Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4)

by Gerald Hansen

  “Don't youse worry, wanes. Yer granny'll help youse. Ye'll see, it'll be loads of fun!”

  She smiled down at them, and even in her own drink-filled mind she realized the configuration of her teeth was not giving the desired effect of motherly love. She had to use the loo. As their silly questions rang out, she turned and hoofed it up the stairs to the bathroom in the landing.

  When she was finished, she heard the wanes in their room, babbling on and on under the dance music that blared, and then she tiptoed up to Lorcan's room and pressed her ear against the splintering wood. She heard some peculiar noises, or imagined she did anyway, her head addled by drink as it was. She wrenched open the door—

  And shrieked at what she saw.

  “I knew it! I bloody well knew it!” she roared at Lorcan. “When I told ye about yer suit and the wedding two days away, I saw the look in yer eyes!”

  Lorcan stood frozen before the suitcase he had placed on the ripped and stained bedsheets, a handful of socks in his hand. His handsome face was etched with guilt. Betrayal shot through Fionnuala like a sniper's bullet to the skull.

  She wailed there at the door, her mouth the only part of her body able to move, “Ye promised me ye wouldn't leave before the doctors had given yer poor aul mammy's body the go-ahead to live a few more years! Ye promised me ye wouldn't leave before the wedding, sure! Ye kyanny wait two extra days? Two flimmin extra days?! Why do ye think ye must up and leave yer mammy's side? Why?”

  “Och, er, Mammy, I...”

  The socks fell into the suitcase. He bowed his head in shame.

  “And I'll have ye know,” Fionnuala seethed drunkenly, “that's yer granny's suitcase ye've there, and I'll demand she not let ye take it! Ye'll be hauling yer gear down to that airport in a bin bag! Traitor! When are ye leaving? Where are ye going to? Tell me! Tell me now, ye bloody ungrateful bastard!”

  He reached into his pocket and brought out a slip of paper.

  “That Sorcha got me a special pass for a flight. I can leave any time I want. There be's a plane for Miami tonight. And I've me passport and all. With one of them working visas attached.”

  “How did ye get that? Ye've a criminal record, sure! The States won't let ye in!”

  But Fionnuala knew she was clutching at straws. For the right price, you could buy anything down at that Mountains of Mourne Gate market. That was where Eoin had gotten his passport as well.

  “Eoin's waiting for me to come, so. He's got me a job all set up. I'll send ye money, Mammy.”

  Fionnuala roared out: “So there's the two of ye all set to betray yer mammy, is there? Him I don't mind. You, but Lorcan! You! Me lovely, lovely boy! All the sacrifices yer mammy's made for ye over the years! Always putting meself last for ye, all them visits to the prison when I had to smuggle ye in them drugs! All I did for ye, Lorcan, and this is how ye repay me? By fecking off to the States without so much as a by yer leave?”

  She raced towards him, arm raised to strike. He flinched. But then she turned and stomped out of the room. The door slammed behind her. And she marched to the bathroom, having made her plan to force him to stay that night of the puppet play on the sofa. It was time to put that plan into action.

  She wrenched open the cupboard under the sink and rummaged around until she wrapped her fingers around what she was looking for. The big purple can of hairspray. Extra Super Hold Aquanet, it was called, some strange Yank hairspray Ursula had left years ago. What it was doing in her house, Fionnuala had no clue; the reasoning was lost in the mists of time. But it was Ursula's, nor hers and, her deranged thinking went, if the coppers ever caught wind of what she was about to do, they would blame Ursula and not her.

  Fuming, raging, furious, her fingers trembled as she panted huge breaths and brought the can up to her eyes. She read the ingredients crouched there in the bathroom under the sink. These were much different than the ingredients of the cake: Water, Dimethyl Ether, SD Alcohol 40-B, Vinyl Neodecanoate Copolymer, Acrylates Copolymer, Aminomethyl Propanol, Sodium Benzoate, Cyclohexylamine, Triethyl Citrate, Cyclopentasiloxane, Masking Fragrance.

  She read the warning: Flammable. Avoid heat, fire, flame and smoking while spraying and until hair is fully dry. Avoid spraying in eyes. Do not ingest. Keep out of reach of children. Contents under pressure. Do not puncture or incinerate. Do not store at temperatures above 120 degrees F. Use only as directed. Intentional misuse by deliberately concentrating and inhaling contents can be harmful or fatal.

