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The Worthless Turtle

Dennis McFadden

Stepping out of the raw evening onto the sodden floorboards of Slattery’s Public House, blinking his eyes in the gloom, Lafferty spotted the girl all alone at the bar, a marooned sailor spying a speck that might be a ship. The bar was sparsely populated, vacant barstools abounding; nevertheless he chose the one at her elbow.

“Do you mind? You look as though you could use the company.” A hand through his ill-mannered brown hair, speckled with gray, and with droplets from the spitting rain, he smiled his most charming smile, displaying the dimple in his chin.

“Not at all,” she said. “Have you come to keep me warm?” She was bundled in a yellow cardigan, brown hair willy-nilly on her head, cheeks sunken, eyes sleepy and skittish all at once.

Just the man for the job. All his life he’d lived to keep warm those of the gentler gender who needed the warming, and though his services had not been so much in demand since the dawn of the day of the smartphone, he prided himself on his readiness. And he marveled at the instant connection with this one, the easy compatibility, like slipping into an old shoe.

“Aye,” he said, “Terrance Lafferty, man-oven, at your service.”

“Man-oven,” she said, and a chuckle. Or was it a shiver? Her hand moved on the bar an inch toward his own. “Call me Daisy.”

“Daisy. Is it your name, or are you just in a flowery mood?”

“It is my name, today. Yesterday I was Rose. Tomorrow maybe I’ll be a Lily.”

The barman came over, red splashes for cheeks. It was a pub unfamiliar to him, his own local having barred him for his unfortunate, and unfortunately recurring, insolvency.

He said to the girl, “Fancy another?” hoping she’d decline.

She turned to him, a hard shiver coming over her. He noticed then the wee dimple in her chin, not unlike his own, and it was then that something clicked, that everything—his outlook, his expectations, his mood—began to change. She clasped the cardigan closer, grasping the brooch on the scarf at her neck. “No,” said she, reaching for her bag. “Let’s go to where it’s warm,” and Lafferty sighed with relief.

Nevertheless it was with anything but a jubilant feeling that he followed her out into the street. Dublin born and reared, he considered himself street-wise as the next man despite a respite of nearly twenty years in the midlands, in the heart of County Nowhere, where he’d followed his erstwhile wife, Peggy, in an ultimately futile attempt at keeping her roof over his head. A decade had passed since his return.

And though he’d every confidence in his charm, that only needed the rust knocked off it now and again, the charm he’d practiced in his younger years when love was there for the plucking, ripe peaches on low branches, the truth was that the ease with which he’d won over young Daisy was nothing to do with it. His suspicion that she might be a lady of the evening was losing traction as well. Something else was at play.

Through the soft cold rain they walked down the dirty lanes of Finglas, past storefronts shuttered and shamed, past rude tenements, a wary eye out for unsavory sorts in the streets. Not the kindest of neighborhoods, rougher even than his own. Her place was not far, a five-minute scurry, above a boarded-up shop—Bridal Bliss Boutique—where murals of bygone brides in princess gowns were fading from the face of the weathered bricks. Up creaking steps, down the hallway past a door where the melodic sounds of the tender ballad leaked out—Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got love in my tummy—past another where a bed was squeaking sounds of love.

Daisy’s room was hot as an oven, a little gas stove in the corner gasping and yawning wee blue and orange flames. There, he saw her in bright light for the first time. The red-rimmed, hollow eyes, the shivering, twig-sized cut of her.

He saw a wilted Daisy, sickly, lovely … and somehow familiar.

Everything had changed. Lafferty would be hard-pressed to say exactly where or when the change took place, but somewhere between the barroom and the bedroom, any inkling of randiness that might have inhabited his blood had leached away entirely, like color from a stricken face. Nor could he say exactly why. He’d come to the realization that this girl, this Daisy, was clearly not a lady of the evening (not that a lady’s vocation had ever stood between him and love before). She was a sorry young thing masquerading, without success, as a lady of the evening.

She felt the change as well. Her masquerade over, her mask off, she stood beside the rumpled bed, exposed, caught in her lie. She clutched at her yellow cardigan, in anger, despair, pulling at the scarf about her neck, the sound of a tear stopping her short.

“Shit,” she muttered.

“What?”

“It’s my brooch,” she said. “The pin’s already bent.” She disentangled it from the folds of the scarf, a gaudy piece big as a walnut, encrusted with tiny, multi-colored gemstones. She examined it closely.

“Is it worth something?” he said.

She tried to latch it. “To who?” she said, not looking up. “It’s only costume jewelry, worthless. My fella paid two quid for it at a shop down on Ballyboggan. But I love it.”

