THE IRISH LOTTERY SERIES (1-3):
AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
HAND IN THE TILL
FLEEING THE JURISDICTION
GERALD HANSEN
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3)
FOREWORD | By Colin Quinn
AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES | A Novel | Gerald Hansen
From Guide to the Emerald Isle:
MAY, 2000
THE LOAN
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
CHAPTER ONE
DERRY-SPEAK DICTIONARY
CHAPTER TWO
1973
CHAPTER THREE
CARETAKER’S ALLOWANCE
CHAPTER FOUR
1973 (PART II)
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
COMPENSATION
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
SIOFRA’S FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1973 (PART III)
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SOME TIME LATER
Praise for Hand In The Till:
HAND IN THE TILL | GERALD HANSEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
WEDNESDAY NIGHT CONFESSION AT ST. MOLAUG’S
MANY MONTHS LATER
FLEEING THE JURISDICTION | GERALD HANSEN
CHAPTER ONE—WISCONSIN
CHAPTER TWO—DERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE—SOUTHAMPTON PORT, UK
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN—SOUTHAMPTON PORT, TEN MINUTES EARLIER
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE—HEADING TO THE SAVAGE ISLANDS
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14—THE SAVAGE ISLANDS
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17—SIDIT IFNIN, MOROCCO
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20—SIDIT IFNIN, MOROCCO
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22—FIVE HOURS EARLIER
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25—TWENTY SEVEN MINUTES LATER
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35—AN HOUR AND A HALF EARLIER
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37—TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40—LA ISLA BONITA, PUERTO RICO
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42—SEVEN MONTHS LATER
CHAPTER 43—TWO YEARS LATER
PROLOGUE—1980
CHAPTER ONE—TODAY
About the Author
Mint Books
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE IRISH LOTTERY SERIES BOX SET
FIRST EDITION. JANUARY 2, 2017
Copyright © 2017 Gerald Hansen
Written by Gerald Hansen
KEEP IN TOUCH WITH all Gerald Hansen’s activities, freebies and special offers! Sign up for his mailing list here. Follow Gerald Hansen on Twitter, and visit the Gerald Hansen website
FOREWORD
By Colin Quinn
GERALD HANSEN ASKED me to write this foreword in the most Irish way possible. He emailed me and asked me and then apologized and said I've done too much already (written two blurbs in six years) and that it's the holidays so if I want to say no he totally understands and it's wrong to ask. But here it is.
I knew Gerald as a waiter at the Comedy Cellar for years, and I was horrified when he told me he had written a book and he'd like me to read it. But I felt like, hey, everybody deserves a chance, so I started reading An Embarrassment of Riches. And I started laughing. I couldn't believe the dialogue was that funny.
Traveling around Derry with the Floods is being sucked in to the vortex of the worst part of your family. They terrorize their community and in Hand In The Till, almost ruin the IRA. In keeping with the fact that it is Derry, the IRA is a backdrop in the early books and then the Protestants are dragged in for the third book. Best Served Frozen is a chick flick with the meddlesome mothers-in-law played not by Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton but more like...if the Kray Brothers were women. And the little kids’ characters in this and all the books are so insightful and sad and wistfully ferocious.
The Catholic and Protestant clash is like the rest of these books, part of a bigger hopeless picture. It's brutally honest writing, but it's never mean. It's not empathetic either. It just is. And I think that's what's great about these books. They don't glamorize and they don't patronize this wrecking crew that steals, punches and curses their way through hard times. It just observes the whole thing. It's very sad but somehow you will not stop laughing the entire time. These books are the story of a family and a country and also about pop culture in a sad weird way.
A great comic writer has one job. Which is to make you laugh involuntarily. Nobody wants to laugh out loud reading a book in public. You feel stupid. I've only done that a few times. One I can remember was on the train reading A Confederacy of Dunces. The other times were reading these books. So I will continue to see where this family takes us. They're not the Kennedys, and they never will be, but they're trying their best and that's what makes them real. Actually, they're not trying their best and that's what makes them real.
