Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4)

by Gerald Hansen

  Bridie's Doc Martens stomped a step from the fruit machine. Under the table, Dymphna slipped her right foot out of the stiletto and reached under to take hold.

  “Right! Who's got this round? Dymphna? Surely it's yers?”

  It was Maire, with Ailish and Maeve in tow, hovering over her. Even as Dymphna stared up at the eyes that orbited around her red curls, several cells of her brain registered the bloody cheek—she had bought all six of the rounds!—but then she softened. It was her wedding and Zoë's twenty pound notes after all that were keeping them on board. The girls' flesh was cold and their skimpy clothes were in a state of disarray; they all seemed to have been groped by passersby as they had stood outside gulping down the carcinogens.

  “C'mere, youse,” Dymphna hissed. “That Bridie McFee one over there has been casting me filthy looks. I'm heart-scared she's gonny do me bodily harm.”

  They looked over, and when they looked back, Dymphna could see whose side they were on. She could almost hear them weighing the two up in their plastered minds, and Bridie had never bought them free drinks, nor was she marrying up, so there was no chance she might give them a loan if they needed it in the future, which was conceivable.

  “I'll claw the face offa her for ye!” Maeve promised. “I could never stick that face of a busted cabbage of hers!”

  She lurched away from the table where Dymphna was sat, but Dymphna pulled her back by a belt loop of her sequined Daisy Dukes.

  “I've me screwdriver along with me.” Maire reached into her handbag, but she had spewed up in it earlier and her fingers struggled to find the weapon in the mire.

  “Sit youse here and protect me,” Dymphna said. “Ailish, go you to the bar, here's a twenty, and get us another round in. It's me wedding week, and I'm not gonny let that aul skegrat spoil it for me, sure. Laugh, youse! Laugh like we're having the time of wer lives!”

  As Ailish raced off to the bar, Maire and Maeve slipped into the nook on either side of Dymphna and roared bawdily. Their lipstick was smeared over their lips, Maeve especially looked as if she were suffering from some tropical disease of the mouth, and Dymphna could smell the stench of man rising from them.

  “Take this serviette and clean them hands of yers,” Dymphna instructed Maire. “What were youse up to outside? Wile long fags, ye must've been smoking...”

  “Och, ye'll never believe it, but yer man from the Indian takeout and his cousin—”

  Dymphna yelped as a coaster cracked against her forehead. Flung across the bobbing heads by Bridie. She had always been suspiciously good at volleyball in school; some suspected lesbianism.

  “Yer woman hit me!” Dymphna cried, shocked, and mortified. Even as bladdered as she was, some sane part of her brain insisted she just wanted a night out with her bridal party, not to make a scene. Those days of reveling in the drama of drunken kicks and scratches and tugs of the hair and roaring foul abuse with the public urging her on, chanting and clapping and shouting, were gone. She was soon to be a respectable bride. A younger Dymphna would have called Bridie a 'mad bitch,' not 'yer woman.'

  Still, Bridie hadn't flung a dart into her forehead, and those were within easy reach. Though maybe she was too drunk to realize. She didn't seem to know where she was.

  Maire reached again for her handbag, but Dymphna gave her hand a little slap.

  “Sure, let's not lower werselves to her level,” she said. Maire and Maeve looked at her as if she were the mad bitch.

  Thankfully, Ailish then arrived, and Maire and Maeve forgot about Bridie and her coaster and her glares. They held their glasses up.

  “Slainte!” they roared, then guzzled down.

  “Laugh, youse!” Dymphna instructed. “Sing!”

  “Timber! Woah-ohh-oh-oh, woah woah-oh-oh-oh, woah, oh-oh!”

  Then the song ended. Bridie pushed aside shop assistants and shelf stackers alike as Daft Punk started up again and she staggered across the floor like Frankenstein's monster taking his first steps. She gripped surfaces vertical and horizontal to aid her journey through the protesting throngs, table tops, arms and the hoop earrings of one poor lass. Her hoodie hung at a Flashdance angle but wasn't meant to, her sneer grew more menacing, and her deranged eyes bored deep into Dymphna...or, to the right of her, no, the left, no deep into her. Bridie seemed to be seeing double, and didn't quite know exactly where in the space time continuum Dymphna actually sat.

