The Luck Bringer

Lacerations in the sky - the gulls – but today they had a kind of elegance as they swooped gently over the edge of town.  If there were scraps below, you can be sure they’d be rushing down to make a noisy meal of things, but for now, they were behaving like pleasant citizens of the air, perhaps in response to the very agreeable morning that had come to meet one and all.  The ocean was still, but for the crystal winks it made at the sun, which was rising up with a chipper energy, in a hazel sheen.   Whatever evil had been troubling the world of late, in whatever elemental form it had chosen to hide, had sought this morning other regions to strike fear into, and the captains, who were setting up for the day ahead, raising nets and emptying buckets among other everyday tasks, had big smiles with the fortuity.  One of the captains wasn’t down at the harbour that morning.  Fergal Littlewood was in Balford’s Supplies Store looking for a new lightbulb.  He was confounded considerably by the fact that he couldn’t recall how it had happened.  He had punched a number of things before, but never a lightbulb.  He had never had anything against lightbulbs.  They were extremely useful things; especially when far from shore in the late hours, with darkness all around, and silence, and only an indifferent moon to talk to.  But you wouldn’t find Fergal talking at the moon in the middle of the night in the middle of the ocean.  You wouldn’t find him doing that sort of thing because, you see, he had lightbulbs most usually.  Very useful.

                ‘Ah, sure I’ll have five extra ones,’ he told Mr Balford.

In case there were more accidents at sea.      

Besides the extra lightbulbs, they were pretty much all packed, loaded, and good to go.  The fuel and food took up most of the cargo; both man and machine would need satisfactory provender to get them through this junket.  But they were also carrying a suitable abundance of clothing, first aid, sanitary items and the like.  Luckily Dolores was a 60 foot trawler with lots more storage space on offer as there would be no heavy trawling done on this saunter out.  She also had a grand cuddy cabin in the back which Fergal had managed to squeeze a few odds and ends into, whilst also saving a little room to sit and read when there was nothing else to do.  On top of all the essentials, there were four heavy cases filled with books which had caused Fergal a great amount of strain as he was loading Dolores the day before.  He could remember that part alright.  But not the lightbulb.  As far as he could recall, his father had dropped the priests’ luggage with him at about eight o’clock last evening.  He had a drink until about eight fifteen and then started packing the stuff away.  At nine, he hit the pub.  After that, nothing more to report – except waking up to a mangled fist and broken glass.  Ah, these things happen. 

                ‘So is that you all set, Fergal?’ asked Mr Balford.

                ‘I think so, thanks, Peadar.’

                ‘Will you be needing armoury or suchlike for the creatures?’

                ‘I don’t think I’ll be meeting any sea monsters on this trip, Peadar.  The lord above will be looking down kindly on me on account of my passengers.  They’re priests, you know.’

                ‘Go away with that.  You’re trafficking clerics now, is that it?’

                ‘You might say that.  Yes.  But.  You said it as if it were a crime.’

                ‘Not at all.  Far from such a thing.  It’s a saint that you are, Fergal.  A saint of the first order.’

Not a saint.  No no.  Just a good deed.  There’s where luck was to be had.  In the deed.  Perhaps.  But a luck-bringer would be a good thing to have. The seas are rough – beautiful yes – but rough.   When the winds roared and the heavens fell and the ice came at them like giants in the night, aiming to rip them apart, that’s when you’d want for the blessing.  But Dolores.  Yes Dolores.  She was a luck-bringer if ever.  Dolores was a saint.  Nevertheless.  Least of his worries all of this.  For inside the body of this captain lay a perishable sensibility.  Luck might only get annoyed with him and opt to go somewhere else.  No blessing.  No armour.  Not even whiskey could shield him from that dreaded thing.  So as he always did, as a good seaman should, he would throw himself at the world with sauce and sparks and if the fear returned at any time, he would ask one of the priests to take the wheel momentarily while he put his head down for a bit.  Let God drive for a while.

When he returned to the harbour, Fergal found the priests all gathered at the Dolores Costello.  Two of them were robed as though they were about to get up and say mass; the other wore a long dusty duffle coat and an old sheepskin leather cap – he looked more like a fisherman himself than a priest, or like an old drunk in the bar.  There was an ectoplasmic  brume around all three of them as they stood there waiting for him by the boat like victims of some dictated catastrophe.  But this cloud appeared to him like a ghost in the moments before every impending voyage.  That’s why he got hammered the night before.