—Colin Quinn, December
21, 2016
PRAISE FOR THE ABNA 2010 SEMIFINALIST, An Embarrassment of Riches:
“A masterpiece,” Colin Quinn
“As absorbing as it is hysterical,” Publishers Weekly
“Wildly amusing...a cross between a roller-coaster and a carousel,” Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson. Readerviews.com
“Clearly the work of a craftsman! (The characters) careen around Derry with the grace of a drunken and horny bull,” Chris Gerrib, Podpeople.com
“Classic, I-can’t-stop-reading literature,” Jonathan Henderson, Jonhenderscon.com
“Absolutely hilarious,” Jessica Roberts, Bookpleasures.com
“Comedy as pitch-black as the moors of the Emerald Island itself,” Riot, BurningLeaves.com
“Riotous entertainment,” P.P.O Kane, CompulsiveReader.com
AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
A Novel
Gerald Hansen
Published by Mint Books
Copyright 2007 by Gerald Hansen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by
any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without
the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or
links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may
This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, incidents,
organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
FOR MOM AND DAD, WITH love.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming
HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE NAMES (by popular demand):
Ursula: Uhr-suh-lah
Finnonuala: Fin-noo-lah
Dymphna: Dimf-nah
Siofra: Shee-frah
Padraig: Paw-drig
Eoin: Owen
Grainne: Gran-yah
Roisin: Ro-sheen
Caoilte: Keel-cha
From Guide to the Emerald Isle:
“GATEWAY TO THE LUSH green pastures of Ireland’s Northwest, Derry City is a priceless historical treasure, which today is as famous for its confident modern outlook as it is for the sparkle in the friendly eye of its inhabitants. Second in size after Belfast, this bustling city of 84,000 sits proudly astride the fast-flowing River Foyle and is a marvel of two communities (Catholic on the west bank and the Protestant on the east), three names (Derry for Catholics, Londonderry for Protestants and London/Derry for the confused) and countless nights of craic (pronounced “crack” and the local word for a good time). Visitors uneasy about the city’s recent violent past have nothing to fear; there is little to suggest the dark days of the Troubles save an army watchtower or two.
The splendor of modern Derry cannot be excluded from any thinking person’s itinerary. Step into the Moorside, scene of Bloody Sunday and once a no-go area for even the British forces, meander through the bustling cobblestoned streets of the only Walled City in the British Isles, hearken to the echoes of 1450 years of history, and marvel at the ever-changing skyline of a city which is constant only in the warmth of its welcome. Here you are assured many a smile of greeting from people who are known the world over for their hospitality and charm.”
From the mouth of a lager-fueled indigenous person:
“Outta wer way, ye feckin eejit, or ye’re to get a screwdriver in yer flimmin eye!”
From the Derry-Speak Dictionary:
wer: our
eejit: idiot
flimmin: expletive to express anger, disgust, annoyance, etc. (see also:
piggin, bloody, bleedin, effin, flippin, et al)
MAY, 2000
SHE THOUGHT SHE WOULD want for nothing after that bloody win. She’d clearly been deranged. In the dock of Her Majesty’s Magistrate’s Court, Ursula Barnett gripped the railing, her eggplant-hued bob a shambles, a woman on the wrong side of both fifty and, if her family had their say, a row of prison bars. She withered under the rows of glinting eyes in the public gallery.
Attempted manslaughter of a minor? Reckless endangerment? Whichever verdict was arrived at, those creatures heaved into the benches would be her moral judges, if not her legal jury.
Her husband Jed was the only solace, giving a watery thumbs up and a weary smile. These were cut short as the usher barked at him to remove his cowboy hat. Ursula loved Jed dearly and appreciated his support, but the sound of his muttered apologies in that Wisconsin accent made her cringe. She suddenly hated his faded goatee, his frail body in that checkered polyester blazer, his Buddy Holly specs and, most of all, she hated him for picking those damn lottery numbers six months earlier.
The courtroom door clattered open, and Ursula flinched as in Fionnuala and Paddy tramped, a pair of hardened hooligans in bargain bin rags. They claimed their place in the public seats, settling themselves with grand self-importance and eyes bleary from the previous night’s drink, their looks letting Ursula know there would be hell to pay. The door burst open again and an unruly mob of wanes—as children were called in that part of the land—trawled in after their parents, sniggering as they took their seats and opening packs of sweets they had smuggled in past the security guard.
