How she thought all this in a minute or two while she was puffing and panting—the only day Derry had seen sun in a month, bloody typical!—down the steepest slope in Derry she didn't know, didn't know from which hidden cranny she was mining these gems of inspiration, but she was proud of herself. Delighted.
She reach the bottom of the street and paused at Magazine Gate for breath, resting her hand on whatever ancient stones the gate was made of. The 17th century city walls that surrounded the city towered above her and stretched down as far as she could see. She thanked Jesus and Mary for the shade. On this side were tiny, cramped streets. On the other side of the gate, the wide expanse of the city center. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and flung herself into the blessed darkness and damp inside. Smiling and nodding hello to old Mrs. Dinh, next door but three, who passed her under the gate, trailing an apparent granddaughter behind her, Fionnuala and her feverish brain raced on.
If that Yank tourist geebag finally found her card missing and tried to phone her credit card company, she wouldn't be able to get through. Fionnuala had heard group after group of tourists at the interactive center complaining about spotty international coverage—they kept moaning on and on about lack of bars or something as they tried to do their relentless texting and facebooking and twitting or whatever the flimmin feck it was when they were supposed to be concentrating all their efforts on viewing Amelia's wonders, but they were thick, Fionnuala thought, for there were bars aplenty in Derry, on every street corner practically and sometimes two a block, and didn't the daft eejits know they were called pubs here?!
So she knew she had time, some time, anyway. She came out into the city center, just as she was thinking that that Mrs. Dinh hadn't given her a proper hello and that that grandchild of hers looked like a right spastic. She'd blank the sarky, crabbit aul bitch the next time she saw her, and heaven help Siofra if she ever brought the wee girl round their house, touched in the head, a Mongoloid or worse, she looked, and Fionnuala had heard it could be contagious; she didn't want her infecting their home.
The Guildhall was before her, the green of the ancient bronze top of the Big Ben-type clock tower gleaming, and to its left, the city center. Fionnuala raced over the slick slabs of rock, glittering in the sunshine. In this area of the city center, the cobblestones of yore had been replaced. All of Derry had been delighted by the modern makeover, until the first rain, when the slabs proved to be extra slippery. And it always rained. She passed the Guildhall and the chip van where Dymphna worked, then she was in the city center, home to the main attractions of the Top Yer Trolly and the public loos, and as she looked around, frenzied, it struck her that this hideaway was like the wide expanse of that plaza in the Vatican City where the Pope always said Easter mass, or his speech to the masses after the mass, in any event. She had seen it twice on the telly, once with John Paul II and once with Benedict. She felt exposed.
Where were the usual shoppers? The mothers pushing prams and trailing hordes of shrieking wanes behind them? The gangs of hooded, slouching teens with fags hanging out of their mouths and sneers on their faces that always yelled out insults as she passed? Not here. There was nowhere to hide. Where should she go? Behind the Guildhall? To the quays? The bus station?
The sight of the public loos made her aware of a new urge in her lady's arena. Cursing the tea yet again, vowing never to take another sip (at least until the 24 hours were up), she wondered...did she have time for a quick slash? Maybe the public loos were perfect as a hiding place. As long as they didn't see her going in. She looked back. She froze. The family was just exiting Magazine Gate, yapping and waving their arms to a member of Derry's worst, a member of the hated Police Service of Northern Ireland, the PSNI. Fionnuala blessed the Lord for placing a mail box right beside her. She slipped behind it and clung to it, her head lolling against the ROYAL MAIL embossed on it, and the BRIT BASTARDS graffiti underneath. She pressed her left ponytail to her neck so it wouldn't swing out and peered around the curvature. The family was pointing in her general area. The peeler was looking around. Fionnuala percolated with anger. Not only was the copper probably Proddy, but it also grated on her nerves that he was so young. A bus trundled past, blocking them from her view. Did she have time? Could she sprint to the restroom? And then she realized, she was leading them to where they could use their phone. If they got the public loos, reception would be fine, or so she had heard a Kraut tourist tell a Kiwi one the week before.
