Part Thirty-Two of the Sensational Shrimpleton Saga: The Funeral Cortege arrives.

Last time, Cumberside Island had seen the gathering of Vietnamese forces off the coast once more as a huge electrical storm had engulfed the island – and its surroundings. In a yacht being tossed about like a cork on the angry and threatening Irish Sea, Lady Lynne Shrimpleton and her Vietnamese crew were suffering for a variety of reasons.

But elsewhere, things could also have been going a lot better for another key female character in this unfolding saga. There were no links with Vietnam as far as this individual was concerned: hers was a uniquely Irish connection…

Nothing had gone as planned in the sleepy little Tipperary town of Arracrowe either as far as the funeral service of Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly was concerned. Perhaps unusually for Ireland, the weather had held-up for once and was the least of anyone’s problems.  But a storm of another sort – one caused by bad feeling and inter-personal rivalries in the Kelly clan itself – was showing signs of breaking-out as the cortege bearing Joe’s coffin had finally reached the church of Christ the King. Younger sister of the deceased – and now Chief of the Kelly Clan Siobhán – was dismayed and worried about this in equal proportions.

Siobhán Aleksandovna Kelly had finally reached the church and her hugely expensive car had squeezed into the limited space which existed outside the main entrance, to face the horse-drawn hearse which it had been following all the way from the Big House on the Hill.   

Behind her Rolls-Royce, a seemingly endless line of status symbols on four wheels had been piling-up ever since the first in the queue slipped behind the cortege which had approached at walking pace behind Metropolitan Nikolas and Father Finbar O’Fooligan at the head of the procession.

Now – with the hearse and leading Roller actually already arrived at Christ the King, the lowest orders of the Kelly Gang hadn’t even left the car park of the local Golf Club.

Siobhán should have chosen a place much further away.

As we have already noted, elements of the Kelly Gang weren’t best pleased that they had been overlooked – as they saw it – in the pecking-order of scumbags who would salute the Final Fling of their previous leader. But being stuck on the crummy gravel of a Golf Club going absolutely nowhere seemed to them to be a calculated insult by the new management.

In what had already been a tinderbox of bruised egos and thwarted ambitions, all it needed for an explosion among the ranks was a spark.

At the head of the column, Siobhán Aleksandovna Kelly was completely oblivious to this. She had her hands full simply dealing with the increasingly exasperated Metropolitan Nikolas and her own immediate family.

But actually trying to corral elderly women who resented being there in the first place and didn’t particularly regret the demise of Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly in any case was far easier said than done once they all finally stopped in the tiny, cramped car park of the church of Christ the King.

Just getting them out of the main Funeral Car took forever. This, as drivers of cars stuck behind the leaders of the cortege were clearly becoming increasingly unhappy and impatient.

Let’s look at this from their point of view.

What were they supposed to do? Where were they supposed to go? Just stuck in a traffic jam with their trophy cars’ enormous engines sucking-in gallons of expensive fuel – which some of them, truth be told – could ill afford – was not a situation they were happy with. But Appearances Had To Be Kept Up – because, as we have already noted, nobody wanted to be Made A Show Of with so many other people – relations; rivals; even ordinary town folk – looking on.

Those In the Know also realised, furthermore, that the entire event was being filmed – with the sanction of Siobhán Kelly – from all angles by surreptitious remotely-controlled cameras strategically placed in the church; the street; selected cars and even the hearse itself by a top-of-the-range film production company in Dublin which was broadcasting the footage live to the world in real time. The new leader of the Kelly Gang wanted as much coverage of this statement of the power and wealth of her family to be broadcast as widely as was possible – and in this regard at least, she had succeeded: the cameras were missing absolutely nothing…

Imagine the scene: the beautiful white horses; the ornate hearse with its cargo of an open coffin in a space stuffed with bouquets and floral tributes so numerous that they almost overwhelmed the corpse laid-out in the casket visible within. The Metropolitan with his white robes; the odd hat with a golden crucifix on the top; triple-branched candlesticks with almost impossibly long candles sticking out of them.

This was the image Siobhán – only too aware that rival gangs would be looking on – wanted to project to the world. It would be worth the colossal expense just to make this point to other professional scumbags in Ireland – and possibly further afield too.

Such as scumbags from Albania. Or India: Punjabi scumbags, to be precise.

In the rehearsal (and there had been several), the candles Nikolas selected had always blown out in the open air. So the six he was carrying today were actually real ones with LED lights instead of flickering flames at their extremities, their mini-batteries and other innards cleverly and carefully hidden out of the way in the hollowed-out lengths of beeswax themselves and activated by remote control.

Nikolas really should have checked these things out prior to the ceremony. For the electronics had been cannibalised from Chinese-manufactured products intended for another purpose altogether. But – fearful that the battery life of devices as small as these would not be long, he didn’t.