“You’ve a fella?” He glanced toward the door.

“He’s long gone—this is all that’s left of him.” She held the brooch up, caressing it with her gaze. “It’s a turtle, you see. They say turtles are supposed to bring you good luck—to me sure it’s priceless.”

“And how’s that luck thing working out?”

She looked at him crossly. Her face turned white. She gave a violent shiver, clamped her hand on her mouth and scrambled through the door, into the loo across the hall. He heard the muffled sounds of regurgitation. When she returned it was with a sway and a wobble, her brown hair damp and frazzled, her eyes darker, more hollow than before, her nose runny, a wee trickle of snot gleaming in the light of the lamp by the bed. Her face a cold sheen of sweat. Tears leaked from her eyes.

Withdrawal, he thought.

She wiped her nose, smearing snot. “Mister, I need some money.”

Lafferty could only stare.

“Please? I need it.”

He pulled coins from his pocket, shuffled them about in his palm. “I’ve got, let’s see, just over three quid—would that help, yeah?”

She laughed, not a little, but a hefty rumble too big for her britches, and she crumbled beneath the weight of it, falling to the floor, and by the time she got there, an untidy heap on the threadbare rug, the laughter had given over to tears. She shivered, making her way on hands and knees over the dirty rug where she leaned against the bed and the rickety wee stand, hugging her skinny knees, her eyes clapped shut. “I sure can pick ’em, can’t I?” she mumbled to no one in particular. Her eyes came open, big and raw. “Why you?” she said.

“I get that a lot,” said your man.

She flicked her hand like shooing a fly. “Leave,” she said. “Go. Please. You can leave the three quid—it might help.”

He dropped the coins on the bed. “Isn’t there anything…”

“Just go,” she said. And again when he hesitated, “GO!”

He could take a hint as well as the next. What could he do?

He left her there, reluctantly. He left her there, leaning against the bed, her turtle peeping over her shoulder, bringing her no luck, no luck at all, as complicit as was your man.

Next morning sitting over his cuppa at the table of Mrs. Hannigan, his landlady, the image of Daisy weeping in a pitiful heap refused to scram from his head.

He had worries of his own. His rent was overdue. Mrs. Hannigan came into the kitchen and spied him there, as he knew she would. The wizened oul face of her lit up bright as the rouge on her painted oul cheeks.

“Mr. Lafferty,” she said, “there you are. Good. Have you your rent ready? I’m ready to take your rent. I’ve been ready in fact since Friday.”

 “I do, Mrs. Hannigan,” said he. “And I’ve a wee favor to ask as well.”

Suspicion deepened the wrinkles of her brow. She’d been a looker years ago, and her hand moved up past the painted lips to the gray curls for a primp. “A favor?”

“A loan. Something’s come up. I’m in need of a wee loan.”

“Don’t think for a minute I’m going to start paying you to pay me your rent.”

“Not at all, at all. A loan is all. I’ll pay it back. With interest.”

“Very well then,” said she, huffy, not happy. She led him through the kitchen, glancing about to ensure the coast was clear, down the soft, silent carpet of the hallway to her bedroom. Lafferty was soon at work paying his rent, mindful he was paying it well, with interest, to satisfy the oul creature. His mind was elsewhere.

The image of Daisy, the snot and the tears on her haggard young face, the uncanny familiarity, the sense of déjà vu, would not let him be.

Fifty quid in his pocket, he set out for the boarded-up bridal boutique in Finglas. It was a fairer day altogether, patches of blue infiltrating the clouds overhead, hope in the air. He’d a box of chocolates under his arm, having heard that sugar served to calm the breast of savage addiction. If he could put her on an even keel, perhaps then he could help. In his pocket was a scrap of paper upon which he’d scribbled the numbers and addresses of Ana Liffey, St. Vincent de Paul and the Samaritans, outreach programs he’d looked up in Mrs. Hannigan’s parlor after his rent was well and fully paid.

Up the stairway of creaks and groans, past the doors, silent now, no love in the tummy, no squeaks of love, to the door of Daisy’s room, a tap, tap, tap, but nothing stirred. The door budged. A nudge, a peek, and he saw her there. All the strength spilled out of him and he slid slowly down the doorjamb to the floor, clutching her chocolates.

She was sprawled on the dirty rug, a black band about her arm still, the needle still in her hand, the dimple still in her chin. Still. On her face a look of savage, hard-won peace.

He waited there with her. Ordinarily he’d quietly quickly vamoose. But he couldn’t leave her alone, not again, not for a second time. Contrary to his nature.

