The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3)

by Gerald Hansen

  “We were just, uh, she's...mmm...”

  “I see,” Ursula said with a quick cringe. “Anyroad, Slim, get yer laughing gear and yer tuxedo on. Jed's not surfaced, and there's no way I'm missing the captain's dinner. But I'd be mortified to go on me own. Ye're me new date.”

  Ursula and Slim clanged their flutes together. Champagne bubbled over and rolled down their knuckles. Ursula knew she shouldn't be drinking, but decided to throw caution to the wind. It wasn't every day you ran out of Xanax and had the privilege of dining with the captain of a cruise liner, after all, and she didn't want to waste the experience worrying about Jed's whereabouts. She feared for him, how could she not?, especially as the ship was careening inches from rocks, tossing them about in the middle of this storm, but he was ex-military and could look after himself. She hoped. She guzzled down. And, aware of the odd looks the four others invited to the table were passing her, guzzled some more.

  “C'mere,” she said to the bartender, “give me a refill, would ye? Och, ye're grand and lovely, so ye are.”

  He avoided her eye as he poured. Ursula wasn't sure if it was the tonnage of her mismatched jewelry or the tonnage of Slim in general that was the cause of the distantiation, but, with her mind numbed and getting number, she didn't care. She decided to hob nob with the crème of the crème of the passengers. She sidled down the bar away from Slim, who was filling himself up with peanuts against her advice, and smiled at a man in a bow-tie and obvious toupée.

  “Hello,” Ursula said, extending a hand dripping showy tat, and why her mouth was affecting a posh accent she didn't know. “I'm Mrs. Jed Barnett. And you are...?”

  He took a step back.

  “I work for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Geneva.” He stared pointedly at Ursula as if there might be something she would want to reveal. His hand disappeared into his tuxedo jacket pocket. “Perhaps you'd be interested in this.” He pressed his business card into her palm.

  Ursula was relieved when Slim puffed over to her and pulled her aside.

  “I don't think I can do this, chipmunk,” he said. “I've tried to talk about our store to these people, but they're not interested in guns or bait or hot sauce or even beef jerky. I don't even have no samples of the hot sauce to let them taste no more anyway. Those guys over there are scientists of some sort.” Ursula inspected the two Slim pointed out, elbows on the bar. She had never seen a scientist before, and one was even a female scientist! “Who's this dang Higgs Boson, and why are they looking for him? That's what I wanna know! I just left them to allow them to talk about whatever junk they talk about with themselves. How is that interesting?” he sputtered.

  Captain Hoe arrived, to the smiles and nods of the invited guests. He was to guide them to their table. Ursula eyed him up in her haze as he approached, tall, gray hair, immaculate white uniform. A man of power and intelligence.

  She held out her hand and let it be kissed. The little animals jangled. “Mrs. Jed Barnett. And this here be's Slim Barnett, me brother-in-law.”

  Captain Hoe's eyes seemed to do cartwheels in their sockets, so unsure were they as to what from all the glittering objects suspended from Ursula's body parts to land upon, and in what order. They chose to look behind her left shoulder instead.

  “Do I detect an accent?” he asked, eyebrows raised with interest.

  “I'm from Derry, Northern Ireland,” Ursula said proudly.

  This sentence was usually greeted with a look of sympathy, and this time was no exception. Ursula knew why. People still thought of her hometown as a war-zone. They had no idea what a handsome city Derry was now, years after the troops had finally pulled out.

  “Derry's been chosen UK City of Culture for 2013,” she quickly added, bristling with defensive pride. Since she had read the news, she was forever telling anyone who would listen, and many who didn't want to know, that Derry was chosen UK City Of Culture for 2013. She never mentioned the City Of Culture headquarters had already been blown up by dissident republicans twice.

  Through the velvet drapes adorning the windows, crackles of lightning shot through the sky. The ship careened. Ursula fell into the captain's brass buttons, a cacophony of metal meeting metal ringing out.

  “Watch it, there, my little lady,” he said, straightening her, “we're going through a stormy patch of the Caribbean Sea at the moment. The turbulence should pass, but if it doesn't, we'll be docked in Puerto Rico soon, anyway.”

  “All this lightning,” Ursula said, while Slim, who had moved to martinis, dug his fingers into the glass to scoop up the olives and gobble them down, “what will happen if it strikes the ship?”