  Do Not Ingest. She knew that meant do not eat. But Lorcan would be eating it for tea that night. Sprayed on the slices of ham hocks she would put on a special plate for him. She'd add more salt to his portion to hopefully mask the taste of the Masking Fragrance. She was as fearful as she was sorrowful. And she didn't want him dead. How could she want her favorite son, her perennial number one child dead? But at death's door? That was a different matter. Aye. Just so he couldn't make the bus trip to the airport. And as she nursed him back to health, she would keep spraying his food with the poisons, just enough to keep him weak. Until he realized Derry, at her side, was the only place for him.

  She pried open the bathroom door, the can hidden behind her back. There was nobody in the hallway, nobody on the landing. She raced down the stairs, hid the can in the bread box, then went to the front hall and picked up the phone. She dialed Dymphna's number. She wanted all the family to be there. She wanted an audience.

  “Dymphna?”

  “Aye, er, Mammy? Are ye right? Ye sound wile odd.”

  “I've just had a wee bit of whiskey. What I'm ringing for to tell ye, but, be's yer gown's ready. Why don't ye come over for yer tea tonight, and ye can see it and maybe even try it on. Bleedin marvelous, it looks, if I say so meself.”

  Dymphna squealed her delight down the line. “Och, Mammy! I kyanny wait to lay eyes on it! I know yer sewing skills, so I'm sure ye did a grand job of it! Right, me shift here at the chip van be's almost done, and then I'll be over. And, c'mere, dead quick, ye altered that gown, so ye did! Ye did say by the end of today ye'd be done, but.”

  “Ye see? Yer mammy's a woman of her word.” She certainly was, Fionnuala thought as she hung up: over her dead body, she had promised Lorcan, or over his dead body. She marched back into the kitchen and went to the ham hocks boiling on the stove, a woman of her word.

  CHAPTER 29

  Bridie had run home, as much as she could run, to freshen up for her visit to whatever inner sanctum of the Church her aunt would be able to gain her entrance to. She had a quick bite to eat, a cucumber sandwich and a tomato dusted with salt, and after she had wolfed it down, she sat there at the kitchen table and wondered if she felt full. She decided she did. But the pressure of her new life was getting to her, so on her way back to her aunt's, she had bought a flagon of hard cider at the Sav-U-Mor and guzzled down, not there on the sidewalk as the Bridie of old, but hunched behind a row of hedges in Mrs. O'Bryan's front garden, cloaked by shadows. Temperance didn't mean abstinence, or so she hoped. There was wine on practically every page of the Bible, with Jesus even in one scene turning water into it! But she only drank half the bottle, to be sure. She put the rest in her handbag in case she needed it.

  As she approached Mrs. Mulholland's house, her heart dancing in the sunshine of this fervid new world she was living in—and the cider—she saw the front door was open, but paid it little mind, as sometimes her auntie's mind wandered and she forgot to close it. And so she went in. She caught sight of herself, with her special eyes, in the mirror of the hall stand and was disappointed at the state of her hair. It didn't look presentable, wasn't holy enough. She dug into her purse and found a few bobby pins, and as she was pinning up her hair of no discernible color into something more pious, she heard from behind her aunt's closed sitting room door a clucking and a tutting of elderly voices speaking out in tones of disgust and contempt. Many elderly voices. She strained to hear.

  “The day after tomorrow, did ye say?”

  “I did indeed, aye. A
nd at St. Fintan's, of all places!”

  “God bless us and save us! How can Father Harrigan can have such a display of vulgarity taking place in wer very own house of the Lord? It beggars belief!”

  “C'mere, if we're not safe from such revolting, inhuman acts in wer own parish church, where in the name of God are we meant to be safe?”

  “Tsk, tsk! I ask youse, is nothing sacred in this day and age? I'll be taking me custom elsewhere, and I advise youse all to do the same, good ladies. I'll take up going to that fancy new church down the the Culmore Road instead, if anyone wants to join me. Youse know the one I mean? Lovely stainless steel and marble holy water fonts, they have. Imported from Italy, so I've heard.”