In theory – as the local Priest swung his censer and clouds of incense virtually overcame the mourners standing closest to the coffin – Nikolas would finally raise the candles high into the air.

This was the cue for Father Finbar to use his remote control device to activate them. As soon as that happened, the Metropolitan would start to utter the words of the holiest of all Psalms in Orthodox theology – and the funeral service would begin.

The Metropolitan had been busying himself with the minutia of the Russian Orthodox Church ceremony he was supposed to be leading for quite some time. He fully understood the impact Siobhán Kelly intended this event to have both nationally and internationally – and he really didn’t want to get it wrong, for all sorts of reasons. He knew enough about all sorts of international criminal gangs to realise the repercussions that could ensue if you upset them – and he was also aware of the survival rate of those individuals unfortunate or otherwise to do so: virtually nil…

So he was truly happy – and relieved – that the latest two Dress Rehearsals had gone really well.

Today, though – when the action was live and it really mattered – it wasn’t doing.

The first problem was that his feet were killing him.

Secondly, he had drunk far too much tea (in the Irish tradition) – with the occasional vodka admittedly (in the Russian tradition) to wash it down – and he urgently needed to relieve himself. But the sheer weight and complexity of the outfit he was wearing complicated this usually simple matter almost beyond comprehension, let alone successful completion.

So the Metropolitan of New York City was not exactly full of the milk of human kindness as he stood outside the open doors of the church of Christ the King and tried to take control of a short ceremony which would lead to pall-bearers carrying the open coffin of Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly towards the altar at the far end of the building.

So he was barely able to contain his already bad temper when Father Finbar O’Fooligan tried to take control as the lead funeral car disgorged its contents of ancient Irish Matrons, Dowagers, Walking Dead or whatever they were supposed to be.

He already felt that the Catholic priest’s constant swinging of an incense-stuffed censer from which plumes of choking smoke polluted the air all around him was deliberately designed to make him sneeze – and his nose to run. The Priest seemed to be immune to this but Metropolitan Nikolas certainly wasn’t and he had been weeping profusely as a result almost from the start of the long trek to the church from the Big House on the Hill.

“New York Police Department should replace their Pepper Sprays with this stuff!” he thought to himself bitterly long before he had led the solemn cortege anywhere near the church.

Once arrived, though, he realised the gulf between the ecclesiastical practices his own religion and that of the Holy Roman one remained massive once the hearse-pulling horses had come to a stop.

Father O’Fooligan was suddenly – and unilaterally – completely upsetting his plans for the order of the ceremony they had rehearsed so assiduously in the last couple of days.

Why was this Irish moron doing this? What possible reason could the Priest have for upsetting the applecart in this way?

As a senior and acknowledged very learned cleric, Nikolas really should have realised that Finbar’s rebellion was based on the most basic of liturgical concepts: sin.

The parish Priest had committed several of the seven Deadly ones on the way down from the Big House on the Hill already.

Envy of his more illustrious American colleague being right at the top of the list.

With Pride, Greed and Wrath coming up quickly on the rails. 

But did he care? No – as he took another deep breath heavily laden with incense (Holy Weed variety) – he most certainly didn’t.

He saw his chance to emerge from the long shadow cast by Metropolitan Nikolas as he noticed Siobhán Aleksandovna Kelly struggling to herd her elderly relatives into some sort of order outside the church.

Together, they finally managed it.

But did he obediently return to his post then? To play his part as the supporting actor to the Star of the Show with the white vestments and the comedy headwear?

No: Father Finbar’s own personal pride had stopped him from being humiliated – as he saw it – in this way.

This was his church; these were his people and he was suddenly greedy for their adulation – he didn’t want it all going to some heavily-bearded Yank in a silly hat!

So – once he had helped to finally form them into a line – he tried to usher Siobhán and the elderly ladies to move around the hearse in an orderly fashion.

In an anti-clockwise direction…

Metropolitan Nikolas was beside himself with anger as he saw this mounting insubordination unfold before his eyes.

He needed to get this gig done, pronto. And get to the John – possibly even more pronto.

“STOP!” he yelled so loudly that the seemingly imperturbable Arabian horses stirred anxiously in the shafts which connected them to the hearse.

“The circling of the body must be done in a CLOCKWISE direction. Father Finbar – get your ass over here right now!”

Meekly, the Priest obeyed.

“Get ready to fire-up the candles!” he said in a Stage Whisper.

Then the Metropolitan started to chant the ancient but very sacred words by which the mortal soul of ordinary sinners can find its way to Heaven – words without which, Russian Orthodox adherents believe, that soul could be left to wander the world; lost for all eternity.

