Folk'd Up Beyond All Recognition (FUBAR) Read online

  “You’re welcome to him,” Maggie said, and was gone a moment later.

  You could have heard a pin deciding to drop in the room upon her exit. Ellie turned very slowly back to Steve and allowed her eyes to settle on him. He was standing there where he had tried to help Maggie to her feet. As she watched, he reached down to the dinner table and popped a piece of chicken into his mouth, chewing on it mechanically.

  “Bit dry, this,” he said.

  “She called me a slut. She called our lives shit, do you realise that? She was waving at-”

  “He kissed ye,” Steve replied immediately. “On the lips.”

  “I don’t know why! Jesus Christ! He’s clearly a fuckin lunatic comin to his best mate’s house and…and behavin like a broody mother! Look at the way he got on when he first saw me earlier!”

  “Yeah,” Steve said quietly. “I noticed.”

  “So why did you sit there and say fuck all when that bitch called me a slut? Hey? Thanks very fuckin much for the back-up, darling! Couldn’t wait to help her back up to her feet though, could ye?”

  Steve rose from his seat and walked past her, as she tried to bring her breathing under control, tried to make sense of why all of this was happening. He got his own coat and put it on, and seeing her expression at this movement he shrugged, a gesture full of defeat.

  “Why didn’t I say anything? Because, Ellie,” he said, saying each word very carefully, “you kissed him back.”

  She couldn’t find the voice to reply, to deny. Could only stand there in the dining room, surrounded by the flotsam of the semi-dinner as the front door opened and clicked softly closed once more.

  Washing the dishes, now, half an hour later, she clattered the last of the plates into the draining board, fighting the ridiculous urge to simply pick up the fuckin draining fuckin board and hurl it to the stone kitchen floor, just to hear everything inside smash satisfyingly. It would leave her no closer to solutions, but just that half-second of mindless destruction would bring her some modicum of release.

  But she didn’t. Ellie didn’t do things like that. Steady Ellie just kept on keeping on, because that’s what sensible girls did, wasn’t it?

  How she wished she was a flighty airhead like some of the girls she’d known, like, oh just as a completely random example off the top of her head…Maggie, let’s say. That girl was as sharp as a marshmallow. She’d gone through their uni years with nothing but the next night out on her mind, or the next fella, and – here was the kicker – she’d been no worse off for that attitude.

  Girls like Maggie got leeway, got allowances made for them. They could throw tantrums, act like complete arseholes, and people would step back and say - ach that’s just her way. She’ll come round. Give her time.

  Not her. Never her. Give your mother space, her father had always said to her. She’s in one of her dark days. You know what she’s like. And he’d ruffled her hair, saying but that’s not you, is it? My sensible wee girl.

  Sensible…except when-

  “How?”

  She could have said the obvious comeback to him, which would have gone something like well how do you think, Dad? The usual way. But she knew her father wasn’t asking how the procreative process worked.

  “I…” she cast her eyes down at her shoes, “…I had a stomach upset the morning before. Apparently it can…make the Pill…not fully effective.”

  “And he wasn‘t…wearing…?”

  Here it came, the three words that would destroy her reputation as Steady Ellie in her father’s eyes forever.

  “We were drunk.”

  The memory of her father’s expression when she’d told him made her fingers slacken their grip when they should have been tightening it, and as a result the dinner plate she had been drying with the teacloth wormed loose from her grasp, evaded her desperate mid-air interception attempt, and impacted itself on the kitchen floor with a k-chink-ssh.

  Surprisingly, the dish’s demise wasn’t at all as satisfying as she’d anticipated it might be. But then she hadn’t meant to do it. It had been an accident, a stupid clumsy fumble when she should have been paying attention. Still, that was her speciality, wasn’t it?

  A plaintive wail began in earnest from the next room, and she sagged further.

  “Alright, alright, sssh,” she said, having put the dish-drying paraphernalia away and coming through with her best everything-is-OK-Mummy’s-here expression turned up to full, expecting to see a little red angry bundle kicking furiously at being awoken prematurely.