  Bridie then heard her aunt speaking: “I'd not a clue, but, that that chip van was run by that Proddy creature,” and Bridie's hand was on the door handle, ready to press it down, walk in and let herself be known, when her aunt continued, “the one whose son is marrying that Flood tart, that Dymphna. They certainly kept that a secret from us all. Me ears couldn't believe what they were hearing! The chip van, secretly run by Proddies! I'll be taking me custom elsewhere as far as chip eating be's concerned and all!”

  “A disgrace, so it is!”

  “Aye, shocking!”

  “(Unintelligible) kyanny leave well enough alone. All them sermons week after week, Sunday after Sunday, demanding, insisting we live together not only side by side, but peacefully at that! I ask ye! After all they've put us through! The bloodshed and the tears and the broken families and broken bay windows and whatnot. And now they are expecting us to...mingle together...in such an unseemly manner!” The woman here spat her disgust. There were murmurs of agreement that seemed to come from all corners of the room beyond the door.

  “There's only so much Christian tolerance we can be expected to tolerate! The whole world's gone demented!”

  “It makes me skin crawl!”

  “And me stomach turn.”

  “There's something obscene, something vulgar about it! Like the mixing of one species of animal with another, like, I dunno, a sparrow and a gazelle, to name but two. What would their offspring be? It's unnatural, so it is!. It's not what the Lord intended.”

  “Just like” here a woman, whoever she was, whispered fearfully, “that homosexuality,” there was a collective gasp, scandalized, “though that be's two like creatures mingling together, so it's like the opposite, but youse get me drift, aye?”

  “Nothing good will come of that marriage made in Hell! Mark me words! The slippery slope...!”

  “And here was me thinking that wee Flood girl had just gone and overdosed on some of them filthy drugs.”

  “Aye, I heard that and all.”

  “And me.”

  “C'mere, did youse hear that that shameful Mrs. McDaid cleared off outta town? To Florida, she's gone. Some says it was that wee girl's overdose what made her flee. Good riddance to that horrid woman and her sons, I say, mucking up the streets with them with disgraceful drugs of theirs! An army of sinners, so they was! Soldiers for Satan!”

  “They all seem to clear outta Derry and head for that Florida. What battles the churches over there must be fighting against all them sinners, all them what's fallen from grace, I shudder to think.”

  “Aye, like Australia in the 1800s. When they shipped all them criminals over there.”

  “Did they really?”

  “Do ye not know? Aye, the entire continent, or does it be a country, anyroad, no matter what it be's, the entire place's nothing but the offspring of degenerates!”

  “I was planning the long flight over for me holidays next year. Two weeks in Sydney, with the Great Barrier Reef thrown in. Hrmph! Now ye've put me off....”

  “Could someone please help me out here, but? I'm struggling to comprehend. How is it that that girl, that Dymphna one, be's dead if she's to be getting wed to the Orangeman the day after tomorrow?”

  “Naw, she's not gone and died. That's what we all thought, but. Musta been some rumor that went astray. I heard it in Xpressions, so I did.”

  “Aye, me and all.”

  “I heard it from Mrs. Flannigan in the frozen foods section at the Top Yer Trolly. Why's she not here with us, by the by?”

  “Poor aul dear had an angina attack the other day. Did ye not hear?”

  Unable to listen to any more, Bridie knocked on the door, then threw it open.

  “Ah!” Mrs. Mulholland said, “here she is now!”

  All heads turned. Bridie gasped.

  Although Mrs. Mulholland had told her niece not to breathe a word to anyone about the wonder at the Kebabalicious, that apparently hadn't stopped the woman from ringing every person she herself knew in Derry. Mrs. Mulholland's sitting room heaving with women. Some were old, some older, some older still. Their rinses bobbled in the dust unsettled from so many people shoved into a room that could comfortably hold only four, rinses pink and blue and silver, but also purple and one green. They were perched on every lower horizontal surface the front room offered and their frail limbs could reach, sofa and loveseat arms, end tables, and Bridie could see all the chairs from the kitchen had been dragged in as well.

