Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4)

by Gerald Hansen

  Though one part of Paddy's heart leaped with joy, another part plunged with contempt. So they had raced to Derry the moment their pockets were bulging with fresh new cash, choosing Dymphna's wedding to make their superiority known. He approached cautiously. And from behind him Fionnuala's scornful voice pierced the air: “Och, if it isn't the Lady and the Lord of the Manor! The King and Queen of all they surveys! Yet again! Go on and get outta here, youse feckin arseholes! Sure, nobody wants ye or cares about yer money!”

  Ursula and Jed shirked, and Seamus also, as Fionnuala galloped towards them with that sinister, knowing smirk on her face, her eyes flicking and flashing, lips twitching as her brain cells trundled, those lips readying themselves, eager, to disgorge the vilest poison her brain could devise.

  She reached them and the children looked up, tense. What would happen? Fionnuala whispered into Paddy's ear, then nodded towards the limo. The driver was still standing before the open door, his hand outstretched, waiting for a tip Paddy was damned if he would give him. Zoë should've warned them. This, his wife seemed to be saying, would be a test to how tight-fisted the Barnetts were. Forgotten for the moment was the mortgage the Barnetts had paid off for them, and the extra house they had given them, the tanning bed and the ice cream making machine.

  “Tip yer man there,” Paddy said.

  Fionnuala stood at his side, arms folded, eyes shining, waiting to see how much they gave.

  “W-we've no money,” Ursula said. “None.”

  “Yeah, it's true,” Jed said. “We just came from the homeless shelter over there. Where we spent the night.”

  “Sarky bastards!” Paddy hissed. His hands curled into fists.

  “I told ye, Paddy!” Fionnuala's smile was triumphant. As if she had just won the gold medal for Intolerance at the Olympics of Hatred.

  “No, really!” Jed said. “I gam—”

  “Not another word, Jed,” Ursula broke in. “Themmuns don't need to know.”

  “Tip yer man!” Fionnuala barked.

  Ursula reached into her handbag. She pulled out her coin purse. She sighed as she rummaged around, then took out the two pound coins. She walked over with them glinting in her fingers. She pressed the last of their money into the driver's hand. He looked down at the two coins, then up at her with scorn. He muttered, “Cheap bastards!” then threw the coins to the ground.

  “I knew it!” Fionnuala whooped with glee. Paddy's jaw fell.

  “Ye're having us on! We seen ye just won that $150,000 on the telly the other night! On that game show! And all ye can do is give yer man two quid!”

  “It wasn't a game show,” Jed tried to explain. “We had to give away 82.5 % of our company for that money. And we just taped it the other day. We don't have the check yet. And that was the last two pounds we owned.”

  “And now,” Paddy said, “Ye've shown up on wer patch, at wer daughter's wedding, and ye're making out ye need a handout? What sorta cruel joke does this be?”

  “A hundred quid entrance fee! Each!” Fionnuala barked.

  Ursula could scream at her sister-in-law the way she had screamed at the Killer Investors. She could do it. All she had to do was open her mouth. Except she couldn't. She could have left the studio in Wisconsin and never think of the nameless millionaires again. But her sister-in-law was her sister-in-law for life, especially as divorce was illegal in Northern Ireland. This was just like the lottery win years before all over again: no matter how many times they might try to explain it to Paddy and, especially, Fionnuala, they wouldn't be able to get it through to them that they didn't have the money. Still, anger was slowly simmering inside Ursula. She parted her lips, but they all jumped at a dreadful, ear-piercing, heart-wrenching shriek of horror coming from behind the limousine.

  It was Zoë Riddell. “The Vera Wanggg! Nooooo!” she screamed, amputation-sans-anesthetic-like.

  Half of what was meant to be the congregation gasped with horror, the other in awe as Dymphna clambered out of the limousine, head held high, bouquet brandished like the World Cup trophy, appliqués glistening, the beaded fringes shimmering in the sunlight that poked from the lone hole in the clouds. There was uncertain clapping.

  “Och, but that be's a lovely gown, so it is!” one old woman said. Another nodded.

  “Ta, all Derry!” Dymphna roared, “for being here to see me be wed! A flimmin, fecking bride I'm finally gonny be! Unbelievable, like!”

