The Family Firm

Chapter 37

Frankie lined the barrel of the shotgun up with the bottles at the end of the field and squinted. It was beginning to get harder and harder to focus on the targets, though she wasn't sure if it was her age, or the drink, or her slowly-growing addiction to her "magic pills".

Truth be told, she was a wreck. But who could blame her? Life hadn't been easy on her the past few years. Though business was booming as always, she felt herself facing a brother who seemed to slowly be slipping away from her, a mother who was never up to any good, and a son who was moving on with his life with his perfect wife Niamh who only stood as a harsh reminder that time wasn't on Frankie's side. And now on top of everything she had to deal with her husband worming his way back into their lives. She knew her mum had something to do with his return, but she just wasn't sure what. She never could figure out the woman's angle. In any case, Donny had come back and now she had to face him, her insecurity, and the fact that she was vulnerable and frightened of being alone.

Her pills weren't even working any more. She wasn't sure how many she'd popped in the past hour—three, four maybe—and still her hands were trembling. The wine wasn't sorting her out either; she had a flask of brandy tucked into one of her Wellingtons, not her usual taste but she needed to hard stuff to get her through the day. The reality of that terrified her.

Sometimes the stress mounted so high on her shoulders it brought her to tears. She knew there was probably something clinical to it, maybe depression or anxiety, but she'd be fucked if she was going to be the mad one in the family. With a lot like the Evans? It was laughable. No, she'd do what they all had done for generations; bury her problems in the bottom of a bottle.

The shot rang through the Essex hills that surrounded her aunt's spacious farm and missed the target. Frustrated tears welled into Frankie's silvery eyes and she felt like throwing the gun at her feet, angry that she couldn't even take out her feelings on a few spare empty Stella bottles, but the sound of tyres on wet grass made her pause.

Turning over her shoulder, she expected to see either Polly or perhaps the young Polish woman Lena she had reluctantly hired to help her around the farm (and what a fucking nightmare that had been, trying to convince the old cow to accept help was like trying to keep a cat in a bath tub; she wouldn't go down without a fight!), or maybe it was even Freddie. But a familiar deep green saloon made her sigh out loud.

Donny.

As if she'd summoned him up with her thoughts like a gypsy's curse! Well, if he wanted to start fights at least she had the upper hand. She was the one with a gun.

She watched him from atop the hill as he exited the car and made to join her, heaving his hefty form up the knoll. She could see in the pale, foggy light of the early afternoon that he indeed looked handsome; he kept his normally-shaggy hair trimmed short those days, and he was still dressing nicely. Suited and booted her mother liked to say.

She knew from their brief conversations over the years that business was in fact booming, and that he'd taken some sort of senior position in his career. She didn't ask what it was, nor did she care, but she knew he apparently was in good standing with his boss. Well, God help them all, Hell might as well have frozen over.

She crossed her arms over her bust as he joined her atop the heath, keeping a firm grip on the rifle just in case she felt like using it. On either the bottles or Donny's big fucking loaf, she wasn't sure yet.

He was slightly out of breath already as he spoke, which annoyed her. 'Fuck me, I ain't getting any younger, am I.'

Annoyed, too, by the dopey smile on his face, she turned around and once again aimed the shotgun's barrel up along with the green glass bottles a good distance away, and suddenly found her hands steadier than ever. 'That's how the world's always worked, Don. Nice to see you finally joining us here on Planet Earth.'

Donny laughed off her antagonism as he rubbed his arms, feeling the brisk coldness seeping into his winter gear. 'Bleeding cold out here, ain't it, girl. You'll freeze yer ears off.'

Frankie fired a shot without warning, followed only a second later by the sound of shattering glass, and Donny jumped backward, hands clasped over his ears.

'If you don't go deaf yerself first! Fuck me, give a man some bloody warning!'

She took her time re-loading the gun, eyes focused on the skilful movements of her hands if only to avoid looking at her husband. 'Thought you of all people would be well used to a bit of premature firing.'

The joke at his expense was not lost on Donny, neither was the fact that the threat of violence with his dear old wife was very real, and so, in what was perhaps one of the few intelligent decisions he'd ever made, he let her have a go at him, standing his ground and letting her fire off another round into the next bottle. It shattered forthwith, though this time he was prepared and plugged his ears with his fingers.

'Look, Franks...can we talk?'

Frankie realised she was out of bullets but busied herself with the rifle regardless, running her hands across the barrel, feeling the heat and how her fingers trembled, this time from the reverberation and the shock that shot through her joints.

'What's there to talk about?' It was more of a statement than a question.

Cautiously, Donny removed his fingers from his ears and stepped forward, but fortunately reconsidered placing a hand on her shoulder. 'I should have rung you before coming over here and imposing, I know that like, I just thought...'

'Must have been a real shock to the system, you thinking,' retorted Frankie smartly.

This annoyed Donny, and this time he stepped ahead of her, looking her in the eyes. 'Look, we're married whether you like it or not, and we have been for twenty-some feckin' years now. Our boy, yes, our boy is getting married, and I want to be in his life to support him and that lovely, lovely woman of his. And believe it or not, I have every bloody right to do so. So how about you keep your knickers on, sort yourself out, and put a big smile on your face when I'm around, so we can act civilly, like adults with one another. For Junior.'

Frankie met her husband's gaze and for the first time in a long time felt something other than misery and self-pity—she felt hatred. It rippled through her like vinegar in her veins and she threw the gun down atop the snow-dusted grass. 'You're a cunt, Donny O'Reilly.'

As the woman who had once been the love of his life stormed back to her aunt's farm house in anger that brisk Christmas afternoon, and Donny was left alone with the winter-scented air and the hollow whisper of the wind through the hills, he felt more in love with Frankie than he had in years. God bless that mess of a woman.