  Panting with fear, Dymphna looked to her backup. Three heads lolled on the table, dead to the world. They had passed out. Timber. She sprinted as best she could in her heels to the loo. Bridie lumbered behind. Dymphna whimpered in terror as she tore open the door of the ladies. But she hadn't been to the Craiglooner in so long she didn't know management had broken the locks of the stalls as too much had gone on in them. She cursed as she slammed the door to the closest one, and tears welled in her eyes from fear and the stench. She pressed against the door as the music suddenly spewed into the room. Bridie had wrenched open the door to the bathroom. It slammed shut, and the only sounds were the thumping of “Get Lucky” bass and Bridie's steel-toed boots stomping across the filthy tiles.

  Whimpering, one hand pressed against the door, Dymphna reached down and tried to undo the strap to her left stiletto. But her fingers shuddered with alcohol and terror. She struggled to kick it off with her right foot. It clattered to the floor just as the door burst towards her.

  “I fffounnd yyyee,” Bridie slur-growled.

  Dymphna cringed under her at the edge of the toilet bowl, arms raised in defense. She peeked under her right elbow at the deranged eyes inching towards her.

  “Bridie, why don't we—”

  “Ye cunnttt!”

  “Och, c'mere, now—”

  “Ye whorrre!”

  “Ye don't—”

  “Ye bidschtch!”

  “Have ye—

  “Ye slaaggg!”

  “Do ye—”

  “Miinggger!”

  “Me ma—”

  “Slaaapper!”

  “I—”

  “Flimmmmmin tarrttttt!”

  Her insults slurred, her steps into the stall staggers, Bridie lunged a fist to Dymphna's right, she lunged a fist to her left. Dymphna wondered briefly if she was now seeing triple.

  “I'm with child! Preggers!” Dymphna begged. “Leave me in peace!”

  This revelation seemed to make Bridie more determined to inflict pain. She roared like a tortured animal.

  “Rry's gvn ye anthr ne?!” Spittle sprayed from her lips. Her head wavered from right to left, heavy on her neck, and she smirked as she clamped eyes on something on the floor behind Dymphna amongst the toilet rolls and empty glasses.

  Trembling atop the porcelain circle (the seat had long since disappeared), sensing the freezing water below her shuddering thighs, Dymphna peeked through her arms to see what Bridie was taking hold of.

  The plunger inched towards her face. Dymphna screamed. She dreaded to think of what horrors that suction cup had squelched up against. She knew what type of pub it was.

  “Bridie! Naw! It's mingin!” Dymphna wailed through the cross of her arms.

  “Thsss bse whattyederserved. Frrr allyedone to mee. Ye bidschtch!”

  Dymphna jumped from the toilet. The plunger whizzed past her ear. Bridie grunted she flew forward with it. It plopped against the wall and stuck to the broken tiles. Bridie huffed and panted, trying to free it, roars pouring from her mouth.

  Dymphna threw back her head. Teetering in one stiletto, she braced herself on the walls of the stall with her hands. She took a deep breath. Her skull sailed forward. Her red curls flew through the air, crack! She yelped as her forehead smacked against Bridie's.

  “Arrghh...!”

  There was a strange moan. Bridie wavered, the whites of her eyes fluttering Exorcist-like. Her head lolled as if attached to a spring. Then she crumpled to the floor to the left of the bowl.

  Dymphna was shocked at what she had done. She had told herself she would never h
eadbutt again. It hurt her own head too much. She knelt before Bridie and, as she had seen on the telly, felt for a pulse. There was one. She heaved a sigh of relief. She wiped her hands on a piece of loo roll hanging before her nose, Bridie's skin had been slick and sticky to the touch. Then Dymphna stood up, slipped her shoe back on, and stepped over the body.

  As she opened the door and Daft Punk enveloped her, and the laughter and the stench of drink and sweat beyond, she muttered, though it pained her to admit it, “Mad bitch.”

  CHAPTER 15

  A surge of sick threatened to shoot up Bridie's throat, but, eyes watering, fingers grasping what she thought was a bedspread, she forced it back down. She didn't know if the nausea was due to her hangover, the rancid stench that hung in the air or some miraculous pregnancy.