  Laughter and clapping and camera flashes rang out. Ailish, Moira and Maeve pushed through the gathering masses to be at her side. They lined up, DY, MPH, NA, and the throngs went mad, soccer-goal mad.

  “Where's me Rory?” Dymphna yelled through their FIFA applause, eyes scanning the crowds. “Not here, I hope? He kyanny see me, can he?”

  “No fear!” Georgie called out. “He's taking a slash!” He nodded at the public lavatory, and laughter rang out again. And then was cut short. Heads whipped around, smiles and dancing eyes faltering.

  “Who spoke to us?!” Mrs. Mulholland's harsh roared from the crackling megaphone.

  Around Dymphna, the guests looked at each other for an answer to their confusion. They found none.

  “Our Lady Mary!”chanted the masses, the army of angered OAPs marching across the square.

  “Where does she want the sinners?!”

  “Outta Derry!” They might have been slow, but they were steadily approaching the limo.

  Maureen struggled to place her glasses on her nose with shaking hands. She simply had to read the signs. The Mary-Hell bed sheet flapped in the wind.

  “Blasphemy!” she shouted, enraged.

  “No,” Zoë, next to her, said stiffly. She nodded at the gown. “That's blasphemy.”

  “Who spoke to us?!” Closer. “Our Lady Mary!” And closer. The guests clutched each other for support.

  “Where does she want the sinners?!” Arthritic hands rummaged into plastic bags and grabbed ammo. “Outta Derry!”

  The pumpkin sailed through the air first, followed by a flock of apricots and turnips. The pumpkin smashed against the roof of the limo, seeds and innards ejecting through the air. Apricots splat and turnips splattered. The crowds shrieked and scattered, bodies fell to the ground, some for protection, some from a push. A volley of mangoes, parsnips and nectarines speared the air, their rancid juices lashing down like acid rain. A squash sent Jed's hat flying, a peach clipped Ursula's arm, a yam smacked into Fionnuala's face. Father Steele marched towards the approaching masses, holding up the Bible.

  “Ladies! Ladies!” he appealed. “Let us not—”

  The papaya knocked the book out of his hand. A tangerine exploded on his chest.

  “Sorry, Father!” called out the woman who had thrown it. “But...Mary said!”

  Peaches, squashes, oranges rained down upon the scrabbling, crawling masses. Even as Dymphna flung her arms up to protect her makeup and veil, she gasped as she saw she suddenly had not three bridesmaids, but two. Ailish, MPH, was skipping across the street and joining the chanting masses, grabbing the bed sheet and waving it proudly, her voice one of the loudest: “Our Lady Mary!” “Outta Derry!”

  “Who's this Mary?” Zoë wondered, shaking seeds from her hair, but Maureen was gone, over shoving Dymphna into the limousine.

  “Ye're going straight to Hell!” roared Mrs. Mulholland through the megaphone.

  “Rory Riddell!” chorused the masses.

  Putrid pulp, wrinkled skins and peels fell from the sky.

  “Ye're going straight to Hell!” “Rory Riddell!”

  Closer and closer they marched, fruit flying, vegetables soaring.

  “We want ye covered in blood!”

  “Dymphna Flood!”

  Splat! Splat Splat!

  “We want ye covered in blood!” “Dymphna Flood!”

  “Who spoke to us?” “Our Lady Mary!”

  “Why,” Dymphna sobbed into Maureen's shoulder from the safety of the limousine, the infants squealing in the background, “does themmuns want me c
overed in blood? It's terrible, so it is! How can them aul ladies be so mean?!”

  The car shook as thuds pounded on the roof time and again. The windows were seed-peppered mush.

  “Shush, you,” Maureen tried to comfort her. “Themmuns is only saying it as it rhymes with Flood.”

  “They could've chosen 'mud'! Och, granny, what have I done to deserve this?”

  “I dunno, dear. But I think maybe this limo wasn't a good idea. It's make ye...making us both, now, a sitting target. Ye never know, they might try to tip it over. Perhaps it's better if we got out and hoofed it. Well, ye can run. I'll attempt to.”

  Dymphna pried open the door an inch and peered cautiously outside. Rory, covered in orange slime, was racing across the square towards her. He slipped through the door.

  “Och, Rory! It's wile horrible!”

  He kissed her feverishly. Maureen looked away.