Pressing the urge to the back of her mind, she stared around the square. And, of course! There was the Mountains of Mourne Gate to the city walls! How had she not thought of it before? Whereas the city walls and most of its gates were wonders of historical Derry fit for any tourist's iPhone camera, the section near the Mountains of Mourne Gate was...something else.
Fionnuala took a deep breath, braced herself, and hoofed it across the square. Her clogs clacked and seemed to echo in the vacant expanse. Before the gate, and it was no surprise, she almost collapsed against a wall of stench. There, as usual, huddled a collection of the unwashed, the unwanted, the unconscious: Derry's detritus of drunks and druggies. Alternatively charming and menacing, genius and looney, they had chosen the gate as their pied à tierre. In this area, raucous laughter vied with roars of anger and moans of hopelessness. Sometimes it reminded Fionnuala of her house. And beyond the gate...Brilliant!
Brain cells trundling, eyes flickering over the limbs, Fionnuala chose the drunk closest to her, who seemed diseased yet alive and cogent.
“Here, lad, do ye want to earn 50 pence?”
He jerked as if someone had poked his eye with a stick, and rose like an underwater creature, hair like seaweed, drool on his chin, gravy and brown sauce on his shirt with no buttons, delight in his ravaged eyes. A bottle holding a dribble of some brown liquor fell to the ground. He wavered back and forth before her on the sidewalk. To avoid the unseemly sight of his pink chest, she looked around. The family and the copper were milling in front of the Top Yer Trolly, clueless. The girl was peering through the window of the superstore. Fionnuala relaxed, but only a smidgen.
“Ye see them Yanks over there? With the copper bastard? At the Top Yer Trolly?”
“Aye.”
“I'm gonny go into the market here, and if themmuns tries to follow me, I want ye to keep em at bay. Any way ye can. Are ye up for it?”
“Yanks and the Filth? Aye, surely!”
They smiled their hatred together. She dug around in the satchel for her coin purse. The drunk eyed the jug.
“What've ye got in there, dear?” he asked as she pressed a shiny 50 pence piece into his filthy palm. “Something for me to drink? Give me some of that and all. Is it fit to drink? What's in it? Looks like I might enjoy it. C'mon, just a wee tipple. Be a dear.”
“It's me own piss!” Fionnuala spat, then slipped through the gate.
She hoped he didn't suspect sarcasm, as then he might not help her. But as she came out the other side of the gate, Fionnuala felt liberated, revealing her sordid secret to at least one pair of ears in the world, no matter how deranged with decades of drink and, she suspected, bargain bin recreational drugs the head attached to those ears might be and no matter that they would forget what had been said to them and never remember again. And why wasn't that daft grandchild of Mrs. Dinh in school at this hour of the day, anyway? Fionnuala suddenly wondered. As demented as the girl was, she needed all the schooling she could get!
Fionnuala slunk into the dank, shadowy melee that was the Mountains of Mourne Gate makeshift market (a Derry must-not see). It was an alley sandwiched on one side by the city walls, on the other by boarded up shop windows. There was the stall where she had bought How To Be A Lady and the beer mats. Few tourists dared tread in this area, lurking in the cover of damp and the stench of beer and armpits as the market did. But, though she didn't know why, Fionnuala felt at home. She stepped over a body. Drum and bass blasted from the speakers market-wide, prams piled high with screaming children rolled
by, drunks were passed out this side of the gate as well, along with a smattering of drug addicts, and most of the customers seemed unsteady on their feet as well. The sellers were also living an edgy life, hands shuddering from some chemical stimulants, eyes drooping from downers and drink.
Most stalls were illegal, but, to gain favor with a public that detested and distrusted them, the PSNI turned a blind eye to all the infractions of laws that were going on...the smuggling, the former Eastern Bloc cigarettes, the knock off handbags and perfumes, the beer in cans with strange symbols that were someone else's language, the auto parts and whole engines at times, homemade designer shirts and soccer scarves that unraveled the moment you got them home, the DVDs and CDs, still!, the arts and crafts in one misguided stall, and the one that sold, as if it were 20 years earlier, peat and coal and firelighters and advertised New Potatoes.