  She stopped. Blinked. Aaron was screaming, yes, as she’d anticipated, but he wasn’t lying on his back. He was standing up in the middle of the room on his little chubby legs, bouncing up and down in rage as he hollered.

  “You’re walking!” Ellie squawked, half in delight and half in alarm. “My little man is walking! Come to mum-my! Come on!”

  Aaron’s crying subsided as she got down on her knees and held her arms out to him, beckoning him to come to her. He looked at her and took a half-step back to steady himself, but otherwise seemed incredibly rock solid in his balance. She couldn’t believe it. He’d been showing no signs of being ready for this - he was only eight months old, after all!

  Take THAT, cousin Shelley walking at ten months. And she’s got a MASSIVE squint anyway. So that’s 2-0 to you, Aaron, she thought with satisfaction, again wishing they made baby scoresheets for competitive Mummies instead of those stupid reward charts for the kids. They’d make a fuckin fortune.

  Aaron took a step toward her, and then another.

  “That’s it!” she squealed excitedly, feeling the emotional turmoil she’d just been going through moments ago recede in her thoughts and being grateful for it. “Come to Mummy!”

  “Mum-my.”

  “Fuck me!” Ellie burst out, and then clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. “I mean, WOW! WOW little man! You SPOKE! You said MUM-MY! Clever man!”

  That was when things started to get weird.

  “Where Dad-dy?”

  She retracted her hands instinctively, no longer holding them out to the child, instead simply staring at him open-mouthed, wondering if she’d gone doo-lally, or if the television had-

  “Where’s Dad-dy?” he said again, and there was no mistaking it this time; his little lips moved perfectly with the words. He tottered another few steps toward her. “Want Dad-dy. Where Dad-dy go, Mum-my?”

  He was pale. How had she not noticed how pale he was? He was milk-bottle white. Was he sick? Was he babbling…no, babies didn’t babble…well, they did, but they were supposed to babble…were supposed to do nothing but…but not at eight months. No eight month old child walked as confidently as he was walking now. No eight month old constructed sentences as effortlessly as he was now.

  But that - that meant he…?

  Bare moments later, the front door flew open. It was Steve, Steve panting and puffing from running, red-faced and covered in muck and shite from head to toe, looking like a crazy man.

  “ELLIE!” he called out, moving into the hallway and checking the dining room only to find it devoid of occupants. “Ellie, it’s Aaron! Ellie, where are you! I have to tell you about Aaron!”

  “I already know,” her voice replied from the back room. He ran in there.

  She was holding the child, cradling him in her arms, and smiling from ear to ear as she looked at him.

  “My wee man’s a genius,” she said proudly.

  **

  Dermot Scully did not live in a nice place.

  Not that Michael Quinn, his hand now alighting on the man’s gate and pushing it ajar, particularly cared where he lived. In fact, not that he really much cared about anything. He could vaguely remember certain such concepts, but they were blurred and soft, as indistinct as someone shouting underwater. The only clear things in his mind right now was the memory of the goddess back in Mr Black’s office, and the mission he had been given to perform.

  Eviscerate Dermot. His little brother. We
ll. As Michael Quinn always did, he had prepared. He had gone home and he had kissed Christina and made some excuse about the go-live date causing some work bottlenecking and his wife had clucked loudly and flounced off in a stinking sulk. He had accepted this as he’d pulled the largest of the kitchen knives from the drawer and wrapped it in a protective cloth, because after all, it was her way - give her a day or so and she’d be right as rain again.

  He had slipped the knife into his briefcase and driven to this stinking street, ringing ahead several times to warn Dermot of his impending appearance. Dermot hadn’t answered the calls, again not to his great surprise - the man made J D Salinger look like Jay-Z.

  It would probably be weeks, if not longer, before anyone even noticed anything was amiss. Presumably, he mused as he reached the front door, the smell would be the giveaway; he had heard from several sources - okay, television, truth be told - that the odour a cadaver gave off was powerful enough to soak through walls.

