The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3)

by Gerald Hansen

  Fighting through the mob racing from the Apple store, she tried to squeeze her mass over the shards of glass, then realized they were all leaving.

  “No iPads left?” she asked a skinny girl.

  “Nope.”

  Aquanetta pushed her way up the crowd to Chanel. She emerged ten minutes later, panting with sweat and exertion, bags dangling up and down the lengths of her arms. She had put her talons to good use, and there were bits of blood spattered on the floor inside, but thankfully not on the bags.

  “Shit!” Aquanetta moaned, spying the security at the end of the hallway, legs spread, fire hoses aimed at the crowd. Getting ready to—

  There were screams through the sirens as water shot from the hoses and pinned bodies against walls. Swag flew from fingers and dropped to the ground. Aquanetta pried open a broom closet and hid inside. And was shocked to find Fionnuala already there. They crouched together in the darkness, wincing at the shrieks and wails outside, the slosh of water.

  Fionnuala eyed the bags hanging from Aquanetta's arms. She clucked her tongue as her body shuddered with irritation.

  “Looting! I kyanny comprehend how ye've stooped so low, hi. Looting be's for wanes of the day, sure. Smashing and grabbing whenever the whim hits them, and when they can be bothered to prise their lazy arses from their computers and video games. But c'mere til I tell ye, if everyone could afford them Channel bags ye've draped around yer arms now, they wouldn't be exclusive, so they wouldn't. I'll tell ye what I think, shall I? Lazy fecking eejits the wanes of the day be's. Not bothered to learn a skill nor a trade. And why should they? Not when everyone what was born with two hands can grab a rock and smash a window and reach in and grab. Smash and grab, the new money for the millennium. I mind in me youth the Top Yer Trolley store down the town in Derry was bombed time and again, but ye didn't see me digging through the rubble for a new pair of trainers or free mascara. As we had self-restraint and manners and we was brought up with belt buckles hammering down on wer arses if we put a foot wrong. Shoplifting, I'll grant ye, I'm all up for it, aye. Sure, women's been participating in that for yonks, and there be's times when it's dead necessary, like when them queues for the tills at the Top Yer Trolley be's winding a mile and it be's easier to lift what I need and make off with it down the street with what I need than pay for it. And what I want, and all.”

  “Can't understand a word you just said. But I'm guessing you wanna say you pissed you got here too late to grab yourself some stuff?”

  Fionnuala scowled. How did she know? She waited for Aquanetta to offer her one of the nine, ten, eleven? bags that pressed against her various body parts. Just one. The leather smelled like money.

  “Hrmph!” Fionnuala heard beside her in the gloom. “You might be wondering why I ain't offering you one of my Chanel bags. It cause you ain't told me the truth. You see that rioting out there? We was fighting against folk with money. Rich fat folk. Like you.”

  Fionnuaula gasped. “Are ye saying I'm fat?”

  There was silence. Fionnuala grabbed Aquanetta's hand, but the woman flinched and snatched it away.

  “Hands off my bags!”

  “Naw, I was...trying to...”

  Fionnuala trailed off in confusion. She was trying to comfort her? Who had she ever comforted? Aquanetta spoke.

  “Ain't heard no screams in a while. Think the pigs with the hoses are gone. Best get ourselves outta here now.”

  They pried open the door and peered down the shambles of the hallway. They crawled out of the closet and sloshed their way through broken glass and discarded loot towards the main lobby. Aquanetta snorted and pointed up the main staircase.

  “What the hell she doing here? Looking for the second course? What she got against me, that's what I wanna know! Rich white bitch. Another rich white bitch.”

  Through the mist and the trails of smoke, as if she were an apparition, Ursula was descending upon them, clutching a single high heel to her bosom as if it were her last Xanax, her battered handbag banging against her hip, her hair at an odd angle, welts around her neck from where the jewelry had been wrenched from her, eyes like the president of the Marilyn Manson fan club. Fionnuala couldn't have been more surprised if it were the Virgin Mary herself, with an assortment of lesser known but still beloved saints in Her wake, descending the stairs.

  “Hello?” Ursula called out. “Who's there?”

  She approached them, seeming shell-shocked, the stench of oysters rising from her.

  “But...!” Fionnuala gasped. “Ye're locked up, ye hateful bitch!”

