Majella got up and went to the kitchen, where she dumped her remaining toast into the pedal bin, then washed her plate and cup in scalding water before leaving them to dry on the draining board. She lifted the plastic bag that contained her overalls, walked down the hall and opened the front door. She could hear her ma on the phone in the living room, complaining to someone about the DNA testing.
— Ah’m away.
She shut the door without waiting to hear if her ma said goodbye.
• • •
5:38 p.m.
Item 3.3: Noise: Shutters in work
Majella let herself in the side entrance of the chipper. Marty stepped past her, whistling.
— Bit early the day, are ye not, Jelly?
Majella glanced at the clock, then shook her head. Only Marty was allowed to call Majella Jelly. Other people might roar it at her in the street or say it to her face, but only Marty was allowed. He’d started that craic in the early days of them working together. She’d hated the nickname in school and she’d hated being hefty. But Marty liked big girls so the way he said Jelly was different. She also let him off with the slaps on the arse he’d give her when she was rummaging about in the chest freezer for another batch of chicken burgers. The slaps didn’t do much for Majella, mind, but they cracked Marty up, so Majella didn’t see the harm in letting them by her.
— Ah seen that bit on the news about yer granny. Shower of fucken eejits them PissNI. Like that baste’ll walk up tae the door of the barracks and open his gob for them tae have a wee scrape at it?
Majella was climbing into her light-green overalls in the darkness at the front of the takeaway. The interior walls were a light blue. Mr. Hunter’s wife (joint proprietor of A Salt and Battered! Traditional Fast Food Establishment) had sponge-stenciled luminous pink fish onto the takeaway walls. When the fluorescent lights were on and Majella was tired, she felt like she was swimming along with the fish.
— And who else will walk up there tae hand their DNA over tae the cops? Destroy the samples after identification my hole. We all know what went on with the fingerprints.
Majella tugged the zipper at the front of her overalls up and over the swell of her chest, wondering what had gone on with the fingerprints. Marty was watching her. She guessed by the set of him that she was supposed to react, so she shrugged. Shrugging, she’d learned, was a useful response to a lot of questions and statements. Marty pressed on.
— Y’see, they have tae be seen doing something. And what they’re doing is making a meal of yer poor granny-God-rest-her. If they have their way, they’ll soon have us all on wan big computer over there in London. The cunts.
Majella was silent, her mouth now full of hairpins. She watched her reflection in the shop window as she fixed her hair under a nylon hairnet. She wanted Marty to stop talking, so she tried saying nothing—another good trick. The silence stretched on until Marty broke it by slapping his hand on the counter in resignation.
— Ah frig them anyway. Ah’ll stick these fryers on, eh, Jelly? We need tae be ready for them fuckers outside.
Marty jerked his head in the direction of the shutters: through the slits Majella could see the O’Donnell and O’Doherty weans already queuing up. Majella knew they’d been to the pub straight after school to scrounge or lift money from their parents so’s they could get a bite to eat. Marty said they put themselves to bed, which in fairness Majella and Marty had done themselves from no age. But their parents were usually sitting downstairs watching telly, not off down the town drinking. Majella recognized several families celebrating dole day with a takeaway. She spotted the builders who’d made it back to the town early from their jobs in the Free State, starving. Majella pulled her hat down and fixed it to her hair with the last of the clips. She scratched her arse through the rough nylon of her overalls, then began to empty the bags of change into the till, enjoying the click-clack of coins dropping into place. When she was done she looked over at Marty.
— Are ye right there, Jelly?
Majella nodded, so Marty ducked under the counter and walked whistling to the chipper door. He unlocked the door and wedged it open with the rubber stopper, then ducked back behind the counter. He flicked the switch to raise the security shutters. Majella hated this bit. She braced herself as the shutters screeched, feeling the noise feed down from her ears and into her teeth. Before the shutters had ground a quarter of the way up, the wee O’Donnell cub scooted in under them and landed up to the counter with a proud look on his face. Majella looked down at him.
— What can ah get chew?
— Big bag a chips with salt ann vinegar ann red sauce please.
Majella tingled with satisfaction as she heard the crackle and spit of the first basket of chips going down.
6:30 p.m.
Item 1: Small talk, bullshit and gossip
Majella shook the chips in the fryer to make sure they would get cooked all the way through. She liked this bit. Marty wasn’t as particular as her about the chips being done evenly, which bugged her. He shouted from the counter.—Three more chips for the McHughs there, Jelly.
A minute later, he sidled down with what she had learned was his gossipy head on him.
— Now don’t turn and gawk, will ye, but take a look at who young Breda Farren’s in with.
Marty dandered past Majella, and she waited ten seconds like he’d taught her before turning to glance into the takeaway. She guessed that the only girl in the shop, the wee thing with a man old enough to be her father, was young Breda Farren. Majella knew that after they were gone, Marty’d drop by to fill her in on the latest scandal. Majella wasn’t like Marty. He knew everyone in the town. He knew who was fucking who, who had fucked who and who wanted to fuck who. He knew who was drinking, smoking, swallowing or injecting what, and he often knew the where and when. He always had an opinion on the why. Majella eyed the chips. They looked done, so she raised them up and shook the worst of the oil back into the fryer. She bagged up the order and brought it to Marty at the counter. He rang up the sale while keeping up a flow of chat, something Majella could never do.
After they left, Marty leaned on the counter and put one hand on his hip.—Ye probably don’t know yer man Duffy, now. Works out in the bank across the bridge?
Majella shook her head to allow Marty to continue.
— Course he says he’s just dropping Miss Farren off home after babysitting and getting a takeaway for the wife . . . but did ye notice he got young Breda her supper too? Ah bet ye his wife’s chips get coul while he’s gettin hot in the back of that nice new Land Rover!
Majella didn’t know how Marty could tell all of this from serving chips to two strangers standing in the shop for ten minutes. She didn’t care if he was right or wrong, for what did those two people mean to her? But she wondered what he told other people about her. About her ma. Her da. She’d sometimes wondered if he knew where her da had gone. For all she knew, the whole town knew where he was, and it was just her and her ma who didn’t. That was often the way of it.
Majella thought of wee Róisín Murphy. She’d always come into the chip shop after the bingo on a Thursday to get a battered sausage supper for her old mammy, Mary Murphy. Marty’d always try to slip a free sausage into their parcel. And after they left he’d comment yet again to Majella about what a shame it was that the child didn’t know that her “Mammy” was really her granny and her “sister” Rose was actually her mammy (and the town prostitute), for Rose had had Róisín so young that her mother had stepped in to rear the baby as her own. The whole town knew about Mary and Róisín and Rose, except for Róisín. Majella didn’t understand all this pseudo-secrecy, the stories people told. She liked things straight. But things weren’t like that in Aghybogey. It was a town in which there was nowhere to hide, so people hid stuff in plain sight.