  “I'm so sorry, Dymphna. At first I thought it was the mammies of me soccer mates, but all them aul harridans seems to be from yer part of town. All them orange fruits and veg, like.”

  Understanding dawned in Dymphna's teary eyes. “Och, I understand it now. Orange. Protestant. Who could've...? Could it be...?”

  Dymphna clambered over Rory and made to open the door.

  “Are ye mad?” he yelled, pulling her back. “Ye kyanny go out there! They'll ravage ye!”

  “Me granny says they might tip the car over, but,” Dymphna said.

  “Aye,” Maureen agreed.

  “I just wanny see...”

  She pried open the door and peered out. She scanned the approaching masses. And then Dymphna saw her, poking her head out from behind two pink perms and to the left of a sign, with a grin that stretched from one horrible ear to the other: Bridie McFee!

  She was an eejit! She should've known! Dymphna understood now she had done nothing wrong. Except nab Rory Riddell.

  “Bleedin jealous minger!”

  Dymphna kicked off her high heels, grappled one in her right hand like a Samurai sword, wailed, banshee-like, and leaped out of the limo. Rory's hands tried to grab her or the veil, but clawed the air. The door slammed shut. Dymphna was gone, thrusting herself across the expanse of the square, jingling and jangling, dodging the fruit that flew towards her, ducking the vegetables, Maire and Maeve, who had been cowering behind the rear wheels, hustling after her, and Dymphna saw out of the corner of her eye her auntie Ursula and her uncle Jed, pulp-covered and gawping at her as if she had just risen from the dead, and even more adrenaline shot through her veins. She flashed them a quick smile, shoving through the bed sheet and knocking old women to the ground. Maire and Maeve egged her on with barks of glee, and knocked a few down for good measure as well.

  “Clatter the shite outta that Bridie skegrat!” For they had seen her too.

  “Seven shades of shite, boyo!”

  “Knock her flimmin teeth down her throat!”

  “So's she be's eating outta her arsehole, hi!”

  “C'mere ye manky cow! Let me at ye!” Dymphna wailed, stiletto shining.

  Mrs. Dinh used a sign as a sword and knocked the stiletto out of her hand. Dymphna wailed as it flew through the fruit-filled air. She couldn't find it amongst the carpet of shuddering arms and legs on the ground.

  Bridie was grinning before her.

  “Ye're going straight to Hell,” she hissed. “The Virgin Mary told me so!”

  “Mad bitch!” Dymphna growled.

  She snatched tufts of Bridie's hair in her hands, dug her fingers in, then thrust her body to the ground. Bridie wailed in pain.

  “Get offa me!” she screamed, fingernails whizzing through the air.

  Dymphna, gown ballooned, billowing and sparkling, over Bridie's struggling body, banged her head again and again on the concrete. Maybe that would knock some sense into her. And over Bridie's screams, over the rush of blood through her own ears, Dymphna heard the roar of sirens.

  Fearing the Filth was coming for her, she let go of Bridie's head and, with Maire and Moira whooping at her heels at the clattering they had given Ailish the turncoat while Dymphna was dealing with Bridie, hightailed it through the throngs, a third of them moaning on the ground, a third exhausted, a third fearing being hauled into the cop shop, and she made her way to her family.

  The Floods, together with Ursula, Jed, Zoë, Rory, Georgie and Father Steele, were huddling in the doorway of the betting shop for safety and a smoke break. It was a tight fit. Dymphna supposed Keanu and Beeyonsay were safely in the limo. She, Maire and Maeve tried to shoehorn themselves into the cloud of fag smoke of the doorway as well.

  “It was that Bridie McFee, Rory!” Dymphna wailed. “She put them aul hags up to it! And, och, now I've gone and clattered the shite outta her and the Filth be's after me!”

  “Naw, love,” Paddy said. “Bomb scare.”

  He nodded at the church, where the guests were streaming, screaming, out of the doors and past the flashing lights of the police cars and the bomb squad vans. Uniforms were winding crime scene tape around the church gates, and ever more bulky paratroopers and coppers and bomb experts and they didn't know who were jumping out of a wide range of monstrous vehicles. And a man with a dog.