  “The...the doors to me cell were electronic ones. Them security lads give me some tablets for to calm me nerves, and I had meself a wee lie-down, like, och, I was surprised the pillow was lovely and soft, so I was, when one of them lightning strikes that hit the ship musta done something, as the the door just popped open on its lonesome, like. And when I got outside...” She shuddered.

  “Och, caught in the crossfires, were ye?” Fionnuala snapped, hand on hip. Aquanetta's Chanel bags swayed next to her elbows. “I thought ye'd be used to that, the shite that spills outta yer mouth causing all sorts of grief and misery and people lining up to take well-deserved pot shots at ye, like.”

  Ursula's brain was frazzled on whatever the security guards had given her. All she could think of was the book she had been reading now that her inspection of Lotto Balls of Shame was complete. Step 17 of Twenty Steps To Winning Every Argument intrigued her: Pay Your Adversary A Surprise Compliment In The Middle Of A Screaming Match. Ursula took a deep breath as the spittle sprayed her face and grasped step 17.

  “Sure, I'm only noticing now...that's a grand and lovely top you've on there, but, Fionnuala.”

  Fionnuala spat with scorn: “Aye, and yer bloody jungle suit be's the height of fashion and all...in Hell!” But halfway though the knee-jerk spite, in the back of her mind, in one of the grottos, she sparkled with delight. She felt weird and tingly. A compliment! The last one she would recall was after that Irish dancing championship she had come third runner-up in when she was fourteen, but even those few kind words had been about her frock, not her dancing.

  Ursula forced herself to look towards the other enemy's fingernails and though fear of them sparkled in her eyes, pharmaceuticals were making her stronger and she forced herself to say: “And them nails! Wile fetching, so they be's.”

  Smack!

  Ursula didn't know which Chanel bag hit her first. She wailed and clawed the air as her body plummeted to the slosh.

  “Crazy white bitch!” Aquanetta roared, bags shuddering and twitching from her arms. “Got me hauled off by security! What I ever done to you? Nothing, that's what! Like I done said, you white folks some crazy-assed loonies! And you the craziest I ever laid eyes on! Mama told me not to trust no white folk!”

  Ursula whimpered in the sludge, holding her hands out to quell the barrage of Chanel that was about to rain down upon her.

  Fionnuala took a step forward, then a step back, then a step forward again. Her left eye twitched and her left shoulder jerked and her mind swam with the madness she was about to perform. She hated Ursula, hated her, but... How dare this stranger, this foreigner roar abuse at a citizen of Derry City? How dare she! Irish pride brimming through her, Fionnuala grabbed what she could of the swinging bags. She shoved Aquanetta into the promotional poster for Claratin. It toppled, and so did she. Fionnuala raised her hand to strike, and she was an expert at it. But—

  “Mammy! Mammy!”

  Scampering towards them was Siofra, clothes in tatters, hair like a nest, face like a bin man at the end of a shift.

  As Ursula struggled to get up and Aquanetta flapped in the water, Fionnuala looked around the empty lobby, mortified. She roared down at the trembling little form: “How dare ye show me up like that, ye daft eejit! Roaring 'mammy' at me outta ye, so's everyone knows I'm responsible for ye. What are themmuns gonny think of me parenting, like, when ye're in such a state? The bold faced cheek!”

  �
�Auntie Ursula! Auntie Ursula! Ye've to come quick! They've me uncle Jed held prisoner!”

  “Ye ungrateful wee bitch! All them years I fed and clothed ye...wasted! And an ungrateful, spiteful wee cunt, ye turned out, and pig ugly and all!”

  She turned to Aquanetta to explain.

  “A face begging to be smacked, that one has. Years, I've been trying to smack the ugliness offa it. Hasn't worked, but. As I'm sure ye can tell.” Dymphna had finally moved up a notch on her list.

  “Come, Auntie Ursula,” Siofra said, grabbing her arm and pulling uselessly. “I know where they've Uncle Jed holed up, so I do! I've been following them, like.”

  Siofra quickly checked Ursula's hands for a gift; that was what she always expected and usually received from her minted lotto-winning aunt, and her godmother as well, but she didn't see one. Her disappointment was tempered, though, by the thought she supposed her auntie Ursula couldn't always cart sticks of rock or dolls or whatnot about on the off chance she might run into her goddaughter.

