CHAPTER 18
The chip van rattled and the infants roared bloody murder. Fuming, still nursing a hangover, Dymphna flung the mushy pea fritters back into the freezer and grabbed the hurling stick she kept for emergencies. She shoved past the stroller, almost slipping on a pickled egg in a pool of rancid grease, undid the lock and kicked open the side door.
“Let's have at ye, ye flimmin—!”
But it wasn't a pack of feral children ready to fling abuse and rocks her way. The hurling stick fell to her side, and the anger on her bonny-ish face dissolved into affection. With a bit of confusion.
“Rory! Are ye not meant to be in Belfast? That seminar on...?” She, like most, hadn't a clue what he was studying.
He nodded haltingly. She saw the state of his eyes. Two raisins stuck in bloody snow.
“Och, me poor wee Rory. Ye look shattered, love. C'mon inside, you.”
She waved towards the dank, dingy innards of the van that stank of rotting fish and pickled onions and burnt curry. Rory had just left it the day before, and seemed reluctant to step foot inside again so soon. The shrieking of tortured infants reverberating in the cramped space, and Dymphna's cloud of cigarette smoke didn't help. But climb inside he did.
Dymphna wrapped her arms around him. Her fetid apron, almost stiff, crinkled as her voluminous breasts pressed against his non-chest.
“Aye, knackered, so I'm are,” Rory said. “What are ye doing here, but? After standing in for ye here yesterday, I went to the pub with Georgie, as I thought I was meant to work for ye again today, that's what ye told me, like, and I knew I couldn't be here, so I was all set for Georgie to take over. But I had to ask him first, and I knew the only way he'd agree was if I got him bladdered. I thought a pint might do the trick, but that one pint—”
Tears had welled in Dymphna's eyes at first, but now she was getting used to the fumes of stale alcohol that spewed like little monsters from his lips.
“Aye, I can smell right enough that one pint turned into seven, with some Es thrown in and a few mad thrashes on the dance floor at Starzz and all. Youse was there til closing time, if I'm not mistaken.”
She knew him too well.
“Ye know me too well. Offa wer heads, so we was. Woke up an hour since on Georgie's bedroom floor. I knew I had missed the bus to Belfast, so I let him sleep on and made me mind up to work the shift meself. Sure, I know I kyanny go back to the house, as Mammy might drop by, and she'll see I've not attended that seminar. She's sure to claw the face offa me. So here I'm are. An hour late, aye, but—”
“Ye're wile civil, so ye are. Ta for this, and for taking over me shift yesterday, like.”
“What are ye doing here, but? I thought ye told me ye had to lie low for three or four days, that nobody in Derry could clamp eyes on ye. What's that all about anyroad?”
Dymphna wasn't about the reveal the mad scheme her mother had drummed up to entice money out of the local drug dealers for the wedding cake. Some secrets are best left between blood relatives. She didn't want Rory backing out, now that the wedding was so close.
“Never you mind. All ye need to know be's that I've no need to hide away nomore. So I'll be back at yer mammy's tonight after I've finished up here. Och, ta once again for all ye've done. I've to thank ye the best way I know how...”
She puckered her lips, as voluptuous as her breasts, and inched them towards the two thin lines that were his lips, ran her fingers over his rake-like limbs, and clutched at the skeletal shoulder blades that poked out of his back, oh, she made him sound so unsightly if she put it like that, but really he was handsome and charming and seemed to have a heart of gold. What other Protestant lad would be willing to face the taunts, jeers and social exclusion of the mates he had grown up with to take the plunge and marry a Fenian from across the river?
Their lips pressed together. Tongues wriggled. Fingers roamed under unwashed clothes.
A filthy Green slag, that was what the rest of Rory's soccer team always called Dymphna (everyone on the team was a fellow Protestant as a matter of course), even after he revealed he was going to marry her. Rory had defended his decision—he could hardly defend her honor!—with fists and headbutts and strange martial art kicks he had learned from repeated viewings of the Matrix. All were remarkable, given his emaciated look.
