Static Cling (The Irish Lottery Series Book 5) by Hansen Gerald

Author:Hansen, Gerald [Hansen, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Mint Books
Published: 2015-12-23T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Fionnuala had gone to 'bed' the night before with chattering teeth. She now stared about the sopping ends of her pillow, shocked at the heat she had just jolted awake in. Trying to shake off the remnants of the nightmare, she kicked away the damp sheet that clung to her legs like Saran Wrap. She was happy for once the sheet was threadbare. She staggered the two steps across the matted purple and pink shag carpeting and wound up in the kitchen corner of the caravan.

She had spent the last three months languishing inside these four aluminum panels. Years of rain (and there had been plenty, both years and rain) had allowed water to seep in through the windows and panel joints. The wooden frame of the caravan was rotting, there was a terrible stench of damp, and outside the panels were ready to fall off at a touch. The little toy windows were so scratched that it was almost impossible to see outside. If there had been much to see. There was a telephone pole, Fionnuala knew this, but beyond that, the long-forgotten caravan park on the edge of the motorway, population one, didn't seem to be surrounded by, well, she wouldn't have termed it luxuriant roadside foliage, even if she had known the words, and nor would anyone in their right mind, if they had. Indeed, what had once been a vacation park seemed to fill the only space on the entire lush island of Eire where dirt could be kicked up. And kick it up Fionnuala's clogs did every evening when she stomped home in exhaustion. For this tin cube with its brown and burnt orange plaid upholstery walls that seemed to press down upon her from all sides was now her home.

How she would love to boil water for tea. But there was no gas. And no electricity. Fionnuala always brought three thermoses to work and made as many pots of tea as she could, then filled the thermoses when she clocked out. She was assured at least one or two cups of tepid tea every evening, but by morning it had always gone cold. So drink cold tea she did. Today she'd have to drink out of a thermos. She had one tea cup, it was true, and a plate, a fork, a knife and a spoon, but there was no running water either, so they just sat festering in the dry sink until she snuck under the cloak of darkness down the lane to the 'neighboring' farm (five miles or so, her aching feet told her) to pump water into a rusty bucket she had found on the side of the road two weeks after she had moved in. She did her laundry weekly in this manner, and washed the dishes also. So she had a clean cup only once a week. It never occurred to her to take the cup with her to the dry cleaners and wash it in the little sink of the break room there every day.

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