All his life he’d avoided red tape, any manner of entanglement, but he made the sacrifice, the least he could do, and when he thought of himself as thinking he was making a sacrifice, and poor Daisy lifeless on the floor, didn’t he, for an instant, despise himself. Only for an instant.

He’d called 999 from the neighboring room, the neighbor being a worn-out, bruised woman, drunk as a lord before noon. A motley congregation assembled in the hallway, a woman in curlers, a man in pajamas and tattoos, a wee fella in decrepit old tweeds, a bog-trotter’s cap on his skull, and a red-cheeked woman indignant that someone would have the gall to die down the hall on her only day off.

The coroner arrived. Lafferty watched from a neighboring planet. A crew arrived and a gurney. He told them he was her lover in order to stay, and the one cheeky lad says, lover or father? and didn’t your man take offense.

He would remember the offense he took as the height of irony.

He rode in the back of the ambulance to the hospital. Tried holding her hand, till the dead chill of it made him pull back. Something about her, the pitiful thing beneath the gray blanket, so lately alive, so forever stilled, would not let him turn her loose.

This was how he came to be there when her next-of-kin turned up.

Her mother’s name was Moira Bell. The name alone sparked no recognition, but when he got a closer gander, old memories began surfacing, gasping for air.

She was an attractive woman, though the years were beginning to have their way with her, lovely black hair losing its luster, speckled with the gray, the complexion of her pretty face growing slack and rough about the edges. Wrinkles sprouting like weeds. She was a tough woman, cheek bones like clenched fists, a hard life there on her face for the world to see. When she saw him, learned who he was, came to touch his arm and look into his eyes to see how her daughter had died, didn’t her eyes stay poking about in his till they found something to latch onto. Her brow fretting in wonder.

“Do I know you?” she said.

“I’m after wondering the same. Do you now?”

She put her finger to his chin, remembering the dimple, then stepped close, putting her arms about him, squeezes like heartbeats. “My baby,” she said, and Lafferty was keen enough to realize she meant her daughter, the girl dead on the gurney, not himself. He was fairly certain of it.

Didn’t Moira confirm it for him, backing away, patting his chest. “Not you, love,” she said. She turned, gesturing limply toward the room where Daisy lay. “Your wee little girl.”

He was not a thick man. The meaning, the world of implication of the four words came crashing over him like a tsunami, his little girl, his own flesh and blood lying dead, her mother at his elbow.

His first instinct, true to himself, was to turn on his heel and hightail it, as fast and as far as he could.

But she held fast to his elbow. “My God,” said she. “Did ye know?”

“No,” he said. “Yes.” For didn’t the heart of him know before the head.

▪

THE NAME OF THE PUB was O’Faolain’s, just off Drumcondra, where now stood terrace housing. He remembered the black Guinness awning of O’Faolain’s, the flower pots brimming with the pretty posies of summer, the place elbow-to-elbow in the lovely smoke and the racket at the long black bar, the utter bliss of not yet having spent thirty years in the world. Nearly thirty years ago, not long after he married Peggy, not long before he followed her to Kilduff, forsaking his Dublin altogether. It was the night he and the girl found each other through the thick smoke and the throng, homing in on each other as though they were the only two people in the place, the only two people on the planet, he and the girl with hair like midnight and skin like cream. An attraction so true and deep he could think of it only as a state of grace. And, like all states of grace, wasn’t it a fragile and fleeting thing, and shattered by morning.

And the girl’s name was Moira.

Not until late that night could they finally find quiet time together. It was at Moira’s place in Drumcondra, one of the brick terrace houses built in the ’20’s in the shadow of Croke Park. Her neighbor beyond the wall had twenty cats and the smell of cat piss crept into her parlor, as did the occasional cat itself, but the burning of candles kept the smell at bay. Word had quickly spread among family, friends, neighbors, who’d congregated in shock and mourning. When all but a few were gone, Lafferty and Moira were left in a quiet corner by the piano, by the burning candles, remembering O’Faolain’s.

“I tried to look you up after,” she said. “I found out you’d left the city.”

“Aye. Green acres was the place for me.” Across the room, a lingering, tipsy mourner spilled his drink with a yelp of regret. They scarcely noticed.

“Scared you knocked me up, so you skedaddled—was that it?”

“Not at all. I’d never have guessed. You could have found me—there were plenty that knew where I was.”

“And why would I want a no-account git such as yourself around me or my babby?”

“Fair question. And as I recall, you had a fella—what was his name, the madman, the mentaller?”

“Fergus,” she said.