  She stiffened at Captain Hoe's chuckles.

  “My dear, dear lady,” he said, patting her shoulder. “Although this is a Titanic centennial cruise, there have been advances in the construction of cruise liners since then. Believe it or not. Nowadays, all modern liners are equipped with protection against lightning. Have you seen the mast on the deck outside?”

  She fumed at being talked to as if she were a simpleton.

  “Ye mean the sorta thinner thing than the funnels? The one that looks all electric with the two wee flags flying from it?”

  “That's the one. The mast has the radar equipment on it. Radar is something that uses radio waves, which are invisible things in empty space, that means we can't see them, and radar helps us locate other things in the ocean and the air, other ships and bits of land and things. Do you understand? And in addition to the radar, there is also a lightning protector mounted on the top of the mast. And a grounding conductor in the hull. Electrical conductors run from the protector to the grounding conductor and keep us safe. Lightning won't hurt us, except maybe for some burn marks. The hull is the bottom of the ship.”

  The clutch twitched in Ursula's hand. But she smiled. Captain Hoe looked at his watch.

  “I'm afraid Mrs. Hornington-Ffrench, she's our director of staff, has been delayed. We must start without her.” He called to the other five guests at the bar to circle him and listen. “We have a very, very special meal planned for you all this evening. It's the actual meal, yes, the actual meal, that was served to the first class passengers on the Titanic on her fateful last night. All ten courses of it.”

  The female scientist looked stricken. “How long is this going to take?” she asked in concern.

  Captain Hoe's smile was strained.

  “In 1912 they dined in a rather more...leisurely manner than today. And, just like they did, we'll be offering a different wine with each course. And after the tenth, there is a selection of cheeses, and then we can have cigars and port, just like they did on the Titanic. It'll take some time, so we'd best get started. Mrs. Hornington-Ffrench will have to catch up with us.”

  As they approached the table, decked out in all its finery, Ursula was pleased to see that her gown matched the napkins.

  “What a lovely choker!” the scientist cooed, but there was something about her tone Ursula didn't like.

  “Aye,” Ursula said, looking down and locating the amethyst amongst all that glittered below her neck. She fondled it self-consciously. “EconoLux gave it me. Left it on me pillow, so they did. All these others and all.”

  She sat down at the seat with her nameplate on it, trying to push the irritation to the back of her mind. She pointed at Slim to take Jed's place. The scientist was unfortunately sat to Ursula's left. As Ursula settled herself before the glittering crystal and fine bone china, the wide array of silver utensils, as she unfolded the plush napkin and settled it on her lap, trying to bask in the luxury, she saw from the corner of her eye the woman still eying the brooch.

  “Really?” she said, lips like slits. “Only, my lab partner, Margo, who's also on this cruise, has one exactly like it. And it disappeared from her cabin a few days ago. She contacted security, but nobody could find it. And you must admit, it is a distinctive piece.”

  Unease crept around the nape of Ursula's velvet-choked neck. She cursed the empty
Xanax bottle.

  “Where's wer first wine, captain?” she called across the table. The captain and the others were hidden behind their very tall menus. Ursula picked up hers and shivered with excitement at all the little French accent things above the words.

  First Course—Hors D'Oeuvres

  Canapés à L'Amiral

  Oysters à la Russe

  Slim nudged her elbow and almost knocked the glass of wine out of her hand.

  “Now, you know I love food as much as the next man,” he hissed behind his menu. “But...what is all this stuff? I ain't heard of half of it! Vegetable Marrow Farci? What the jiminy cricket's a roast squab and what's it on wilted cress for? Punch Romaine?! Can't we just get pizza? Or a burger or something?”

  “I'm sure ye'll scoff it all up, love,” Ursula said, though she herself was particularly worried about both the Minted Green Pea Timbales and Consummé Olga. “And you must admit...ten courses be's wile exciting!”

  Captain Hoe looked around the dining room. He grabbed a passing lower server who dealt with the minions' buffet.

  “We're ready to begin,” he said. “Where's the waitstaff for this table?”

  The server nodded towards the galley.

  “There they are, sir,” he said.

