Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4)

by Gerald Hansen

  “Cold soup? Raw meat?” She looked around her. “Sure, there's more cooking going on in me own scullery than in this fancy schmancy place. Are themmuns afeared of having the lekky cut off?”

  They sipped the gazpacho.

  “Mmm!” Fionnuala said, surprised.

  “About the honeymoon. I've booked them two weeks in the Maldives.”

  “The what?”

  “Maldives.”

  “What does them be when they're at home?”

  “They are islands in the Indian Ocean. An island nation of twenty six atolls. They will enjoy sun and sand and of course there is a spa, water polo, surfing, snorkeling, a night fishing excursion and what have you.”

  By the look on Fionnuala's face, she was considering this a nightmare, not a honeymoon. She scooped up the rest of her soup and slurped it down.

  “If ye was looking at islands, couldn't ye have chosen Ibiza? More their style. All them rave clubs, and they can gobble down as many Es as can fit into their mouths. I think Ecstasy still be's legal there, or so I'm told anyroad.”

  “May I remind you your daughter is pregnant? Almost four months on, from what I've been told. Though why I wasn't told sooner...” This was said with a touch of regret. She shook her head. “Anyway, the point is, I don't think she should be taking recreational drugs. Nor should you be encouraging her to do so. They will be greeted with a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates when they enter the wedding suite, and I even felt guilty checking the box for the champagne. She really shouldn't be drinking. Or smoking, for that matter. But I understand I am helpless to change her behavior, no matter how reckless and harmful. To my...our...grandchild's health. Our grandchild.”

  The salad arrived. Fionnuala's eyes lit up at the sight of it.

  “It's drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette,” Zoë said. “I hope that's okay for you? I forgot to ask.”

  “I hope ye don't mind me saying this,” Fionnuala said, heaping salad on her plate with two large spoons. “I know ye're speaking English, but I can't get me head around the fact that, though I know the language ye're speaking, I be's struggling most of the times to comprehend what ye're saying.”

  “Yes. At times I feel the same. Anyway, I was just telling you what the dressing on the salad is.”

  Fionnuala looked at her for assistance, and Zoë pointed out the correct fork. They chewed away in silence for a few minutes. Zoë considered ordering another gin and tonic, but feared that would set Fionnuala off on a bender that might end in violence and the police being called. She leaned forward and said what she had called this meeting, really, to say.

  “Something's been troubling me, Mrs. Flood.”

  Fionnuala eyed her over her fork with suspicion.

  “I'm sure you remember years ago when we were both invited to the Fingers Across the Foyle talent show parents mixer? And I was talking to a girlfriend and business partner of mine in the lavatory? And we were talking about you? And you happened to be in the stall? Surely you recall?”

  Fionnuala flung her fork down, her face incandescent.

  “Och—”

  Zoë held up a hand. “Please listen. I said some very unkind things about you then, and I've never properly apologized for my indiscretion. I suppose I could blame the alcohol, they did have Grey Goose in those Apple-tinis of theirs, and quite a lot of it. And I suppose I could blame my friend for starting the discussion. I've learned in business it's never a good thing to speak about a client, no matter how horrid, behind their back in case just such an occasion arises, news of the nasty things said get back to them, and an unfortunate situation arises. As happened in this instance.”

  The salad plates were removed and the teriyaki crisps were placed before them.

  “Mind the mayonnaise,” Zoë said as Fionnuala shoveled the food on her plate. “It's very spicy.” Zoë served herself as she continued, Fionnuala all ears and grinding molars. “But I won't blame the alcohol and I won't blame my girlfriend.” Fionnuala flinched as Zoë's hand reached across the starched white cotton, over the many forks and spoons and knives and the collection of plates big and small that seemed to confuse the woman opposite, and touched her on the hand. “And I am truly sorry for what I said about you. If you recall, I believe I called you a 'hard faced creature,' that you looked older than your years, that I blamed it on bad genes, the lack of nutrition, and the inability to afford the beauty products of the day. I also said your Burberry scarf was sure to be a knockoff—”

  “Naw, ye said I probably shoplifted it,”

  “That was my friend.”

  “Anyroad, why are ye dragging all this up now? I wouldn't except anything less from a minted hateful Orange Proddy bitch like yerself.” But Fionnuala didn't say it with anger, just as a statement of fact.