  To Fionnuala, it was deja vu, there they all were again, Tikka Pizza, the hard-faced bastard who had held her against the walls, the ones who had peered into her satchel and seen—

  “Let's clear outta here!” she screamed as if they all weren't huddled inches away from her in the doorway.

  Paddy nodded surprisingly quickly at Dymphna and Rory. “Youse kyanny get married there now anyroad. A bomb scare'll tie up the church for hours.” He nodded at Father Steele. “We've the priest here with us, but, so all we need be's a large space where all the guests can fit.” He checked his watch. “And maybe we can even make it to the reception on time!”

  “Let's just start running in any direction,” Fionnuala insisted. “Now!”

  “Do ye think that's wise?” Ursula asked. “We should stay together. Those women might start attacking again.”

  “I didn't ask ye,” Fionnuala snarled. She turned to Zoë. “Ye're the planning expert,” she said. “Where do ye suggest we go? Or do we have to assemble a mood board beforehand, like?”

  Zoë looked like she was surveying the situation.

  “The church certainly does seem to be out of bounds,” she mused. “You know, and I must apologize for this in advance, Mrs. Heggarty...it's apparent most of those women engaged in the demonstration, I suppose you'd call it—”

  “Och, hurry up, would ye woman? Spit out yer plan!” Fionnuala was arranging her peacock feathers so that they draped across her face and hid it, in case any of the bomb squad would chance to look over and spy her within the cigarette smoke.

  “It's apparent they won't be revisiting 70, or even 80. I challenge any of those elderly women to make it up the slope of Shipquay Street. You all know how steep it is. No matter how strong their conviction in their cause, their bodies will find it a struggle to march up there, quickly or not. In fact, I think it will Never. Happen. We can easily outrun them.”

  “And what are we gonny do once we get there?” Fionnuala asked.

  “Haven't you the keys to the Amelia Earhart Center? It's Sunday, so it's closed. I do believe we can all fit in there. It's 1,450 square meters, after all. We can collect all the guests. They seem to be, erm, scattered all over the square, and we have to pass them on the way there. It will be like a caravan. And, considering the occasion, a caravan of love.”

  While one part of Fionnuala's cranium wondered if the woman were suggesting it only for free advertising for her enterprise—the story of the wedding in front of the Lockheed Vega would be fodder for next Sunday's supplement, she was sure—another part registered that Tikka Pizza was making his way towards them.

  “Let's go!” she barked.

  But once Bridie's army realized the Filth hadn't been called on them, they were hot on the sinners' trail again as the Floods et al.
gathered together the wedding guests from under the benches where they were cringing, and behind the buses and in the nooks of the city walls and made their way up Shipquay Street towards the Amelia Earhart Center. The fruit and vegetable supply had apparently been depleted, but still their chanting rang out at their backs. Padraig was flinging rocks at them.

  “I seen a poster of this Amelia Earhart whatsit in the hotel room,” Ursula said to Zoë as she puffed up the hill. She added in response to the look Fionnuala shot her, “Where we couldn't stay as we had problems with wer cards. It looks wile interesting.”

  “It is,” Zoë said, beaming. She looked behind her. “My goodness! Those old women are proving remarkably resilient!”

  She nibbled on her lip as they all approached the front door.

  Dymphna, crying, called out: “They're still gonny ruin me wedding! How can they be making their way up the street? Och, it's awful, so it is! It's as if the Lord has given them extra strength...”

  “I believe it's meant to be the Blessed Virgin,” Maureen harrumphed.

  “For the love of God!” Fionnuala yelped. She was clutching, unsurprisingly, Father Steele's arm. “Me keys!” They were in her satchel. Locked up in some evidence room.

  “What about them?” Zoë asked in alarm. All eyes were on Fionnuala.

  “They're in me other bag. We kyanny get in. Should we smash a window?”

  Zoë thought quickly.

  “They're gaining on us anyway,” she said. She took a deep breath. “There's only one thing for it, then. Dymphna, dear, if I recall, you're not a vegetarian, are you?”

  Everyone looked like they feared Derry's Second Best Businesswoman of the Year had gone mad.

  “Ha!” Fionnuala spat. “Her? A vegetarian? As if! Maybe wer Moira, but that one, naw!”

  “Are any of you?” Zoë asked the crowd.

  “Naw!” “Naw!” “Dabbled with it once,” Maire said. “Didn't take to it.”