  Mrs. Mulholland had been given pride of place on the middle cushion of the sofa. There was Mrs. Leech, there was Mrs. O'Leary, there was Mrs. Stokes. There was Mrs. Dinh. With a squirming little girl of about 8 years of age looking decidedly out of place and clueless sitting on a cardboard box that had once held a coffee machine beside her. Bridie didn't know the others, but she knew them to see. Some clutched rosary beads, some prayer books, some cups of tea or a china plate with a biscuit, a selection of which Mrs. Mulholland had placed on larger china plates on the sideboard. All were looking at her. No, glaring at her. Some with suspicion, some with scorn, some with barely concealed hatred, some with a fierce determination, already prepared, to disbelieve any word that came out of her mouth. Bridie was surprised there was no knitting, but, then again, from those she knew, karaoke and bingo were more likely to be up their alley.

  “H-have I come at the wrong time?” Bridie timidly asked her aunt.

  “Naw, ye're right on time, love,” Mrs. Mulholland said. “We've a seat waiting just for ye.”

  With a wave, she indicated the lone empty chair smack in the middle of the circle of the elderly masses. It faced the settee with the Bleeding Heart of Jesus over it. Trying for a smile but failing, Bridie inched herself through the rows of trainers and sensible flats and slip-ons towards the chair that awaited her. A chair that was conjuring up images from films she had seen, films about the KBG, Nazi Germany, the Spanish Inquisition and Guantanamo Bay. She sat on the chair and placed her handbag in her lap. She looked at them, the ones she could see before her, anyway.

  Bridie, like most of her mates—what few she had left—had a special place in her heart for the aged. She loved visiting her grannies and granddas on both sides of the family, treated them with patience and kindness at the Kebabalicious till on the rare occasions they chanced to come in, and she saw in the crevices on their faces, the wispiness of their hair and their pink scalps that poked out from underneath, the frailty of their fingers and the shuddering of their twig-like arms and legs, ready to snap at any moment, in all this, she saw not the terror of the passage of time, didn't feel she was peering at some horror house mirror of a dreaded unwanted future of her own, but she saw shining in their eyes a wisdom, a mellowness she longed for, a capacity for introspection and forgiveness and a love of life for its own sake, and the memories of a life well lived, a love of traditional singalongs, macaroons and fadge sorely missing in her peers of the day. Her shrill, nasty, spiteful peers. She always viewed getting old as she had heard many people do once they finish reading Lost Horizon, where everyone in Shangri La was ancient, 150 years old or more, full of romance and dignity and mystery and the excitement of finally realizing what person you are and the wonders life held no matter the age, and that was the reason it was Bridie's second favorite book of all time (noth
ing could beat Bridget Jones's Diary). She had always thought, when her career at Kebabalicious had run its course, she would work in a nursing home, or assisted care facility, or a senior citizens'' residence or whatever they were calling them that week. All that being said, she looked around her now, sitting on that chair whose cushion wheezed under the weight of her, with a sense of mounting dread. What had her aunt told them? Why were they here? Why were they glaring at her with such hatred? It was the Virgin Mary who had appeared magically to her! Bridie hadn't summoned her, hadn't forced her down from Heaven! And...she thought she was supposed to meet people at the church! She was prepared for their interrogation, the bishops and cardinals or whoever. But...no selection of church officials could be more discerning, more penetrating than this group of fervent churchgoers. Maybe that was the point. Bridie gulped.

  “First,” Mrs. Mulholland said, “Let me put yer mind at rest, Bridie. I've an audience arranged for ye with Bishop MacAuley and some minions of his from the cathedral, so we'll be meeting with them at 7 PM or thereabouts this evening. He's a new branch of the Top Yer Trolly to open before that, and the reception afterwards, but he'll be there. But ye might be wondering what all me mates is doing here.”

  “Th-that I was wondering, aye.”

  Mrs. Leech burst out before Bridie's aunt could continue, her teacup rattling with conviction: “We'll not have ye bringing shame and scorn to the good name of Derry throughout the Holy Roman Catholic world, wee girl!”

  And Mrs. Stokes roared from the depths of an armchair: “We're not gonny be made fools of! Before ye taint the good name of the Moorside parish to all Catholics everywhere, ye've to convince us ye really saw what ye're claiming ye saw!”

  Clucks and brays of agreement rang out. Heads nodded in all corners of the room. All arms were crossed against the wide array of cardigans they wore. The needed to be convinced. It wasn't going to be easy.

  “Calm youse down, Claire and Grace!” Bridie's aunt tutted. “Don't put the fear of the Lord into the girl.”