Dymphna was still a looker, even after two children, and even with the slick sheen and reddish blotches that had been marring her face lately from too many hours hovering over the fryer, and the slight pustule-like lesions that seemed to take forever to heal from where grease had spattered up.
Fingers roamed some more. Dymphna moaned and thrust herself against him. Even as her tongue rolled around the cavern of his mouth with its unbrushed teeth, she wasn't sure if she loved Rory or just loved the idea of him. Dymphna could tell from the way his eyes went all big and shiny when he saw her that he was in love with her. Or maybe it was just her body, but, no, that was what Bridie had said, back when they were best mates, Bridie's voice popping up into her head, planting nasty thoughts in her mind and words on her tongue.
Aye, Dymphna decided as he twiddled her nipples, she did love Rory. Perhaps not as much as he loved her, but lads were always more sentimental when it came to pairing up for life. They could afford to be. For the fairer sex, romance and marriage were a matter of life in life or death on spinster row. At least that was another thing Bridie had said.
He ground his hips against her. They toppled against the jars of gherkins. She resisted.
“Och, Rory, ye know I'm up for it. Ye've got me so randy I feel me juices spitting! Not here, but. Not now.”
Dymphna wasn't averse to having sex in strange places—indeed, so used to it was she that a bed would be a strange place—but there were sausages to batter, and mushrooms too, gravy and curry sauce to heat, the meat pies to sort out, and the infants were eying them even as the little dears coughed and sputtered in the smoky fug. Plus, the hatch to the van was open, so any passing stranger could glance in.
Many others, especially on his soccer team, might have called her a cock-tease, but he and Dymphna were usually at it like rats, so Rory just shrugged. “In that case, I'm ravenous! What've ye got for me to scoff down?”
“I was fancying a mushy pea fritter when ye came. Ye fancy one and all?”
“Aye, surely. Two, ta.”
Dymphna pulled three back out of the freezer and dropped them into the oil. It fizzled and spat.
“And then, Rory, ye've to help me with the meat pies. Och, what a state they're in! The labels've gone and fell off, and I haven't a clue which be's what.” She prodded the fritters with a stick.
He stopped in the corner to say hello to his children. He was still uncomfortable, out of his depth, when confronted with them. How were infants meant to be touched? Spoken to? He tried to lift one up, but Keanu and Beeyonsay were wedged too tightly together. He settled for touching their arms and fiddling with their kicking legs with motions he hoped resembled fatherly love.
“Are youse right, there, wanes? Hellooo, helloooo,” he cooed. “C'mere, Dymphna. Ye know I love em, but themmuns isn't wile interesting. They just sit there and shite. I've been thinking...could we not train themmuns to do things? Tricks, like? Maybe roll over? Or fetch? It would be magic, so it would! And I struggle to tell em apart.” He pointed at one. “Which one be's this, hi?”
Men! Dymphna thought as she pulled out the fritters. Though Keanu was a year older, they were both as small and undernourished as each other and therefore indistinguishable. And with their matching blue bonnets, you couldn't see Keanu's orange hair. But Dymphna had clearly taped three pink bows atop Beeyonsay's bonnet. She plopped two fritters on a paper plate and handed it to Rory.
“That be's wer Beeyonsay,” she said through a mouth of green mush that was meant to be peas. “And, about the training, naw, apparently not. I tried to get Keanu to do a simple thing like feed his sister, to save me the trouble, like, and the daft beast kept tossing the spoon a
t me. Why don't ye make yerself useful and change them wanes' nappies?” She licked her fingers and wiped dark green slime from her chin.
“I'll sort out the pies.” He swallowed the last of his fritter as Dymphna turned the heat on the two pots, one with curry, the other with gravy. Soon their smells invaded the van along with Dymphna's smoke, the grease, the infants, Rory's sweat and drink and a few days of rubbish that had yet to be thrown out.
“Grand. Their nappies can wait, I suppose, but the pies kyanny. I kyanny sell em without knowing what be's inside. I took em outta the freezer the moment I got here so's they could thaw out a wee bit. I want ye to stick this knife into em one by one, and have a wee look inside so's you can tell what flavor it is, and then label it and put it back in the freezer. If ye kyanny tell from sight, I dunno when what ye should do. Smell em or something.”