Fergus. How could he forget? Savage, vicious, hopped up on steroids and speed, stalking Moira to the ends of the bloody city, rampaging, wreaking havoc. It was him put an end to the state of grace, the lovely state of grace after O’Faolain’s. “You’d not recognize him now,” she said. “He quit the pills long ago, put down the hod, took a job selling widgets or some such. He’s done well for himself. He’s still about.”

“Aye, Fergus. I can imagine how he took it when he found out you were up the pole.”

“He wanted to marry me is how he took it, give the lass a father.”

“You’re codding me. He thought it was his own then?”

“He did. I set him straight though—it couldn’t have been. The pills had seen to that.”

“Maybe you should’ve. Married him. Sure Daisy might have been better off. Yourself as well.” He waited for her to poo-poo the very notion, but when she didn’t, when she showed no inclination whatsoever to poo-poo, he quickly moved on. “God’s sense of humor,” he said, “of all the bloody pubs in Dublin.” He’d told her how he and Daisy met at Slattery’s. He told her how he’d sussed out her troubles, the drugs, the withdrawal, looked up the outreach, tried to help, too little, too late.

“Join the club,” Moira said. “I tried, we all tried, everyone tried. But I botched the job. Didn’t we all.”

“She mentioned a fella, the one that gave her a brooch—”

“That ugly turtle yoke, yeah. She always wore it, she loved it so—kept it about for good luck. So much for turtle luck.”

“And the fella? He’s out of the picture?”

“They’re all out of the picture, Terrance, every bloody one of them. Of course you wouldn’t want ’em in the picture, would you, not that shower of maggots. If they weren’t using her for a punching bag or pumping her full of dope, they were going about overdosing themselves.”

“Jesus,” he said. “That fecking turtle ought to be sacked.”
“If I come across it in her things, I’ll bin it. Or shall I give it to you? How’s your luck these days, Terrance?”

“Me? I feel like the luckiest man in Dublin.”

“Lucky? Meet your daughter one day, find her dead the next? Lucky?”

He felt a right bloody eejit. “I found you again was what I meant.”

“You’re right. Of course. There’s that. Always a bright side, yeah?”

“Did you never think of me at all?”

“Every day. Every time I looked at the dimple in Daisy-girl’s chin.” She touched the dimple in his own.

“The last thing she said to me was why you?” He skipped the just leave, go part. “And the way she looked at me. I wonder. I can’t help but wonder if she knew. That I was her da.”

She patted his cheek. “I wonder if she knew what year it was.”

Uncle something-or-other came out of the kitchen, a woman peeping over his shoulder. A stout man, white shirt bulging out between the buttons of his black waistcoat, drying his hands on a tea towel. Lafferty’d met him earlier—Moira’d introduced Lafferty around as the villain who took her virginity, an outrageous lie not meant to be believed, he believed. The uncle nodded solemnly, took Moira’s hand. “We’re on our way, love,” he said. “We’re after tidying up in the kitchen a bit.”

“Oh you needn’t have,” she said. “Terrance was so looking forward to it. He’s a madman in the kitchen as well as the bedroom.”

Uncle something-or-other cast a skeptical frown at your man. “No bother at all, at all. Take care, love. We’re so sorry for your loss.”

“Oh, aye. Me too.”

The door shut behind him. Now they were alone, him and Moira and the candles burning low. She plunked a note on the derelict old piano, harsh and discordant and entirely misplaced.

“Do you fancy a rag-time tune?” she said.

“No. Do you fancy a hug?”

A brave facsimile of a smile. “You’re a sweet man, Terrance. That I remember.”

“And non-fattening,” he added.

His quip was met with silence. She stared at the floor, the tarnished brass pedals of the piano. “Who’ll remember her?” When she looked up again, it was with glistening eyes. “Who’ll ever even know she was here? She wasn’t here long enough, she never made a dent, like a bloody ant crawling on a bloody rock.”

She looked to your man as if he might have the answer. He did not.

“Daisy Bell, 1991 – 2017,” she said. “That’s all that’s left of her. Two bloody words, two bloody years, carved in wee letters on a bloody wee stone you wouldn’t pick out from a thousand like it. That’s all. Nothing more.”

She plunked the keys, one at a time, each note deeper than the one before it, going down, till she came to the one that wouldn’t plunk.

Over and over she pressed it, a chain of dull, hollow thunks.

Moira’s need for comfort was great as his own, and didn’t he need it plenty. And indeed weren’t there moments of magic, they were that natural together, echoes of the first and only other time—the dream, the long-ago night after O’Faolain’s. To his mind, it recalled that night in many ways, the stray light through the open window a sheen and a shimmer on the soft skin of her, the sounds of Dublin far off in the night, and all the rest of the dream, all the moistness and deepness and softness and warmth.