  “Jed's been missing,” Ursula explained to Fionnuala. “But I hadn't a clue—”

  “Clattering the shite outta him, they've been, auntie! It's money themmuns is after, I think.”

  “Why don't ye just contact the local filth? Doesn't that be what you lot does anyroad? Grass people up?”

  Phoning the authorities had been Ursula's first plan of action. But, somewhere in the fuzziness of her mind, she realized she couldn't. She couldn't remember why, but, oh, yes she could. She wrung her sopping fingers.

  “I kyanny. Och, ye're never gonny believe this, Fionnuala, I'm on the run, but. From the coppers, like. Ye've not a clue what I've been up to. I had to take this cruise to escape them, if ye can believe that.”

  Then was born something Fionnuala never thought she'd have for Ursula Barnett, ever: respect. Grudging, against all her better instincts and nature, but nevertheless...respect. And, she remembered, she had had the hots for Jed back in the mists of time. She looked at her out of the corner of her eye, stifled a giggle and sidled up to her.

  “Ye sleekit, sly bitch ye! Yer filthy sin be's safe with me, so it does.”

  “Help, then, Mammy!”

  “Naw!” Fionnuala still snapped.

  “Mammy!” Siofra squealed, stamping her foot, tears welling in her eyes. “Stop yer foolish carry-on now! We've to find Uncle Jed!”

  Fionnuala was reluctant. She really, really was. But...

  As the three walked off, each step of Fionnuala's dragged, Aquanetta finally forced herself upwards, filthy, sodden Chanel bags splayed across her thighs. She was crestfallen. She thought she had made a new friend, a white one. But she had been wrong. Still, she mused, she had the bitch's extra $20.

  CHAPTER 39

  DYMPHNA WAS TRYING to position Keanu's little fingers around the baby spoon so he could feed his little sister. But at one and a half years of age, he didn't seem to understand what he was supposed to do. He kept throwing the spoon to the floor and wailing out of him. And if he was struggling, Dymphna dreaded to think how it would go when she tried to have six-week-old Beeyonsay feed him in return.

  Her father was passed out on his bunk from drink and exhaustion. When the electricity had gone out from the lightning strike, he had told her, the galley crew had thrown down their utensils and joined the looting mob. Paddy had pushed through them in the opposite direction and staggered back to the cabin.

  Fabrizio hovered above Dymphna's disheveled curls, clucking his disapproval. Their furious sex session had been interrupted first by the father coming in, then the children screaming from their stroller. He stared down in ever-increasing disgust at the state of the children. Filthy, malnourished beings, tattered cloth hanging from their tiny struggling limbs, the boy's too small, the girl's too big, their eyes begging the world for mercy. He was looking for a wife to bear his children, and although this strange foreign girl had the appropriate child bearing hips and breasts that could feed an orphanage, he was realizing how his own progeny, his own little toddling gifts to the world, would be raised. Worse than cattle.

  “Och!” Dymphna huffed. “Them wanes be's flimmin eejits, so they does. Kyanny make them see the sense in feeding each other. Ye know, their daddy be's a Proddy, and—”

  “Basta!” Fabrizio snatched the spoon from her hand. Dymphna looked up at him in alarm. “Whata you do to babies? My mama and my grandmama, they teached me how to treata the child. Not likea that! You...you...mama from Hell!”

  He tried to pat the head of the boy-creature, but the tufts of hair on his skull were slick with grease. Fabrizio shuddered. His hand recoiled. Dymphna's alarm dissolved into anger.

  “Aye,” she yelled up at him, “and if ye want some home truths being told, I'm about to tell some to ye right now. Shagging ye sends me to heaven, aye it does, nobody's plowed me better, like. C'mere til I tell ye, but, I just kyanny rid it of me mind that yer granny just butchered the wanes of others and ate their flesh without even pausing to cook it! All of youse in yer family! Deranged, filthy-minded cannibals, the lot of youse! And ye've the bold-faced cheek to stand there and criticize me mothering skills! Feck on off outta here if ye think yer mammy and granny be's better at raising wanes. At least these two of mines won't end up down some sad old bugger's throat!”

  He roared a torrent of his strange language at her, his face stretched with rage, arms flying through the air. Then he turned and stomped out of the cabin.

  “Aye, off ye go! Fecking toerag arsehole!” Dymphna taunted, memorizing that arse for her use later on.