A quick look behind let Fionnuala know the family hadn't found her yet. She scanned the stalls. Lately she had seen things begin popping up in the market that had once only accepted cold hard cash: hand held machines that could process plastic. A wonderment of technology, she realized now.
But what should she buy? She had all the Yank's money at her avail. Most top shelf items were electronics that came from some chinky land, but not, thankfully, that Communist China. Above the bobbing heads of shoppers, over the scarves and hoods of hoodies, she saw a Soni TV, an iPed, a selection of Sansumg phones. She pushed through the throngs at the front of the electronics stall and pointed at a shelf.
“C'mere, gimme a me look at that stereo thingy.” It might be a wedding gift at the very least, she mused, or perhaps she could use it to entice Lorcan to stay. How could she know he had moved on to mp3 players? As the man handed over the ghetto blaster, Fionnuala placed her satchel on the ground.
She made a show of pressing a few buttons and turning a few dials. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the three to her right, who had been digging through little plastic cases with flags and Britney Spears and soccer teams and she didn't know what on them, turn their heads at the same time.
“What's up there, hi?” one asked.
Fionnuala felt dread as she slowly looked to the right. She gave a sharp intake of breath. At the gate, their silhouettes seeming to rise up before her, as large as them yokes on Easter Island and as peculiar, was the family. The drunk was yelling and gesticulating wildly before them, waving his arms ineffectually, but the woman was clutching her daughter tight and the father and son were stepping back in alarm. Fionnuala flung the stereo on the stall counter. She hunched over and crept to the next stall. Then the one after. And the one after that, further and further away from the gate. She crouched behind a sack of potatoes, dust billowing around her head. She peeked over the burlap. The drunk was certainly doing the best he could for the 50 pence, Fionnuala thought with pride.
More than the stench, the fear, the drunk, it seemed to be the crowd that was gathering, pointing at them and laughing, that made the family finally inch back the way they came and stomp through the gate and out of sight. Fionnuala heaved a sigh of relief. But she still had to act quickly. And where was that Filth bastard who was with them? As she struggled to haul herself upright, she was struck by the lightness of her right shoulder. Panic gripped her. Her satchel! Where was it?
And just as she remembered...leaning up against the electronics stall, she saw it all unfold before her as if in slow motion.
The copper appeared out of nowhere, but that didn't bother her. The family had fled. But one of the women who had been pawing at the little plastic cover thingies looked down at the satchel and, concern and sudden fear on her face, barked something to the seller. His face shot up, alarmed. The crowd around the stall parted as if a blood-spurting corpse had just plummeted from a plane above and splatted at their feet. They screamed and jabbed their fingers. The PC marched forward supposedly purposefully, but Fionnuala could tell he was an amateur and was secretly bricking it. He tried to mask the fear on his pimples as he took charge, pushed through the crowd and pointed down at the satchel. Her satchel.
“Whose bag is this?”
The stall owner jabbed an accusing finger at her. Three stalls away, beside a case of firelighters, Fionnuala didn't know where to look.
The PC pushed past a few shoulders and demanded, “Is that bag yours, madam?” He said it accusingly, his Protestant eyes glaring at her with hatred or excitement or the love of power, she didn't know which.
“Naw!” Fionnuala barked. “Never set eyes on it before in me life!”
The moment the words were out and she made a show of recoiling from the satchel, her beloved My Heart Will Go On Tour satchel, Paddy's present for their 15th Anniversary, her second most loved possession after her Kenny Roger's The Gambler tea set, the satchel she had even retrieved from the rubbish bin and spent many hours delousing after it had been infested, she was shocked she had said it. She couldn't understand why. She was ashamed. It was if she had turned her back on a beloved relative. But—and where in the name of God had this totally inappropriate thought sprung from, was it her illness?—hadn't she done that? To Ursula Barnett?
Was it a knee-jerk reaction to the barked question of a hated PSNI officer in his cap that screamed 'I am your superior?' She had always sat her children down on the settee at home at one stage in their youth and taught them to never, ever tell the Filth the truth. Was that why? Or was it the embarrassment of the horrid contents inside? Her diseased, protein-infected urine festering, toxic, in the massive red plastic jug? What if the copper demanded to search the bag and dragged it out? With the masses looking on. The mortification! They all knew her. At least to see. Or was it that inside the satchel there was—flimmin feck!—the Yank woman's credit card?! If he found that, she was a goner.