But this night he was awakened from the deep sleep afterwards by his shoulder being jostled. “Terrance, are you awake? Are you awake, Terrance?”

He blinked his eyes open, wondering for a moment if he was. “Aye,” he said. “Who can sleep at a time like this?”

“She was here,” Moira said, “Daisy. In my dream. She came to visit me.”

“Aye. She would, now.”

“She was a wee girl again, her hair in pigtails, jumping up and down, the eyes of her big as balloons—begging me, ‘Mummy, please Mummy, please Mummy!’ Just like when she was a wee girl, Terrance—it might have been a memory, not a dream.”

“What’s she after begging for?”

“When she was little, if I so much as whispered the word ‘zoo’ she’d start in, ‘Can we go, Mummy, please can we go,’ just like in the dream, hopping up and down like a terrier.”

“A happy time, then, grand. Dreaming of happy times with her.”

“Not at all. I’d have to tell her no, we can’t go to the zoo, I’ve no money to go to the fecking zoo, and wouldn’t she end up in tears.”

“So take her to the fecking zoo in your bloody dream.”

“It isn’t what she’s begging for, Terrance.”

“What then?”

“She wants to be remembered. She’s begging for a grand marker on her grave. That’s what she wants—‘Please Mummy, please, put something to remember me by. Don’t forget me, Mummy!’ A proper memorial, Terrance. The very least I can do. One that everyone will see, one that says what she was, who she was—maybe with a picture of her on it as well. They have those, you know, I’ve seen ’em. She must have something grand.”

“By God, do it then. Put up a grand oul marker for her.”

“You don’t think it’s bollocks?”

“Not at all, at all. It’s a grand idea.”

She went up on one elbow. “There’s a problem.”

“Of course.” There was always a problem. He remembered how the state of grace was ended the night after O’Faolain’s, shattered so soon after waking.

“I can no more afford a bloody grand headstone now than I could afford the bloody zoo back then.”

“Aye.” He frowned in the dark and sweated a little.

“She’s your daughter, Terrance. You wouldn’t—”

“If only. But I find myself a bit financially embarrassed.”

“Of course you do.” She sank back. “I’m up to my eyeballs myself. Still paying for her first rehab, never mind the others. Never mind the funeral.”

Between them they hadn’t credit enough to buy a packet of crisps. There were the horses, he’d struck it big on a nag more than once, if only he could get a decent inside tip, if only he could get back to his local where tips such as those first saw the light of day, if only he wasn’t barred for stretching out his credit beyond redemption. If only. On the pillow he felt the shaking of her head. She said her boss down at Dunnes had a sympathetic ear—many’s the time she troubled him about Daisy—and a good head on his shoulders that might hold a good idea, or maybe, though it was a longshot, an offer of a loan himself. She was sure he fancied her.

He thought of Mrs. Hannigan. He could try his landlady, he said, who’d indeed sprung for a loan before, albeit a more modest one.

Moira leaned in, a bit of the years showing through now in the nearness. She took his chin, squeezed it by the dimple and wagged it. “I won’t ask why your landlady’s after lending you money, Terrance. I’m sure it’s on account of your spotless credit. What the devil else could it be?”

“Maybe she sees me as the son she never had.”

“She never had a son?”

“Seven of ’em, actually, but who’s counting?”

He felt more than heard the chuckle of her, her body leaning on him warm and lovely. They stared at the ghost of a glow across the ceiling from the lamppost down on Russell Street. His head was swimming, the grace slipping away, he was trying to hang on, trying to suss out how to go about approaching Mrs. Hannigan when didn’t Moira utter a word, an accursed word, the last word he wanted to hear: Fergus.

Fergus had money enough. He was crazy about her, always had been, always would be. Hadn’t he offered to help before, with Daisy’s rehab most recently, other times in the past as well when she’d found herself in this precarious pickle or that. Hadn’t she always refused. Her independence was too high a cost.

“You’d marry the scut for money?”

She reared up a wee bit. “I’ll have a memorial for my little girl’s grave.”

“We can manage. You and me can, together. No Fergus need apply.”

Again she touched his chin, just at the dimple, lightly. “You’re a sweet man. You do mean well.” With that, she rolled away, taking with her what was left of the grace.