  Her right eyelid wrenched itself upwards over a congealed eyeball, her left followed suit, and as the haze of drunken torpor slowly lifted, she found that no matter how many times she blinked, she could see nothing. Except black. It didn't smell like her bedroom. It couldn't be her bedroom. The bed was too hard, and it wasn't even a bed. It felt like a floor. Concrete. It wasn't even her house. She sensed she was captive in a cold, damp, windowless prison, and for a thrilling second she wondered if she had been abducted. But her leggings hadn't been interfered with, her hands weren't tethered, and her mouth was free to scream. Where was she? After a night of drunken abuse, she could be waking up anywhere, if her past was anything to go by.

  She had heard stories of people on the Continent waking up in a neighboring country after a night on the town, but she didn't have the funds to travel and, besides, those countries, Belgium, France, Holland and whatnot, were all close together, whereas Ireland was by itself and surrounded by sea. The farthest she had woken up was across the border in Buncrana, in the bed of an old sheep farmer with a sweaty arse. It had taken her three hours in pelting rain to hitchhike home.

  She dragged her head from what she now suspected wasn't a pillow, and the synapses of her brain were like the graph of an atom splitting, horrified memories of the night before pinging like trails of particles flying this way and that. She didn't really know the details, just saw images of the fag end of the night before, like slides of shame popping up in her brain from all angles: she herself splayed on one of those half-seats at a bus stop down the town, florescent light pounding on her head, rain bucketing down, a checkered shirt, feet entwined atop mounds of rubbish that overflowed from a bin nearby, Kebabalicious styrofoam containers, burger wrappers, half-eaten and half-regurgitated chips and pizza and battered sausages, broken beer bottles and plastic containers that once held cider, his filthy trainers, her stockinged foot –she had lost a Doc Marten somewhere—sliding in a pool of curry, his hands thrusting down her top, her cries of delight, the pounding of his limbs against hers, arms too muscular to belong to her one true love, Rory, hair too blonde, too short, the flash of a nose ring, the thrust of a zipper, her head bobbing up and down in his lap, his roars of rapture, the tug of his hands on her hair, the barks of laughter and slurred taunts from strangers staggering by, her flipping them off and diving down for more, the bra being torn from her, her begging for more. And now her lips were chapped, and there were several peculiar pains in her neck.

  She was furious and embarrassed at herself. Not because she had made a show of herself in public—that was fine—but because she had given up men for Lent, and it had only begun the day before. The ashes were surely still smeared on her forehead.

  “Not again another fecking year!” she muttered. She usually gave up chocolate, but it was torture surviving the 46 days without it, whereas men, well, they were hardly queuing up to sample her maidenly delights. It was a no brainer, she had thought. This year she would gobble down all the Crunchies and Mars and Lions and Fruit and Nut she wanted without an ounce of guilt and arrive at the church on Easter Sunday a few pounds overweight but with the satisfaction of her penance, her suffering for the sake of the Lord her Jesus Christ, done. But, no. She had already failed again in His eyes. Would He forgive her her trespasses?

  Bridie moaned and pulled back sheets that crinkled like huge swathes of thick plastic. Then, as she scrabbled around in the darkness, her hand sweeping around to touch something, anything, to anchor herself, she remembered with a sudden spark of hope. She had also thrown in chips for good measure at the last moment, given them up for Lent as well, as it seemed to be cheating to give up something that never came her way. So she could still be redeemed.

  Bridie's teeth chattered as she ran her hands up and down both sides of the darkness. She seemed to be hemmed into the tiny space by cardboard boxes. Some were large, some small. She smacked her hands on the concrete, looking for her handbag. No matter how drunk she got, it was always clamped to her side. She found the familiar frayed straps and, relieved, dragged the handbag onto her lap. She rummaged inside and pulled out her phone, clicked it on, and shone the light on the nearest box. This Side Up ↑, she read, disappointed it was in English. So she was probably still in Derry, and in Northern Ireland, after all.

