Chancers Read online

AIDEN. The confectionery.

  GERTIE. Don’t agree with that.Never have.

  AIDEN. Sweets, Gertie.

  GERTIE. Not for me, thank you very much.

  AIDEN. And I’ve my fresh fruit and veg and the groceries

  to boot.

  GERTIE. You’re far too expensive for all that.

  AIDEN. Now that is a total misconception round this town.

  GERTIE. With the new Tesco opened.

  AIDEN. A total misconception.

  GERTIE. On top of the Aldi already there.

  AIDEN. I’m actually very competitive.

  GERTIE. The hot food was the only thing you had going for you.

  AIDEN. Well, I’m sorry that you think that way, Gertie.

  GERTIE. And you’ve gone and killed it off.

  AIDEN. I’ve just put it on hold is all I’ve done.

  GERTIE. Well, I’m not happy about it.

  AIDEN. Obviously.

  GERTIE. Not one little bit I can tell you.

  AIDEN. I’m sorry for your trouble.

  GERTIE. I want a sausage roll.

  Pause.

  AIDEN. A sausage roll.

  GERTIE. That’s what I came in here for.

  AIDEN. Okay.

  GERTIE. That’s all I came in here for.

  AIDEN. Just a sausage roll?

  GERTIE. Yes.

  AIDEN. One single solitary sausage roll – and that’s it.

  GERTIE. That’s the sum total of the situation we’re in whether you like it or not.

  AIDEN. Fine, Gertie – that won’t be a problem.

  GERTIE. Not for you it fucking won’t.

  AIDEN. I will make you a sausage roll.

  GERTIE. You’ll what?

  AIDEN. That’s no bother.

  GERTIE. Right.

  AIDEN. No bother at all.

  GERTIE. Good man yourself.

  AIDEN sets about making GERTIE a sausage roll.

  What’s happened your house up there?

  AIDEN. What’s that?

  GERTIE. Your house.Where you live.What’s happened it?

  AIDEN. Nothing’s happened it, Gertie.

  GERTIE. There’s someone else in there now.Some rough shower from Dublin by the look of them.Orange heads and tattooed arms.

  AIDEN. Right.

  GERTIE. So?

  AIDEN. We’re, ehh… we’re renting the house out for a while.

  GERTIE. Jesus.

  AIDEN. And they’re a very nice family, Gertie.Don’t go judging books.Just give them a chance and you’ll see what I mean.

  GERTIE. I never trust tenants.

  AIDEN. Right.

  GERTIE. Nothing invested.

  AIDEN. I’ll bear that in mind.

  GERTIE. So where are you all living now then?

  AIDEN. Well, we’re, eh – we’re… so we’re staying down with Dee’s mam.

  GERTIE. Are you?

  AIDEN. For the moment, yeah.

  GERTIE. Really?

  AIDEN. Yeah. Yeah really.She’s not feeling the best, you see.

  GERTIE. I see.

  AIDEN. So we decided to move back in with her for a while.

  GERTIE. Is that why you did it?

  AIDEN. It is.Yeah.

  GERTIE. Yeah?

  AIDEN. Yeah.

  GERTIE. Because she was fit as a fiddle at the Bingo last Monday.

  AIDEN. Was she?

  GERTIE. Not a fucking bother on her.

  AIDEN. Funny that.

  GERTIE. I’ll have to pop round and pay her a visit.

  AIDEN. Don’t go troubling yourself now, Gertie.

  GERTIE. If she’s so sick all of a sudden.

  AIDEN. Seriously.

  GERTIE. I’ll pop over there straight away.

  AIDEN. There’s no need.

  GERTIE. I’ll bring her some grapes.

  AIDEN. Right so.

  GERTIE. I’ll buy them in Tescos.

  AIDEN. Okay.

  GERTIE. Or maybe in Aldi.

  AIDEN. We’re living here.Okay?

  GERTIE. Here?

  AIDEN. Yeah.Here.Out in the back rooms there.

  GERTIE. Jesus.

  AIDEN. You happy now?

  GERTIE. Thrilled for you.

  AIDEN. It’s just for a while – a very short while – until we sort out our – our liquidity situation.

  GERTIE. All your money’s gone?

  AIDEN. Well, whatever little bit we had to start with, yes.

  GERTIE. I’ve no sympathy for you at all.

  AIDEN. Thanks for that, Gertie.