Nikolas rehearsed the opening line of Psalm 118 in his head:

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.”

Then he raised the three-branched candlesticks he had been clutching throughout this part of the funeral aloft – which was the cue for Father Finbar to click their pretend flames into life at the very dramatic precise moment that he would intone aloud the revered words he had just rehearsed to the assembled multitude.

The flames duly lit-up. But with them, a chorus of tinny, Oriental-sounding voices sang in unison:

“Happy Birthday to you; Happy Birthday to you – Happy Birthday Dear Girlfriend – Happy Birthday to You!”

Nikolas was horrified. But it seemed that nobody else really seemed to notice. They were distracted by another noise altogether.

The Metropolitan had noticed a growing cacophony of car horns coming from the north as he prepared to conduct the funeral service. But – even as the treacherous Father Finbar had been trying to round-up his Lost Sheep to circle the hearse in front of him like some Roman Catholic Sheepdog – another, even more urgent blaring sound had been growing ever louder from the south.

At the precise moment the virtual Chinese Choir had injected their musical contribution into proceedings, that blaring had given way to almost unbelievably loud sounds of wreckage and destruction outside the church as some surely infernal force deafened everyone as it progressed at speed northwards up the Main Street.

As both the Metropolitan and his Catholic colleague crossed themselves, this devilish incarnation from the depths of Hell itself proceeded to career in a shower of sparks and the screams of twisted metal out of sight almost the length of the Christ the King building.

Clearly, something extraordinary had just occurred on the main street of little Arracrowe.

But – regardless of the Forces of Evil attempting to distract the Faithful with its infernal interruption of proceedings, God’s Business must still be done.

Besides which, poor old Metropolitan Nik really was dying to relieve himself…

He had to shout anew to attempt to restore order.

But the Devil seemed to be winning.

Angry people had already come in off the street and were yelling at Siobhán Aleksandovna Kelly. She had taken two of her heavyweight male associates with her and left the church grounds with them a minute or so earlier; the angry men in her wake, still shouting at her. 

The ancient ladies she had abandoned seemed pretty set on joining her: old and frail as they all undoubtedly were, they were still as nosy as anyone else.

“Finbar – stop them!” Nikolas instructed the man who was supposed to be his acolyte.

To no effect at all. The parish Priest simply ignored him and produced ever denser plumes of smoke from the censer he was swinging with much greater abandon than before.

“He’s stoned out of his completely empty head!” thought the American as a truth dawned on him far, far too late.

So he shouted, even louder than ever:

“Finbar! This ceremony is going to rat-shit! Get over here now!”

O’Fooligan seemed quite unsteady on his feet, but he obeyed. But what he said next took the Metropolitan by complete surprise:

“Bejasus – you don’t know your censer from your thurible!” said Finbar, “Sure you’re nothing more or less than a great big heretic – you – you – you Anti-Christ!”

So saying, the Catholic Priest swung his own censer towards the Orthodox cleric – and struck him a sickening blow on the side of the head, knocking the Metropolitan’s ornate white hat clean off.

“And what sort of a First Class Eedjit would wear a stupid thing like that on his bonce in the first place?”

Nikolas – who was a big guy – instinctively swung a haymaker at his turbulent Priest. The area of the Bronx he had grown-up in had taught him – as “The Russian” in the Cold War era – how to look after himself and these lessons were stamped (sometimes literally) into his subconscious. He didn’t connect properly – which was probably just as well if he wanted to avoid a charge of at least manslaughter – but caught Finbar on the chin hard enough to knock him even more senseless than usual. The Priest fell backwards, dropping the censer but kicking out a right leg as a reflex action as he fell to the floor.

And as he went down, his right foot connected with the Metropolitan’s bladder – a direct hit.

For the first time in about an hour, Nikolas felt the blessed relief of emptying it – and the lifelong embarrassment of having a steady stream of urine spurt out and through and down his vestments and all over his shoes to form a big pool of liquid beneath him on the surface of the car park. As masses of hidden cameras recorded every moment of this extraordinarily embarrassing moment.

But his blushes would be saved by a further development,

A miracle, in fact, in at least in some people’s eyes.

Because in a few short moments, Pigs really were going to fly…

Meanwhile, back on Cumberside Island, the Chief Operating Officer of Shrimpleton Town Football Club – James Churchill Proudfoot – was not a happy bunny. The summer Gala he had been tasked to organise for the club had been a disaster. Worse still – he had been robbed. His precious mobile phone and nearly all the cash he possessed had been stolen.

And the man responsible for these thefts was sitting in his huge. Top-of-the range SUV or whatever you want to call these metal monsters – and feeling pretty smug.

But would the smile be wiped off his face by forces totally unsuspected by him in the very near future?Keep reading The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga to find out!