  She shone the light further up the box. Spray-No-Mor Urinal Splash Guards. That's wile odd, thought Bridie. Then another box appeared: Scrub-Eaze Jumbo Scouring Pads, then Stench Away Air Purifier and Klassy Kaps, Friendly Fingers Fry Vat Gloves and Giganta Wrapped Straws. When she got to Jiffi-Jet Liquid Descaler, pieces of her brain started to click together jigsaw-like, and when she saw Rat-U-Kill and a bucket marked Soiled Towels, she felt like a daft cow. Och, Bridie, ye're a right eejit, so ye are! It was the hangover making her thick. How many times had she done the weekly inventory for Kebabalicious, the fast food restaurant she worked at, counting up the splash guards and scouring pads and purifiers and yellow and purple caps...

  How had she not recognized the store room? Admittedly, she had never seen it from this angle, and from the triangle of light from her mobile phone before, but, still. How the flimmin feck did I end up here...?

  She stood up, wavered for a second, hand resting on a tub of plastic forks as her head spun, then stormed through the boxes in one boot and one stockinged foot. She flipped on the light. The pillow was her folded coat, the blankets industrial strength trash bags.

  And it all came back from the night before: the queue to the mini-cabs, miles long, peopled by legless, chattering, slobbering, laughing wee girls and lads she knew to see but couldn't stomach. She had staggered up to the end of the line, but the four in front of her were scoffing down battered sausages and chips and snogging the faces off of each other (it was two lads and their girlfriends) and she shrieked at them about filthy, disgusting, shameless public displays of affection, and two handbags materialized as if from the heavens and clattered down on her head time and again and as she crawled backwards away from them (she had fallen by this stage) and as she scrabbled up from the pavement and teetered on two wobbly legs, still roaring abuse at them, the lads launched sausage bits at her like missiles and bellowed with raucous, taunting laughter, and she hugged a lamppost so she didn't topple over again, and she kept hugging it and and staring at the metal of it as the sausage bits rained down on her, and it came to her somehow as she shrieked at them to leave her be that she didn't know where she lived in any event and had no place to tell a cab driver to take her to, and then she was drooling and crying against the coldness of the lamppost and she staggered off sniveling across the cobblestones with one boot and one curry-covered legging onto unknown streets she had grown up in but somehow couldn't now recognize, battering anyone who approached with her handbag and shrieking general insults and sexual slurs into their equally drunken, startled faces. And reaching down and digging the sausage bits out of her cleavage and gobbling them down as tears coursed down her cheeks. She was mortified now as she remembered it. And then she had come across the Kebabalicious door, and it was miraculous, as if she had teleported across time and space to the most marvelous place in the world, the sudden appearance of its battered yellow and purple facade before her as
wondrous to her as if it were the Taj Mahal. And somehow in the depths of her drunken brain she knew she held the key to its magical door.

  The night classes she had taken at the community college all those years ago had come to nothing. She was now junior assistant manager of Kebabalicious. It was her lot in life. Seven years before, she had taken a part-time job behind the counter of the ChipKebab as a stop-gap, something after school to pay for her pints in the pub until she got a degree in something impressive so she could nab a man with her mind. She knew she couldn't do it with her body or her face. Maybe art history or design, perhaps architecture or forensics. A few years before, the ChipKebab had been bought out by the multinational Kebabalicious chain, and Bridie was suddenly a cog in its relentless wheel, and one day she had woken up and realized her McJob had become her career. And that she was still single. And destined to remain so.

  It was her big bones and the cold sores that refused to clear up, she told herself. Not the way she threw herself at every male with a pulse. She occasionally wondered if she suffered from low self-esteem, but then she realized—

  She wailed. Pain stabbed her stomach, sweat popped on her brow and weakness attacked her arms and legs. Whimpering, she struggled to wrench open the stockroom door with trembling fingers and raced on rubbery legs to the loos. She made it just in time. And when she was done, she still had the sense of mind to notice the bathrooms hadn't been mopped by the closing shift. She would have to check the staff roster. There would be hell to pay. She hadn't been made junior assistant manager for her charm.

  Now that her stomach and intestines were empty, she was consumed with a ravenous, feral hunger. She looked at her watch. Ten fifteen. The first shift wouldn't be in for another hour or so. (The Kebabalicious didn't yet have a breakfast menu, though upper management was considering it). She just might have time to whip up a batch of chips. Feck Lent.