“What flavors are there meant to be? Steak and kidney, and...?”
She had worked there for months, but still couldn't remember the flavors. There were many, and they weren't all great sellers; some she hadn't laid eyes on in months. She consulted a list.
“Chicken and mushroom, minced beef and onion, meat and potato, beer and veal.”
She handed him a knife, and he set to work next to her at the tiny corner of a counter next to the vat and the grill. Their elbows brushed against each other as they worked. Just like their children.
Some might be alarmed at how small their children were, but it was a godsend to Dymphna. That's how she could make them both fit into a stroller made for one; it had saved her the unnecessary expense of a second stroller. She wondered, when their little brother or sister came, if that stroller might fit three... Rory had tried to shove them in once, but, grand and lovely father though he might be, even taking into account the drink, drugs, flying fists and Zoë, he didn't have their mother's special touch.
“I'm wondering...” Dymphna said, dipping a sausage into a bowl of batter, “when the new wane comes, do ye think we'll have room to shove that one in and all, or should we buy a new pram? Thank God ye still kyanny see it on me body. After I've had it, after the wedding, like, we'll just tell everyone it was premature, four months premature. I've me dignity to think of, ye know.”
“I kyanny make out what's meant to be in these pies,” Rory said. He had already prodded five with a knife and peered inside. “All of em looks like there be's shite inside.”
“Just do yer best. The chicken'll be a bit more yellow with some little gray bits what be's the mushrooms, the meat and onion ye should see the onion, and, I dunno, smell for the beer of the beer ones. That should be simple enough.”
“Aye, there's a yellow one, and I see the minced beef now in that one now.” He dug into a few pie crusts, then he said. “I hope when this new wane comes outta ye, it'll finally be one that resembles me a bit, hi.”
“I hope to God and all.” Thinking of Fabrizio, she really meant it. She popped another sausage into the batter.
There was a greater noise in the corner. Rory put down the knife and went to the children they now had. He looked down in slight alarm.
“Could we not turn on that vent, hi? Themmuns can hardly take a breath.”
“I'm afeared it'll give em a chill.”
From the hacking of the two purple heads in the stroller, a chill seemed to be the least of the infants' problems.
“Go on and turn on that vent. It's the wanes breathing in all the smoke from the, er, the grill I'm thinking of.”
“Och, ye're a grand father, so ye are. So thoughtful,” Dymphna flicked on the vent, lit another cigarette, and went back to the sausages. “And ye'll make a grand and lovely husband and all.”
“Speaking of which, how are plans going for the wedding?”
“Ah, Rory, how far we've come! Ye mind when we hooked up it was but a one night stand, and I was repulsed at the sight of ye after that! When ye found out I was up the duff with wer wee Keanu, but... Ye mind when ye give me that engagement ring when I was working behind the counter of the Chipkebab? Before it was turned into Kebabalicious? Dead romantic, so it was. Ye said there was a problem with yer purchase, ye'd found a foreign object in it, and ye wanted to return it, I think it was a TakkoKebab, and ye told me to have a look inside and see how mingin it was. Instead, but, the foreign object was me lovely engagement ring. I wonder if yer mammy will see fit to let me wear it again after the wedding? I'd hardly pawn it then, like.”
“I thought it was a ChipKebab I bought.”
“It wile seems so long ago. Look at us now, but.”
There wasn't much to see, except her with a battered sausage in her hand and a fag in her mouth, him with a knife stuck in a beer and veal pie, and two undernourished infants shoved into one stroller.
“It was long ago! Two wanes ago!” He looked again at the stroller. The curry bubbled. The gravy simmered. She saw what looked like fatherly pride on his face. If he only knew...
Dymphna stabbed out her cigarette in a tea mug and said with a sigh, “Two days to the big day, and still no sign of a wedding cake. I wonder what me mammy's up to. The flippin cake I don't care much about, though. If need be, at the last minute we can get one from the Top Yer Trolly and stick two wee dolls on the top. Of more concern to me, but, be's that there's no sign of me auntie Ursula. I kyanny understand why she didn't respond to the invite, like. I wish I had her email address. I've her number written on a scrap of paper, I think, somewhere, but I've no international on me phone. I've heard about that Skype thingy, but me auntie be's old, so I doubt she's on it.”