It was the smell of coffee finally rousted him from a tedious facsimile of sleep. Down the squeaky staircase, he went into the kitchen where Moira sat, her wee laptop on the table before her, photos spread out all about. Photos of Daisy Bell. Their daughter. Moira gave him a weary smile, nodding toward the coffee on the counter. He found a mug in the third cupboard he tried, as Moira behind him kept clicking away. Filled his cup, stood staring for a moment through the window at the back garden, mostly weeds and rubble under a sullen sky, though a bushy green thing or two of a species unknown to your man sprouted here and there. On the brick wall by the rusty wrought iron table a fat orange tomcat dozed.

He went and stood behind her, looked over her shoulder at the gravestone on the screen. A girl’s name across the top in large, flowing script, delicate, curling flowers etched in opposite corners, a verse and a remembrance—Always in our hearts where you’ll live forever—and a portrait of a pretty girl engraved into the black granite.

He put his hand on the curve at Moira’s neck and shoulder. She glanced over her shoulder, though not quite far enough to find him.

“This one,” she said.

As soon as he said, “How much?” he regretted it.

He felt, more than heard, the sigh. “€7,000, give or take.”

A tap at the front door. She cocked her head like a spaniel, shoved her chair back bang against his knees, hurried off down the hall. The rattle of the door, voices, Moira’s and a man’s. Lafferty staring at the tombstone.

She came back into the kitchen, the man in tow. “Terrance,” she said. “I don’t believe you ever met Fergus.”

Not what Lafferty expected, even though Moira’d mentioned he’d changed. He was entirely unformidable in a sweater-vest and limp-collared shirt, every thinning hair neatly laid across his scalp. The last time Lafferty’d seen him he was pumped as a football, a wild man wielding a barstool over his head with one hand as though it were a baton.

“Not officially,” said Lafferty, offering a smile, sticking out a hand. Fergus made no effort to reach out a hand of his own, nor any to smile. Said Lafferty, “As I recall, Fergus here’s the fella who tried to bludgeon me to death one night.”

“Aye,” said Fergus. “And Moira tells me you’re Daisy’s father, her very own father who left her to die in a puddle of puke.”

Moira said, “I just knew you two would hit it off.”

Mrs. Hannigan was in high spirits. One of her tenants had just died. Fair play, thought Lafferty, the cause of her high spirits notwithstanding, for now mightn’t she be in a more generous mood. He intended to pop the question about a loan this morning after paying his rent.

The deceased tenant was Mrs. Sievers, a lady a bit older than Mrs. Hannigan, a lady whose two-fisted wielding of her twin canes had cleared many a passageway before her, gangway, denting many an innocent shin. Mrs. Hannigan patted the gaudy gold necklace on her bosom, a smile on her painted oul lips, a twinkle in her rheumy eye. She took it off, held it up. “Isn’t it lovely? I admired it on the oul floozie for ages.”

He recognized the thing, a gold chain with chunky links, clusters of what appeared to be pearls sprayed out at the bottom. Like clusters of daisies. Daisey’s. He’d seen it often about Mrs. Sievers’ wrinkled oul neck. “And she left it to you, did she? A generous soul.”

“Generous? That one? Don’t make me laugh. She’d squeeze a penny till it squealed, that one would.” She patted his knee, shifted her weight on the edge of the bed, drawing squawks of protest. “She was in arrears, Mr. Lafferty. You know how that is. Let’s just say her account is now settled.” She winked, one scallywag to another.

“It must be worth something, yeah?”

A prideful smile on the painted oul face, a scoff. “You have to ask?”

He waited till after, when his own rent was paid, when the oul wan was flush and mellow, her accounts settled up, and she was entirely satisfied. He broached it then, his need of a loan.

To his mind the need now was more urgent than ever, not only to memorialize the daughter he never knew, not only to keep her mother near—now the dream had happened twice, two states of grace—but also to keep this gouger Fergus at bay.

He wondered if he might trouble Mrs. Hannigan for another wee loan (he would negotiate the meaning of “wee” as they went along). She lent him a sympathetic ear. He embellished the story only modestly, as modest embellishment was all that was called for. He told her about finding the long-lost daughter he never knew he had, how there was no mistaking the immediate chemistry, and that just as he was getting to know her, just as he’d been reunited with her mother and the three of them planning a future, together again, as a family, his little girl took a tragic overdose, tragic and fatal. Oh, to be sure, her drug problem had been known for some time, she’d been in rehab, they were reaching out for help yet again when the tragedy struck. Weren’t they devasted. And, to make matters worse, weren’t they strapped as well for the cost of the burial, for the cost of a decent stone to remember her by, one to do justice to her life and memory. Her mother was as out at the elbows as himself, temporary to be sure, but until they could manage to get their heads above water, was there any possibility Mrs. Hannigan might float them a wee bit of a loan for the headstone, only for a short period of time, only until they regained a smattering of solvency?