  The scientist kept peering at Ursula's choker more than her menu, and the galley doors opened wider. Ursula would have more than Consummé Olga to worry about.

  CHAPTER 34

  “DON'T YE TAKE ONE FECKING step toward that jumped up bitch of a sister of yers!” Fionnuala had snapped at Paddy, though there was really no need, as he had then slipped on ball bearings and cracked his skull on the edge of the lifeboat. The looks Dymphna had launched her way as the silly girl hunched down to help her spineless wretch of husband still rankled. That wee girl needed to be put in her place, the disrespect she had for her elders and betters!

  In the heat and stench of the galley, Fionnuala tottered back and forth on the writhing floor, a silver spatula in one uncertain hand, the other clutching the serving trolley out of fear and necessity. The throngs of foreign help came at her at all angles, a sizzling pan here, a glinting knife there. It was like the Tower of Babel, them yapping in their strange tongues, barking things at her she couldn't make sense of. Buckets had been set up all over the floor to catch the gray water that dripped from the rust-encrusted piped above them. Aquanetta nudged her.

  “Ain't you gonna get to work? We got all them shrimp things to move from the counter to the tray, the oysters to the trolley, and those bottles of wine to open. You gotta do that. I can't with my nails.”

  After she and Aquanetta had forced themselves into black outfits with frilly white aprons, what Fionnuala guessed was some boss of the galley, a darkie of sorts, had tried to explain in haste and an English Fionnuala struggled to comprehend what they were supposed to do. They had then been ushered into the melée of the galley, a counter had been hastily cleared of the discarded bones and skins of food animals, the rinds of strange fruits and vegetables and gooey substances that had the drool of Fionnuala's taste buds dripping down to meet the sick shooting up her throat, so starving was she but so repulsed by the fancy foreign food they were preparing here. She had only had a few moments to throw a Cup-O-Noodles, Oriental flavored, down her throat before she hurried from the lifeboat activity to the galley for her surprise shift.

  There were ten courses to serve, and they were being thrown on the counter in the order she and Aquanetta were meant to bring them to the captain's table, with the appropriate china beside them. Fionnuala was still struggling to understand how it was supposed to go.

  “I know ye, love,” Paddy called out to her through the hanging pots and pans that clanked against one another, “don't ye be spitting in them oysters.”

  “Spit?” Fionnuala scoffed. “Slipping ground glass into them, more like. Naw, but, I'll keep me spittle in me mouth. I swear to the Holy Father.”

  He was furiously chopping cucumbers into tiny slices, and had a mound of what looked like marrows to move on to next. Fionnuala had kept silent about knowing Ursula would be dining at the captain's table that night. She was sure her turncoat husband would plead and beg for Fionnuala to let her be.

  As Aquanetta shoved a strange contraption at her, together with bottles of wine lodged between the crux of her arm and her matronly breasts, Fionnuala couldn't understand how, after all these years of holy matrimony, she hadn't realized her chosen was such a wussy. Paddy was finally showing his true color, and it wasn't Catholic green, it was yellow. He had no backbone. And he had no clue as to Fionnuala's plan which, hopefully, would send security racing to the table to haul Ursula away.

  “Open them,”Aquanetta barked, nodding down to the bottles.

  Fionnuala was taken aback. Corks! The wine she bought at the Top-Yer-Trolly didn't have them; corks were for pretentious gacks and arse-bandits. But she supposed that's who was dining at the table with the captain. Along with Ursula.

  An hour ago on the deck, when she had spied her sister-in-law in the winning boat, Fionnuala had had to fight the urge to race across and push her into something. The edge of the pool had been tantalizingly close, but it was child's play when she considered the whole of the Atlantic Ocean was there at her disposal a handrail away, and for the disposal of Urusla's body, if it came to it, for that matter. She had relented. Security would soon be doing all her work for her. The awakening, she thought, would be just like Ursula's personality: rude. She felt Aquanetta inspecting her motionless fingers.

  “Ain't never done no work of your own?” she asked, an edge to her voice.

  Fionnuala stared. Nothing could be further from the truth! She had toiled, thanklessly, since she had entered the world, and the state of her hands could prove it. Fionnuala grabbed the bottles, balanced them on the trolley as best she could, and tried to pierce the corks with the pointy curly thing of the contraption.