  “Perhaps you think we 'Orange Proddy bitches,' to coin your phrase, don't have the guilt you Catholics do. But we do. And so I've prepared a little token of my appreciation, and my apology, for you. Here it is.”

  She pulled out a shiny little folder and pressed it across the table. Fionnuala threw down her fork and tugged it open. She pulled out the itinerary and the tickets.

  “All expenses paid,” Zoë said.

  Fionnuala's brow wrinkled with incomprehension.

  “But...where the bloody feck's this Dubyah? Doesn't that be some old Yank president?”

  “It's pronounced Dubai, Mrs. Flood. The stress is on the second syllable. It's the new playground for the world. In the U—”

  “—SA?”

  “—AE.”

  “UAE? Are ye making countries up? Where the hell is this UAE?”

  “The United Arab Emirates. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it. All common laborers, erm, excuse me, many people are flocking there for holidays.”

  “Ta very much. I woulda preferred Paris, but. Was tickets to there too dear for ye?”

  “I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I even got you tickets to ride the elevator to the top of the Burj Dubai. It's the tallest building in the world. Much taller than the Eiffel Tower.”

  Fionnuala eyed the tickets with new-found interest.

  “You see, Mrs. Flood, I am really quite excited about our families joining together. It's like a mini Fingers Across The Foyle, if I may bring up that unfortunate event once again. And I hope you feel the same way?”

  “Och, I'm sorry about me Paris comment before. It's wile civil of ye, indeed. At first, I thought this was a charade, and that wer Dymphna was a daft eejit to pair up with an Oran—with a Protestant. But, aye, I...I... I kyanny believe ye apologized to me. That was so long ago. C'mere, ye've got me all choked up!” Zoë was startled to see the woman wipe a tear from her eye. “Or does it be that spicy mayonnaise ye was going on about?”

  “Do you know what, Mrs. Flood? Let's raise a toast to this occasion! What would you like to drink?”

  “Double whiskey, Glenfiddich. 18 year, if they have it.”

  “I'm sure they do. Waiter!”

  Fionnuala looked at her in surprise. “Do ye not call them garçons?”

  “I'll call them whatever the bloody hell they want to be called. Even Kylie's Friend or Mary or Butch or whatever the current homosexual parlance is. As long as they bring us our drinks!”

  Now both were surprised as they cackled with laughter together, and Zoë felt a bit of the bright spark burn brighter still.

  CHAPTER 34

  When Fionnuala laid eyes on the cake, a bark of laughter escaped her mouth. It quite scared Siofra.

  “Fitting,” was all her mother said, then turned to inspect the bizarre wedding delivery that had arrived while she and Zoë had been dining at Le Restaurant. Siofra knew from the glassiness in her mother's eyes, from the alien friendly patter, from the eerie smile that didn't sit well on her mother's face, that she was paladic. And although this was more rare of an occurrence than might be expected, past experience had taught Siofra that the best thing to do when her mother mixed liquor with her mind was to clear out. She disappeared up
the stairs and left Fionnuala alone with Maureen in the kitchen.

  “Some flash git's got dosh to throw down the grating,” Fionnuala said, and though there was disapproval in her voice, she was sniffing around the new arrival like a hyena in heat. “What eejit would be daft enough to waste the money on wer Dymphna, wedding or not? C'mere, Mammy, ye don't think it could be from that footballer what Dymphna told us about she had on the city walls yonks ago? Ye know the one I mean, he plays for Man United now? Must be raking it in, the amount of money flung at them footballers. And that's an odd set up, an odd shape for a bouquet, do ye not agree?”

  “That I couldn't say. love.”

  It was a two feet round multicolored floral wreath, dazzling, bursting with roses and carnations and gladioli and other fancy flowers Fionnuala had never set eyes on in her life before but were pleasing to the eye and nose, together with a foliage edging that was a selection of lush ivy and ferns. Fionnuala was puzzled by the stand, like a large artist's easel, that the delivery man had hauled in along with it and which was now leaning against the washer, and she struggled to comprehend how and why it had come with the bouquet, but she thought it lovely as she ran her hand over it, all good varnished wood. Who could have sent it?

  Maureen put on her glasses and peered at it.

  “Just as I suspected!” she said. “That doesn't be a bouquet. That be's a wreath. For a funeral, like! That stand be's to display it at the wake. Read the card, would ye?”

  Fionnuala pried the card from between a yellow carnation and a fern.

  “But...it's not even addressed to wer Dymphna! It be's addressed to me and Paddy!”