“Not on your nelly,” said Mrs. Hannigan.

He found himself later that morning on his own squawky bed in his own dusty room, deep in the throes of self-pity. Wondering what Moira was doing now. And with whom.

It was not his custom to look in the mirror, but the dingy wee glass above the dresser was unavoidable, and what was there was not the clean, clear-eyed fresh face, the handsome dimple and charmingly unruly hair of yore.

Instead he saw eyes the color of an old walrus tusk, a sad dimple in a shabby, unshaven face, hair lifeless and wilted and going to gray. He saw the failure Moira must see. The has-been that never was. He saw the same loser his daughter had seen in the only earthly glimpse she ever got of her da.

It was not his custom to reflect on his life, on his fifty-five years spent mostly looking for love, seldom for meaning beyond the meaning of love, and consider it an ill-spent waste. Nor was it his custom to dwell on his erstwhile wife, Peggy—who, if she’d had her way, would have convinced him long ago of the truth of what he saw in the mirror on this morning—nor on his own son, Harry, his and Peggy’s son, fourteen years of age by now if memory served him right, and not a word from him the last ten of them. Peggy’d seen to that.

A son, a daughter, and he’d yet to be a father.

He heard the front door clatter and looked down to see Mrs. Hannigan walking away downstreet toward the shops. It was not his custom to wallow in self-pity. What was his custom was to do what had to be done.

Thus he found himself later that afternoon beneath the three golden balls of Brereton’s Pawn Shop on Capel Street, a gaudy gold necklace heavy in his pocket.

Your man never considered himself a thief, never before, nor even as he was jimmying the lock to Mrs. Hannigan’s room. First off he doubted Mrs. Sievers had actually been in arrears—the old lady was always prompt and fastidious and, by all appearances, well provided for. Second, he figured he’d been overpaying his own rent for some time now, and was due a bit of a refund. If there was anything left over after the cost of the headstone, then he would certainly do the right thing. As to what the right thing might be, he’d negotiate that after the worth and costs were known.

No worries, as it turned out. The broker, a narrow-shouldered, balding chap in his green visor, puffy sleeves and tight waistcoat, told him the necklace was worthless. At a glance. Didn’t deign to examine the thing under his hand lens. What it was was gold-toned zinc, faux pearls made of glass. He’d not give him five quid for it.

The broker shoved the worthless piece back at him, and there it sat, untouched, like something shat by a Kerry bull.

Lafferty tapped the top of the glass case in a fret.

Back to the bloody drawing board. He took the thing and dropped it into his pocket. There was still time enough to spirit it back to Mrs. Hannigan’s vanity.

On his way to the door though, didn’t something catch his eye.

In a well-secured case under lock and key, a display of fine jewelry, rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces—and brooches. None in the shape of a turtle, but there were some with likenesses to Daisy’s, the colors of the stones, the set of them, the style maybe, something, likenesses he didn’t know enough to put a finger to. He called the man over and inquired. The broker didn’t bother fetching the key along, not for the likes of Lafferty. Yes, he said, fine jewelry from the first half of the last century, didn’t your man have superior taste, pieces by outfits Lafferty’d never heard of, such as Cartier, Tiffany, Bertoia and the like. The broker could show him some costume jewelry up in the front of the store—in fact, was he aware that most of the costume jewelry was inspired by designs such as these in the high-priced case? Your man was not. He thanked him kindly.

Hurried up to Moira’s place on Russell. Moira was still gone. Now though, he didn’t fret where. Or why. Or with whom. Your man was on a mission. It took him no time at all to locate Daisy’s brooch among her things in a box—three boxes held all her things—that had been stashed under the bed in the back room, buried in shadows and dust. He took it over to the window, to the light. Examined the thing close. On the back, on the turtle’s tummy, he could make out a name: Van Cleef & Arpels. The broker hadn’t mentioned that name in particular so far as he could recall, but didn’t it look impressive. Didn’t it sound impressive.

Half an hour later, back at Brereton’s, he showed it the broker.

The broker took up his hand lens.

He was impressed.

▪

THE DAY TURNED WARMER, the blanket of clouds overhead a delightful linen white instead of your normal scowling gray. Making his way back up to Russell Street, Lafferty couldn’t wait to see the look on the gob of Moira when he told her the fella at Brereton’s had offered him €10,000 on the spot. He’d demurred, Daisy’s turtle still tucked away in his pocket. Who was to say the price mightn’t be better at another shop where the broker wasn’t so snooty? As well, it wasn’t his to sell. There was that—your man was not a thief. He couldn’t help but wonder though how the grand oul difference between the cost of the gravestone and the worth of the turtle—€10,000 minus €7,000 or so—might be put toward the forgetting of Fergus.