  Aquanetta grabbed shrimp halves on little bits of bread with some orange gooey stuff on top and thrust them onto a huge silver platter. She moved it to the trolley.

  Fionnuala ground the pointy thing into cork after cork, and the entire galley wailed as the ship suddenly lurched to the left. Plates and pots and glasses flew. The lights above them flickered. Fionnuala blessed herself, her fingers flying around her head and breast. Aquanetta grabbed the bottle of champagne. The cooks had been using it for the strange slushy-type thing that was course number six, the one before the strange little chicken-type birds each passenger was going to eat his own of. She took a terrified gulp.

  “Lord help us!” she implored of the ceiling, “Yeah, I'm on the wagon, but this ship got me scared shitless. Gotta fall off. Gotta gulp down.”

  “A-ye, me and all.”

  Aquanetta passed the bottle to Fionnuala. She arranged her lips around the top and let the champagne flood her throat. Fionnuala wiped her mouth, then flinched as Aquanetta opened her mouth and filled the greasy depths of the galley with song: “I'm gonna...take a trip! On that good ole...gospel ship!...And we'll go saiiiling through the aiiir! Yes, Lord!” The black woman smiled as she sang, her faith seeming to allay her fear, and moved her hips back and forth as she hauled a massive bucket of ice onto the trolley.

  Rage consumed Fionnuala. She thrust the pointy bit into the cork as if it were Aquanetta's left eye. She loved the woman, she really did, but she was treading where no non-Catholic had the right to, praising the Lord—and, worse, with an alien gospel song that Fionnuala hadn't even heard the choir at St. Molaug's sing. As if the Heavenly Father were a coon himself! Blasphemy!

  Perhaps Aquanetta had forgotten the rest of the words, because, as she filled the bucket with oysters with tomatoes and green things on top—they might have been scallions, but Fionnuala wasn't sure—she moved to humming. To holier-than-thou her, Fionnuala began to hum a reedy Nearer My God To Thee. Fionnuala herself never sang at mass; she left the other faithful to that, and just moved her lips along. As she hummed, she glared at Aquanetta, an
d was all set to segue into Ave Maria, when the darkie, the one in charge, hurried over to them.

  “Captain Hoe at table. Go now!”

  He shoved them towards the door.

  “God luck to youse!” Paddy called out, wiping sweat from his brow.

  “Ta,” Fionnuala said with a scowl.

  She was scared of her grand entrance into the swanky dining room, but was suddenly struck with the greater fear that it might have already kicked off at the table, Yootha calling security and Ursula hauled off in handcuffs and shame. She didn't want to miss the fireworks. She grabbed the trolley, but Aquanetta forced her to the side.

  “I'll serve,” Aquanetta said. “You pour the wine like you were showed. We'll take turns. You serve the next, I'll pour.”

  Armed with the first wine bottle, Fionnuala whispered gleefully into Aquanetta's ear. “I've something to reveal to ye. Me sister-in-law be's dining with the captain, and I've—”

  Aquanetta glared at her.

  “Hrmph! Somehow don't surprise me!”

  “What are ye saying with that?”

  Aquanetta didn't answer, just took another gulp of champagne and, armed with Dutch courage and serving tongs, exited the galley. Fionnuala adjusted her ponytails under the frilly cap and pushed through the swinging doors, trembling with excitement.

  CHAPTER 35—AN HOUR AND A HALF EARLIER

  “GIMME TWO CARDS,” THE terrorist said.

  Through the cracked lens of his glasses, Jed eyed the drunk old eterna-teen across the green felt of the poker table with a sense of disbelief. Sagging breasts strained her Britney Spears halter top, and she was almost hidden behind a barricade of empty wine glasses and the smog of cigarettes from two wolfish men who hovered over either side of her and who, between hands, urged more drink down her throat. Raw lipgloss carved a path along her chin. She didn't look like an Anti-American dishing out red mercury to the highest bidder; she looked like she were at the poker table to win rent. But Nigel, sitting to her right in another sharp tight shiny suit, this one brown, had nodded three times every deal since they had sat down. She was supposed to win. And she had. Thanks to Nigel and Jed. Seven times Jed had had to fold; once with a pair of aces, once with a straight, and, most agonizingly at all, once with a high full house...when all she had held was three sixes!