  “Ye're joking!”

  Maureen was about to snatch the little envelope from Fionnuala herself, but her daughter slid out the card and read aloud, shock and anger filling her voice as she continued:

  What a horrible way to lose a daughter! I just heard the news, and I wanted to let you know I'm as saddened as I'm sure you all are. Here's hoping none of your other children face a similar fate. I'm sure they won't. We're trying to make it there for the sad event. I know we can no longer laugh together, but I'm hoping you'll allow us to cry together. XXX Ursula (and Jed sends his regards)

  Even Maureen's jaw had dropped. And the old woman jerked back as Fionnuala's clogs thrust though the air, kicking the wreath again and again, petals and leaves and thorns and the easel and she knew not what flying through the air as the spittle flew from her daughter's lips: “Evil, spiteful, bleeding flimmin fecking bloody sarky cunt! That aul dragon woman musta heard about the wedding from somewheres, and was raging she wasn't invited, and who would want to invite the tight-fisted bitch anyroad, and this is what she goes and does? Flinging her hatred across the miles, and...like placing a curse on all me other poor wee wanes, when none of em have done her the least bit of harm, hoping none of em finds the happiness of marriage! 'I'm sure they won't,' me arse! And, aye, she does indeed be a daft eejit, the biggest daft eejit, with more money than sense that I know. I shoulda realized! Sarcasm be's the lowest form of wit, does she not know?!”

  She was breathless now, her face pink, sweat dribbling down, her fists clawing at the twigs and stems and ivy, knuckles bloody from thorns. From upstairs, they heard Seamus's terrified wails.

  Maureen's hand kept shooting out, hoping to touch her daughter in comfort, but the fists kept flying, the feet kept kicking. Fionnuala stomped on the stand again and again. Maureen hovered by the safety of the cooker. And finally the easel was nothing planks and splinters, the wreath bare stems on a circular chicken wire frame, the linoleum strewn with tattered flowers. Fionnuala caught her breath and sat on a chair, sobbing, with the gown twinkling before her, the cake rising behind her.

  “And is Ursula really coming to Derry for to wreck the day? I kyanny tell! What do ye think, Mammy?”

  “I think...” Maureen's eyes darted back and forth behind her specs as she thought. “Could it not be, love, what ye told that Mrs. McDaid one the other day? About wer Dymphna dying? Could she not have somehow caught wind of it?”

  “Och, catch yerself on! Ye know well enough wer Dymphna didn't die of that drugs overdose. That's just what I told Mrs. McDaid. That's not real. But the wedding. The wedding's real. How could that Ursula cunt know about something that didn't happen but not know about something that will? Naw! It's hate, pure and simple!”

  “Ye know, love, I was at Xpressions the other day and they was all going on about wer Dymphna dying. Nearly had me in Altnagelvin, so the story did. Do ye not know, bad news travels quick and far and wide, and quicker and farther and wider than good news. Good news dies a sudden death, so it does. Nobody's interested in blathering on about people what be's happy, what be's content, what's had their dreams come true, for the love of God! Makes em feel like shite. Anyroad, it doesn't sound like Ursula in her right state of mind.”

  Maybe it was the double whiskey, but Fionnuala couldn't see sense. “Aye, it does! Ye don't know her like I do! She knew what she was up to!” Her voice voice rang with righteousness and conviction, certain, “As God's me witness, I'll get me own back on the smarmy, narky cow! I'll throttle the life outta her with me bare hands! I'll slice her throat with a bread knife, laugh as the blood comes spurting out and cascading down! And then dance with glee on her coffin when they haul it towards her grave with the industrial-type crane it's gonny take to lift it!” She sobbed into the arm of her shirt. “I'll even take them Bollywood dance lessons down the community center I've been going on about to make it a right spectacle of it and all. All of Derry will be laughing and clapping around the grave, and the coppers can drag me away in them flimmin flimsy handcuffs they've nowadays, and I'll be laughing. I won't care. She's gonny get hers! Trust you me! Lord help me, heavenly Father help me, I know it be's a sin, but now I comprehend, aye I do, why them lunatics commits the deadliest sin of all. Murder! Och...the rage I've inside me, begging for release, like!”

  Maureen patted her daughter's blanched scalp.