He expected she’d still be gone. He intended a grand reveal. In the parlor the smell of cat piss was more piquant than usual, so he decided to move the surprise party to the wee garden in back. He’d borrowed a ten euro note from Mrs. Hannigan’s dresser drawer, enough for a bottle of cheap champagne and a large bag of the bacon-flavored crisps, Moira’s favorite. He’d only just set about searching her cupboards for fancy glasses, when a titter caught his ear. Looking out through the window, he saw them there in the garden, Moira and Fergus, laughing over fancy glasses, a bottle of expensive champagne and what looked to be posh hors d’oeuvres. On the wall the fat orange tomcat gazed down on them with naked disdain.

Moira looked up at the shadow in the window. “Terrance? Is it yourself?”

“Aye. In the flesh. So to speak.”

“Come out,” she called. “Come join us.”

He went as far the doorway. “What’s the occasion?”

“Fergus is buying the gravestone!” Moira was tipsy. Fergus as well, beaming like the lighthouse at Howth. “Daisy will have her grand oul marker!”

▪

IT WAS NOT your man’s custom to dwell on what-might-have-beens. Nevertheless, same as any mortal, he was not always able to keep the regrets at bay. Sometimes they came skulking in, often in disguise, rats burrowing in through the stoutest of cellar walls. He dreamed that night that he and Daisy were on a grassy pitch under a sky too blue to be true, a flock of lovely white clouds, and they were having a catch, tossing about a scuffed old ball, laughing and chasing, having a grand oul time. In the dream she was spry and alive, happy, and a feeling of great relief swelled up inside him, realizing she was not really dead. Then came the waking.

He went to McGill’s, the funeral parlor, to pay his own private respects, to grieve in his own private way, having decided to forego the wake at Moira’s. He had a word with McGill, the undertaker, who’d done his best with Daisy. He kindly stepped aside to let Lafferty spend some moments alone with his daughter. He’d done the best he could, but Lafferty couldn’t help but sadly compare the happy young face of the girl in his dream with the painted, plastic version on the pillow in the coffin.

He thanked McGill, a stout and solemn little man, had a final word with him, a final request, then took his leave.

Just down the street was The Rose, a pub that looked neither too shabby nor too posh. He had his regrets to keep at bay. He had his grief to navigate. When first he stepped inside from the gray and the gloom, he looked about the room for any possibility of comfort. And didn’t he spot it there straightaway, a lady all alone at the bar.

Most of the people who’d been at Moira’s before came back again for the wake, them and a few others besides. Daisy was laid out in the parlor, across the room from the piano where fresh candles burned. McGill stood by the head of the coffin. His job was to be steadfast. To not leave the girl alone till he took her away to put her into the ground.

Precious few were the remembrances, not a lively wake at all, the life remembered being so tragic and short, so ill-spent.

What murmur there was from the mourners came to a hush when Moira stepped up for a moment with her daughter. She bowed her head. Fergus stood just off to the side, an expression on his face both grim and glad, full of grief for the loss of the girl, full of delight for the loss of Lafferty. Moira, staring down, frowned and blinked.

She said to McGill, “Where did you find that? That ugly turtle yoke?”

“Her father, ma’am,” said McGill. “A Mr. Lafferty, I believe? The gentleman with the jersey worn through at the elbows? He’s after telling me the young lady loved the worthless oul bauble, and would very much want to be buried with it.”

Moira turned, laying her hand on Fergus’s arm, a warm flush overcoming her cheeks. “Isn’t that just like him?” she said. “So sweet. Such a sweet man.”

“Lafferty?” said Fergus.

▪ ▪ ▪

Dennis McFadden (1943-2025) graduated from Allegheny College, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor’s degree in English and worked a full career with the NYS Department of Health. In retirement, he lived and wrote in a cedar-shingled cottage called Summerhill, in the Upstate New York countryside. Among his many works, a short story collection, Jimtown Road, won the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. Another collection Lafferty, Looking for Love, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. His novel Old Grimes Is Dead was selected by Kirkus Reviews as one of the Best Indie Books of 2022. His stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Missouri Review, New England Review, The Sewanee Review, Massachusetts Review, and Best American Mystery Stories. Dennis also served as Literary Judge and Guest Editor for Prime Number Magazine‘s Short Fiction Award. Dennis produced work prolifically up to the end, succumbing to a decades’ long battle with cancer.

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