She yelped at a bony finger poking into her back.
“Aye, surely, it's yers, Mrs. Flood!” said a voice behind her.
Fionnuala turned and gawped at Mrs. Dinh and her horrid, stupid face. The spastic grandchild grinned up at her like the loon she was.
“N-naw,” Fionnuala said, inching back into the case of firelighters.
“Aye it is! That Celine Dion bag! Ye ranted on about it for hours at the hair salon, sure! I had the misfortune to be sat next to ye, like, at the dryers. With that Titanic ship and the wee mechanism that allows the ship to sink the more ye fill it, ye said.”
“Naw! It doesn't be mines!” Fionnuala roared. Many emotions were passing the PC's face; Fionnuala couldn't take them all in. And suspicion had seeped through the crowd. They were all in a semi-circle around her now, though they seemed fearful their backs were to the mystery item, and were glaring at her as if she had suddenly announced her daughter was marrying a Protestant.
And then, to her shock, though she should've realized it...her brain crannies and their gems were deserting her now...while the crowd inched away from the stall and the murmuring and noises of fear and a scream here and there rang out, the smarmy Proddy bastard in the uniform thrust her to the ground with some leg movement she didn't see. Her nose pressed against an empty crisp packet, pickled onion, and her ear clamped on an empty gin bottle, generic, and she felt plastic handcuffs digging into her wrists. She heard him press a button on his walkie talkie, and she heard him hiss into it, “Alert! Possible bomb at the Mountains of Mourne Gate market! Suspect apprehended! Send the bomb squad as soon as! And back up! Alert! Alert!”
CHAPTER 21
Lorcan cracked his knicker-wetting smile.
Flash!
And again. His eyes yearned.
Flash!
Then he made a silly face, just for the craic of it, his hands in some gangsta pose.
Flash!
And then he was all menace, a hard man boxer, jabbing a right hook at where he thought on the wall opposite the camera must be.
Flash!
He pulled aside the curtain of the photo booth at the Top Yer Trolly, all swagger, and slouched against the machine, waiting for the picture
s to drop out into the little slot. He couldn't know it, but the four photos were Lorcan Flood in a nutshell: sexy and silly, with a dash of assault. He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively at Ciara Malloy as she passed with a cart of tinned prunes she was about to shelve. She blushed and grinned back, and her eyes said, if only I hadn't married that Conor Malloy. And if only I hadn't had two wanes me mammy has to look after for me during me shifts here. Thick blue-black hair gelled into a fauxhawk, red Umbro soccer jersey clean for once, and that his mother had ironed (!) the week before, jeans that showed off what they were supposed to, and a generous helping of Lynx body spray, Oriental scent, in his gentleman's area. Lorcan was usually a ride, but he knew he looked more drop dead gorgeous than usual, and that was by choice. He was on a mission.
Passport? Check. Work visa? Check. He had called in a favor from a mate; everyone knew you could buy fake passports from the man with the tartan scarf and the limp at the Mountains of Mourne Gate market, but they cost more than his last pay check from Fillet-O-Fish would be. There was a click and a whirr, and the photos dropped into the tray. Passport photo? Check. All he needed was the plane ticket to Tampa, Florida, the USA. That's where the gel and the body spray came in.
He circled down the aisles of the superstore, and every shiny surface, the side of a toaster here, the blade of a hoe there, was an opportunity to check himself out. Not that he fancied himself, thought songs were about him, he didn't, but this was a time-based operation, and things had to unfold just right. When he was past the registers, he caught the eye of a girl peering through the streaky windows between two promotional posters: Everything! Every Day! Five For The Price of Four! and Manager's Specials: Xmas Puddings, 50 p Off! Dented Brussels Sprouts Only 99 p! “Macarena” CDs £1.99! A Yank tourist, by the look of her teeth. He flashed his smile. She wilted against the window. He waved. She waved back. A woman's hand pulled her out of sight. Lorcan shrugged. It was Sorcha O'Shaunessy he was after, anyway.
Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4) Page 19