“Why didn't ye mention it? I've international on me phone.”
“Och, sure, I forgot about that.” But she hadn't; Dymphna had phone envy. Maybe when she was Mrs. Dymphna Riddell, she would get one. And get her engagement ring back. “But it's too late now. There's only a few days left, and she kyanny make it here in time. Maybe...I wonder if me mammy was right about her all along. Naw, that kyanny be, but. Ye know how me mammy likes to spread her poison. I can only hope Auntie Ursula shows up on the day. Like maybe for a surprise. It's something to dream about. Now, but—”
“C'mere, is that not yer mammy I just seen running past?”
Dymphna poked her head out of the hatch. It was indeed Fionnuala, making a bee-line for the Top-Yer-Trolly across the square. Even without the flying ponytails, Dymphna could recognize that look of determined intensity from a mile off.
“Aye, so it is. C'mere, what's she got in that satchel of hers? It looks like it be's bulging to explode! And who's themmuns running after her? Looks like some Yank tourists.”
And then they forgot about Fionnuala as the first customer's head blocked the view from the hatch. It was the lad that worked at the butcher's down the Strand. He reeled slightly as he looked up at Dymphna.
She touched her hairnet and scowled, wondering what he was staring at. What did she look like? Her fingers moved to her cheeks. Was it the pustules?
“What are ye looking at?” she snapped.
“Have I not heard...I mean...are ye not meant to be dead?! Of a drugs overdose?”
“Eejit! Do I look dead to ye?”
He seemed unable to answer this.
Dymphna roared down into his face: “I've two wanes keeping me up all hours of the night, another on the way, and this mingin job here! Is it any wonder I look like a fecking corpse?! What's yer fecking order or away off with ye!”
“A portion of curry and chips and a pickled egg.”
“Right ye are.”
Dymphna turned to the pot.
CHAPTER 19
“Well, honey, what do you think? Are we gonna strike it rich or strike out?”
What Ursula thought, endless fields of corn—or oats?—whizzing by the window to her right, was that she was leaving behind the guilt of the hospital and heading towards the anxiety of the studio, sitting in a murky no-woman's land which wasn't helped by the schizophrenia of a CD Jed had somehow burned on the computer. It jumped from country classics to big band m
arches to Irish drinking songs to national anthems from around the world. A map of Wisconsin was spread on her lap like a quilt. Satnav was not for them; inside the car it was like the 80s never ended, Jed's cigarette butts spilling out of an ashtray to her left knee.
She rattled the ice cubes that were now pebbles in the A&W cup as she considered her answer. “Oh, Mary, this London's a wonderful sight...” It was “The Mountains of Mourne” on the CD, and Ursula felt a stabbing in her heart. She always did when she heard Irish music in the States. She bent forward, the map crackling and the little things she had placed on it to gauge the distance they had to go falling to the floor, and she pressed Forward. “Oh, the crystal chandeliers light up the paintings on your wall...” Charlie Pride, country and western. Wondering how many songs began with “oh,” Ursula took a sip of what had been diet root beer a few hours earlier. Burger wrappers and fry cartons clustered around her ankles, along with the barrette, two nickles and a Listerine strip that had been on the map.
“I haven't a clue. You and Slim knows all the numbers, sure. Och, Jed, I'm wile afeared of stepping foot in that studio. AARGH!!”
Jed swerved to avoid a coyote. Seats belts bit into flesh. A pack of Marlboros, a lighter and a box of tissues slid across the top of the dashboard.
“Phew! That was close! Don't worry, honey. All you have to do is sing the song, then introduce yourself. You won't have to do much talking. Just smile at them. They're usually nice if you know what your numbers are. Well, except for the mean one.”
“Aye, Jed, but I don't have a clue about them numbers ye keep banging on about. Margins and percentages and whatnot.”
“I'll take care of everything. As I told you, they want to know we have sales and business savvy. Solid numbers and a savvy business plan. The first 90 seconds, like I said—”
Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4) Page 17