AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Feargal gave me a nervous nod. “Okay. Sure.”
“And are you goin’ in, Ms Bresson?” Finn asked me.
I snorted in disgust. “As the natives say, ‘Like fuck I am’.”
“No, of course you’re not, you bloody woman,” he sighed. “Right. Just… well, just stay defensive. Tight to me, okay?”
“Absolutely,” I said, trying to sound offended that he’d even had to give such a command.
From the positions taken by Kathleen and Ciaran, I guessed that Finn and I were their primary targets; I hoped that meant that Sinéad was now surplus to requirements.
“Like the Gardaí’ll be comin’ anytime soon,” Ciaran smirked behind his hand to his mother, and she glared up at him.
“Shut the fuck up!” she screeched, and elbowed him in the ribs, which was interesting; I stored the thought away for when I actually had time to think about what that little exchange was telling me.
Then Kathleen turned on Sinéad as she tried to dart past her to Feargal and safety. “You goin’ somewhere now, you wee slag?” she asked, and grabbed Sinéad by the sleeve. “A bit rude now, isn’t it, when we’ve just started this lovely little chat?”
Sinéad froze. I knew that she and Niamh had been terrorised beyond measure by the O’Halloran family in Finn’s absence, and their sudden reappearance had knocked the last remaining ounce of swagger from the girl.
I took one look at the hatred in Ma O’Halloran’s face and decided that in the current circumstances, any defensiveness on my part was going to be strictly relative. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn the Balmain,” I sighed.
Finn
“Forgive my confusion but I’m not entirely sure why you’re so angry, Mrs O’Halloran,” Lilith observed, with just the slightest hint of infuriating laconic amusement. “I mean, I’d be grateful to Finn if I were you. Ever since Coyle started doing his best impression of a Cyclops, it must be significantly easier to tell the two hideous inbred bastards apart.”
“Ah Jesus, Lili,” I sighed, “But which part of the word ‘defensive’ are you strugglin’ with right now?”
“I’m improvising,” she retorted, and as much as I hated to admit it she’d made the right call because Kathleen O’Halloran’s attention immediately shifted from Sinéad and for once my youngest sister was showing a bit of common sense by keeping her mouth shut.
Unfortunately, as Kathleen turned to face Lilith she also reached inside her tracksuit jacket with her free hand and pulled out the lethal little flick knife she’d always been notorious for carrying. I was in no position to help, boxed off as I was by Ciaran O’Halloran, human gorilla.
“Well I’m more than happy to chat with you first, lady,” Kathleen said. “Maybe see if your fella here thinks you’re still such a beour with a bit of extra work done to your face, eh?” She brandished the knife in Lilith’s face in such a way that any opponents were left in no doubt that she was both skilled and experienced in its use.
Lilith raised an imperious eyebrow in response as if Ma O’Halloran had just criticised her nail polish. “Oh, fine,” she sighed. “I’m more than happy to play dirty if you are, but how about leaving the child alone, hm? Unless of course she’s all you can manage to deal with at your age.” Then she calmly picked up a discarded Heineken bottle, smashed it deftly off the wall and held the jagged end at Kathleen’s neck like she’d been mugging people all her life. She barely came up to the woman’s chin but she definitely meant business. “So, once more for the hard-of-thinking, let the girl go.”
Kathleen glanced down at the shards of green glass that were now pointed at her jugular. “Oh, that’s how you want to do it, eh? Well that’s good with me.” Despite her tone, the woman was clearly rattled by Lilith’s sudden aggression and apparent lack of fear, and she finally let go of Sinéad’s sleeve so that my sister could scramble to safety in Feargal’s arms.
And with that, the phoney war of the last few minutes immediately descended into an all-out brawl.
Things got off to a bad start when Lilith made a rare mistake and looked across the yard to check that Sinéad was out of the way. Ma O’Halloran took the opportunity to lash out with her knife and Lilith gave a yell of fury and pain. I risked a glance at her and saw that her face was now covered in a veil of blood.
“S’okay! Just an eyebrow!” she shouted to me, already dodging the next swing of the blade. I was familiar with the fighter’s trick of nicking their own eyebrow so that it looked like they were bleeding to death from what was essentially a papercut – especially when combined with water – and my rational brain knew that Lilith was perfectly capable of looking after herself, but I still didn’t want the woman I loved going the full twelve rounds with the psychotic old bag.
I was just trying to work out the easiest way to get to her side when Ciaran, who clearly had the same issues with impulse control as his twin, whacked me across the back of the head with another of the empty lager bottles and I had to trust that Lilith was going to survive without me.
The bottle smashed on impact, and a rainbow of tiny lights exploded behind my eyes. Before the last of the fragments had hit the floor I managed to turn and slam the bastard in the solar plexus with my elbow, and it was satisfying to hear his breath forced out in a rasping wheeze.
The rain on my neck suddenly seemed suspiciously warm; I guessed that my scalp had been torn by the broken glass and when I wiped my free hand across my sodden nape it came back crimson. I shook my head in disappointment. “Ah, you fuckin’ great gonad. Still fighting like a dirty bastard, eh?”
“Oh, so you want a real fight do ye, faggot?” Ciaran said with a laugh, and swung at my head with his left fist. I managed to step back and his fist met nothing but air.
I laughed. “Jesus, was that meant to be a punch? I mean, I wasn’t quite at my best back at Albermarle but I still managed to rag your nonce of a brother all around the floor. I thought you’d be a bit more of a challenge.”
In response Ciaran gave me a right uppercut using the hand that enclosed five inches of metal pipe, and just about embedded me in the wall. I conceded that I might need to give the fight a little more attention and slammed the great sack of shit with a left hook that had the spit and blood arcing out of his mouth and nose like a fountain, in one of the cleanest blows I had ever dealt.
I suddenly realised that this was my first fight since I’d got clean and to my delight my new regime of regular swimming and no longer taking a pharmacy’s worth of drugs on the daily had given me a real advantage; I could move a little faster and keep my breath a little longer, and a clear head meant that I could think a few moves in advance and virtually predict what my opponent was going to do. It felt glorious.
As Ciaran staggered backwards I followed up with a jab square on the bridge of his nose, and I was rewarded with the wet crunch of pulverised cartilage. My opponent went down like a felled tree, with blood and snot dripping from his face in long, viscous strands. I grabbed the advantage, dived on top of him and kept pummelling.
