Iron Annie: A Novel - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Luke Cassidy is a writer from Dundalk, Ireland. Iron Annie is his first novel.

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Wait Til I Tell Ye

The Swell’a the Night

Bakin deep in the swell’a the night she was, sat there sittin through the barrels’a shite comin spewin out’a yon lad’s mouth. Tryinta impress her he was. T’impress her. Can y’imagine yon? Ar Annie n’all? The fuckin Iron Ann.

See, she’d been in the Town three months by then—­chompin at the bit, rarinta do a job by herself. I wantedta give her somethin simpleta start with. Easy prey, the teeth on her sure.

Yon buck. So sure’a his own charm he didn see it comin, the slap on the side’a the head. Ach no, she didn hit him like. Much smarter than that, ar Annie, much smoother. As if. An her out collectin pennies for the poor an marchin agin the war, an it not even happenin round here anymore.

Naw, she juss lifted his bag an him in the toilet. Had his fancy computer an a bunch’a other kit, his wallet n’all. Sure the bag was near worth more than anythin he had in it.

Yon fuckin peacock prick, down from Dublin, big fuckin smoke. I caught up with him down by Defenders’, me an big Shamey Hughes. We were only watchin out for her, see. Said I wouldn interfere, I promised her. But it was her first solo flight, I wasn gonna leave her all on her own either.

“I hear you’ve still got the accent,” he saysta me when I call him out, an him only two years out’a the Town, but now he’s talkin like a proper D4 dub. Cunt.

See, this lad thought himself the big man now that he’d gone an made a name for himself below in the big smoke. Out makin a big noise in all the street an givin people grief, askin after Annie.

She shouldn’a tauld him her real name. The fuck was she thinkin? Anythin would’a done. Calypso. The fuck. Whatever.

After that Annie disappeared for a while, went on one’a her wee turns. She’d wantedta handle it soft she said, to talk her way out’a it. An with her it might’a worked haigh.

But fuck it sure. We don’t pardon pigs round here, we cut their throats.

This’ll Sound Funny, But

Jelena

That was deadly that time when Annie’s pal Jelena cameta visit. Polish. Cept I don’t think she was Polish, cause she was from Serbia an that might be someplace else. But sure it’s all the same anyway. Usedta be the same fuckin country a few years back didn it?

That was some craic I’ll tell ye, the three’a us in bed together. Now, it wasn like that, not exactly, juss like . . . Almost that, cause we all wanted it, but Annie kinda didn want it. She wanted it too but she said it’d be weird an yer wan Jelena bein an auld friend an that. Still n’all, she didn do nathin when ar Jelena reached her hand acrossta me, which wasn even hard, cause the bed’s not big. An I knew Annie was only pretendinta be asleep, cause her breathin changed cause she liked it too, she liked that it was happenin, an she liked that she was there. I liked that she was there too. Some craic. That Jelena had some way with her hands. Juss dove in an wriggled bowt like her fingers were a spoon lookinta worry out the best bit’a the tub’a ice cream, juss that one special bit y’know, all fudge or somethin tasty. Fuckin deadly.

The mornin after, she brought us up a pot’a coffee, Jelena did. Well, it wasn a pot actually, it was somethin called a džezva, a funny-­shaped yoke that was wide at the bottom an narrow at the top, made’a copper, with all designs an that on the side. She got it in Bosnia, she said. Brought it as a present for Annie. Looked dead nice. Annie seemedta really like it too, reminded her’a th’auld times. Džezva. Took me all morninta learn that one. The coffee was shite n’all, cause it had the bits still in it, an they got caught in yer teeth. She could’a juss used instant sure, but naw, she wanted t’use this special coffee. Shite. She said that’s how people drank it in Serbia, an Bosnia too, an I didn say nathin cause I thought if I did she wouldn do that thing again, th’ice-­cream thing. Cause I know Polish people are pretty poor, I mean why else would they come to a shithole like this an do shite jobs, an why would they drink shite coffee? So I didn tell her the coffee was shite. But she didn do th’ice-­cream thing again, even though I was nice an learnedta say džezva, so I guess it was juss a one-­time thing.

Still, it was deadly havin her there an that, cause she was dead sound an Annie was dead happy cause they kept talkin bowt th’auld times, college times, in Glasgow n’all. Must’a been good times, which made me a bit sad cause she didn know me in th’auld times an she’d never even beenta Dundalk back then. But still, I was happy cause she was happy.