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Chapter Twenty
Finn
The morning of my mother’s funeral dawned grey, damp and cold. It appeared that even the weather wasn’t going to be on our side.
I burrowed a little deeper into our vast duvet. “How many are there now?”
Lilith stood stark-naked behind a curtain and peeked out at the reporters huddled on the street below. “About... twenty. Ooh, no, wait... twenty-one. I think the bastards are breeding.”
I grinned. “Dare you to flash your boobs at them.”
“Pfft.” She gave a derisive little snort. “As if they deserve even the slightest glimpse of these breasts.” To my disappointment she grabbed her bathrobe and covered up.
Just as I was considering asking her to return to bed for just ten more minutes there was a soft knock at the door. Lilith answered it and a young porter handed over a sickeningly familiar white envelope.
Lilith pulled the cuff of her robe over her fingers before she took it and my stomach turned. “Oh bloody hell. That what I think it is?”
Lilith gave a grim-faced nod and opened the letter with the handle of a teaspoon. “Never let it be said that an utterly shit day can’t be made an iota worse through the intervention of bastards. Looks like our secret admirer has found us. And there’s no stamp on this one. It’s been hand-delivered.” She shook the envelope and the note slid out.
Nearly time to run the quarry to its earth.
“For fuck’s sake.” Lilith gave a snort of disgust. “‘Quarry’ my arse. Whoever this twat is, they had no idea we were here until the bastard press set up their camp on our doorstep!”
I shuddered and pulled her to me, kissed the top of her head and breathed in the clean smell of her shampoo as an antidote to the contagion that had now landed in our room. “We can leave now if you’re worried. That’s really not good.”
Lilith shook her head. “No. We need to do the funeral, even if it’s just to confirm that the bloody woman’s actually dead and buried. And besides, Niamh needs you to be there. We’ve still got time to report this to the Gardaí and ask at reception if they saw who handed the thing over or got them on CCTV and then I can get us booked onto flights tomorrow.” She glanced at the window. “The jackals outside are doing us one favour, at least; we’ll be in plain sight all day.” Lilith sighed. “Right. I’m going to start transforming myself. If we’re going to be headline news again I’m making sure those bastards can’t get a crap photograph.”
Lilith
Just one hour later we were transformed, with the pair of us back in our designer disguises for the occasion. We both went for traditionally sombre colours; Finn looked immaculate and stunning in a charcoal Canali single-breasted suit and I’d chosen a black Balmain woollen mini dress teamed with a satin-trimmed blazer and Manolo Blahnik silk pumps. There was a familiar comfort in stepping into our costumes for whatever performance was about to unfold, and as a bonus we looked like Dublin’s answer to the mafia.
*****
The funeral was predictably grim. The Church of Our Lady and the Angels was a hideous concrete monolith on the outskirts of the city, and it looked more like a Soviet-era grain silo than a place of worship. It had been built when the entire Catholic population of Eire had been obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day but we were at the funeral of a bitter, hateful old hag with no friends and the turnout reflected that fact.
There was a grand total of seventeen mourners gathered – a full eighteen more than she deserved – at the service for Agnes Strachan, and that included a handful of staff from the hospice and a malodorous scattering of the alcoholic hangers-on that she’d used to drink with. I had a strong suspicion the latter group were there for whatever refreshments might be at the wake rather than the solemnity of the service and the chance to pay their last respects.
We stood on the pavement as the bitter drizzle turned into savage, driving rain and waited for the hearse to arrive. The photographers and reporters were behind a cordon on the opposite side of the road but this was still close enough for them to holler inane questions and aim their telephoto lenses at our faces.
One of the drunken ‘mourners’ finished the can of Special Brew he was drinking and yelled an unintelligible greeting at them before dropping his trousers and flashing his naked arse at their cameras, to the absolute delight of his pissed-up companions.
“Christ almighty, it’s a fucking circus already,” Finn groaned as the funeral cortege drove into view, and I grasped his hand a little tighter still.
The car carrying Niamh, Feargal, Sol and Sinéad pulled up behind the hearse and I finally got my first look at Finn’s youngest sister. Her yellowing, badly bleached hair was pulled back from her pale, acne-marked face in a harsh ponytail and she wore scuffed Doc Martens and a black raincoat at least four sizes too big for her that had obviously been borrowed for the occasion, but no matter how much she tried to disguise the fact she shared the same ethereal beauty as her siblings. Sinéad was a fae in disguise.
I’d expected, maybe even wanted, to hate her on sight but instead I found myself gazing at an angry and terrified child, and it hit me that she was the same age as I had been when my mother committed suicide. For one brief moment her Strachan-green eyes widened with fear and confusion as she spotted the wall of journalists and photographers yelling at her. Then she suddenly broke away from Niamh’s side and faced the pack.
“Why don’t youse all fuck off and suck a dog’s scabby dick!” she screamed at them in what had to be the strongest Dublin accent I had ever heard, and whilst I still wanted to slap her along the full length of O’Connell Street I had to admit I was grudgingly impressed as Niamh, utterly mortified, grabbed her younger sister’s arm and half-dragged her into the procession behind the coffin. “Bunch of fuckin’ gowls, all of youse!” Sinéad hollered in one last display of defiance.
Once inside the church we were out of the rain and away from the press, and that was about as good as things got. The shelter and privacy were welcome, but we were essentially inside a frigid aircraft hangar with pews and a handful of cheap candles that sputtered and smoked in the gloom. The priest conducting the service had to be eighty if he was a day and spoke in a monotone Belfast slur. Every time he opened his mouth his ill-fitting false teeth fell together with an audible click.
I tuned out the priest’s droning and took a surreptitious look around at the motley gathering to stave off my ever-increasing irritation. A good handful were checking their mobile phones, two appeared to be asleep and one delightful gentleman had his index finger so far up his nostril he appeared to be self-lobotomising. As he began to examine the results of his excavations I decided to focus on our pew instead.
Sinéad stood at the very end of our row, solitary and untouchable and radiating fury at the world. Feargal, ever the stoic, had Sol balanced on his hip and his free arm around a tearful Niamh, who had hugged me so hard when we got inside the church that I’d felt rare guilt at ever considering fleeing back to Santa Marita before the funeral.
Finally Finn stood at my side, still unfailingly loyal to his family and determined to see the day out despite everything. I closed my eyes, leaned into his warmth and, even if only for a little while, tuned out the rest of the world and became part of his.
Finn
