While Marjorie unpacked the
shopping, Ted took a packet of pork chipolatas out of the fridge and placed
them next to the cooker. Marjorie eyed
them suspiciously.
‘What’s
that?’ she demanded.
‘Pork
chipolatas,’ he retorted boldly, feeling braver now that he had committed
himself to scuppering his wife’s plans for tonight.
‘I
can see that!’ she snapped. ‘When did
you take them out of the freezer?’
Last
night, when you said we’d go to Sainsbury’s first thing this morning.
I thought you might like a cooked breakfast
afterwards.’
‘Oh
And who’s going to cook
it? I’ve got a pile of ironing to get
through.’
‘I
don’t mind cooking it,’ Ted offered innocently, avoiding her gaze and
unwrapping the sausages. He held his
breath, hardly daring to cast a glance in her direction.
He could feel her eyes boring into him.
Was she suspicious?
What if she said she wasn’t hungry.
And what if the chipolatas were to smell
disgusting? There was so much of his
plan that he had left to chance.
‘As
long as you don’t get under my feet while I unpack the shopping,’ said
Marjorie.
‘You’d
like some breakfast then?’
She
snorted disdainfully . ‘I just said I
did, didn’t I?’
Ted
tried to control the crafty smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.
As Marjorie turned away to unpack a plastic
shopping bag, he secretly sniffed the sausages.
They had a slightly sweet aroma and he wondered if this was normal.
It would be just his luck if they turned out
to be perfectly innocuous after all the trouble he’d taken.
Surely they couldn’t.
He had taken them out of the freezer on
Tuesday, sneaked them into his sports bag, taken them with him on the train all
day, then put them back in the freezer in the evening.
Wednesday night he’d left them to defrost overnight
at the bottom of the airing cupboard, followed by another spell in the freezer
until last night. No.
They couldn’t possibly be safe to eat.
‘Mmm,
that smells good,’ said Marjorie once he’d got the bacon and sausages cooking
under the grill. ‘I feel quite peckish
now.’
‘How
many eggs d’you want?’
‘Just
the one. I’ll have four of them
chipolatas, though. They smell really
nice.’
While
Marjorie took a fresh bottle of bleach and disinfectant upstairs, Ted laid the
table carefully and dished out the breakfast.
The hard part was yet to come.
The part where he had to get rid of his own sausages.
‘It’s
on the table!’ he called, then impulsively snatched a chipolata off his own
plate, broke another one in half, and hastily transferred the one and a half
sausages into the plastic bag he kept in his jacket pocket for this
purpose. Now he only had two and a half
chipolatas to somehow sneak into his pocket while Marjorie was at the table
with him. And this he planned to do
while she got up to get the milk which he had deliberately forgotten to put on
the table.
*
Craig had just finished frying the
first batch of fish and chips when his sister dashed breathlessly into the
shop. She threw his wage packet onto the
counter.
‘Sorry,
love, I know we normally pay you on Thursday, but I’ve been up to my eyes.’
He
started to tear open the envelope.
‘What’s wrong with Gary
then? Is it too much like hard work to
visit one of his chip shops from time to time?’
‘I
can’t stop, Craig I’ve left the car on a
double-yellow.’
‘Maggie!’
She
stopped in the doorway. He could see her
eyes were red and puffy, as if she’d been crying.
‘You’re
the one who does all the running around, looking after your husband’s business
empire.’
She
smiled weakly at his sarcasm. ‘Well,’
she shrugged, ‘you know how it is.’
‘Yeah,
too right I do.’
He
flicked quickly through the notes in his wage packet, a pitifully lean amount
for the hours he’d worked. He felt angry
suddenly.
‘He’s
walking all over you, Maggie. And you
just let him.’
‘Not
anymore, love. I’ve had enough.
This time he’s gone too far.’
‘What’s
he done?’
‘He
never come home last night. Went out
about half-ten – a business meeting he said.’
‘And
you believed him?’
‘What
do you think, Craig?’ she snapped; then added in a more apologetic tone: ‘But
there was nothing I could do to prove otherwise.’
‘So
where is he now?’
‘How
should I know. I told you: he never come
home.’
Craig
slammed the metal lid shut on the fish fryer.
But this wasn’t enough to assuage his temper, so he kicked over the
rubbish bin, which fortunately was empty.
He always lashed out at inanimate
objects when he was angry.
‘The
bastard!’ he yelled. ‘I’ll be round your
place tonight and I shall have ‘im.’
‘No
you won’t, Craig. Because if he comes
home between now and tonight, I’m gonna...’
Craig
didn’t find out what his sister had in mind, because at that moment the first
customer of the day entered.
‘I’ll
see you then, Craig,’ said Maggie as she hurried away.
The
customer, an elderly woman in a headscarf and massive overcoat, watched her
leaving, then regarded Craig suspiciously.
She knew she had interrupted a scene and would have loved to know more
of what had gone on.
‘Oh
dear!’ she said, nodding at the waste bin lying on its side.
‘Had an accident, love?’
*
Ted glanced at his watch.
It was four
o’clock. Only another hour
to go until he had to meet Donald. And
still there was no indication that the chipolatas had worked.
He stared across the kitchen table at
Marjorie, who was reading Woman’s Realm
and noisily slurping tea. Suddenly she
winced painfully and a low animal moan came from the depths of her stomach.
‘Marjorie!’
exclaimed Ted with exaggerated concern.
‘What’s wrong?’
Marjorie
ran from the room and just about made it to the downstairs cloakroom before
throwing up in the small hand basin.
As
Ted listened to the revolting sound of her retching, a grin spread across his
face. Eureka! he thought.
It worked.
IN EPISODE NINE ON THURSDAY
Dave Whitby’s car parking revenge
doesn’t go according to plan and Maggie shows that hell hath no fury where
Gary
is concerned.