  GERTIE. I don’t.

  AIDEN. Oh, I believe you, don’t worry.

  GERTIE. Serves you right.The whole fucking lot of ye.Lost the run of yourselves altogether.Forgot the basic lessons my generation taught you all.

  AIDEN. And what lessons were they now, Gertie?

  GERTIE. To appreciate the value of money.

  AIDEN. Okay.

  GERTIE. Your own and others’.

  AIDEN. Right.

  GERTIE. To be careful with it.To be cautious with it.To treat it with respect.

  AIDEN. And that was the wisdom that was handed down in Ireland, was it?From the old to the young?

  GERTIE. It was.

  AIDEN. Because I have to say – I remember it very differently.

  GERTIE. You would.

  AIDEN. The way I remember it, yeah – most of the parents round here were screaming at their offspring to get their arses up the property ladder as quick as those one hundred per cent mortgages would take them.My own mother, God rest her – she was like a broken record.(Mimicking.)‘Your cousin David’s just bought his fourth apartment in Mountmellick – why can’t you be more like him?Why don’t you want to get ahead in life?Where did we go wrong with you?’

  GERTIE. Your mother didn’t talk like that.

  AIDEN. After ten years of listening to it over and over from anyone and everyone that opens their mouth to speak, you actually start to doubt the way you believed the world should work.How can a whole nation of people be wrong about something that feels so right?That doesn’t make sense to anyone with half a brain, does it?So I finally plunge myself in, feet first – Revamp this shop, buy a site for another, borrow, borrow, borrow – debt, debt, debt.

  GERTIE. I knew it would all end in tears from the start.

  AIDEN. Did you really though, Gertie?Did you really know that?

  GERTIE. Of course I did.

  AIDEN. Tell me this then – did you let JP Kennedy in on your little secret?When he was buying those twenty acres of land off you for seven million euro.

  GERTIE. Don’t you be minding that fucking gobshite and his seven million euro.

  AIDEN. Did you tell him though?When he was handing the cash over to you.Did you tell him that it would ruin him for ever?That you’d end up buying those fields back off a liquidator five years later for a tenth of the price he paid you?Did you tell him all or any of that, Gertie?

  GERTIE. I told him nothing.

  AIDEN. I didn’t think so.

  GERTIE. He looked like he knew something I didn’t.

  AIDEN. Yeah?

  GERTIE. Turned out he knew nothing at all.It was just some stupid fucking look he had.

  AIDEN. You’re some woman for one woman.

  GERTIE. I’d say he had the same look on him when you stole his wife from under his nose.

  Pause.

  AIDEN. I didn’t steal his wife, Gertie.

  GERTIE. Sure, isn’t that why you’re always defending the fool?Pure guilt.

  AIDEN. She was never his wife, and well you know it too.

  GERTIE. She was everything but, Farrell.Dress bought.Killashee booked.Angela Hoare with the fucking flowers ready to go.

  AIDEN. None of that had anything to do with me.

  GERTIE. And you were supposed to be his best man on the day – weren’t you?

  AIDEN. What happened back then was between the two of them and the two of them only.It was a good six months after before
Dee and I got together.

  GERTIE. Six months, was it?

  AIDEN. At least.

  GERTIE. Well, I suppose she’d mourned enough at that stage.

  AIDEN. Exactly.

  GERTIE. And sure he never seemed to care too much, did he? Still hangs around you both like a fly on shite.

  AIDEN. Because he knows we did nothing wrong on him, that’s why.

  GERTIE. Must be tough on Dee though.

  AIDEN. What?

  GERTIE. Having to keep the two of you happy.

  AIDEN. Here we go now.

  GERTIE. The Miltown ménage à trois – that’s what they all call you.

  AIDEN. No, Gertie, you’re the only one calls us that and while we’re on the subject – I’d appreciate if you stopped.

  The sausage roll is ready.

  There you go.

  GERTIE. Cut it in half for me there.

  AIDEN hands over the sausage roll.

  AIDEN. You sure I can’t get you anything else.

  GERTIE. This is all I’m going to need from you, thanks very much.

  GERTIE proceeds to eat the sausage roll.

  AIDEN. Okay?

  GERTIE. Fills a gap.Don’t go holding your breath for any Michelin stars.

  GERTIE picks up a paper and starts to leaf through it as

  she eats.