  “Calm you down, love. And I do believe that if ye killed Ursula, the Filth wouldn't be long in picking ye up and hauling ye in long before ye'd had the pleasure of dancing at her funeral. Ye'd be doing all them odd Bollywood dance moves in yer cell on the day. Alone. C'mere and let me wipe them tears from yer face.”

  She took out a tissue from some fold of her tracksuit, but Fionnuala knocked her hand away and stood up.

  “I'm right now, Mammy,” she said, wiping her face herself. “If that woman steps foot back in Derry, but, let alone into the church tomorrow, she'll rue the day she ever wrote them words down! Mark me words, Mammy.”

  “Aye. I believe ye love.” And Maureen did.

  “I've to make the tea. Lorcan must be gagging with hunger, like. I kyanny let it go any longer. Leave me be, would ye, Mammy, while I fry the fish and get them chips in the oil.”

  And as Fionnuala stamped to fridge and pulled out the fish, and as she pottered around with the the knobs and the pans and the oil on the cooker, Maureen and her cane made their way out of the kitchen.

  Fionnuala selected a nice, plump fish for Lorcan. She placed it on a plate by itself. She opened the bread box and grabbed the hairspray. She shook it. The can was empty.

  “Och, for the love of...!”

  She threw open the cupboard under the sink, rummaged around and unearthed a can of furniture polish. She was surprised she had it. She pulled it out and scanned the ingredients: Soparaffin, Dimethicon, Octylphosphonic Acid, Nitrogen, Polysorbate 80, Sorbitan Oleate, Polydimethylsiloxane, Methylisothiazoline, 2-Amino-2-Methyl-1-Propanol. She smiled. If anything, this seemed more effective than the hairspray.

  She checked the scullery door was closed, then picked up the fish and sprayed it up and down. She hummed “The Power of Love,” one of her Celine Dion favorites, as the polish creamed up over the fish. She rubbed it into the fillet.

  While the fish was frying and the chips were boiling, she marched into the hallway and rang Dymphna on her cell phone. Alt
hough it was her wedding night, she was working at the chip van. Rory was at his stag party, his bachelor party, and Dymphna hadn't been able to find anyone to work her shift. But, anyway, her bridesmaids were skint. And they had gone out a few nights ago. That would have to count as her hen do, her bachelorette party.

  “Aye, Mammy?”

  “Have ye been drinking?”

  “Aye I have! Can ye hear it in me voice? I've the girls around. It's me wedding night, after all, and we've some drinking to do!”

  “There in the van?!”

  “Aye, Maire, Ailish and Maeve are all in here with me. Keanu and Beeyonsay and all, but they be's sleeping. Or trying to sleep, anyroad. The girls brought a few flagons of cider, and some tins of lager and all. It's a wile craic! They're even helping me with the punters. Well, the ones they fancy, anyroad.”

  At least the music in the background sounded happy. And it was. “Happy.” And if Fionnuala knew from her own radio listening experience, it wasn't the last time the girls would be hearing “Happy” that evening. How it was legal for a radio station to play the same song every twenty minutes when there were millions of songs in the world to chose from, Fionnuala couldn't fathom.

  “Anyroad, I don't mean to spoil yer Happy evening, there, love.”

  “What's up, Mam?”

  “I just wanted to let ye in on what's been happening...Ye know ye kept banging on about yer auntie Ursula not answering yer invite? About how she was yer favorite auntie and how much ye loved her and she loved ye?”

  “...Aye?”

  Fionnuala detected the caution in the girl's voice, and smiled down the receiver as she spat out the news, “I just wanted to tell ye that yer favorite auntie has just gone and sent ye a funeral wreath, of all things, with a note to me saying she hopes ye and all yer brothers and sisters die after having lived loveless lives, and that ye all rot in Hell!”

  “Mammy! What a terrible thing for ye to say! And on the eve of me wedding and all! It's not on, so it isn't.”

  “Ye think I'm making it up, do ye? I've the card she sent right here. Ripped into shreds in me anger, aye, but ye can piece it together, tape it up, like, and read for yerself what a spiteful, sarky, hateful cunt the aul toerag is. Just like I've been trying to tell ye all along. Not that ye and yer daddy and Lorcan and Siofra and me mammy and all pays me any mind. I'm telling ye but, I've the proof of her hatefulness! On her way to Derry to wreck yer big day and all. She thinks she's gonny be welcome at the church tomorrow after sending us a note like that? Flimmin soft in the head, ready for Gransha, so she is!” Gransha, the mental hospital up on Clooney Road.