Naw!” Fionnuala yelled, hands on her ears. “I don't wanny hear them lies! I don't want them words to exit yer mouth! Ireland be's the Catholic country, Father! Well, Ireland and Italy, I suppose. That's where it all began, over there with them wops, after all. But how can our dear Ireland be the Catholic country if them down there don't visit the church on a Sunday no more? The pews up here still be's heaving. Maybe not on holy days and such, but I mind a time, when I was still at home and went to St. Moulag's in the Moorside, I had to stand in the back as I came late in and there was no place for me in any of the pews that I could spy. I don't know about the other churches in other parts of Derry. But in the Moorside, the churches is still packed. Are we the only ones left? Don't tell me all the other churches in Derry be's empty and all?”

  “Naw, Mrs. Flood. Ye can set yerself at ease. The decline up here in the North doesn't be as pronounced as in the South. Some says it's because—”

  “Who be's this bloody fecking 'some?' This 'some what says?'”

  “Them what does the reports. Some says that going to church still be's popular up here because, as ye know yerself, w
ith the Troubles, we had to fight for our religion. We take it closer to our hearts as we had to fight to keep it. We was...was...like persecuted for our beliefs up here in the North. In the South, but, they was like the landed gentry. And when, down South, these allegations starting coming out in the 1990s—”

  “Silence! Flimmin effin lies!” Again, the woman's hands were clamped round her ears. “It doesn't be that! I know what it be's! I know what's to blame!”

  Her face was contorted as if thoughts were spewing and shooting into her brain from she knew not where.

  Father Steele seemed almost afraid to ask, but he went ahead, much against his better judgment: “What do ye think?”

  “Them pop songs of the day! And them videos! And them video games! Satan does indeed be taking hold of our beloved Ireland, and, Father, it be's a crisis much worse than the Troubles ever was, as back then, they had blown one another up, aye, but the battle was of the bodies. This, but, be's a battle of the minds. The evil now be's spreading in all that rap music and all them vulgar films, and the devil be's winning, Father. And, Father, let me ask ye something. Have ye any clue where all them rap songs and pop songs and video games and films all be's made? Shall I tell ye? The States! And let me tell ye something else, Father. Ye've heard me go on at length about me sister-in-law Ursula Barnett.”

  The priest looked taken aback at the mention of the woman's sister-in-law, whose husband had won the lottery years before and who Fionnuala had raged about on many an occasion in the chair she now sat.