Morrigan, Book 1: Emergence

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“OMG, Girlfriend!” exclaimed Rachel for the umpteenth time as she and Mo sat outside on the grass during their lunch break.

“That is like sooo random. Like, why would your dad dis Robbie like that? There must be more to it...”

Mo couldn’t bear when Rachel tried to do the valley girl thing but she thought she might have a point about her dad’s over-reaction to catching her kissing a boy.

“Well, it was Robbie’s brother who got Shin preggers afterall, so that might have something to do with it.”

“Like, you totally said it! “ Mo winced as Rachel got even more into her valley girl alter ego. She felt like telling her to cop on and reminding her that she was from Callighstown, not fucking California, but she didn’t want to antagonise her. Friends were a little light on the ground for Mo since returning to school; she couldn’t explain why but she just felt as though she no longer had anything in common with them. She had to keep Rachel sweet or she’d end up a right Nelly-No-Mates.

“Tony fucking Butler! Like, saucy - the whole town is talkin about it.... Rage for your dad though, no?”

“Well I’m grounded till fucking Christmas or something, so yeah, ‘Rage’. Listen Rache, I have no mobile phone or internet access. Is there any chance you could score me one of the many phone your da seems to have lying around at any given time? I’d owe you big time...”

“Ah shit, Mo, I dunno if I really want to get involved. Maybe your dad has a point, no?”

“Rachel, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t told you everything yet; he has forbidden Sinead to contact me or mum again because I got her to cover for me and she got sussed.”

“Harsh.”

“Tell me about it. I fucking hate him. Of all the people to punish, Sinead does not need this, not in her condition.”

“Chill, Mo, ya don’t hate him.”

“You know what, Rachel? I hope he has a fucking heart-attack. I really do.”

“Jesus Christ, Mo—ye don’t mean that!”

“Yes, I fucking do. He has cut Sinead out of our family and now she has no one.”

“Well, she has Tony.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Rachel. You know as well as I do which side Tony Butler’s bread is buttered on. He works for his father-in-law. He can’t afford to leave his wife. And thanks to Jack, Sinead and her little boy will have to go on the dole and live in some god-awful housing estate.  The baby will probably end up on drugs - or worse!”

Rachel stared at the ground in silence shocked by the vitriol her friend was directing not only at her father but now at her, too. Wishing him dead was a bit much but she wanted to be a good friend so she decided to offer a bit of truth, or tough love as they would have called it on her favourite TV shows. Swallowing audibly she ventured,

“Well to be fair, Mo, Sinead does have her own house and her inheritance, so that’s like, really unlikely. Not to mention that it was, like, you who brought Sinead into all this.”

“Fuck you, Rachel.” And with that Mo had stood up and stormed off, having officially isolated herself completely at school.

Keeping out of her father’s way was easy as he seemed just as determined to avoid her, and so it was to her mother that Mo vented her spleen over the next few days. After getting a firm dressing down for lying, which Mo conceded she had been wrong to do, and missing a beat with her counter-argument that the paranoid way in which her father had been acting since Sinead’s fall from grace had left her little choice, she sensed that her mother was also miffed at her husband’s decision to cut Sinead out of the family. To make matters worse Sinead wouldn’t take any of her calls, and after a week of grovelingly tearful voicemails and text messages the final nail in the coffin came from Robbie of all people. Rachel hadn’t given her a phone so she’d had to resort to stealing her own phone back from where her mother hid it and screening calls either very late at night or early in the morning before returning it to its new home.