  She ignored the shrieks from the stroller, her hunger for an appropriate husband was more important than their hunger for food. Through her tears, she tried to peer out the porthole, but even if she could have seen through the caked-on filth, she would have had difficulty distinguishing where the torrents spewing from the sky ended and the churning Caribbean Sea began. There was nothing outside but Last Judgment Gray. She expected the Four Horsemen to descend any second, reach down and drag her off to Hell.

  Fabrizio was gone. Dymphna saw her future through that porthole: pints of lager thrown down her throat, staggering mateless through the pubs of Derry, shots of whiskey and tequila stretching endlessly before her bleary eyes, nobody wanting to gaze upon her goggled, unfocused face with tenderness, the years dragging by in a drunken haze, fingers pointed at her in sport, faces turned to avoid her eyes that used to sparkle, and whisper about the deadness in her features, clucking at the folly of her behavior, her faltering tongue, her tainted breath, her impaired health... All would recoil in horror from the sight of her as she staggered over the cobblestones of the city center, the sick of curry chips down her top. She would lie down, spread her legs and pop out the wanes in a row, the hooligans and loose shop floor girls, the fathers dimly remembered in an alcoholic haze, her only reason for living. She would be a slave to the bottle until she lost her manners, her shape, her beauty and, finally, her virtue. Then she would die.

  Tears poured like the rain outside. The door rattled open and—Dymphna's shock was greater than the Four Horsemen would have been!

  “Blessed Virgin!” Ursula said, clutching her nostrils with a handkerchief. Tears stung her eyes. “They have ye living here like...like...”

  “Aye, we know, sure,” Fionnuala said, marching in behind her. “Worse than slaves.”

  “Auntie Ursula!” Dymphna said. “And...Mammy?!How...why...?!”

  They were with a fat man and a skinny woman Dymphna hadn't met before, but who were Yanks, she could tell. They stood outside in the hallway, unwilling to step inside. The woman in the red glasses looked like she was dry-heaving. And behind them...

  “Siofra!”

  As Dymphna hugged her auntie Ursula, then Siofra, even she knew from her mother's blazing eyes, the faltering of her steps and the exaggeration of the sweeps of her arms, she knew alcohol had brought them together. It was the trifecta of emotions Dymphna had lived over and over at a glance at the pillow next to her after a
night on the town: first came the shock, then horror, and it was only later, over a cup of black coffee after the drink was oozing out of the brain and regular thinking began, that the shame set in. Followed by a fourth and the worst: cold, raw regret. She cringed at the thought of the rage that would accompany Fionnuala's regret once the alcohol wore off.

  “We're gonny save Uncle Jed!” Siofra squealed, eyes bright with excitement. “And I've a secret weapon and all, youse!”

  “Rouse yerself!” Fionnuala barked at Paddy. She shook his limbs as Ursula wrung her hands at her side. He sputtered awake. “We've to find Jed. Get yer shirt on.”

  “Who? Where? What?” The look up at them through his blood-veined eyes let them know he thought he had woken up roaring mad.

  “And yer jacket and all,” Dymphna told her daddy. “I heard on the radio in the staff room they be's forecasting a tropical storm.”

  Fionnuala inspected her with suspicion as she forced Paddy's arms into his shirt. Perhaps, Dymphna feared, the drink in her mother's brain was beginning to wane. It didn't bode well for the next few hours.

  “Tropical storm!” Fionnuala snorted. “What's that meant to mean, ye jumped up cunt? Some fancy Yank name for 'hurricane'?”

  “It's like an infant hurricane, Mammy.”

  “I think,” the man at the door said, “half of it already hit us.”

  “We're probably in the eye of the storm,” the woman with the glasses said. “Which means we don't have long for this calm to last.”

  They all jumped as Paddy yelled out, fingers playing air guitar:“Dah! Dah-dah-dah! Dah-dah-dah! Dah-dah-daaah!”

  “Daddy,” Dymphna said, patting the tattered denim of his jacket. “That be's Eye of the Tiger.”

  It didn't bode well for Uncle Jed's rescue, both her mammy and daddy paladic, but they had to try. Already, she could see her mother casting Ursula looks as if to say, “What the bleeding feck am I doing with her?”

  “It doesn't be far!” Siofra piped up, as if this knowledge would make them move quicker. She jumped up and down and twirled her greasy hair impatiently. “C'mon youse! Let's save Uncle Jed!”