“Merciful Jesus,” Ursula muttered.
She could hold her tongue no longer. She tapped her solicitor on the back. Ms. Murphy turned and glared.
“What in the name of God,” Ursula hissed, “is them wanes doing parading into the courtroom? I thought wanes wasn’t allowed?”
Ms. Murphy started. Surely her client knew the Northern Irish made rules only to break them?
“Technically, yes,” Ms. Murphy admitted.
“What’s that meant to mean, for the love of Christ?”
“I can ask the clerk to remove them from the court, if you feel they will affect your testimony, if their presence is intimidating or threatening in any way.”
Her tone implied she thought this unlikely; a woman of Ursula’s worldly experience terrified of wee creatures aged six, eight, and eleven.
“That wane there is me accuser, but!” Ursula said, nodding to Padraig, who was beaming like a superstar and scoffing down Jelly Babies.
The eyes of the court usher warned them to be still. Ms. Murphy nodded in his direction, and her look appealed to Ursula’s sense of compassion.
Ursula leaned back into the dock, spiraling into helplessness and frustration. All the rules were being bent, except those to which she herself were being held. The whole ridiculous world had gone mad, and she and her handbag were expected to be answerable for everything.
Three justices of the peace filed in. A trio of Orange Protestants, no doubt, shipped over from Manchester. As they took their places behind the raised bench, Ursula could only hope their privileged Proddy educations would allow them to see sense: she was the injured party in all of this.
“Hear ye, hear ye, all rise, the court is now in session,” the clerk called out. “This is case number 30251, Flood Vs. Barnett, the honorable Magistrates Sterling, Hope and Caldwell presiding.”
Ursula tensed at the snickering from the public gallery. It was all passing before her in a blur—the magistrates settling and silent, their eyes passing judgment; the solicitor for that pack of hooligans droning on; the whine of her own solicitor piercing the air in response; Mrs. Feeney swanning up to the stand, face hardened, wooly cardigan buttoned; the Holy Book placed before her; the raising of her right hand; Do you affirm that the evidence you are about to give...
Ursula struggled to comprehend how she had arrived at this crucifixion. She had been cast out of the family, a disgrace, after that shameful busine
ss with the IRA in 1973, it was true, but hadn’t a lifetime spent clawing back their trust and affection been penance enough?
“That heartless bitch,” Mrs. Feeney growled, a finger singling Ursula out, “has a lot to answer for!”
Apparently not. When it came to love or money, money won out every time.
“Crime of malice!” Mrs. Feeney roared.
The magistrates, the multitude of faces in the public hall, all regarded her with contempt. Ursula gripped the handrail of the dock and braced herself for the worst.
THE LOAN
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
CHAPTER ONE
THE OFFICER IN CHARGE of the Magilligan Prison visits room flinched at the sight of the pig-ugly creature clomping towards him, resentment etched proudly on her brow. Mutton dressed as lamb, he saw, his eyes slipping from her bleached pigtails, past her alarming overbite and resting on the low-cut leopard print top, skimpy skirt, and the chain-link belt cutting into her groaning middle-aged spread.
Fionnuala Flood still believed her waist had snapped back into shape after popping out seven wanes in a row decades earlier. She tossed the bag of freshly laundered football jerseys and jeans at the officer, waved hello to her cousin Maggie already at a table with her youngest—in for a joyriding manslaughter—and galloped over to where her pride and joy, the eldest of her seven, waited impatiently.
“Right, Lorcan,” she said, leaning over the chipped table, lips puckered. Their mouths met, and her tongue flickered between his teeth.
She slipped the polythene bag of Vicodin into his mouth, maternal duty done, and smiled mechanically. Her foxlike eyes darted around the hooligans and thugs that blathered on around them, searching for what she had come looking for.
“Ach, ma, am gasping for a fag,” Lorcan pleaded.
Fionnuala flicked open a packet of unfiltered Rothman’s cigarettes, and Lorcan was soon sucking down.
“What about ye, son?” she asked as they were shrouded in smoke, and the baggy was transferred by sleight of hand from his mouth into his pocket. “Ye’ve not been interfered with, I hope?”