  AIDEN. So you’re getting all of the news online these days, yeah?

  GERTIE. Free and easy.Just like you and your wife, yeah.

  AIDEN. Your son Denis set that up for you?

  GERTIE. Genius at those computers.

  AIDEN. Sure, we all know that – out-and-out little boy wizard.

  GERTIE. What’s this now?

  AIDEN. Oh nothing.

  GERTIE. Spit it out of your head, whatever notion I can hear rattling around by itself up there.

  AIDEN. It’s just that I thought – I thought…

  GERTIE. What did you think? Come on.Dazzle me now while I’m eating my sausage.

  AIDEN. Wasn’t he barred from having the internet in the house?

  GERTIE. Sweet fucking Jesus.

  AIDEN. With all the commotion over those pictures he was looking at.

  GERTIE. Now you listen here, Aiden Farrell – that was all a load of oul’ bullshite – you understand me?There was nothing remotely wrong with what he was looking at and the judge practically said so.

  AIDEN. Is that what the judge said?

  GERTIE. In as many words, yes, it’s exactly what the baldy little fucker said.

  AIDEN. Because I thought he was convicted though, wasn’t he?

  GERTIE. It was a witch hunt.A good old-fashioned witch hunt – nothing more, nothing less.And he plead guilty for administrative reasons.

  AIDEN. Okay.

  GERTIE. He got a little slap on the wrist and nothing more because the court knew it was all trumped up to the nines from the start.Sure, you’d see worse in a Mothercare catalogue.He has nothing at all to be ashamed of.

  AIDEN. Really.

  GERTIE. Certainly not to the likes of you anyway.

  AIDEN. The likes of me, is it.

  GERTIE. Or anyone else round this town as far as that shite goes.

  AIDEN. I see.

  GERTIE. It’s all done and dusted and a long way behind us now and that’s the way it’s going to stay.

  AIDEN. Fair enough.

  GERTIE. My son has always been, and will always remain, a person of good standing in this community.

  GERTIE takes a bite of sausage roll.

  AIDEN. And here was me thinking he was a pervert.

  GERTIE chokes.

  When all he is some form of photographic art aficionado.

  GERTIE (choking). Give me some water, you little bollix.

  AIDEN goes to the fridge and gets a bottle of Ballygowan.

  AIDEN. One euro fifty please.

  GERTIE (fetching money). Fucking rip-off – what did I tell you?

  AIDEN. Careful or I’ll charge you two.

  GERTIE drinks some of the water.Puts it in her bag. Prepares to leave.

  Lovely chatting with you as always, Gertie.

  GERTIE. Give me the Lotto before I go.The luck has to turn in this kip some time.

  AIDEN. I like your way of thinking – what do you need?

  GERTIE. Six-euro Quick Pick – with the plus. (Hands him an old ticket.) And check that one for me while you’re there.

  AIDEN goes to the Lotto machine.Runs a six-euro Quick Pick and hands it to GERTIE.He then scans the ticket GERTIE has handed him.

  AIDEN. Nothing on that I’m afraid.

  AIDEN throws the ticket in the bin.

  GERTIE. I’ll take it back thanks.

  AIDEN. Take what?

  GERTIE. The ticket.

  AIDEN. I gave you the ticket.

  GERTIE. The other ticket.

  AIDEN. What are you on about?

  GERTIE. The ticket you just threw in the bin.

  AIDEN. There’s nothing on that.I just said.

  GERTIE. And I heard you saying – now give it back to me.

  AIDEN. Jesus Christ – it’s worthless, Gertie.

  GERTIE. See that’s your problem right there.

  Stand-off.

  AIDEN. Fair enough.

  AIDEN fishes the ticket out of the bin and hands it to GERTIE.GERTIE puts it in her bag.

  GERTIE. I collect them all.Just in case.

  AIDEN. Just in case of what?

  GERTIE. You never know, Farrell.You just never ever know.

  AIDEN. Right.

  GERTIE. I hope your wife gets that job, though I doubt she will.You certainly need all the help you can get by the looks of it.(To beggar offstage.)Don’t even look sideways at me, you.

  GERTIE leaves.AIDEN on stage alone, he starts to breathe heavily.

  ACT TWO

  JP and AIDEN.JP is pacing.AIDEN watching him.

  JP. You’re sure it wasn’t twenty-five?

  AIDEN. It was two fifty.