  It made sense to him; he had always thought most of his fellow human beings were full of shit - small wonder when they died, their bodies could not contain a lifetime’s worth of crap and it spilled out for all the world to smell.

  He knocked on the door. And again. And again.

  “Dermot,” he called loudly, reflecting that what he was doing now would place him at the scene should he awaken any neighbours with his shouts. It should have bothered him, but it didn’t. If he was caught - so be it. As long as Dermot Scully was dead in the way that mattered.

  Success. Noises from inside. The door opened a crack. “Michael?” a voice said disbelievingly. “Michael, is that really you?”

  “It is.”

  “What are you doing here? At this time of night…”

  Success was what mattered. Michael Quinn’s brain ran through it as he might have approached a business meeting with a recalcitrant prospective partner. After all, he’d eviscerated quite a few men in his time, although strictly in the business sense of the word.

  “It’s about Mr Black, Dermot. I’m in trouble. Please, let me in.”

  “I can’t help you,” Dermot replied, his voice growing desperate, grovelling. “Michael, you don’t know what it’s been like for me. They watch me. They watch me all the time. I’ve had to use…measures…to stop them getting into my house. I’m a prisoner in here, Michael. I can’t go outside,” the man was almost wailing now, “they’d get me in a heartbeat. One of them got in a few days ago…”

  “Dermot,” Michael interrupted, his voice icily calm. “relax. Inviting me in won’t invite anything else with me, will it? Now let me inside and we’ll talk about this. I’m in trouble, and if you help me, I’ll help you. You know I have the resources.”

  The door opened another crack.

  “You…you will? You’ll help me?”

  Michael smiled. “Of course I will!” he boomed, feeling the comforting weight of the briefcase on the end of his arm, and knowing what it contained. “You’re my brother!”

  The door opened, stale air escaping into the night. Michael smiled and walked inside. He would get Dermot to do something - make a cup of tea, reach for a book, whatever - and then he would strike when he man’s back was turned; Dermot was old and frail but Michael was no warrior and he had no desire to get into a fight. Once incapacitated, he would take out the knife and make a cut across the man’s stomach, allowing the organs to spill-

  Something hit him, hard, in the back of the head. He went down like a felled tree, unconscious as he hit the floor.

  “They’ve got him,” Dermot Scully said grimly.

  “I know,” Tony Morrigan replied, lowering his fist. He was clutching the horseshoe that until recently had hung on Dermot Scully’s front door; it was this that had done the damage. He glanced at Dermot in the shadows of the front hall.

  “Get him inside,” he said, glancing out at the darkness beyond the property’s borders, and knowing full well what lurked out there.

  The front door shut behind them.

  **

  The Hill of Tara, Ireland, 93 BC

  The coronation of Bres, son of Ériu of the Tuatha and Elatha of the beaten Formorians - a proper cock, in Danny’s instant estimation.

  “How come they let a half-Formorian cock like him be the king?” he asked. “Seems a bit fuckin dopey if you ask me. A bit you’ve-brought-this-on-yerselves. Like when you’re watchin a movie and you see Ben Kingsley or Christopher Walken be made second in line to the throne. You just sorta lose sympathy for the daft bastards at that point.”

  Standing on the hilltop beside him, as the coronation took place below with thousands of assembled Tuatha and a good few hundred Formorians watching, the Morrigan’s lip twisted as she replied. “Seems like a few people agreed with you on the battle of Mag Tuiread,” she said. “When Nuada stepped down…and details of the battle got out…whispers went around that the battle fury had gone to our heads. That we’d chased down and massacred those who were surrendering or retreating.”

  Danny sucked his cheek. “Ummmmm…”

  “I know. We did. We did both of those things…” she sighed. “I could list a half-dozen examples of similar things going on in modern times for you in the last few years - from your timeline - if you like.”