  JP. All I’m saying – you could’ve easily missed a zero.That’s a stressful situation.

  AIDEN. I didn’t miss anything.

  JP. But you could have and that would make an awful lot of difference here.

  AIDEN. I understand.

  JP. As to how we proceed from this point forward.

  AIDEN. We proceed on the basis that the ticket is worth two fifty – whatever else we decide won’t alter that fact.

  JP. Well, if it’s two fifty, we don’t have much choice.

  AIDEN. Well, it is two fifty.

  JP. If it’s two fifty, there is really only one way to go.

  AIDEN. Well, it is so…

  JP. But see – if it’s only twenty-five then.

  AIDEN. Knock it off, JP, will you.I’ve told you ten times at this stage.

  JP. We need to entertain the possibility though.

  AIDEN. It’s not a possibility.

  JP. Twenty-five is still an awful lot of money, granted – but it’s a different ball game to two fifty.

  AIDEN. There was no winner of the twenty-five grand in the Lotto this week, okay?

  JP. There wasn’t?

  AIDEN. No.

  Pause.

  JP. Well, that means something.

  AIDEN. Good.

  JP. That is helpful.

  AIDEN. I’m glad you think so.

  Pause.

  JP. How do you know that?

  AIDEN. What?

  JP. That there was no twenty-five-grand winner this week.How do you know that?

  AIDEN. Because I checked.

  JP. You checked, yeah?

  AIDEN. Yeah.

  JP. Okay.

  Pause.

  Why’d you check?

  Pause.AIDEN understands.

  You see?

  AIDEN. Fine – fine – let’s just leave it alone altogether.

  JP. You see what I’m getting at though?

  AIDEN. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.

  JP. Because in
itially here…

  AIDEN. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I hung up the phone to you.

  JP. Initially – you were one hundred per cent certain the figure you saw on that screen.

  AIDEN. Hundred and ten per cent.

  JP. But now you’re telling me you checked.

  AIDEN. Yes I did.

  JP. Just to make sure.

  AIDEN. It’s a lot of money, JP.

  JP. Well, two fifty certainly is, yes.

  AIDEN. And it is two fifty.

  JP. But you still checked.

  AIDEN. Of course I checked, I had to check.

  JP. Okay.

  AIDEN. I mean, what are the odds of it happening?Seriously?

  JP. Of a two fifty winning ticket?

  AIDEN. What are the odds of that?

  JP. They are very high.

  AIDEN. Exactly.

  JP. A two fifty ticket is matching what?

  AIDEN. It’s the jackpot on the Lotto Plus 2.

  JP. So it’s matching all six numbers then.

  AIDEN. Yes.

  JP. It’s matching all six numbers out of forty-two in total.

  AIDEN. Same as the main draw.

  JP. Well, that’s nigh on a mathematical impossibility.

  AIDEN. Practically.

  JP. The odds of matching six numbers out of forty-two are astronomical.

  AIDEN. They are of that magnitude.

  JP. The odds of achieving that are, in fact, so high – that you do not materially improve your chances of winning the prize by actually purchasing a ticket for the draw.

  Pause.

  AIDEN. Excuse me?

  JP. Statistically speaking.

  AIDEN. For Christ’s sake.

  JP. Statistically speaking you have as much chance of winning that prize whether you actually buy a Lotto ticket or you don’t.

  AIDEN. Unreal.

  JP. That’s just a scientific fact – that’s all.

  AIDEN. No, JP – here’s the scientific fact, okay – If you do actually buy a ticket – à la Gertie Graham – you just might actually win a prize – à la Gertie Graham.If, however, you do not buy a ticket – à la you and me – because neither of us has an arse in his trousers not to mention a pot to piss in – you have no chance of winning at all.Now how is that the same?

  JP. You could find a ticket.

  AIDEN. Okay.

  JP. You could be gifted a ticket.

  AIDEN. I give up.

  JP. You could be standing in your shop one day when a greedy, twisted, objectionable excuse for a human being comes in, hands you her ticket to check, you duly oblige, find that it’s a winner – and then tell her it’s not.

  Pause.

  So tell me now – who’s right and who’s wrong?

  Pause.

  JP. ’Cause the way I see it – you’re trying to do exactly what you’ve just said is impossible.You’re trying to win on Saturday night’s Lotto when you didn’t even buy a ticket