  “I’m sure you could aye,” Danny replied unfazed. He’d been ready for this particular riposte and like any fireside Belfast working-class lefty, he had a few zingers prepared. “Doesn’t mean they should be cheered on. At any time.”

  “I can’t believe we’re related.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I was wonderin when that would come up. So we’re….?”

  “All in good time,” was all she said. “Look.”

  She pointed to a solitary figure alone on a nearby summit. Bres sat grandly down on the Lia Fáil - the Stone of Destiny, fourth treasure of the Tuatha, and in Danny’s humble opinion, the worst fuckin treasure ever. A resurrection cauldron capable of spewing out pizza and Stella til Kingdom Come - top drawer. A sword and a spear capable of acting like Obi-Wan Kenobi’s guilty wank fantasies - good stuff.

  But a fuckin stone? Whose sole contribution to the mythological spectrum was to cry out “Hail King!” when the right arsecheeks sat on it?

  “Something to add?” the Morrigan snapped testily, sensing his scepticism.

  “So it‘s a Sorting Hat for king’s holes. That it?”

  “This,” the Morrigan hissed in fury, “is the fourth of the greatest treasures the world has ever known you‘re talking about!”

  “Well I’m just saying, I think the world is safe from Indiana Jones and the Big Rock of Pre-Approved Arses.”

  She’d been about to say something else, but had been distracted. And now she was distracted again, by the sight of her younger self atop that hill, holding something of such size and weight that could realistically only be the Spear of Destiny.

  They watched as Bres sat down.

  Nothing. Not a cry, not even the muffled “get off!” or “Jesus, when’s someone gonna invent the fuckin bidet?” that Danny had secretly been hoping for.

  “So it’s official. He’s not the rightful King,” Danny said in relief, feeling as though he were back on board with this particular narrative now.

  “Watch.”

  The crowd were murmuring. A few had started to move toward their supposed king. As they did so, Bres gripped that immense silver sword. He held it aloft and it bathed the watching multitude in a silvery light that washed over them all, all save the two versions of the Morrigan and Danny himself.

  Danny understood.

  “He rewrote their memories.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you go down there?” he asked her. “Stop him? You knew what had happened.”

  “I was tired,” she said. “I had trained my entire life for the post of Goddess of War, Danny. And I had gone out, ridden out of my first assignment, and I had surpassed everyone’s expectations, including my own. I killed almost four hundred Formorians
that day at Mag Tuiread. But rather than being hailed a hero, we were told we had gone too far, and that we needed to distance ourselves from such mindless barbarism.”

  The younger Morrigan raised the Spear and with a yell that rang out across the valley, she brought it down upon the earth. It splintered with a crack that drove a fissure deep into the hillside on which she stood, until the entire summit simply split and one hill became two. Danny watched this mythic occurrence with less surprise than he’d imagined he would; he was more interested in the solitary figure abandoning the fragments of Spear it had just created and walking away, alone, into the countryside, away from everything she knew, away from her people.

  “In one moment, one act of short-sightedness,” the older goddess beside him said, “I walked away from the destiny I’d always had laid out for myself, full of promise and hope and a place among the high ones, and into a future I’d never imagined.”

  He licked his lips, even as she touched his arm and he felt the familiar tug of a space-time shift begin to take hold.

  “Can’t imagine what that was like,” he said.

  **

  Belfast, 2011 AD

  Squelch.

  That, Danny decided, was never a good noise for a living-room rug to make.

  Gingerly, he lifted his foot, sodden sock and all, off the rug. It was dark-coloured and the living room was not brightly lit. The bulb had blown the day before and ‘bulb’ had been dutifully added to the list of ‘things to buy’ magnetically affixed to the fridge door.

  Danny wondered how many o’s were in ‘noose’.

  “Rug’s wet,” he called into the kitchen.

  “What? Wet? How? How wet?”

  His right foot was soaked. Shrugging, in for a penny in for a pound, he selected the opposite end of the rug and planted his left foot down.

  Squelch.

  “Very.”